The sixth extinction : patterns of life and the future of humankind

Book

The sixth extinction : patterns of life and the future of humankind / Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin.

Leakey, Richard E. (Author). Lewin, Roger. (Added Author).

Summary:

There have been five great extinctions in the long history of life on earth, the most recent 65 million years ago, when all dinosaur species perished in an astonishingly brief period of time. Each of these great extinctions was unimaginably catastrophic - at least 65 percent of all species living vanished in a geological instant; in the Permian extinction, nearly 95 percent of all species were obliterated. The agency for these extinctions, the why, is hotly debated - sudden climate change, asteroids, evolutionary inadequacy - but the patterns are remarkably consistent. Now, as Leakey and Lewin show with inarguable logic based on irrefutable scientific evidence, the sixth great extinction is underway. And this time the cause is beyond dispute: By the lowest estimate, thirty thousand species are wiped out by human agency every year - a rate that matches the patterns of the other five great extinctions with frightening exactitude.

As the authors show, such dramatic and overwhelming extinction threatens the entire complex fabric of life on earth, including the species at fault, Homo sapiens. Unless we come to realize the devastating consequence of our rapacious behavior, we will follow the mastodon, the great auk, the carrier pigeon, and our other victims into the oblivion of extinction.

Record details

ISBN: 0385424973
ISBN: 9780385424974
ISBN: 0385468091
ISBN: 9780385468091
ISBN: 1857994736
ISBN: 9781857994735
ISBN: 0297817477
ISBN: 9780297817475
Physical Description: 271 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: New York : Doubleday, 1995.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:: Includes bibliographical references (pages 255)-262) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:: 1. A Personal Perspective -- 2. Life's Salient Mystery -- 3. The Mainspring of Evolution -- 4. The Big Five -- 5. Extinction: Bad Genes or Bad Luck? -- 6. Homo sapiens, the Pinnacle of Evolution? -- 7. Endless Forms Most Beautiful -- 8. Value in Diversity -- 9. Stability and Chaos in Ecology -- 10. Human Impacts of the Past -- 11. The Modern Elephant Story -- 12. An Accident of History -- 13. The Sixth Extinction -- 14. Does It Matter?