Species extinction

The book highlights our planet’s ingress to the Sixth Mass Extinction—a period conceptualized as the Anthropocene.

The rapidly increasing human pressure on the biosphere is pushing biodiversity into the sixth mass extinction event in the history of life on Earth. The organisms being exterminated are integral working parts of our planet’s life support system, and their loss is permanent. Like climate change, this irreversible loss has potentially devastating consequences for humanity.

L'espèce humaine disparaîtra dans 255 heures. Les pires prédictions climatiques se sont réalisées, le Grand Effondrement a eu lieu et presque toutes les espèces animales se sont éteintes. Les Derniers Humains se sont réfugiés dans les Dernières Terres : un archipel rocailleux surgi des glaces, où ils survivent dans des cités-royaumes éparses.

As the need increases for sound estimates of impending rates of animal and plant species extinction, scientists must have a firm grounding in the qualitative and quantitative methods required to make the best possible predictions. Extinction Rates offers the most wide-ranging and practical introduction to those methods available.

This book revisits many of the places and species covered in the "Planet Earth" television series on BBc and, through the thoughts and opinions of more than 40 international experts and leaders, reveals what the future is likely to hold for them and, ultimately, for mankind.

How much do we really know about the species that make up the natural world? In this fascinating book Ken Thompson explains what we do and don t understand about biodiversity. We know that most species remain undiscovered, and that biodiversity is gravely threatened by overfishing, habitat loss, pollution and climate change. Life on Earth has previously experienced five episodes of mass extinction, and we are now in the middle of a sixth. Do We Need Pandas?