The Fourth Extinction By Elizabeth Kolbert

“In the Forest of Gombe” by Jane Goodall, Goodall describes her own perspectives of the correlation between religions and science through her experiences in the forest at Gombe after she loses her husband to cancer. She comes up with several new concepts which she calls windows during her time in the forest. Goodall develops the idea of the coexistence of science and religion for her deeper understanding of life and the world. I agree with her which the windows that Goodall sees through have no drawbacks because the windows enrich her scientific and religious thinking, represent the combination of science and religion as well as inspires ideas about future development.

“Sex, Drugs, Disasters, and the Extinction of Dinosaurs” is written by Stephen Jay Gould, professor of geology and zoology at Harvard. This essay is one of more than a hundred articles on evolution, zoology, and paleontology published by Gould in national magazines and journals. It tells about scientific proposals for the extinction of dinosaurs – a confusing but an exciting problem that humanity tries to solve. By analyzing and describing each of the claims for the reptiles’ demise – sex, drugs, and disasters – Gould differentiates bad science from good science and explains what makes some theories silly speculations, while the other, a testable hypothesis.

Colin Turnbull an anthropologist, rise in a wealthy English family which discover his fulfilment in life; which were the Pygmies. Turnbull then wrote a book called “The Forest People”, which Turnbull spent three years studying about the Mbuti Pygmies; who lives in the Ituri rainforest of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In “The forest people”, Turnbull display the world of the Pygmy tribe, its environment, and how pygmies adopt to its surrounding in order to survive its everyday life.

Before science is introduced to the human society, people always use religious beliefs to describe the mysterious phenomenon. However, as science becomes advanced, people gradually lost in the relationship between it and religious beliefs. In the essay “In the Forest of Gombe”, Jane Goodall spends long time with chimpanzees in the forests to recover from her husband’s death. During this period, she learns new ideas from the chimps and finds herself back, and understands the complicated relationship between scientific ideas and religious beliefs. Thus, to uncover peace, people have to understand themselves first instead of focusing on problems permanently.

Alexander Von Humboldt was a Prussian naturalist whose work has helped shape and define our modern understanding of nature. He used enlightenment rationalism to navigate his way through life and his deep connection to his natural environment inspired a visionary movement in ushering out the monotheistic creationist worldview. “Humboldt’s books, diaries and letters reveal a visionary, a thinker far ahead of his time. He invented isotherms...discovered the magnetic equator...came up with the idea of vegetation and climate zones that snake across the globe…and revolutionized the way we see the natural world.” (Invention of Nature, 5). Although his work was extensive, author of ‘The Invention of Nature, Andrea Wulf suggests that his work has largely been forgotten due to his polymath approach of including art, history, poetry and politics that made him unfavorable. While Humboldt gave us our concept of nature itself, “the irony is that Humboldt’s views have become so self-evident that we have largely forgotten the man behind them.” However, although his work individual work may be overlooked, Humboldt’s success in making science more accessible work and as a result, his legacy lives on as the source of inspiration for many influential thinkers throughout history.

The importance of El Valle De Anton spurred the movement to create systems to preserve frogs worldwide. In Panama a town name El Valle De Anton once deeply respected their golden tree frogs, and ironically they were not disturb when the frogs started disappearing. When the corpses started to pile up, the scientific community began to become concerned and began an effort to preserve the golden frog species and what they found was that frogs from around the world had been plagued by Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis-batrachos (or “Bd” for short). This plague is very hard to stop, as we cannot purge the entire planet of the disease, and the plague spreads incredibly quickly.

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 chapter three of The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert describes how the Great Auk went extinct. The Great Auk is considered “the original penguin.” Sadly, they became extinct in the 1800s. They were found in North Atlantic; were it is cold. The Great Auks were killed by poachers. The poachers killed them for food, feathers, and even used them to keep their fires stoked to keep them warm. “You take a kettle with you into which you put a Penguin or two, you kindle a fire under it, and this fire is absolutely made of the unfortunate Penguins themselves.” So the questions are: “How do animals, such as corals, survive in an ever-changing environment?” and “How do humans play a role in increasing or causing

There are thirteen chapters in book The Sixth Extinction, and each one represents something different as the chapters are leading to the end where she points out that there could be hope. The first chapter in the book is called the Sixth Extinction and this chapter mainly talks about frogs and that is because they have been around longer than any other species some say. Frogs have been around for around 400 million years at least that is when they started crawling out of

The mountain yellow-legged frog is declining due to the introduction of trout, contaminants, increased levels of ultraviolet radiation, and the fungal disease, chytridiomycosis. David Bradford, one of the first witnesses to the decline in the late seventies, noticed the species dropping because of the red-leg disease. Because this is a secondary infection, the frog’s immune system was weakened before the disease became existent. The chytrid fungus was first cited in the Sierra Nevada in 2001, brought here from African clawed frogs, but studies have suggested that the disease has been evident since the mid-‘70s. Nearly three decades later, the mountain yellow-legged frog is still declining. Currently, with a ninety-eight percent decline, there

“In the Forest of Gombe” by Jane Goodall describes her own perspective of the correlation between religions and science through her experiences in the forest at Gombe where she finds comforting to recover from the loss of her husband. Developed several new concepts regarding life, Goodall comes up with the idea of the coexistence of science and religion. Agreeing with Goodall, however, the windows that Goodall sees through have no drawbacks.

The main conflict from Legend by Marie Lu is external; man vs. society. This conflict was not resolved in the story because not only was Day on the streets again hiding from the government, but June was, too! Furthermore, the government killed off many people such as John, Day’s mother, Metias, and a plethora of other people from the town. A song that complements the conflict is “E For Extinction” by Thousand Foot Krutch. The lyrics say, “When we move, we camouflage ourselves. We stand in the shadows waiting. We live for this and nothing more. We are what you created.” This is like how Day and Tess hide and try to go on with their lives because of how the Republic made it for them. Also, the lyrics are, “And I won’t surrender quietly. Step

The non-fiction book that I decided to read was, “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History” by Elizabeth Kolbert. What led me to picking this book was that it seemed the most interesting out of all of the non-fiction book selections. Since I already knew most of the reasons why animals went extinct, this book didn’t have an impact me. But when I previously learned about animals extinction, I was impacted because it let me know what happened to dead species species. Examples of this could include learning about the dinosaurs when I was younger or learning about climate change and hunting when I was in middle school.

One example of an invasive species is Xenopus laevis, or the African clawed frog. These frogs carry a fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Chytrid fungus infects amphibians with chytridiomycosis by attacking the part of a frog’s skin that contains keratin. Frogs use their skin to

Since before the industrial evolutions humans have been pumping green house gasses—carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons— into the atmosphere however, it wasn’t until recently that the amounts being produced are shoving the Earth into a sixth extinction. While the causes of this upcoming extinction are constantly debated on it has earned itself the name Holocene extinction. This name is derived from the theory that humans are the main contributors to this extinction. To investigate the cause Elizabeth Kolbert, and American journalist and professor at Williams College, took the world on a wild and saddening journey on the human contribution to this looming extinction in her novel, The Sixth Extinction; An Unnatural History. Not only does Kolbert’s book explain how humans have contributed to global warming and its effects on life on land but also ocean acidification and how life under the sea has changed over the years.