Once thought to parallel evolution as a gradual, largely invisible process, the extinction of plant and animal species, from golden frogs to brown bats to black rhinos, is now hard to miss. In her second book, Kolbert, a New Yorker science writer and author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe, looks at the past, present, and future of biodiversity. Her study of the newly dubbed Anthropocene era takes her to the Great Barrier Reef, the Manú National Park in Peru, the bat caves of New England, and other nominally wild places—all reflecting the deadly effects of climate change and human activities on once abundant native species. Less a sustained argument than a series of red alerts, Kolbert’s book is fascinating for its paleontology, biology, and history; terrifying for its picture of a bio-impoverished future.
