Review: The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I learned a lot from this book, and saved many of the cited books to my own reading list for later. This book was sobering, eye opening, and motivating to me and I learned so much more than I anticipated. Also I love Elizabeth Kolbert's writing style - informative, humorous in a way, a touch informal here or there, very easy to read, and well organized. BRB I'm going to find everything else she's written and read that too! Anyway my review:

It's no secret that humans have dramatically altered the planet. Everywhere we've gone in our history has coincided with megafauna extinction, leading to landscape alterations, leading to this and that and the slinky just keeps falling down the stairs. We have the capacity and brainpower and dexterity to change the world, but the flip side is we have the capacity also to destroy the world. Possibly/probably without even realizing it. We've isolated species that have very strict habitat requirements, so they can no longer move about freely, and then slowly (or quickly) the population plummets and goes extinct. We've hunted large animals into extinction by the sheer ability to harvest a species that previously had no natural predators, reproduces infrequently, and reaches maturity slowly, so that now the species cannot gain enough members to offset take. Everything is connected, whether we realize it at first or not. We've introduced species across oceans, onto islands, and that has (probably unwittingly) caused the demise of the native species. But what it really all boils down to is the last few sentences of her book, which summarize it perfectly: "Right now, in the amazing moment that to us counts as the present, we are deciding, without quite meaning to, which evolutionary pathways will remain open and which will forever be closed. No other creature has ever managed this, and it will, unfortunately, be our most enduring legacy. The Sixth Extinction will continue to determine the course of life long after everything people have written and painted and built has been ground into dust and giant rats have - or have not - inherited the earth." We are accidentally, unconsciously, and sometimes knowingly eliminating species from the planet which thereby closes the evolutionary pathway she refers to. We are ultimately deciding who lives on in the future and who does not.

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Conservation Book of the Month, May 2019: The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert

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Happy May and I hope everyone enjoys the new conservation book of the month aka #ocbookofthemonth! We're reading The Sixth Extinction, the Pulitzer Prize winning book by Elizabeth Kolbert. Join the conversation on Goodreads (link in bio) 📚 🌎 . #ocbookofthemonth #bookclub #sciencebooks #extinction #elizabethkolbert #pulitzerprizewinner #pulitzerprize #conservation

A post shared by @ outdoorconservation on May 1, 2019 at 11:13am PDT

The Avengers and The Environment

There's so many depressing headlines these days in the news, about crime, pollution, economies, wars, and the environment. Not to ignore the worldwide importance of everything else that's happening but I want to focus on some environmental headlines lately. Examples include "Permafrost collapse is accelerating carbon release" and "'Crowded out of existence': Up to 1M species at risk of extinction because of human activities, report says" and "Botswana has 'significant elephant-poaching problem,' conservation group says".

See? It's depressing. And upsetting. And just about every other -ing word I can think of.

I can see why Thanos wanted to do that thing he wanted to do.

Okay I'm going to stop for a second to tell you that there are spoilers after this warning so if you have no idea what Thanos did in Avengers: Infinity War (that's the one that came out in 2018) but don't want it spoiled for your future enjoyment, then 1) stop reading, 2) go watch the movie and 3) come back and finish reading!

Carrying on.

I can see why Thanos was disgusted by the overpopulation on his planet, saw the devastation and societal collapse that was coming, and took it upon himself to reduce the universe's population by 50%. Let me clarify that I don't think what he did was a good idea, but I can see where he's coming from. It's tricky, siding with the evil guy in the movie who is also known as the Mad Titan and who also maybe has a point but went about it the wrong way and nobody likes him. Tricky stuff. He think he's right, and justified, and thinks that he SHOULD be able to do it so therefore he just does it. It also echoes of religion zealots and their mission to convert all people to their point of view regardless of what anyone else has to say about it. He thinks he's doing good by eliminating half the universe, so the other half can survive better, instead of all surviving somewhat.

But what Thanos sees on his planet that drives him to genocide is eerily similar to what we are seeing on Earth in 2019. Overpopulation. Diminishing resources. Crashing environments. Pollution. Obviously Thanos isn't real and nobody is advocating that we eliminate half the people. That's insane. But luckily we have some real life Avengers style people fighting off the Thanos-like problem we've created for ourselves.

There are engineers, the Tony Starks of the world, who are genius and brilliant and everyday creating new technology that allows us to grow food more efficiently, more productively, and with no nutrition loss. They develop new and more effective ways to harness wind, solar, and/or thermal energy so we can move to a greener energy future where we use less fossil fuels.

There's crusaders, like Captain America, who do the right thing, always, and inspire you to do the same. These would be environmental activists, NGOs, your local wildlife conservation group, and even environmental lawyers even who are fighting the fight for wildlife, wetlands, fisheries, conservation, and all parts of the environment. We need land managers and biologists who understand what the world needs and what we need to do, and then go do it.

We have enforcers, like Captain Marvel, who are protecting everything they have the power to protect. They are standing up for the people who can't stand up for themselves. Protection is important, and intervention when necessary to these types. Wildlife enforcement officers, game wardens, anti-poaching teams, and rangers are those who go out there, risk their lives, and do their best to protect the resources we have for the future.

All of these different people are working together to solve the problem. Thanos eliminated half of the living universe which is a barbaric solution. In these modern times we can use more elegant solutions like science and technology and education. Be like the Avengers, not like Thanos, and help save the world!