Just finished Elizabeth Kolbert's "The Sixth
Extinction: An Unnatural History". I can't recommend it enough. You will
leave the pages of this book with such an appreciation for our natural world
and the amazing great good fortune we have of living in this time and place...
Very soon the world will be a different place, a far more barren place. In the
lifetime of the children being born today Coral Reefs will become a memory. It
just isn't possible to reverse the damage we have already wrought upon the oceans
and seas of our world. And the trajectory of large mammal extinctions, coupled
with the introduction of pathogenic organisms will see such a loss of other
species from Rhinos and Elephants, to Tigers and Bears--yes, Bears. Presently
Amphibians are disappearing to the point of being completely absent from large
swaths of Central, South and even western North America--and bats, precious
bats are racing toward extinction by the thousand upon thousands all across
North America. It's not an easy book to read. But it's profoundly important to
have an understanding of the crisis our world is in from a scientific vantage
point. And paradoxically, it renewed my utter amazement at LIFE itself and our
planet home in particular. Because while we are not the first species to
destroy the balance of life on it (mosses seem to have accomplished this 440
million years ago or so!); the planet is resilient. And the next chapter may
take it 50 million years to set right again (the average recover interval), but
until the sun implodes there will be a next chapter.
If you don't read another book this summer, please read this
one.
No comments:
Post a Comment