The Sixth Extinction

The Sixth Extinction, by Terry Glavin, carried a remarkably different tone than the last book I read. While it made an attempt to end on a hopeful note, this book was overwhelmingly glum and depressing.

Glavin wrote a collection of "stories" that were woven together for this book. He focuses in on the phenomenon currently occurring that many title the Sixth Extinction. We currently live in a time where the extinction rate of species rivals that of five other great extinctions, among which is the Cretaceous-era extinction of the dinosaurs and other surprisingly bigger extinctions. Glavin looks at several different animals and how humans have contributed to their near-extinction and how they attempt to keep these animals among our wild species. His stories come from the experiences he has. He weaves facts in among the tales.

Glavin writes with a magnificent pen. His tales are elegant, introspective, and enthralling. Each chapter I felt myself sucked in and unwilling to leave the pages. Unfortunately, what I read was pretty depressing. Humans have caused an extinction rate that rivals some of the world's most cataclysmic mass extinctions. There's not much we can do about it, either. As long as our global population continues to increase and we continue to consume ridiculous amounts of natural resources, our biodiversity will continue to decrease.

The book has rather scathing comments to be made about zoos. Glavin calls them homes for the "living dead." The animals there have a miserable existence and even notable attempts to keep species from going extinct have largely failed.

In the end, Glavin calls on people to simply "do what they can." He doesn't feel that people purposefully bring about death and habitat destruction, with a few exceptions (like the Puritans, who believed that wild animals were demonic spirits). People of all kinds have simply acted selfishly, including ancient civilizations and virtually every Native American tribe, who he claims were not as sustainable as modern tales romanticize. Humans are the mammalian version of the cockroach (almost a direct quote), able to adapt to just about any environment. We'll survive for a long time, but if we want to have a world with substantial biodiversity, we need to make conscious decisions to support the environment.

Fat chance of that happening.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

(97/100)