This is a book that was on almost all of last year's notable lists and earlier this year won the Pulitzer for General Non-Fiction. Our world has seen five mass extinction events and the author points out that we are in the midst of a sixth. I was fascinated to learn that it wasn't until the 19th century that science realized that prior species had become extinct. There was no place in the scientific mindset to comprehend the concept until Georges Cuvier, of the French Natural History Museum, proposed it as the answer to all of the odd fossils that no one could explain. Science came to grips with the concept of extinction and is busy working on the causation and consequences of the first five, of which the meteor-driven 'nuclear winter' is the best known.
While writing this book, the author travelled the world to study the current cycle of events. She started in Panama, where the collapse of the world's frog population has been documented and studied. She has seen where the last Great Auk died in Iceland about one-hundred and fifty years ago. It will come as no surprise that the change agent initiating the collapse of innumerable species is the planet's most successful mammal - us. And it is not just the consequence of the Industrial Revolution that is at issue here. It is our mobility that has spread disease and destruction throughout the world since we 'left Africa'. The extinctions are accelerating because of the consequences of almost two hundred years of burning fossil fuels and spewing 365 metric tons of carbon in the atmosphere, which is increasing temperatures and, more importantly, changing the ph factor of the world's oceans. Whether it is the oceans' coral reefs which appear to be in their last decades or the large herbivores of a shrinking forest, the extinction is ongoing and undeniable. Some wonder if we will follow. Others are confident that we'll figure it out. Either way, this is a superb read.
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