The Miner's Canary: Unraveling the Mysteries of Extinction - Brossura

Eldredge, Niles

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0691036551 ISBN 13: 9780691036557

Casa editrice: Princeton University Press, 1994

Riassunto

Like the bird whose death signaled dangerous conditions in a mine, the demise of animals that once flourished should give humans pause. How is our fate linked to the earth's creatures, and the cycle of flourishing and extinction? Which are the simple workings of nature's order, and which are omens of ecological disaster? Does human activity accelerate extinction? What really causes it? In an illuminating and elegantly written account of the widespread reduction of the world's wildlife, renowned paleontologist Niles Eldredge poses these questions and examines humankind's role in the larger life cycles of the earth, composing a provocative general theory of extinction.

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Recensione:

"A powerfully impassioned plea for awareness--awareness of what we are doing, of what the consequences will be, and of what we can still do to reduce the biotic holocaust ahead." --BioScience

"It is clear that we are witnessing a mass extinction that is almost entirely the result of human activities. Eldredge is surely right that this is largely the consequence of habitat destruction rather than direct slaughter, but the consequences are nonetheless dire for our own species as well as others." --Nature

Contenuti:

	Geologic Time Chart
	Prologue
Ch. 1	Extinctions Are for Real	1
Ch. 2	Santa Rosalia, or Why Are There So Many Kinds of Living Things?	21
Ch. 3	Biotic Armageddon: Deja Vu Over and Over Again	49
Ch. 4	Patterns and Clues in Paleozoic Mass Extinctions	79
Ch. 5	Extinction, and the Rise and Vicissitudes of Modern Life	99
Ch. 6	Without a Helping Hand: Causes of Mass Extinctions in the Geological Past	131
Ch. 7	The Ice Man Cometh: Climate Change, Human Action, and the Great Pleistocene Extinctions	171
Ch. 8	The Canary's Song: Land Use, Habitat Reduction, and Extinction	209
	Annotated Bibliography and Suggested Readings	231
	Index	237

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Princeton University Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0691036551
• ISBN 13: 9780691036557
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 272