The Sixth Extinction Elizabeth Korbert Summary

Humanity is blessed to have evolved on earth. Biodiversity and beauty can be seen almost anywhere, but it has been decreasing quite rapidly in short period of time. Reading The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert is a must to understand how significant humanity’s impact is on our world. The decision to destroy or to save it rests in our hands. Most of this responsibility falls on you, Director Pruitt; you have the resources and power to uphold the ethical treatment of our lands and animals. Humans have no natural predators, hence why we are known as being “the top of the food chain”. Such a distinguishing quality allows pillaging our world for resources we need, develop technology to make our lives easier, and tame animals to perform labor too difficult for us. While these are wonderful things, they easily turn to abuse. Over-hunting, over farming, and the overuse of fossil fuels leads to the destruction of our world. Kolbert examines several examples of abuses caused by humanity such as: the extinction of the great auk from overhunting, the acidification of the ocean and deforestation of the Amazon rain forest, and the increase of invasive species in non-native …show more content…
Not only is it observable, but extinction rates are incredibly fast. Reading this book is imperative to understand how much humanity effects the world around us. Extinction is easily recognizable because of its uniqueness compared to survival of species. Extinction “takes place very rarely, more rarely than even speciation, and it occurs at what’s known as the background extinction rate” (15 Kolbert). In other words, extinction should not be as easily recognizable as it is presently. Only five times in the history of the world has mass extinction happened (this is a considerably rare occurrence when the age of the world is accounted for). At the rate of extinction occurring now, it is assumed the sixth extinction is taking