About the book
Elizabeth Kolbert, a science writer for The New Yorker, argues in her 2014 book that the planet is living through a sixth mass extinction and that people are its cause. She sets the five earlier collapses in Earth's history beside the losses now under way, and traces the history of extinction as an idea, noting that before the late 1700s it was widely believed mass extinctions had never happened. Her reporting runs from the Andes and Bikini Atoll to the Great Barrier Reef, a Panamanian rainforest, city zoos and her own backyard, with interviews of scientists and guides along the way. The work earned Kolbert the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.
Bill Gates put it on his year-end reading list, noting that beyond climate change humans are paving land, moving species around the globe, overfishing and acidifying the oceans. It also appears on Barack Obama's 2015 list of summer favorites.
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This book has 3 recommendations
Bill Gates (CEO/Microsoft)
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert. Climate change is a big problem—one of the biggest we’ll face this century—but it’s not the only environmental concern on the horizon. Humans are putting down massive amounts of pavement, moving species around the planet, over-fishing and acidifying the oceans, changing the chemical composition of rivers, and more. Natural scientists posit that there have been five extinction events in the Earth’s history (think of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs), and Kolbert makes a compelling case that human activity is leading to the sixth. Unlike a lot of people who write about the environment, Kolbert doesn’t resort to hype. She just lays out the facts and wraps them in memorable anecdotes. It’s a sobering but engaging and informative read.
Recommended by Barack Obama (Former USA President)
Source: Every book Barack Obama has recommended during his presidency
Gunhee Park (Co-Founder/Populum)
The Sixth Extinction helps you understand the scope of the impact mankind has had on this planet and makes you think more critically about climate change.
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Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Gunhee Park
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Often recommended alongside
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari (3 shared recommenders)
- Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong about the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund and Ola Rosling (2 shared recommenders)
- The Road to Character by David Brooks (2 shared recommenders)
- Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin (2 shared recommenders)
- Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover (2 shared recommenders)
- Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela (2 shared recommenders)
Appears in collections
Sources
- A Year-End Reading List
- Every book Barack Obama has recommended during his presidency
- Gunhee Park (Populum co-founder) interview