The Sixth Extinction Chapter Summary

In her book The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert writes that there have been five mass extinctions in the history of planet earth. She asserts that currently the earth is on the precipice of a sixth mass extinction. In contrast with the previous five, according to Kolbert this sixth extinction is almost entirely caused by humans and our exploitation of the earth. In each of the book’s thirteen chapters, Kolbert highlights a particular species that is now extinct and analyzes the causes and effects of its extinction. She explains the scientific history of the concept of extinction. Just as the current concept of a sixth extinction seems impossible to grasp, once the idea of rapid extinction itself was believed to be impossible. It took centuries of paradigm shifts in order for the scientific community to take the notion of Cuvierian catastrophism seriously over the Lyellian ideas of uniformitarianism. It took even longer for scientists to understand the causes of extinctions. After …show more content…
According to Elizabeth Kolbert, planet Earth is on schedule for a sixth major loss – the sixth extinction. In contrast with the previous five this sixth extinction may be caused by a combination of factors as various as global warming, ocean acidification, deforestation, and overconsumption. All of these factors can be placed under the umbrella of a single true cause: humanity. The signs are all around us. The Panamian golden frog, the colorful coral reef, the little brown bat of New England, and countless more have disappeared in this lifetime, just as the great auk, Neanderthals, and countless more disappeared in previous lifetimes. Ultimately, Kolbert shows that unless we change our paradigm and our lifestyles, we are en route to disaster. Only through immediate change can we attempt to reverse the harmful processes we have put in place and try to protect the wonderful biodiversity of this