Summary Of The Sixth Extinction By Elizabeth Kolbert

The most surprising aspect of this article was that humans today are said to be the cause of the sixth extinction. This was surprising to me because I did not know our planet has been impacted so much by our existence. Also, it surprised me because I have recently heard about how we were trying to fix our planet. The sixth extinction is horrible. Also, because we do not yet know the full extinct of our actions, the ramifications of our actions have yet to harm humankind. If we keep going we may not exist in 1,000

There have been five major mass extinction on earth triggered by a distinguishable event, but in The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Elizabeth Kolbert writes of the narrative of the sixth extinction caused directly by human impact. The book identifies the effects of human activity on how, over humans history on earth, the natural world has been affected. Every environmental impact stems into three basic groups of global problems to nature: Pollution, Habitat loss and Invasive Species. Kolbert explains that each impact can be traced back to one source, human industrial development. With each impact various types of life in the natural world are affected. Deforestation, urbanization, and sea level rise contribute to habitat loss worldwide. When humans began to travel they also brought invasive species and disease along with them; as boats only became bigger more and more invasive species travel. This reverse engineering of the planet species, brings new species that don’t have any natural predators, thus having an easier time driving native species out to endangerment or extinction. The different outcomes that come from human pollution is separated throughout the book, but the idea remains constant; with the development of human culture, pollution has drastically impacted a vast extent of species habitats and their environment.

In the book The Sixth Extinction written by Elizabeth Kolbert there are a lot of examples that are going on in the world today and also examples of things that started when the first human being was around. This book talks about how we are in the sixth mass extinction, and that is caused by humans. Overall the book goes chapter by chapter and talks about the different mass extinctions there have been, and how they were caused, but also the book talks about different species that have gone extinct and the reasons why. For example the book talks about golden frogs that are located in Panama and how they were seen everywhere located in El Valle de Anton, but they suddenly started disappearing. They were disappearing because of a chytrid fungis cause by humans, when humans travel they were bring this fungis to different places, this ended up killing the frogs (Chapter 1, Kolbert). That is just one example, but throughout the book Kolbert talks about different extinctions like this and what caused them.

Chapter 12 of the book The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert is all about the differences between Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalenis) and modern humans (Homo sapiens). Most of the differences were explained clearly and concisely, but one was very contradictory. Could Neanderthals see beauty? I believe that yes, they could, just perhaps not in the exact same way that modern humans do. They could see the beauty of nature, the beauty of living things, like animals flowers, trees, and each other.

In a world that we, as humans, have begun to destroy and shape for the worse, there is still so much that we are oblivious to. From the illegal endangered animal trade to harmful CO2 and methane, Racing Extinction has revealed to both myself and society the constantly ticking clock that is Earth.

List examples of human activities that are suggested to be key triggers for the sixth mass extinction.

Anthropocene is a time period where the “effects of the humans on the global environment have escalated” (Crutzen 23). The Earth is no longer in its natural state but is “moving into a less biologically diverse, less forested, much warmer, and probably wetter and stormier state” (Steffen 614).

Summary: In a first person journey that brings her readers around the world, Elizabeth Kolbert researches and explains the effects of human domination on the planet and its resources. Using historical findings of previous extinctions in comparison to earth’s present state she attempts to provide cause and warning for mankind’s seemingly apocalyptic future. Her book, “The Sixth Extinction: an Unnatural History” delves deep into the idea that humanity is currently in the midst of the sixth period of extinction since the beginning of all life. Determined to warn the world of its destructive path, she examines the effects the human race has had (and will continue to have) on other species such as frogs, coral reefs, plants, water creatures, and many mammals while giving a brief yet thorough history lesson of the past five major extinctions that occurred prior to the appearance of Homo sapiens.

During Late Pleistocene a megafaunal mass extinction took place. It’s still debated whether humans are to blame for this, since this megafaunal extinction happened after the arrival of humans or if climate change is entirely to blame. Fossil evidence has been of great help in finding what factors might’ve caused this extinction. This mass extinction that took place is related to the Anthropocene because if humans were the main cause, humans need to be more careful now because their actions may lead to more extinctions. The observations made were the types of species that went extinct with climate change, and what humans did to contribute to this mass extinction.

Edward O. Wilson suggests that humanity should pay attention to our environment. He was concerned about the large extinction of species within a single human generation. He has two reasons as to why we should pay attention to our diverse biosystem, which includes plants and animals. First, some of the species in our environment, large or small can have an economic value and can be used as a source of food or medicine in the future. He put an emphasis on people being ignorant by destroying on what might be a possible cure for cancer or any other disease. The second reason is the annihilation of a vast number of species might lead to the collapse of our ecosystem. For instance, the widespread loss of trees from brush fire or destruction of islands

Most events in the book are related to ecology. The book focus in explaining aspects such as how a nuclear world war destroyed the earth and how it is making the life of most people unbearable. Aspects such as extinction and early death, and disabilities are focused. The book stresses how the war renders surviving species and specimen

In Section 1 of Simon Nicholson and Paul Wapner’s text, Species Unbound: Humanity’s Environmental Impact, the authors bring significant insights into how humanity is producing a negative impact on the environment. Partly because “seven billion people” coupled with an ever-growing population are consuming scarce resources such as wood for paper/furniture etc. at rates faster than regeneration which is leading to resource depletion (Nicholson and Wapner 2015, 9-10). Furthermore, other key sustainability challenges are climate change due to the burning of fossil fuels and biodiversity loss, to name a few. Thus, humans are a negative impact on the environment in terms of not sustaining the Earth's resources, life, climate, and so forth. Since this effect on the environment is so profound some believe we are living in the Anthropocene- in which humans have become the central force in reigning supremacy over earth’s changing environmental conditions and resource depletion (11-12). The author’s claim that one way in which humans are altering the

“Humanity’s terrifying impact on Earth justifies new Anthropocene epoch” is the title of an article published in the Guardian newspaper in October 2014, the purpose of this essay is to assess if this statement was and is true.

The anthropocene debate hinges to a large extent on how epochs are defined, and scientists now face the unprecedented task of defining an epoch at its genesis rather than millions of years after its end. Castree argues that the severity of human impact on the Earth, indicative of the Anthropocene is already stratigraphically evident in radionuclides from atomic bombs, micro particles of plastic and hydrocarbons from fossil fuels. He also argues that these effects, because of their extremity and the feedback’s triggered between systems, will be pervasive for thousands of years, causing environmental systems to vastly diverge from their natural behavior. (Castree, 2014) Ocean warming, sea level rise and acidification will continue for thousands

The debate of whether humans as a species are destroying their planet and violently pushing life to extinction has only intensified in recent years. But evidence has proved what we don’t want to hear time and time again – humans, and our actions (direct and indirect) are heavily involved in the extinction of flora and fauna species across the globe. We carelessly dump enormous amounts of c02 into our atmosphere, leading to ocean acidification and global warming that kill millions of animals and plants, and continue desecrating fragile ecosystems and habitats, resulting in the slaughter of now-rare life forms. We tamper with our climate as if it is a rather interesting puzzle piece, not the planet that supports our own existence.