This is just another arrogant presumption that humans possess enormous powers beyond what any evidence reveals. Climate is always changing. Everything is always changing. Some species benefit and others suffer. It has been this way since life evolved, or was seeded, or whatever you happen to believe.
It would be one thing if we had even the first clue what actually caused the first five extinctions. Hint, it wasn't humans. Some will say bolide impacts, others will say large igneous provinces. Yet others will say impacts caused the large igneous provinces. Each of these explanations has its merits but none is completely satisfactory. The killer remains at large, but it wasn't us.
so why should Elizabeth believe that we naked apes burning our campfires will cause he next extinction? Can she name any species that has actually gone extinct recently? No. Can she explain how the friendly dioxide (which is modestly greening the planet) would cause such an extinction? No.
If you will, imagine what might have happened had she grabbed the tarantula as she climbed the tree. A painful bite? A nasty fall? An innocent arachnid crushed? This is the metaphor for our situation. Our lunch is not free. We will climb the tree as we believe our pre hominid ancestors did, as every creature that has ever graced this planet has done. Spiders will be crushed; trees will be cut, but arachnids and the forest will survive, at least until the real killer rears its ugly head again.
Over the last half-billion years, there have been Five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us. In prose that is at once frank, entertaining, and deeply informed, New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert tells us why and how human beings have altered life on the planet in a way no species has before. Interweaving research in half a dozen disciplines, descriptions of the fascinating species that have already been lost, and the history of extinction as a concept, Kolbert provides a moving and comprehensive account of the disappearances occurring before our very eyes. She shows that the sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy, compelling us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.
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