Geomedia: Books: Are we causing a sixth extinction?

Last year, Elizabeth Kolbert released her latest excellent book. Her previous volume, “Field Notes from a Catastrophe,” set a high bar for accessible, accurate science writing about environmental issues, but in my opinion, “The Sixth Extinction” surpasses it in several regards. Readers of this magazine will appreciate its solid geologic grounding and perspective, with entire chapters devoted to the end-Ordovician and end-Cretaceous extinctions, as well as sections on the principles of evolution and Earth history. Climate change, the focus of her earlier book, looms large here too, though it is just one of the many threats to the survival of our biosphere that Kolbert covers.

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Callan Bentley

Bentley, an EARTH contributing editor, is an assistant professor of geology at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Va. He is the 2018 recipient of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers Shea Award for exceptional contributions in earth science writing for the public and/or teachers. He also draws EARTH’s cartoons and is past president of the Geological Society of Washington. He blogs about geology at http://blogs.agu.org/mountainbeltway. The views expressed are his own.

december 2014