The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
This is by far the scariest book I’ve read in years! Kolbert details what many scientists are
calling the Anthropocene, an epoch that begins when human activities started to
significantly impact ecosystems of the Earth.
This is not a universally accepted time period, but after reading the
various studies in this book it’s hard to argue that humans have not affected
all life on Earth sometimes in drastic ways.
And we have probably been making huge changes in our environment since
we’ve existed. It’s for better or worse,
what we do.
The book opens with a chapter on the death of the frogs. I knew frogs were dying but I had always
thought it was due to human caused pollution.
Nope. They are dying because of a
fungus which kills most species of frogs and some other amphibians as well. But guess what?! Humans are the ones that brought it all over
the globe and inadvertently infected the rain forests and other
ecosystems. Worst part? Can’t kill the fungus. Why not?
To kill it you’d need to bleach the rain forest to kill the fungus, which
we all know would never (and could never) happen, so all those captive frogs
that have been saved from the brink of extinction can never return home. The stories, each told in a new chapter
highlighting another issue, get worse from there.
If there are any positive takeaways it would have to be the
author’s reporting on the research being done about current extinctions and
ways to prevent more, as well as the lengths humans are willing to go to save
species in crisis. This is an
eye-opening account, conveyed in many different ways, of how humans have
changed the Earth simply by living, altering the landscape and our
environment. There is a reason this book
won the Pulitzer, it is extremely well-written and researched, and a book
anyone with any interest in the natural world should read.
