In her latest book, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, American journalist Elizabeth Kolbert takes us on a global tour of extinction, in all its finality, as well as while it is happening before our eyes. The footage was recorded in 1933 at the Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart, and serves as an eerie reminder of just how final extinction is. In black and white, the last known thylacine – or Tasmanian tiger – quietly paces about its caged enclosure, reclines in the sun, yawns at the camera.
As dire as our problems are today, Kolbert explains that they did not begin with the industrial revolution: “Though it might be nice to imagine there once was a time when man lived in harmony with nature, it’s not clear that he ever really did.” Kolbert, however, offers some optimism based on the passion the concept of extinction evokes: “Such is the pain the loss of a single species causes that we’re willing to perform ultrasounds on rhinos and handjobs on crows.” (Feb.There’s an old video clip that many Australians are familiar with.
Throughout, she combines a historical perspective with the best modern science on offer, while bringing both scientists and species to life. Kolbert’s reporting takes her from the Andes to the Great Barrier Reef, and from a bare rock island off the coast of Iceland to a cave near Albany, N.Y. The eponymous extinction refers to the fact that the current rate of species loss is approaching that of the mass extinctions that ended five previous geologic epochs. New Yorker staff writer Kolbert (Field Notes from a Catastrophe) accomplishes an amazing feat in her latest book, which superbly blends the depressing facts associated with rampant species extinctions and impending ecosystem collapse with stellar writing to produce a text that is accessible, witty, scientifically accurate, and impossible to put down.
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