I was rummaging through the stuff I've kept these many years when I ran across the October, 1998 issue of Harpers Magazine, which contains an article called Planet Of Weeds (pdf) by David Quammen. As I was re-reading it, I remembered how much Quammen's piece influenced me at the time. In the 1990's I was reading a lot of stuff on the history of life on Earth, including mass extinctions (paleontology).
I wrote about the Sixth Extinction several times on DOTE. Most recently I talked about it in One Last Time — A Mass Extinction In The Oceans, in which said
There is a mass extinction under way, humans are causing it, it is centered in the oceans, and it is happening incredibly rapidly on the geological time-scale.
So long before Elizabeth Kolbert started working on her new book The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, I could have written it. Years ago I gave up on the idea that people (generally speaking) would pay any attention to the well-informed warnings I was issuing, but I also knew a few people would get the message. And a few people did. I don't expect Kolbert will fare any better than I have.
In the New Yorker podcast below Kolbert talks about her forthcoming book.
It's worth listening to, and I recommend that you listen all the way to the end. At the beginning, you will have to put up with a brief segment in which Calvin Trillin talks about preparing and eating hot tamales.
Hot tamales and a human-caused mass extinction
That's a nice summary of the Human Condition, isn't it?
Interesting that when asked if there was anything that could be done, Kolbert pointed out that she did not address in the book. Seems as though she knows the answer. We is what we is and we ain't going to change.
Posted by: Steve Wilson | 12/30/2013 at 03:54 PM