
The Sixth Extinction
An Unnatural History
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Narrated by:
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Anne Twomey
About this listen
A major audiobook 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.
©2013 Elizabeth Kolbert (P)2013 Simon & SchusterListeners also enjoyed...
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I loved this book
- By Ruth on 06-22-07
By: Frans de Waal
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The Uninhabitable Earth
- Life After Warming
- By: David Wallace-Wells
- Narrated by: David Wallace-Wells
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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An "epoch-defining book" (The Guardian) and "this generation’s Silent Spring" (The Washington Post), The Uninhabitable Earth is both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it - the ways that warming promises to transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism and the trajectory of human progress. The Uninhabitable Earth is also an impassioned call to action.
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Don’t read if you have depressive tendencies.
- By Ricky on 03-17-19
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The Galápagos
- A Natural History
- By: Henry Nicholls
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The Galapagos were once known to the sailors and pirates who encountered them as Las Encantadas: the enchanted islands, home to exotic creatures and dramatic volcanic scenery. In The Galapagos, science writer Henry Nicholls offers a lively natural and human history of the archipelago, charting its evolution from deserted wilderness to scientific resource (made famous by Charles Darwin) and global ecotourism hot spot.
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Thought-Provoking
- By Jean on 10-23-18
By: Henry Nicholls
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Age of Ambition
- Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China
- By: Evan Osnos
- Narrated by: Evan Osnos, George Backman
- Length: 16 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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As the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker, Evan Osnos was on the ground in China for years, witness to profound political, economic, and cultural upheaval. In Age of Ambition, he describes the greatest collision taking place in that country: the clash between the rise of the individual and the Communist Party’s struggle to retain control.
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Come back when you have a warrant!
- By Neuron on 11-06-15
By: Evan Osnos
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Half-Earth
- Our Planet's Fight for Life
- By: Edward O. Wilson
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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History is not a prerogative of the human species, Edward O. Wilson declares in Half-Earth, a brave work that becomes a radical redefinition of human history. Demonstrating that we blindly ignore the histories of millions of other species, Wilson warns of a point of no return that is imminent.
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Important book, but..
- By Rasmus on 09-02-18
By: Edward O. Wilson
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The New Climate War
- The Fight to Take Back Our Planet
- By: Michael E. Mann
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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A renowned climate scientist shows how fossil fuel companies have waged a thirty-year campaign to deflect blame and responsibility and delay action on climate change, and offers a battle plan for how we can save the planet.
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A good overview of the status of Climate Politics
- By Kathleen M. Lee on 02-15-21
By: Michael E. Mann
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Salt On Your Tongue
- Women and the Sea
- By: Charlotte Runcie
- Narrated by: Jessica Hardwick
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Charlotte Runcie has always felt pulled to the sea, lured by its soothing, calming qualities but also enlivened and inspired by its salty wildness. When she loses her beloved grandmother and becomes pregnant with her first child, she feels its pull even more intensely. In Salt on Your Tongue Charlotte explores what the sea means to us and particularly what it has meant to women through the ages.
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More of a story of a birth than the sea
- By Judith on 01-19-25
By: Charlotte Runcie
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The Heat Will Kill You First
- Life and Death on a Scorched Planet
- By: Jeff Goodell
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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The world is waking up to a new reality: wildfires are now seasonal in California, the Northeast is getting less and less snow each winter, and the ice sheets in the Arctic and Antarctica are melting fast. Heat is the first order threat that drives all other impacts of the climate crisis. And as the temperature rises, it is revealing fault lines in our governments, our politics, our economy, and our values. The basic science is not complicated: Stop burning fossil fuels tomorrow, and the global temperature will stop rising tomorrow.
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Eminently Skipable for Climate Science Believers
- By Chad on 07-15-23
By: Jeff Goodell
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A Life on Our Planet
- My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future
- By: Sir David Attenborough, Jonnie Hughes
- Narrated by: Sir David Attenborough
- Length: 6 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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In this scientifically informed account of the changes occurring in the world over the last century, award-winning broadcaster and natural historian Sir David Attenborough shares a lifetime of wisdom and a hopeful vision for the future.
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Engaging, powerful, hopeful, visionary.
- By K. Stark on 10-15-20
By: Sir David Attenborough, and others
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This Changes Everything
- Capitalism vs. the Climate
- By: Naomi Klein
- Narrated by: Ellen Archer
- Length: 20 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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In This Changes Everything Naomi Klein argues that climate change isn’t just another issue to be neatly filed between taxes and health care. It’s an alarm that calls us to fix an economic system that is already failing us in many ways. Klein meticulously builds the case for how massively reducing our greenhouse emissions is our best chance to simultaneously reduce gaping inequalities, re-imagine our broken democracies, and rebuild our gutted local economies.
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Didactic and preachy... and I agree with her
- By plau on 09-25-16
By: Naomi Klein
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The Water Will Come
- Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World
- By: Jeff Goodell
- Narrated by: Ian Ferguson
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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What if Atlantis wasn't a myth but an early precursor to a new age of great flooding? Across the globe, scientists and civilians alike are noticing rapidly rising sea levels and higher and higher tides pushing more water directly into the places we live, from our most vibrant, historic cities to our last remaining traditional coastal villages. With each crack in the great ice sheets of the Arctic and Antarctica and each tick upward of Earth's thermometer, we are moving closer to the brink of broad disaster.
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Well-intentioned but amateurish
- By R. P. on 10-10-19
By: Jeff Goodell
What listeners say about The Sixth Extinction
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- Erik
- 12-13-15
Very educational, but not very uplifting
I really enjoyed the educational aspect of this book, and it gives you a lot to think upon. Unfortunately the outcome is pretty depressing, but hey, this is a book about extinction after all.
I've read the other reviews that bashed the narrator, but I found she did a fine job. Maybe not the best for an entertainment book, but good enough for science based book.
Give this one a listen if you have any curiosity as to the impact of the human race on the planet, but prepare to be unhappy as to the final judgement.
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- Demi
- 10-13-15
Inspiring
Something perhaps everyone should listen to. It discusses at length, what it means to be humans and what responsibilities we should take as we are dominating the world.
The performance was good but perhaps the selection of of performer was not the most ideal.
Still very good
Definitely recommend
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- Kimberly
- 01-19-16
Fascinating
I grew up with biology, so I was surprised and delighted by how much I learned from this book. The writing is clear, and sprinkled with humor. The science and history are intriguing. The conclusion is frightening, but not entirely without hope. This is a truly rewarding read.
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- Diana
- 06-25-21
Favorite audiobook so far!!
This book is amazing! It contains a lot different disciplines like history, anthropology, biology, geology among others. It is very well written and so easy to understand. I learned a lot of new information about different things of our history, evolution and the destruction of our planet. I have a different perspective about how species are disappearing and our involvement in this destruction. Highly recommended !! Very entertaining !!
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- Adam Mitchell
- 06-18-21
Eye opening
Fantastic read! I bought the rest of her books after I finished The Sixth Extinction. Kolbert, is not even remotely preachy. She lets the reader come to their own conclusions, I found that to be incredibly satisfying.
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- Margaret D. Holland
- 10-01-18
Warning information you are about to receive is Shocking
A fantastic journey down the road of extinction which is vitally important for all to hear in order to be aware of the small effects that cummulatively grow into large damaging occurances we humans are accountable for.
Be afraid, in order to be Alive. Read/Hear this amazingly well written story.
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- A Lin
- 08-08-15
Super interesting explanation of how we are changing our planet
Great narration, well written, Kolbert takes you to visit leading scientists and to the front lines of how we are changing our climate, oceans, and the life that depend on them.
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- xdivison
- 02-21-17
Very eye opening
Story flows clearly. This should be part of summer reading for kids going to high-school
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- chetyarbrough.blog
- 12-14-15
CAPACITY TO CHANGE
Homo sapiens are the only specie that has the capacity to change events to conform to plan. Elizabeth Kolbert argues that the fate of life on earth is subject to nature and human volition; i.e. the randomness of nature’s cataclysmic events and the will of society. “The Sixth Extinction” recounts the history of five worldwide extinctions. In recounting that history, Kolbert and most scientists suggest there is a pending “…Sixth Extinction”. The difference between the first five and a presumed sixth is the birth and maturity of humankind.
To some listeners, this story is tiresome. It is considered tiresome because the future seems far away. Species have become extinct ever since science began to understand evolution. The story of extinction offers no sense of urgency. Numerous futurists dwell on the extinction of wildlife that is either part of the natural order of existence, a cataclysm of human-caused origin, or part of “God’s” plan. Some believe science will provide an escape hatch for human beings to avoid extinction. History and Kolbert’s book suggest a “…Sixth Extinction” is inevitable, regardless of one’s belief.
One may argue this is the fault of human civilization but that is wasted intellectualization. The advance of civilization naturally induces loss of biodiversity. Part of Kolbert’s theme suggests interconnectedness is the proximate cause of loss of biodiversity but it does not have to be the cause for a “…Sixth Extinction”.
Kolbert’s argument reminds one of the Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
“The Sixth Extinction” notes that human beings are the only species that shows the capacity to change events to conform to plan. What the world’s people need is the political will to mitigate the causes of human environmental pollution. It is not that “The Sixth Extinction” will not occur but that human beings need not be the proximate cause.
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- Kathryn L. Mullaney
- 07-18-17
Interesting and informative
Lots of specifics but the big picture too. I think everyone interested in our wide world should read this book.
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