Online Library TheLib.net » The sixth extinction: an unnatural history
cover of the book The sixth extinction: an unnatural history

Ebook: The sixth extinction: an unnatural history

00
07.02.2024
0
0
Alternate cover edition for this ISBNhere.

A major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes

Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us. InThe Sixth Extinction, two-time winner of the National Magazine Award andNew Yorkerwriter Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the great auk, and the Sumatran rhino. Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy; as Kolbert observes, it compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.

Download the book The sixth extinction: an unnatural history for free or read online
Read Download

Continue reading on any device:
QR code
Last viewed books
Related books
Comments (0)
reload, if the code cannot be seen