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Author : Les Kaufman
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262610896
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (18 download)
Download or read book The Last Extinction written by Les Kaufman and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An expanded, updated edition of this classic study on biodiversity and species loss.
Author : Elizabeth Kolbert
Publisher : Henry Holt and Company
ISBN 13 : 0805099794
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (5 download)
Download or read book The Sixth Extinction written by Elizabeth Kolbert and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2014-02-11 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW'S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR A major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us. In The Sixth Extinction, two-time winner of the National Magazine Award and New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the great auk, and the Sumatran rhino. Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day. The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy; as Kolbert observes, it compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.
Author : Annalee Newitz
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0385535929
Total Pages : 333 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (855 download)
Download or read book Scatter, Adapt, and Remember written by Annalee Newitz and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In its 4.5 billion–year history, life on Earth has been almost erased at least half a dozen times: shattered by asteroid impacts, entombed in ice, smothered by methane, and torn apart by unfathomably powerful megavolcanoes. And we know that another global disaster is eventually headed our way. Can we survive it? How? As a species, Homo sapiens is at a crossroads. Study of our planet’s turbulent past suggests that we are overdue for a catastrophic disaster, whether caused by nature or by human interference. It’s a frightening prospect, as each of the Earth’s past major disasters—from meteor strikes to bombardment by cosmic radiation—resulted in a mass extinction, where more than 75 percent of the planet’s species died out. But in Scatter, Adapt, and Remember, Annalee Newitz, science journalist and editor of the science Web site io9.com explains that although global disaster is all but inevitable, our chances of long-term species survival are better than ever. Life on Earth has come close to annihilation—humans have, more than once, narrowly avoided extinction just during the last million years—but every single time a few creatures survived, evolving to adapt to the harshest of conditions. This brilliantly speculative work of popular science focuses on humanity’s long history of dodging the bullet, as well as on new threats that we may face in years to come. Most important, it explores how scientific breakthroughs today will help us avoid disasters tomorrow. From simulating tsunamis to studying central Turkey’s ancient underground cities; from cultivating cyanobacteria for “living cities” to designing space elevators to make space colonies cost-effective; from using math to stop pandemics to studying the remarkable survival strategies of gray whales, scientists and researchers the world over are discovering the keys to long-term resilience and learning how humans can choose life over death. Newitz’s remarkable and fascinating journey through the science of mass extinctions is a powerful argument about human ingenuity and our ability to change. In a world populated by doomsday preppers and media commentators obsessively forecasting our demise, Scatter, Adapt, and Remember is a compelling voice of hope. It leads us away from apocalyptic thinking into a future where we live to build a better world—on this planet and perhaps on others. Readers of this book will be equipped scientifically, intellectually, and emotionally to face whatever the future holds.
Author : Riley Black
Publisher : The History Press
ISBN 13 : 1803990724
Total Pages : 246 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (39 download)
Download or read book The Last Days of the Dinosaurs written by Riley Black and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2022-04-26 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some 66 million years ago, an asteroid some seven miles across slammed into the Earth, leaving a geologic wound over 50 miles in diameter. In the terrible mass extinction that followed, more than half of known species vanish seemingly overnight. But this worst single day in the history of life of Earth was as critical for us as it was for the dinosaurs, as it allowed for evolutionary opportunities that were closed for the previous 100 million years. In The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, Riley Black walks readers through what happened in the days, the years, the centuries and the million years after the impact. Life's losses were sharp and deeply felt, but the hope carried by the beings that survived sets the stage for the world as we know it now.
Author : Colin Tudge
Publisher : Island Press
ISBN 13 : 9781559631570
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (315 download)
Download or read book Last Animals at the Zoo written by Colin Tudge and published by Island Press. This book was released on 1993-01-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Last Animals at the Zoo, Colin Tudge argues that zoos have become an essential part of modern conservation strategy, and that the only real hope for saving many endangered species is through creative use of zoos in combination with restoration of natural habitats. From the genetics of captive breeding to techniques of behavioral enrichment, Tudge examines all aspects of zoo conservation programs and explains how the precarious existence of so many animals can best be protected.
Author : Douglas H. Erwin
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691165653
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)
Download or read book Extinction written by Douglas H. Erwin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-22 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some 250 million years ago, the earth suffered the greatest biological crisis in its history. Around 95 percent of all living species died out—a global catastrophe far greater than the dinosaurs' demise 185 million years later. How this happened remains a mystery. But there are many competing theories. Some blame huge volcanic eruptions that covered an area as large as the continental United States; others argue for sudden changes in ocean levels and chemistry, including burps of methane gas; and still others cite the impact of an extraterrestrial object, similar to what caused the dinosaurs' extinction. Extinction is a paleontological mystery story. Here, the world's foremost authority on the subject provides a fascinating overview of the evidence for and against a whole host of hypotheses concerning this cataclysmic event that unfolded at the end of the Permian. After setting the scene, Erwin introduces the suite of possible perpetrators and the types of evidence paleontologists seek. He then unveils the actual evidence--moving from China, where much of the best evidence is found; to a look at extinction in the oceans; to the extraordinary fossil animals of the Karoo Desert of South Africa. Erwin reviews the evidence for each of the hypotheses before presenting his own view of what happened. Although full recovery took tens of millions of years, this most massive of mass extinctions was a powerful creative force, setting the stage for the development of the world as we know it today. In a new preface, Douglas Erwin assesses developments in the field since the book's initial publication.
Author : Elizabeth Kolbert
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 1620409895
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (24 download)
Download or read book Field Notes from a Catastrophe written by Elizabeth Kolbert and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2015-02-03 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new edition of the book that launched Elizabeth Kolbert's career as an environmental writer--updated with three new chapters, making it, yet again, "irreplaceable" (Boston Globe). Elizabeth Kolbert's environmental classic Field Notes from a Catastrophe first developed out of a groundbreaking, National Magazine Award-winning three-part series in The New Yorker. She expanded it into a still-concise yet richly researched and damning book about climate change: a primer on the greatest challenge facing the world today. But in the years since, the story has continued to develop; the situation has become more dire, even as our understanding grows. Now, Kolbert returns to the defining book of her career. She has added a chapter bringing things up-to-date on the existing text, plus three new chapters--on ocean acidification, the tar sands, and a Danish town that's gone carbon neutral--making it, again, a must-read for our moment.
Author : Richard E. Leakey
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0385468091
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (854 download)
Download or read book The Sixth Extinction written by Richard E. Leakey and published by Anchor. This book was released on 1996-10-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Leakey, One Of The World's Foremost Experts On Man's Evolutionary Past, Now Turns His Eye To The Future And Doesn't Like What He Sees. To the philosophical the earth is eternal, while the human race -- presumptive keeper of the world's history -- is a mere speck in the rich stream of life. It is known that nothing upon Earth is forever; geography, climate, and plant and animal life are all subject to radical change. On five occasions in the past, catastrophic natural events have caused mass extinctions on Earth. But today humans stand alone, in dubious distinction, among Earth's species: Homo Sapiens possesses the ability to destroy entire species at will, to trigger the sixth extinction in the history of life. In The Sixth Extinction, Richard Leakey and Roger Lewin consider how the grand sprawl of human life is inexorably wreaking havoc around the world. The authors of Origins and Origins Reconsidered, unimpeachable authorities on the human fossil record, turn their attention to the most uncharted anthropological territory of all: the future, and man's role in defining it. According to Leakey and Lewin, man and his surrounding species are end products of history and chance. Now, however, humans have the unique opportunity to recognize their influence on the global ecosystem, and consciously steer the outcome in order to avoid triggering an unimaginable upheaval.
Author : Lee Hannah
Publisher : Island Press
ISBN 13 : 1610911822
Total Pages : 417 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (19 download)
Download or read book Saving a Million Species written by Lee Hannah and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2012-06-22 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The research paper "Extinction Risk from Climate Change" published in the journal Nature in January 2004 created front-page headlines around the world. The notion that climate change could drive more than a million species to extinction captured both the popular imagination and the attention of policy-makers, and provoked an unprecedented round of scientific critique. Saving a Million Species reconsiders the central question of that paper: How many species may perish as a result of climate change and associated threats? Leaders from a range of disciplines synthesize the literature, refine the original estimates, and elaborate the conservation and policy implications. The book: examines the initial extinction risk estimates of the original paper, subsequent critiques, and the media and policy impact of this unique study presents evidence of extinctions from climate change from different time frames in the past explores extinctions documented in the contemporary record sets forth new risk estimates for future climate change considers the conservation and policy implications of the estimates. Saving a Million Species offers a clear explanation of the science behind the headline-grabbing estimates for conservationists, researchers, teachers, students, and policy-makers. It is a critical resource for helping those working to conserve biodiversity take on the rapidly advancing and evolving global stressor of climate change-the most important issue in conservation biology today, and the one for which we are least prepared.
Author : Anthony D. Barnosky
Publisher : Univ of California Press
ISBN 13 : 0520292642
Total Pages : 254 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (22 download)
Download or read book Dodging Extinction written by Anthony D. Barnosky and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2016-08-16 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paleobiologist Anthony D. Barnosky weaves together evidence from the deep past and the present to alert us to the looming Sixth Mass Extinction and to offer a practical, hopeful plan for avoiding it. Writing from the front lines of extinction research, Barnosky tells the overarching story of geologic and evolutionary history and how it informs the way humans inhabit, exploit, and impact Earth today. He presents compelling evidence that unless we rethink how we generate the power we use to run our global ecosystem, where we get our food, and how we make our money, we will trigger what would be the sixth great extinction on Earth, with dire consequences. Optimistic that we can change this ominous forecast if we act now, Barnosky provides clear-cut strategies to guide the planet away from global catastrophe. In many instances the necessary technology and know-how already exist and are being applied to crucial issues around human-caused climate change, feeding the world's growing population, and exploiting natural resources. Deeply informed yet accessibly written, Dodging Extinction is nothing short of a guidebook for saving the planet.
Author : Charles Officer
Publisher : Addison Wesley Publishing Company
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 232 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (318 download)
Download or read book The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controversy written by Charles Officer and published by Addison Wesley Publishing Company. This book was released on 1996-06-30 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1980 Nobel Laureate Luis Alvarez announced his theory of the dinosaurs final demise: a gigantic meteorite crashed into the earth and raised a cloud of dust that caused darkness for years, suppressing photosynthesis, which impeded plant growth, and eventually starved the dinosaurs. This idea exploded into common awareness with almost unprecedented speed, and was instantly embraced by the media and the public. Almost without question, it quickly became the hottest scientific "fact". Unfortunately for Alvarez, many in the scientific community did to support this theory, and in fact later research showed the impossibility of such an idea. The Great Dinosaur Extinction Controversy chronicles the fantastic story of how this hypothesis became so widespread, the way it became "common knowledge" - from the pages of Science to The New York Times to Parade Magazine, the controversy it caused, and the ample scientific research that proves the theory wrong. Officer and Page also present an attractive and carefully investigated alternative explanation for the mass extinctions that occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period. Through this account they show the ways that sound science should be performed and the findings transmitted.
Author : Britt Wray
Publisher : Greystone Books Ltd
ISBN 13 : 1771641630
Total Pages : 233 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (716 download)
Download or read book Rise of the Necrofauna written by Britt Wray and published by Greystone Books Ltd. This book was released on 2017-09-30 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jurassic Park meets The Sixth Extinction in Rise of the Necrofauna, a provocative look at de-extinction from acclaimed documentarist and science writer Britt Wray. A New Yorker “The Books We Loved in 2017” Selection A Science News Favorite Book of 2017 A Sunday Times "Must Read" What happens when you try to recreate a woolly mammoth—fascinating science, or conservation catastrophe? In Rise of the Necrofauna, Wray takes us deep into the minds and labs of some of the world's most progressive thinkers to find out. She introduces us to renowned futurists like Stewart Brand and scientists like George Church, who are harnessing the powers of CRISPR gene editing in the hopes of "reviving" extinct passenger pigeons, woolly mammoths, and heath hens. She speaks with Nikita Zimov, who together with his eclectic father Sergey, is creating Siberia's Pleistocene Park—a daring attempt to rebuild the mammoth's ancient ecosystem in order to save earth from climate disaster. Through interviews with these and other thought leaders, Wray reveals the many incredible opportunities for research and conservation made possible by this emerging new field. But we also hear from more cautionary voices, like those of researcher and award-winning author Beth Shapiro (How to Clone a Woolly Mammoth) and environmental philosopher Thomas van Dooren. Writing with passion and perspective, Wray delves into the larger questions that come with this incredible new science, reminding us that de-extinction could bring just as many dangers as it does possibilities. What happens, for example, when we bring an "unextinct" creature back into the wild? How can we care for these strange animals and ensure their comfort and safety—not to mention our own? And what does de-extinction mean for those species that are currently endangered? Is it really ethical to bring back an extinct passenger pigeon, for example, when countless other birds today will face the same fate? By unpacking the many biological, technological, ethical, environmental, and legal questions raised by this fascinating new field, Wray offers a captivating look at the best and worst of resurrection science. A captivating whirlwind tour through the birth and early life of the scientific idea known as “de-extinction.”—Beth Shapiro, author of How to Clone a Mammoth: The Science of De-Extinction Published in Partnership with the David Suzuki Institute.
Author : Ursula K. Heise
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022635816X
Total Pages : 299 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (263 download)
Download or read book Imagining Extinction written by Ursula K. Heise and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-08-10 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the extinction of species accelerates and more species become endangered, activists, filmmakers, writers, and artists have responded to bring this global crisis to the attention of the public. Until now, there has been no study of the frameworks that shape these narratives and images, or of the symbolic meanings that the death of species carries in different cultural communities. Ursula Heise makes the case that understanding how and why endangered species come to matter culturally is indispensable for any effective advocacy on their behalf. Heise begins by showing that the tools of conservation science and law need to be viewed as cultural artifacts: biodiversity databases and laws for the protection of threatened species use rhetorical and cultural resources that open up different approaches to the problem of understanding global wildlife. The second half of her book explores ways of envisioning alternative futures for biodiversity. The narrative of nature s decline or even imminent disappearance has been a successful rallying trope for those skeptical of modernization and ideologies of progress. But environmentalists nostalgia for the past and pessimistic outlook on the future have also alienated parts of the public. Heise tells the story of environmental activists, writers, and scientists who are creating new stories to guide the environmental imagination."
Author : Michael Charles Boulter
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780231128360
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (283 download)
Download or read book Extinction written by Michael Charles Boulter and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mikhail Gorbachev and Zdenek Mlynar were friends for half a century, since they first crossed paths as students in 1950. Although one was a Russian and the other a Czech, they were both ardent supporters of communism and socialism. One took part in laying the groundwork for and carrying out the Prague spring; the other opened a new political era in Soviet world politics. In 1993 they decided that their conversations might be of interest to others and so they began to tape-record them. This book is the product of that "thinking out loud" process. It is an absorbing record of two friends trying to explain to one another their views on the problems and events that determined their destinies. From reminiscences of their starry-eyed university days to reflections on the use of force to "save socialism" to contemplation of the end of the cold war, here is a far more candid picture of Gorbachev than we have ever seen before.
Author : Peter Brannen
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062364820
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (623 download)
Download or read book The Ends of the World written by Peter Brannen and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of Vox’s Most Important Books of the Decade New York Times Editors' Choice 2017 Forbes Top 10 Best Environment, Climate, and Conservation Book of 2017 As new groundbreaking research suggests that climate change played a major role in the most extreme catastrophes in the planet's history, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen takes us on a wild ride through the planet's five mass extinctions and, in the process, offers us a glimpse of our increasingly dangerous future Our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth’s past dead ends, and in the process, offers us a glimpse of our possible future. Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the twenty-first century have analogs in these five extinctions. Using the visible clues these devastations have left behind in the fossil record, The Ends of the World takes us inside “scenes of the crime,” from South Africa to the New York Palisades, to tell the story of each extinction. Brannen examines the fossil record—which is rife with creatures like dragonflies the size of sea gulls and guillotine-mouthed fish—and introduces us to the researchers on the front lines who, using the forensic tools of modern science, are piecing together what really happened at the crime scenes of the Earth’s biggest whodunits. Part road trip, part history, and part cautionary tale, The Ends of the World takes us on a tour of the ways that our planet has clawed itself back from the grave, and casts our future in a completely new light.
Author : National Academy of Sciences
Publisher : National Academies Press
ISBN 13 : 0309444225
Total Pages : 433 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (94 download)
Download or read book In the Light of Evolution written by National Academy of Sciences and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2017-01-01 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biodiversity-the genetic variety of life-is an exuberant product of the evolutionary past, a vast human-supportive resource (aesthetic, intellectual, and material) of the present, and a rich legacy to cherish and preserve for the future. Two urgent challenges, and opportunities, for 21st-century science are to gain deeper insights into the evolutionary processes that foster biotic diversity, and to translate that understanding into workable solutions for the regional and global crises that biodiversity currently faces. A grasp of evolutionary principles and processes is important in other societal arenas as well, such as education, medicine, sociology, and other applied fields including agriculture, pharmacology, and biotechnology. The ramifications of evolutionary thought also extend into learned realms traditionally reserved for philosophy and religion. The central goal of the In the Light of Evolution (ILE) series is to promote the evolutionary sciences through state-of-the-art colloquia-in the series of Arthur M. Sackler colloquia sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences-and their published proceedings. Each installment explores evolutionary perspectives on a particular biological topic that is scientifically intriguing but also has special relevance to contemporary societal issues or challenges. This tenth and final edition of the In the Light of Evolution series focuses on recent developments in phylogeographic research and their relevance to past accomplishments and future research directions.
Author : Thom Hartmann
Publisher : Waterfront Digital Press
ISBN 13 : 9781629213644
Total Pages : 60 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (136 download)
Download or read book The Last Hours of Humanity written by Thom Hartmann and published by Waterfront Digital Press. This book was released on 2013-11 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humanity, as we know it, is on the verge of extinction. There's a common thread to every single mass extinction in our planet's history. It's global warming. From the Permian Mass Extinction 250 million years ago that killed off 95% of all life on Earth to the K/T mass extinction 65 million years ago that killed off the dinosaurs, all were brought about by a sudden warming of the planet. New research shows that once that warming hits a tipping point of 5-6 degrees Celsius, it triggers a cataclysmic melting of sea ice and the release of noxious methane gasses stored deep in the oceans around the world and below the permafrost in the Arctic, which further accelerates the warming of the planet to temperatures unsuitable to life. This book, The Last Hours of Humanity, goes where far too few researchers have been willing to go, which is addressing global warming not as an economic or political problem, but as a geological problem that threatens the survival of every living thing on the planet, including us humans. By bringing together climate scientists, geologists, and cutting edge research too often left out of the global warming debate, the Last Hours of Humanity exposes the dangerous future of planet Earth, and what we humans have to do right now to save our species.
