In Chapter 11 of Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction, Kolbert takes the reader to Cincinnati where she meets with a Sumatran rhino, one of five left on the planet. She meets Dr. Roth (a conversationist who devoted her life to saving endangered species) and speaks about how Roth has had no success in artificially inseminating Suci (the rhino). Kolbert explains to the readers that rhinos were once very common throughout the world, but after the 20th century, rhinos began to go extinct. For the rest of the chapter, Kolbert fills in the middle of the timeline, trying to explain the role human beings played in the extinction of the rhinoceros. Kolbert blends together her personal experiences with Suci the rhino and her more abstract thoughts about extinction in general. This makes this chapter more empathetic because it gives the reader a sort of attachment to the Sumatran rhinos and makes this chapter more biased than her usual fact-based passages. "For most of the 19th century, scientists believed that large mammals went extinct because of the end of the last ice age, which reduced the evolutionary advantages of such traits as warm fur and large body mass. Only within the last few decades have scientists begun to suspect that large mammals went extinct because human beings hunted them," (Page 224-225). This quote shows how humans' slow thinking prevented them from understanding that they were the problem earlier. If they had understood their lasting impact on many other endangered species many of the now-extinct could have possibly been saved. the evidence Kolbert gives here suggests that it’s at least feasible that humans played a major role in the mass extinction of large prehistoric mammals. She is laying the groundwork here for a final opinion to the notion that humans are not inherently prone to irreversibly altering and destroying the world natural systems. The late chapters of The Sixth Extinction are based around the APES theme that humans alter natural systems.
Sunday, August 18, 2019
Chapter 11 : The Rhino Gets an Ultrasound (Angel Jorge)
In Chapter 11 of Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction, Kolbert takes the reader to Cincinnati where she meets with a Sumatran rhino, one of five left on the planet. She meets Dr. Roth (a conversationist who devoted her life to saving endangered species) and speaks about how Roth has had no success in artificially inseminating Suci (the rhino). Kolbert explains to the readers that rhinos were once very common throughout the world, but after the 20th century, rhinos began to go extinct. For the rest of the chapter, Kolbert fills in the middle of the timeline, trying to explain the role human beings played in the extinction of the rhinoceros. Kolbert blends together her personal experiences with Suci the rhino and her more abstract thoughts about extinction in general. This makes this chapter more empathetic because it gives the reader a sort of attachment to the Sumatran rhinos and makes this chapter more biased than her usual fact-based passages. "For most of the 19th century, scientists believed that large mammals went extinct because of the end of the last ice age, which reduced the evolutionary advantages of such traits as warm fur and large body mass. Only within the last few decades have scientists begun to suspect that large mammals went extinct because human beings hunted them," (Page 224-225). This quote shows how humans' slow thinking prevented them from understanding that they were the problem earlier. If they had understood their lasting impact on many other endangered species many of the now-extinct could have possibly been saved. the evidence Kolbert gives here suggests that it’s at least feasible that humans played a major role in the mass extinction of large prehistoric mammals. She is laying the groundwork here for a final opinion to the notion that humans are not inherently prone to irreversibly altering and destroying the world natural systems. The late chapters of The Sixth Extinction are based around the APES theme that humans alter natural systems.
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