The Sixth Extinction

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert (Picador USA, 2014).

After hearing Elizabeth Kolbert give a guest lecture at my university and learning that this book won the Pulitzer Prize, I had to buy and read it. Kolbert is a staff writer at The New Yorker magazine. She previously wrote “Field Notes from a Catastrophe” which I read, and in this book she continues her approach of visiting scientists in the field and then writing about their work. The previous five mass extinctions of plant and animal life on Earth are well documented by scientists and include the famous asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. In recent decades, so many species are going extinct at such a rapid rate that it is generally agreed we are experiencing the sixth mass extinction. The difference is that this time, it’s being caused by humans. Kolbert tells the fascinating story of a few of these species that are going or have gone extinct, and the heartbreaking details of how scientists are making last ditch efforts to save them.