In the final chapter, Chapter 13, Kolbert evaluates on the idea that no matter what decision humans continue to make, it's already clear that "the sixth extinction will continue to determine the course of life". Kolbert goes to the Institute for Conservation Research, ICR, in San Diego to study the future; she observes vials containing genetic material of different species such as the Black-Faced Honey Creeper, which is why the place is called the "Frozen Zoo". With Congress passing the Endangered Species Act in 1974, allowed many scientists and conservationists to further preserve at risk of dying species. A reproductive physiologist, Barbara Durrant, putting hours of effort pushing species to reproduce, sort of, stood out to Kolbert that people such as Durrant are willing to devote their lives to conserving the endangered species. However, Kolbert goes to talk about the Anthropocene era/ sixth extinction: the mass-extinction of the worlds life forms, caused by human behaviors. According to page 267, "having freed ourselves from the constraints of evolution, humans nevertheless remain dependent on the Earth's biological and geochemical systems. By disrupting these systems--cutting down tropical rainforests, altering the composition of the atmosphere, acidifying the oceans--we're putting our own survival in danger". This connects to the APES Theme: Human survival depends on developing practices that will achieve sustainable systems; a sustainable combination of conservation and development is required. A quote from Stanford ecologist, Paul Ehrlich, on page 168: "In pushing other species to extinction, humanity is busy sawing off the limb on which it perches"; [R] this sort of explains that the human species, Homo Sapiens, like all other species, depend on other species. Thus, by eliminating these animals and plants, we are inevitably reducing our chances of survival, so in the present time, we decide to save these animals and plants for the better of everything...Savvy?
In Chapter 12, Kolbert starts with the findings of Homo Neanderthals in Germany, Europe, and the Middle East. Neanderthals had sophisticated tools, wore animal skins for warmth, and hunted for food; but around 30,000 years ago they disappeared leaving scientists to assume it was either the environmental change or Homo Sapiens that killed them. Kolbert meetsSvante Pääbo, the director of the department of evolutionary genetics, who studies, who studies "Paleogenetics" and wants to map out the Neanderthal genome to compare it with a human genome. The genetic code made up of (Adenine, Thymine, Guanine, and Cytosine) deteriorates fast, but luckily scientists found the DNA in the bone remains of the Neanderthals. With the DNA, theories such as the "Out of Africa" suggests that humans living in Africa moved out to different places such as America, Asia, Europe, Middle East, and Australia soon evolving to Homo Neanderthal in Asia. While a replacement theory suggests human beings moved out of Africa to Asia, Europe, and the Middle East; but upon meeting the Neanderthals they interbred. This brings it to the APES Theme: Human survival depends on developing practices that will achieve sustainable systems; a sustainable combination and development are required. According to page 247, "Before modern humans "replaced" the Neanderthals, they had sex with them. The liaisons produced children, who helped to populate Europe, Asia, and The New World"; humans developed this survival practice of interbreeding with its "sister" species. In pages 251-2, Pääbo states "If we one day will know that some freak mutation made the human insanity and exploration thing possible, it will be amazing to think that it was this little inversion on this chromosome that made all this happen and changed the whole eco ystem of the planet and made us dominate everything". [P] I believe that this crazy "mad" gene pushes us to do things such as interbreed and conquer to assume not just that we die out but also dominate; however, soon this gene will be our demise.
In Chapter 11, Kolbert travels to the Cincinnati Zoo to meet Suci, one of the remaining Sumatran Rhinoceros; Sumatran Rhinoceros used to be commonly found in many areas such as the Himalayas, Sumatra, and Borneo until they became endangered. They were taken by a conservative group to American Zoos, where some rhinos started dying because of disease-carrying flies and an insufficient diet. Kolbert introduces Dr. Terri Roth, a conservative director of the Cincinnati Zoo, whose job is to artificially inseminate the rhinos to preserve the species. When Kolbert pets Suci upfront while she was eating, Kolbert is amazed by the size of creatures such as rhinos. Before the Anthropocene era, which actually started many millenniums ago before the industrial revolution, creatures such as mammoths, rhinos, and other species that were generally considered large were successful herbivore animals. Their enormous size protected them from predators until the arrival of humans when their advantage became a disadvantage, or as the author puts their strategy a "loser's game". Many scientists acknowledged that the introductory of humans were responsible for the extinction of large creatures as everything synced in. According to page 230, "The megafauna extinction, it's now clear, did not place all at once, as Lyell and Wallace believed it had. Rather, it occurred in pulses". This connects to the APES Theme: Humans alter natural systems; Technology and population growth have enabled humans to increase the rate and scale of their impact on the environment. [R] Things like a drastic change in climate is not responsible for the extinction, because, from Alroy's computer simulations, humans together can take out one large mammal one by one because as the author puts it: humans were never "In harmony with nature".
In Chapter 7, Elizabeth Kolbert talks about bats in Albany, New York that have started dying and it was found by a group of biologists who wanted to count the number of bats. The bats were found during the winter to be covered in a white powdery substance which is found to be a cold-loving fungus called Geomyces destructions. Found on page 194, "The white powder is now known to be a cold-loving fungus--what's known as a psychrophile--that was accidentally imported to the U.S., probably from Europe. Kolbert then goes into how the fungi could have gotten a hold of the bats, she points out that Charles Darwin stated most species cannot travel long distances. However, in this Anthropocene era, Human travel has allowed species, bacteria, fungi, and etc. to travel on to other areas quickly pushing Kolbert to use the phrase "The New Pangea". Now connecting to the APES Theme: Environmental problems have a cultural and social context; understanding the role of cultural, social, and economic factors is vital to the development of solutions. Like most species, bats are very social according to page 214 --- "Bats' sociability has turned out to be a great boon to Geomyces destructans. In winter, when they cluster, infected bats transfer the fungus to uninfected ones. Those that make it until spring then disperse, carrying the fungus with them. In this way, Geomyces destructans passes from bat to bat and cave to cave". These dominant sorts of species such as the fungi have come to decrease biodiversity in other areas; so the author claims that if the trade of human commerce ceases, biodiversity will begin to grow again. [C] To connect the idea of fungi domination over bats, this relates to how another fungi species almost put the Panamanian golden frogs to extinction.
In Chapter 9, Kolbert starts with Reserve 1202, like other reserves in Brazil near the Venezuelan border, is controlled by Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, or BDFFP; which Tom Lovejoy created with the Brazillian government to preserve specific rainforest areas from farmers and ranchers. Reserve 1202 has a 25 acre land of untouched rainforest, which Kolbert visits with an ornithologist, Mario Cohn-Haft, who points out that biodiversity, in general, has gradually decreased within the reserves. This could be explained through the actions of humans on the environment such as the act of deforestation. It is noted that this planet has 50 million square miles worth of land that does not have a significant amount of snow, and more than 25 million square miles have been developed through actions of deforestation. However, in page 187 Kolbert states "habitat lost to deforestation isn't really lost. Even forests that have been logged for timber or burned for pasture can and do regrow". Thus, this connects to the APES Theme: The Earth itself is one interconnected system; without human presence, forests will come back as will many species. This takes me to the connection from the previous chapters that like coral reefs, species in the rainforest rely on each other. For example, Kolbert and Cohn-Haft recognize that the army ants are a source of nutrition to 300 species, and with the ants gone in the night, the birds are confused. The explanation in page 192, "When you find one thing that depends on something else that, in turn, depends on something else, the whole series of interactions depends on constancy"; [E] everything in the Earth good or bad have a connection in some ways.
Chapter 8 of The Sixth Extinction starts with Kolbert in Eastern Peru standing with a forest ecologist professor from Wakefield University, Miles Silman, who is showing Kolbert the Manú National Park, one of the worlds great biodiversity "Hot spots". The introduced this logical fact that if you start at the North Pole and walk South to the Equator, there will not only be an increase in number but also biodiversity. There are many theories to why there is a high level of biodiversity in tropical areas, one theory states that the evolutionary clock is faster so there are more reproductions followed by more genetic mutations and species; another theory suggests that there are fewer temperature fluctuations within the area which harbors life that can't survive on frequently changing temperatures; yet another theory points out that since tropical ecosystems are older it is logical that it has more species than other ecosystems. According to page 153, "The diversity as a function of time theory was first advanced by Darwin's rival, or, if you prefer, discoverer, Alfred Russel Wallace, who observed that in the tropics 'evolution has had a fair chance,' while in glaciated regions'it has had countless difficulties thrown in its way'"; all these theories show a common trait of hypothesis, which is a scientific use of learning. This connects to the APES Theme: Science is a process of learning more about the world. As time goes on, we start to learn things about the Earth outside of our professional work, which allows us to get further into theories that help break things down. Silman's student, Kenneth Feeley, in page 159 found new transformation based off of research that took a while--"Very roughly speaking, he found that global warming was driving the average genus up to the mountain at a rate of eight feet per year". [R] With given time and the right equipment, discoveries could be made possible of taking steps further into understanding science.
In Chapter 7, Kolbert although originally planned to visit Heron Island, visited a research station on a different island called One Tree Island. She meets with Ken Caldeira who specializes in the impact of carbon dioxide on the ph level of the ocean; Kolbert starts talking about the "Great Barrier Reef" and its long history. The first Europeans to see the "Great Barrier Reef" were Captain James Cook and his crew in 1770. Charles Darwin discovered that through his research on the HMS Beagle voyage, he came to discover that coral reefs were submerged under rising sea levels so it grows with the sea level. Coral reefs are part animal, vegetable, and mineral which instead of displacing other species around it, supports them to be a community allowing itself to grow. However, according to page 138, " The paper concluded that if current emissions trends continue, within the next fifty years or so ' all coral reefs will cease to grow and start to dissolve'". This can be connected to the APES Theme: Humans alter natural systems; Technology and population growth have enabled both the rate and scale of their impact on the environment. Now there have been many kinds of research on carbon dioxide's effect on coral reef such can be in the biosphere project in Arizona which failed, showing coral reefs to be negatively impacted. To understand from the past chapters we learned that carbon dioxide emissions directly influence the acidification on the ocean, which carries a high chance of dissolving coral reefs in the near future; but there are other factors that enhance this possibility. In page 141, " The roster of perils includes, but is not limited to: overfishing, which promotes the growth of algae that compete with corals; agriculture runoff, which also encourages algae growth; deforestation, which leads to siltation and reduces water clarity; and dynamite fishing, whose destructive potential would seem to be self-explanatory". [E] The general idea is we as humans are going to obliterate coral reefs before factors such as ocean acidification destroy it.
In Chapter 6 of The Sixth Extinction, Kolbert goes into detail on the concept of Acidification and how high Acidification in the ocean is a negative aspect of marine life and diversity. She goes on by mentioning some facts on page 113 that "Since the start of the industrial revolution, humans have burned through enough fossil fuels--coal, oil, and natural gas--to add some 365 billion metric tons of carbon to the atmosphere"; thus, the general opinion and fact is that in the Anthropocene era humans are responsible for the devastation of the diversity in the environment. Moreover, I strongly support this claim, however, once in a while it is better to look from the other perspective. Human beings, like all other species, strive to survive and will use anything that will prove to be useful and resourceful. So instead of connecting it to the theme "Humans alter natural systems", I choose to connect it to the APES Theme: Human survival depends on developing practices that will achieve sustainable systems and management of common resources is essential. Common resources such as coal--fossil fuel are very important to human survival in the modern world, although it seriously damages the composition of the atmosphere and the ocean. As the author explains it, the ocean is part of Earth which is an interconnected system that balances out things for life on the planet. This can be seen in the cracks formed by tectonic plates where it produces carbon dioxide which is natural, but humans put too much carbon dioxide in the air for the ocean to absorb, killing the biodiversity on this planet. According to page 123, "If we were adding carbon dioxide to the air more slowly, geophysically processes, like the weathering of rock, would come into play to counteract acidification". [E] The general idea is humans are to be blamed for the destruction of the environment, so is many other dominant species, but it is some of what we do and more of how we do it so the slower we use fossil fuels, the better it is for the environment.
In Chapter 5, the author starts out by filling us in about a small experiment that in the end helped explain the concept of "A Paradigm", and from this an influential historian of science, Thomas Kuhn, explains how human beings are found to adapt to new or changing environments using the strategies they are familiar with. Eventually, they find new strategic methods to cope with the new environment "A New Paradigm", and in doing so human beings create a safe environment for themselves to thrive in. This connects to the APES Theme: Humans alter natural systems, Technology and population growth have enabled humans to increase both the rate and scale of their impact on the environment. According to page 105, "Often purposefully and just as often not, humans have rearranged the earth's biota, transporting the flora and fauna of Asia to the Americas and of the Americas to Europe and of Europe to Australia". Kolbert talks about the species, Graptolites, and how although their evolutionary advantages helped cope with their environment when a major environmental change occurred it turned their evolutionary advantages into disadvantages. Similarly, although humans are in a stable condition it won't stay that way since the environment is subjected to intense frequent change. The author lists the 6 points that Paul Crutzen pointed out in the "Anthropocene era": Humans transformed more than 1/3 of all the land surface of the planet; damned or diverted the river systems; produced a lot of nitrogen through agriculture; eliminated more than 1/3 of marine life of the oceans coastal waters; Consumed more than half the worlds fresh water; and changed the composition of the Earth's atmosphere. According to page 108, "Because of these anthropogenic emissions [the global climate is likely to depart significantly from natural behavior for many millennia to come". [P] I can predict that the Anthropocene era will come to an end in the near future without the assistance of technology against the changing environment.
In Chapter 4 of The Sixth Extinction, Kolbert starts introducing us to Walter and Luis Alvarez, who as geologists work to uncover what exactly happened at the end of the Cretaceous era. The Alvarezes were investigating clay found in various places for Iridium which come to be very positive indicating that it was from a large asteroid. Thus, the Alvarezes cowrote a paper on their theory that the dinosaurs were wiped out in a mass extinction event caused by the asteroid itself. Many scientists in different areas of expertise resented this theory without hesitation because of the general idea of extinction at that time was that was a slow process that took many years.Now looking at the APES Theme: Science is a process of learning more about the world, the general idea of extinction is not only about to change but the history of the dinosaurs/Cretaceous era also is about to be understood better. In page 80, the scientists under the uniformitarian concept still resent the Alvarezes theory--"Meanwhile evidence for the hypothesis continued to accumulate. The first independent corroboration came in the form of tiny grains of rock known as "shocked quartz"'; there is more evidence supporting the theory such as sandstone proving a tsunami and a huge crater near the Gulf of Mexico. With all this evidence, the public view and opinion changed in favor of the Alverezes theory; as stated in page 82, "Here you have a challenge to a uniformitarian viewpoint that basically every geologist and paleontologist had been trained in, as had their professors and their professors' professors, all the way back to Lyell. And what you saw was people looking at the evidence. And they gradually did come to change their minds".[C] This sort of thing can be seen in almost everyday situations where the mindset of a person won't change until evidence is brought forth.
In Chapter 3 of The Sixth Extinction, Kolbert decides to involve the history of Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin; this is because Lyell had a major impact on Darwin's work and ideas throughout the voyage on the HMS Beagle ship. Charles Darwin's concept of Natural Selection evolved on the concept of extinction which Lyell believed to occur "at a very slow pace--so slow that, at any given time, in any given place, it would not be surprising were it to go unnoticed". However, Darwin believed that if anything, extinction had to occur more gradually if it were at the same pace as natural selection.Now connecting to the APES Theme: Humans alter natural systems and had an impact on the environment for millions of years is pretty accurate. This can be seen many ways down in history, according to page 60, " A 1622 account by a captain named Richard Whitbourne describes great auks being driven onto boats 'by hundreds at a time as if God had made the innocence of so poor a creature to become such an admirable instrument for sustenation of man'". The Great Auks as great as they were, were killed for general resources such as feathers, fishbait, fuel, etc.. Furthermore, we can see near the ending of the chapter that Kolbert is sort of angry at Charles Darwin for not even mentioning another factor besides Natural Selection, as humans are clearly responsible for most rapid extinction of the present. This is explained on page 69, "They had all been killed off by the same species, and all quite suddenly--in the case of the great auk and the Charles island tortoise over the course of Darwin's own lifetime". [R]Nonetheless, the Great Auks and the tortoises from the Galápagos extinctions are clear signs that Charles Lyell is very wrong on how fast extinction can occur if factors outside of Natural Systems alter things.
The Second chapter starts out with Kolbert, using her kids as an example, to point out the obvious: humans have come a long way acquiring hard to obtain knowledge up until now that in today's world people can just learn the concept of extinction with ease. However, back then the extinction was relatively a new concept which many people such as the Greek philosopher, Aristotle, failed to establish. According to page 23, "Pliny's Natural History includes descriptions of animals that are real and descriptions of animals that are fabulous, but no descriptions of animals that are extinct", but extinction slowly came to be a concept when bones of the American Mastodon were discovered. At first, naturalists were unable to identify the species to whom the bones belonged to, and they would make conclusions such as the bones coming from 3 different species. Yet, when Georges Cuvier, a French naturalist, decided to do research on not only these bones but bones discovered elsewhere and came to the striking hypothesis that the bones belonged to a large family of species (Mammoth, Mastodon, Elephant, etc.). This extensive amount of research Cuvier to acknowledge quoted in page 30, "All these facts, consistent among themselves, and not opposed by any report, seem to me to prove the existence of a world previous to ours...But what was this primitive earth? And what revolution was able to wipe out?". The idea of extinction has been well established by this point, however, Cuvier's evidence including his list of extinct species and his theory made the concept of extinction to be recognized by other naturalists in the world.This connects to the APES Theme: Science is a process that constantly changes the way we understand the world. Cuvier came to a conclusion found on page 44, " The changes that had caused extinction must, therefore, have been of a much greater magnitude--- so great that animals had been unable to cope with them. [R] Although the chapter is telling us about the history of species and Cuvier's research, we can see how science and how we understand it evolves not just to naturalists but to everyone in the present day.
Throughout Chapter 1, Kolbert introduces the possibility of Amphibians being part of the sixth great extinction as she and a group of others, mostly herpetologists, try to conserve many different species of the Amphibian family. One frog species in particular that resides up on the hills surrounding El Valle, the Panamanian Golden Frog, is the main concern within this chapter as the author went to visit this city to see the frogs. Kolbert runs into the Amphibian Conservation Center, EVACC; the place is filled with tanks of different sizes that are occupied by different amphibians. She meets the director of EVACC, Edgardo Griffith, and with some research found that the murderer of the golden frogs or amphibians is actually a fungus called Chytrid Fungi. While trying to save as many frogs as possible it is mentioned that Amphibians are the Earths greatest survivors, first crawling out of the water 400 million years ago then evolving into multiple different amphibia species 250 million years ago; But the biggest would be surviving the breakup of Pangea.According to page 11, "Amphibians emerged at a time when all the land on earth was part of a single expanse known as Pangea. Since the breakup of Pangea, they've adapted to conditions on every continent except Antarctica". Now connecting to the APES Theme: The Earth itself is one interconnected system because the natural systems change over time and space affecting life on the planet. So Pangea breaking up is part of Earths natural interconnected system, in this case, the tectonic plates. [C] This caused the amphibians to be separated into different environments on the globe leading to evolution or adaption.
