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A review by wellworn_soles
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
4.0
Since life has existed, we have documented five major extinctions where biodiversity suddenly contracted. Elizabeth Kolbert brings us along as she traces the path of the sixth extinction, wrought not by an asteroid or a volcanic winter, but by one species: us.
This book is a wonderful survey, bringing its readers through the early scientific theorizing of extinction, and then through multiple species that are either extinct due to humanity or are in the process of winking out. All along the way, Kolbert lays bare the interrelated factors that lead to species extinction, revealing a network of events that is much more nuanced than “human bad”. While not shying away from our very real seismic affect on the world around us, she also connects us into the natural world, affirming that we are not some separate, extraterrestrial threat; rather, we are something inextricably of this world that has just gone awry. Certainly humans can be destructive and short-sighted; they can also be forward-thinking and altruistic. Parallel to the incomparable damage that we have unleashed on the habitats and creatures of the world are the scientists, researchers, and activists whom Kolbert speaks with who are trying desperately to protect parts of nature that cannot protect themselves. Wouldn’t be better, therefore, to focus on what is being done, rather than to “gloomily speculate about [the] future”?
Kolbert goes with neither; instead, she is interested in presenting the whole of the situation. The one thing all extinctions have in common is change - more specifically, the rate at which change occurs. When the world changes faster than species can adapt, many fall out of the running. This enduring principle predates modernity, and (increasingly) the scientific research shows that our capacity to be a force of extinction has been with us since our prehistory, woven into the extinction of the megafauna that roamed after the last ice age. Indeed, this capacity is probably indistinguishable from the qualities that make us human to begin with: our restlessness, our creativity, our ability to cooperate. This is the truth that we cannot look away from:
”Were people simply heedless or selfish or violent, there wouldn’t be an Institute for Conservation Research, and there wouldn’t be a need for one. If you want to think about why humans are so dangerous to other species, you can picture a poacher in Africa carrying an AK-47 or a logger in the Amazon gripping an ax, or, better still, you can picture yourself, holding a book in your lap.”
There’s a tendency for us to overestimate our own exceptionalism. We are not the only species to have a voracious appetite that seems unmatched; deer, for example, can be just as ceaseless in their ravaging. The difference between us and other animals is not an innate bent of evil, but that we have systematically overcome the checks in place that keep other species’ appetites in check. It is this revelation - that our gifts of connection and imagination are also the curse that has wreaked such havoc - that is most sobering and poignantly displayed in Kolbert’s writing.
This book is a wonderful survey, bringing its readers through the early scientific theorizing of extinction, and then through multiple species that are either extinct due to humanity or are in the process of winking out. All along the way, Kolbert lays bare the interrelated factors that lead to species extinction, revealing a network of events that is much more nuanced than “human bad”. While not shying away from our very real seismic affect on the world around us, she also connects us into the natural world, affirming that we are not some separate, extraterrestrial threat; rather, we are something inextricably of this world that has just gone awry. Certainly humans can be destructive and short-sighted; they can also be forward-thinking and altruistic. Parallel to the incomparable damage that we have unleashed on the habitats and creatures of the world are the scientists, researchers, and activists whom Kolbert speaks with who are trying desperately to protect parts of nature that cannot protect themselves. Wouldn’t be better, therefore, to focus on what is being done, rather than to “gloomily speculate about [the] future”?
Kolbert goes with neither; instead, she is interested in presenting the whole of the situation. The one thing all extinctions have in common is change - more specifically, the rate at which change occurs. When the world changes faster than species can adapt, many fall out of the running. This enduring principle predates modernity, and (increasingly) the scientific research shows that our capacity to be a force of extinction has been with us since our prehistory, woven into the extinction of the megafauna that roamed after the last ice age. Indeed, this capacity is probably indistinguishable from the qualities that make us human to begin with: our restlessness, our creativity, our ability to cooperate. This is the truth that we cannot look away from:
”Were people simply heedless or selfish or violent, there wouldn’t be an Institute for Conservation Research, and there wouldn’t be a need for one. If you want to think about why humans are so dangerous to other species, you can picture a poacher in Africa carrying an AK-47 or a logger in the Amazon gripping an ax, or, better still, you can picture yourself, holding a book in your lap.”
There’s a tendency for us to overestimate our own exceptionalism. We are not the only species to have a voracious appetite that seems unmatched; deer, for example, can be just as ceaseless in their ravaging. The difference between us and other animals is not an innate bent of evil, but that we have systematically overcome the checks in place that keep other species’ appetites in check. It is this revelation - that our gifts of connection and imagination are also the curse that has wreaked such havoc - that is most sobering and poignantly displayed in Kolbert’s writing.