Key insights from
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
Audio available
9 minute read
Published Feb 11, 2014
What you'll learn
Over the course of earth’s history, there have been five cataclysmic events that have radically altered—or ended—life for the planet’s inhabitants. Author and journalist Elizabeth Kolbert argues that humanity’s growing influence over climate and ecosystems is ushering in a sixth catastrophe that large swaths of plants and animals—including humans—may not survive.
Key insights
- 1 Humans have shaped their environment with an unprecedented force and speed.
- 2 Reefs are epicenters of biodiversity, and large swaths of them are dying out.
- 3 CO2 levels and thus global temperatures have not been this high in 15 million years.
- 4 The constant flow of organisms into new environments has recreated the original supercontinent Pangaea in some fashion.
- 5 Humanity will likely be not only the cause but a victim in the Sixth Extinction if it doesn’t start taking ecological concerns more seriously.
- 6 There’s a frozen zoo hidden away in vaults to preserve the genetic material of endangered and extinct species.
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