Item Link: Access the Resource
Date of Publication: October 1, 2014
Year of Publication: 2014
Publication City: Oakland, CA
Publisher: University of California Press
Author(s):
Power, Food, Money and the Future of Life on Earth
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.
“Anthony Barnosky has written an adventure story for our times. The quest: survival of a full suite of Earth’s current species, including Homo sapiens. The outcome: for us to decide. In conversational prose, Barnosky digs deeply into the scientist’s perspective on our dire challenges. His explanations don’t shirk complexity, yet he makes them easy to understand. To each problem, he proposes a doable solution. Read Dodging Extinction for clarity, inspiration, and to see the way forward.”
Mary Ellen Hannibal, author of The Spine of the Continent: The Race to Save America’s Last, Best Wilderness