Based on the geologic record, Earth has experienced five mass extinctions since the origin of life an estimated 3.98 billion years ago. The most recent was about 66 million years ago when a six-mile-wide asteroid is believed to have collided with our planet, wiping out the dinosaurs and as much as 75 percent of all plant and animal species.
In her new book
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (Henry Holt and Co., 336 pages), American science journalist Elizabeth Kolbert lucidly and convincingly argues that humankind is currently witnessing a similar mass extinction because it is altering environmental conditions on the planet so swiftly and dramatically that a large proportion of other species cannot adapt.
“No creature has ever altered life on the planet in this way before, and yet other, comparable events have occurred,” Kolbert explains in
The Sixth Extinction. “Very, very occasionally in the distant past, the planet has undergone change so wrenching that the diversity of life has plummeted. Five of these ancient events were catastrophic enough that they’re put in their own category: the so-called Big Five. In what seems like a fantastic coincidence, but is probably no coincidence at all, the history of these events is recovered just as people come to realize that they are causing another one.”
Kolbert blends intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the ongoing mass extinction. “If extinction is a morbid topic, mass extinction is, well, massively so. It’s also a fascinating one…,” she says. “I try to convey both sides: the excitement of what’s being learned as well as the horror of it. My hope is that readers of this book will come away with an appreciation of the truly extraordinary moment in which we live.”
Read an excerpt from Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction in NPR.org now! Read Al Gore’s “Without a Trace,” a review of The Sixth Extinction, in The New York Times now!ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Elizabeth Kolbert is an American journalist and author. She is best known for her writings as an observer and commentator on environmentalism for
The New Yorker magazine. Her three-part series in
The New Yorker on global warming, “The Climate of Man,” won the 2006 National Magazine Award for Public Interest, the 2005 American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Award, and the 2006 National Academies Communication Award. Her first book,
The Prophet of Love: And Other Tales of Power and Deceit, was published in 2004, followed by her second,
Field Notes from a Catastrophe, in 2006.
OTHER INTERESTING READINGS:Avoiding digital ecosystem lock-in. In “How to Survive the Next Wave of Technology Extinction,” an article in the Personal Tech section of the February 12, 2014 issue of
The New York Times, Farhad Manjoo suggests a four-point game plan for getting the most out of the digital world while reducing the chance you’ll be burned by a single wrong move. “The point is to minimize the danger of getting locked in to any one company’s ecosystem,” Manjoo says. “The strategy also ensures that you can easily move from device to device without much hassle.”
Read Farhad Manjoo’s “How to Survive the Next Wave of Technology Extinction” in The New York Times now!A Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde strategy. In “Ad Infinitum,” a review of M.I.T. physicist Max Tegmark’s book
Our Mathematical Universe, mathematics professor Edward Frenkel at the University of California-Berkeley, says that Tegmark’s book does an informative survey of exciting recent developments in astrophysics and quantum theory, but then crosses over to what Frenkel considers science fiction and mysticism. “It raises provocative questions that will make you ponder the essence of reality,” Frenkel says, “but readers expecting the discussion to be as coherent and intellectually fulfilling as it is in the scientific sections will be disappointed.”
Read Edward Frenkel’s “Ad Infinitum,” a review of Max Tegmark’s Our Mathematical Universe, in The New York Times Sunday Book Review now! 
