The Sixth Extinction - Elizabeth Kolbert

I came to know about this book through The Straits times' Big Read Meet program. I had read some articles written by Elizabeth Kolbert in National Geographic magazine and New Yorker. So I knew her subject. This book is really an eye opener for anyone who interested in earth's environment and its inhabitants and it also show the actual earth we lives in.

The book highlights how the human dominion over other living things destroys the earth. The author lists so many extinct animals and birds to prove that point. The book shows the clarity in authors thoughts and use of easy language  made this book a riveting and sometimes thrilling one.The author's field reporting is comes into force in this book. Each chapter deals with either already extinct species or critically endangered one.

The author explains how different factors from climate change to unlucky flightless birds to acidification of oceans contributes to the 'Sixth' extinction. The author talks about Cuvier ,Lyell and Darwin  and how they first proposed 'evolution' and  ' extinction'.Its very interesting how these scientist moved from one theory to another after the discovery of big animals fossils. It took around hundred years to accept that some mass extinction took place which killed all those big predators ie in 1980, Luis and Walter Alvarez proposed that massive asteroid caused mass extinction at the end of cretaceous period, which was generally accepted.

I liked the idea of new Pangaea - how we the humans knowingly or unknowingly breaking down the boundaries of countries by travelling. The industrial revolution has changed the concept of travelling. The author explains how these travels brought invasive species to our backyard and destroys the native species.The time take to evolve has reduced a lot because of it species are not able to survive. The author also highlights that we may be the last generation to witness this much diversity of living organisms.

After reading this book I spoke to one my friend who travelled to Australia couple of times to visit the Great Barrier Reef ,

Me : How was barrier reef?
Him :not as good as last time I visited.
Me: I hope I can visit within next 5 years.
Him : I think there won't be any thing spectacular to see in five years time.!!!

The author also feels the same thing , may be not in five years. Another example of slow extinction of birds and animals without us noticing. Some months back I spoke to one of my brother ,I ordered two feeder for feeding birds in my native -Pamban.  The conversation:

Me : You will get two bird feeder, when you go home take it and give to my sisters.
Him:Bird feeder for what?
Me:Feeding birds.
Him: Nowadays we can not find even crows!!

When I visited my native in June, I noticed the difference, there were far few crows than it used to be. We grown up with lots of crows, woodpeckers,mynahs and kingfishers but now spotting woodpecker is a rare event, crows and mynahs numbers have fallen. No idea about kingfishers. This is how we are loosing our planet's life without we noticing it. As I'm writing this U.N climate Summit 2014 is happening but the biggest contributors to greenhouse gases China and India are missing ( not exactly missing but send their representatives). This shows our effort to save our planet.

Great book and a must read!