The Sixth Extinction Essay: Human Role in Mass Extinctions

This essay explores the critical role of human activities in driving mass extinctions, drawing extensively from Elizabeth Kolbert's 'The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History.' The essay begins with an introduction that highlights the destructive nature of human beings and their impact on the environment, leading to the endangerment of various species and the destruction of their habitats, particularly through deforestation and industrial development. The essay then delves into Kolbert's arguments, emphasizing how human actions, such as the creation of industries, lead to severe environmental consequences, including water acidification, greenhouse gas emissions, and ozone layer depletion. It also discusses the efforts of scientists and environmentalists in preserving biodiversity, while acknowledging the challenges posed by human stubbornness and lack of collaborative action. The essay further examines specific examples like the golden frogs in Panama and coral reefs, illustrating how human activities threaten both land and aquatic species. It concludes by emphasizing the urgent need for humans to reconsider their life-threatening activities to safeguard biodiversity, presenting Kolbert's work as a crucial foundation for this change.

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Cover Letter
The emergence of the human beings in history is marked by both a stunning achievement
and massive destruction. Despite the human beings being the highest species, they are still the
most destructive. They utilize the authority, bravery, and thinking capacity that they have to
make the environments more unbearable for the other creatures. Kolbert in her book The Sixth
Extinction: An Unnatural History covers this subject extensively. She traces the extinction of
some species that had existed millions of years ago.
Human beings' desire to gain more from the environment has led to increased activity on
the initially conserved forests. Most animal and plant species have their habitats in these thick
forests. Clearing the forests for settlement and industrial development endangers the lives of the
species. The creation of more industries has far-reaching consequences which affect the entire
ecosystem. The industrial effects range from acidifying the water masses, releasing excess
greenhouse gases and depleting the ozone layer.
Kolbert is moved by the efforts that the scientists channel towards preserving the
environmental biodiversity. The inspiration makes her believe that the entire humanity will learn
the measures to apply to save the world. Making the right decisions as a society will allow for
harmonious living with the other species. Succinctly, Kolbert successfully manages to convince

the human beings that mass extinction is a reality and results from their activities. This approach
lays a good foundation for the humans to rethink their life-threatening activities that endanger
biodiversity.
Essay Topic 5: The Impact of Human Beings on Mass Extinctions
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History is a non-fictional book published in 2014.
The book authored by Elizabeth Kolbert gives an account and traces the continuing mass
extinction crisis in the contemporary geological epoch. Kolbert, in the book, argues that the only
life-supporting planet is in the midst of an artificial modern humanmade extinction. She gives
chronicles of the earlier witnessed mass extinction incidents and relates them to the ongoing
widespread and accelerated extinctions. She backs up these by offering a description of
individual species that have become extinct as a result of human actions. Essentially, the entire
book is an account that attempts to explain the epigraph at the start from E.O Wilson. As such,
the book is more of a development of the statement rather than a series of disconnected events
attributed to the divisions into different chapters. Human beings in their quest and exhibition of
knowledge have led to disgrace to the other beautiful creation. This nature of the human beings
could be highly blamed for most extinctions including their closest Neanderthal relatives.
Although human activity puts the lives of the entire creation at risk the scientists are tirelessly
playing their role to ensure that the earth does not lose its biodiversity. The efforts of the
scientists are however not adequate owing to the fact that extinction is a social problem that
requires social solutions.
Kolberts in her much educative book on the ecosystems explores the relationship between
the highest creation (human beings) and the environment outside them. This informs her
conclusion that the human activities and behavior are on the verge of causing a mass extinction

(sixth) if they have not caused it already. The massive decline of undeveloped land prompts the
other species to migrate. Some species are even killed in the process of development. Those that
migrate to alternative lands because competition in the inhabited areas and the less adapted
species end up becoming extinct. The excessive developments by human beings are associated
with other calamities such as high temperatures, climate change and the depletion of the ozone
layer. For instance, Kolbert alludes to the golden frogs in Panama. She says that the population
of the species once impossible to avoid has fallen to comprise only of a few dozens. These are
not just endangered species on the verge of extinction as there are numerous that have
disappeared. Kolbert backs this by referring to Cuvier’s claims, “if there were four extinct
species, Cuvier declared there must be others” (Kolbert 18). However, most people hardly
understand these facts.
The human activities do not end on the lands. The species living in water masses such as
oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers also suffer from the human desire to gain more understanding. In
the modern world, the factories and industries ran by human beings find water masses as the
ideal locations to dump their waste. This leads to the accumulation of acid in the water habitats
putting the lives of the inhabiting species in danger. “Ocean acidification increases the cost of
calcification by reducing the number of carbonate ions available to begin with" (Kolbert 114).
Basically, species within the ecosystem are dependent on one another. As thus, the extinction or
endangering of one puts the other at the risk of extinction. In the sea, for instance, animal species
rely on the plant species for food and respiration. “Thousands—perhaps millions—of species
have evolved to rely on coral reefs, either directly for protection or food, or indirectly, to prey
on those species that come seeking protection or food” (Kolbert 129). The fact that the coral
reefs are facing an extinction threat endangers the lives of the dependent species.

Interestingly, humans threaten the lives of their closest relatives, Neanderthals. Despite
sharing in a lot with humans, "the Neanderthals lived in Europe for more than a hundred
thousand years, and during that period they had no more impact on their surroundings than any
other large vertebrate” (Kolbert 302). If the human beings had not risen to existence within the
ecosystem most of the extinct species would still be existing.
Scientists have joined hands together in the bid to stem out mass extinctions. Other
environmentalists have also emerged to save the fading biodiversity. Creating mass awareness is
an ideal foundation for the protection of species from extinction. The conservatives have also
prompted the authorities to establish the appropriate legislations to fight extinctions of non-
human species. Scientists engage in activities such as identifying the endangered species by
calculating the migration rates and tracing the decrease of a particular species in a particular
location. This aids in identifying means to safeguard the species. These efforts are substantial in
saving biodiversity. However, the stubbornness displayed by the human species to work
collaboratively renders preservation a contentious matter.

Reference
Kolbert, Elizabeth. The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. New York: Henry Holt &
Company, 2014. Print.