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Elizabeth Kolbert

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

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Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions of life on earth. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. Elizabeth Kolbert combines brilliant field reporting, the history of ideas and the work of geologists, botanists and marine biologists to tell the gripping stories of a dozen species“ including the Panamanian golden frog and the Sumatran rhino some already gone, others at the point of vanishing. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy and Elizabeth Kolbert's book urgently compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.
This book is currently unavailable
398 printed pages
Publication year
2014
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Impressions

  • Alexey Romadinovshared an impression4 years ago
    👎Give This a Miss

    Alarmists bible. Lots of bullshit, references to some random scientists and "scientists" mixed with heaps of emotions. The only reason to read it is to be able to answer to alarmists and greenies who refer to this book.

  • Laura Mendozashared an impression2 years ago
    👍Worth reading
    💡Learnt A Lot

    Es la primera vez que leo divulgación científica y estoy fascinada. Los temas que se abarcan en este título siempre han sido de mi interés. Estoy impactada por todo lo que ocurre en el mundo, tengo muchas ganas de aprender más. No sé qué pueda pasar con la especie humana, pero sin duda este libro explica muchas cosas que pasan hoy en día y qué tanto es debido a nuestra especie y que tanto al cambio natural del mundo. Sigo siendo partidaria de que aun no es tarde, pero hay que trabajar en ello YA.

  • b8655353985shared an impression3 years ago

    1

Quotes

  • lenavonbulowhas quoted4 years ago
    Beginnings, it’s said, are apt to be shadowy. So it is with this story, which starts with the emergence of a new species maybe two hundred thousand years ago. The species does not yet have a name—nothing does—but it has the capacity to name things.
    As with any young species, this one’s position is precarious. Its numbers are small, and its range restricted to a slice of eastern Africa. Slowly its population grows, but quite possibly then it contracts again—some would claim nearly fatally—to just a few thousand pairs.
    The members of the species are not particularly swift or strong or fertile. They are, however, singularly resourceful. Gradually they push into regions with different climates, different predators, and different prey. None of the usual constraints of habitat or geography seem to check them. They cross rivers, plateaus, mountain ranges. In coastal regions, they gather shellfish; farther inland, they hunt mammals. Everywhere they settle, they adapt and innovate. On reaching Europe, they encounter creatures very much like themselves, but stockier and probably brawnier, who have been living on the continent far longer. They interbreed with these creatures and then, by one means or another, kill them off
  • Laura Mendozahas quoted2 years ago
    humanity is going to survive.”
  • Laura Mendozahas quoted2 years ago
    “Don’t worry,” its author observes. “As long as we keep exploring

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