The Sixth Extinction
In the book, The Sixth Extinction, Kolbert challenges the general unawareness of historic disbelief in mass extinction that has been talked about prior to the late 1700s, a period which the scientific communities failed to reason, let alone envision living in a planet with a powerful force capable of wiping out life in a massive scale. According to her, the unbelief fosters ideologies that no natural force can be powerful enough to trigger the extinction of species on a massive scale because of the threats that human post on Earth to the species. Therefore, she uses scientific research references to argue that the behavior of human species is disrupting the balanced and interconnected Earth’s systems to the possibility of causing extinction not only of non-human species but to humans as well. Such behavior includes burning fossil fuels. Some of the significant areas likely to cause mass extinction due to unprecedented human behavior are the global atmosphere, the heat absorption by the sea, the water cycle, and the acidity of the ocean, effects on soil moisture and the extension of drought conditions.
The Sixth Extinction presumes that unless checked, there is eminent destruction of plant life by pests and unmanageable heat stress due to problems in heat regulation, among other related challenges. To be precise, Kolbert makes it clear that in the current century, manmade activities will lead to the elimination of up to 50% of species that currently live in the earth. In explicating the argument that Kolbert puts across in her book, The Sixth Extinction, this paper seeks to examine the organization of the chapters, as well as, how the information in these chapters explains the disruption of the Earth’s system, as a threat to creatures that live in sea and land. This is done when noting any strengths and weaknesses in the argument to determine the credibility of the stance that Kolbert takes in her book.
The book is generally arranged into 13 chapters. The chapters are topically denoted and begin with the first chapter laying ground for her belief in the possibility of mass extinction. The subsequent chapters give historical as well as scientific backing of her conviction. These include The Mastodon’s Molars in chapter two; The Original Penguin; The Luck of the Ammonites; and Welcome to the Anthropocene in chapters three to five respectively. The chapters following these backup chapters are used by the author to point at apparent areas directly or indirectly affected by human behavior threatening extinction. These include the sea (chapter six and seven), and land (chapters eight to twelve).
In the concluding chapter 13 (The Things with Feathers), focus is on the efforts taken to facilitation promotion of conservation and preservation of species on land and sea. However, she ends with a rather definite fact that whichever the actions taken by humanity, the evolutionary pathways are fully drawn on which species to spare and which one to extinguish. The arrangement is systematic and makes it easy to follow her exploratory journey from the prehistoric theories of extinction to the modern day events precedent to the sixth extinction. Although none of these chapters offers a solution to the highlighted problems in environmental management, the storyline is rhetoric and the answers to this rhetoric are generated based on the freedom of individual understanding rather than a collective and subjective position.
From the account of the interdependence between terrestrial and marine life, Kolbert considers that terrestrial creatures are threatened by the ever-changing water cycle, the effects of human activities on soil moisture, and the extensive drought conditions facing land. In all these, the bottom line is the irresponsible environmental exploitation and overstretched pressure on natural resources. According to Kolbert, the threat has emanated from direct human invasion of the natural habitats of other creatures such as with the “Castello Aragonese” (Kolbert, p. 74). This account brings to life the growing competition for space between man and animals. It is common to hear of human-animal conflict or fencing out animals to protect neighboring communities. The result of this is the encroachment into natural animal habitats to create space for human survival. The question posed by Kolbert is whether humans will end up self-destroying their own species as they extinct other species.
It is also instigated by indirect effects of environmental degradation. Her explanations help to point at a good example such as the recent trend at exploiting energy from beneath theearth.Very little has already been done yet to ascertain the possibilities on existence as a result of such exploration. Further, the continued destruction of forests such as the “Silman’s plots” and other forests has the prolonged chance of destroying carbon and heat sinks in the environment (Kolbert, p. 95). This goes beyond the talks about global warming but the direct effect on creatures depending on these natural habitats. The story implicitly shows that much talk about global warming has not yielded any meaningful change in the manner in which the environment is handled. Instead, terrestrial creatures are daily subjected to harsh and polluted environment. This was best emphasized in the story of the golden frogs that were fast dying with no one (even scientists) coming to their rescue.
In the sea, the greatest threat is the increasing acidification of seawater. This is shown by Kolbert to have direct effect on such sea features as coral reefs that also form natural habitats for numerous marine species. Other than the continued acidification of the sea, there is the increasing amount of salty water. This means that the amount of wholesome water for consumption by creatures is continually getting depleted. The result of this would be death of not only the marine life but also of the terrestrial creatures depending on underground and surface water sources. Further, human invasion including ‘development’ of residential and recreational sites have led to extinction of most marine animals including the sea birds.
In chapter seven, Kolbert mentions the ease that would be there if one wanted to destroy vulnerable species such as the nesting sea birds (Kolbert). This particular story reminds curious readers of the story of the oil spills that have destroyed thousands of helpless species in the sea yet oil continues being transported in the same risky manner. In Kolbert’s eye, it is possible to see the position of man in the sixth extinction story. Man bears the key to destroy the creatures by virtue of the capabilities. However, it is also possible to see in her tone that man bears the key to salvage such vulnerable species in their natural habitats.
Kolbert began her story with the account for the endangered amphibian species and the growing scientists’ concern about the diminishing species. This part offers the needed link between the prehistoric theories of extinctions of species and the modern fear of the sixth extinction. By the fact that scientific backing is used to back up her early assumption, explaining the sixth extinction makes her other back up expeditions more relevant and significant on the fears of extinction of terrestrial and marine life under the watch of human beings.
The fifth chapter, Welcome to the Anthropocenebest, explains the overall crisis, which our species is causing. In the explanations given in the chapter on the extinction of graptolites and the clades explain several interlinked global phenomena such as glaciation and global warming as means for extinction. For instance, there is an explanation of how continued and uncontrolled release of carbon dioxide in the air increases the air temperatures and through melting of mountainous ice, the sea levels also rice. Therefore, the chapter shows how human activities and behavior serve as agents for changes in the chemistry of the air, water and land hence threatening extinction of creatures from the earth.
Although she made an effort at giving plain explanations to scientific jargon, Kolbertmainly focuses on the negative aspect of human relationship with the land and sea creatures. For instance, based on the interviews with scientists and her own exploratory research, she estimated that by the beginning of the 22nd century there would have been a flora and fauna loss of between 20 and 50 percent of the living creatures on earth. Only mildly does she emphasize the conservancy efforts made by people. Because of this, she makes her writing to ignore or treat with contempt he individual as well as collective input of human species in sustaining preservation of endangered species as the case was with the incredible frog hotel. She instead offers no possible remedies to the highlighted problems.
It is generally observed that Kolbert is out to make rhetoric of the issue she investigated. However, leaving her findings in this form subjects her findings to a rather open and risky guessing of the possible paths to take. Using rhetoric would be best applied if the audience is not only responsive but in resonance to her views and findings about the ecosystem. This means that the novel was not intended for program implementers but for researchers and the speculative general public. However, looking at the gravity and urgency in the facts presented leaves the audience wondering when a solution to the highlighted problem would come forth.
The observations and research data presented in the book depict the apparent violent collision going on between human civilization and the ecosystem of the earth planet. Citing such natural habitats as the Andes; the Amazon forest, or the renowned Great Barrier Reef, the author examines how human activities and behavior have accelerated climate change hence causing what biologists are now calling the sixth mass extinction. What is apparent from the researched data is that the current plant and animal loss literally threatens elimination of between 20 and 50 percent of the living species within the 21st century alone. While Kolbert’s argument has some major strength in reference to employing a scientific approach to explain her position, she also presents major weaknesses when making her argument know. In this case, the credibility of her argument leaves room for further interpretation, thus the need to cautiously interpret her argument as an ultimate perspective to the concern she explored.
Reference
Kolbert, E. (2014). The Sixth Extinction: An unnatural history. New York, NY: Henry Holt & Company.
