We Are the Asteroid; Man-Made Extinction
Elizabeth Kolbert talks about her new book, “The Sixth Extinction.”
I wrote a book almost 10 years ago on climate change, and I was looking for the next project. And my thought was, “Climate change is a huge story — there can’t be a bigger one.” As I looked for a new book, what I kept bumping into was the reality that climate change was actually part of an even bigger phenomenon: the many ways humans are changing the planet.
It’s not something we’re doing because our species is greedy or evil. It’s happening because humans are human. Many of the qualities that made us successful — we are smart, creative, mobile, cooperative — can be destructive to the natural world.
When we use fossil fuels, we are reversing geological history by taking organisms that were buried millions of years ago and pumping their carbon back into the atmosphere at a very fast rate. If I go to Antarctica, an organism I bring on my shoe could be devastating to a life form that has evolved there without any defense against it.
Humans have sped up the rate by which we change the world, while the rate at which evolution adapts is much slower. There’s a mismatch between what we can do and what nature can sustain
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/science/the-sixth-extinction-looks-at-human-impact-on-the-environment.html?ref=science
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will lead to our self-extinction.
Time to hit up Books Inc when I get home! 
