KEXP Presents Mind Over Matters; Sustainability Segment: Elizabeth Kolbert

this is diane warren your host on the sustainability segment of mind over matters on k x p seattle ninety point three a fan and on the web add k e x p data or ge my guest this morning is elizabeth kolbert a staff writer at the new yorker and author of the book field notes from a catastrophe man nature and climate change elizabeth kolbert is here today to tell us about her most recent book the sixth extinction an unnatural history published in two thousand and fourteen welcome elizabeth what led you to write your book the sixth extinction it really started when their previous work with as you mentioned with a book about climate change and i started reading out that a decade ago and quite interesting story i guess my income level thought there couldn't be a bigger story and i went looking for another iranian another politically and men and they were alive during reporting on i came to lift rather

than being the real invasion that climate change is really only part of an even bigger story that bigger story and all the way that people are changing the planet on what really amounts to an ideological gail though the changes will be prominently enshrined in history and he had a unifying theme of all these changes that they couldn't in a way became a prominent factor in on an event can adapt and evolve a lot of them drop out that we've learned from the fossil record vote that became my new book one concept of extinction what is a history it had a really interesting history and to appreciate how everything you do you have to go back if there's fifty two the league seventeen hundred when there was no confidence in draft of that if it's around now more

than it had been around forever and they were going to be around forever and that was the creator had put it there and you know why would you create something that when i'm going to hang around a note or prevailing thought at the end of the eighteenth century when a client privilege an apparent inaction and george could make him along and in that when you were starting to get out their ancient fossil from around the world that the europeans went around the world and the new plunder and colonized it and there are a lot in paris a lot of mastodon bone looked at and said well if we then we were out there we would have seen them by now and he just made it to the fundamentals and then finding them up because they're not out there with a pretty simple move that you are the first to really make it and he went a fourth or partly whole lost world he defended of the whole world that had been logged and he actually succeeded in really proving that june he had correspondents all over europe who fends him pictures of their lawful and he named

a lot of the animals that we know to be a thoughtful and water the power back to a game it on a picture that an integral part of that have been found in june when people what is the background extinction right that very at home for one class of organization other people have done a lot of work on that what you have to do to try to calculate that neither rough calculation of go through this huge database a fossil but for now more than a moral laughter and geological path it's been calculated that and now morsi don't think that they very rough very rough count them once every seven hundred years if there was a mass extinction of giant extinction rates look like the way we're going after consuming africans are infected line of condiments insulated by a very dramatically in right

now you're free estimate that if you can repel hundreds of times perhaps thousands of time to perhaps candid about the tone of the background rate an incumbent now know it could take that noble we're now and now more thing on the order of what they want which is an overview of the great extinctions that have taken place in the past well there have been five letter code need dramatic things and here's a little bit of an oxymoron a cover of a minor mass extinction the five major one of the big flaw in the first the va had prayed about one in fifteen million at the end of it wouldn't be sort of the hungarian what's interesting about that is that most of life at that point with aquatic you didn't find anything on land very first poem for khan iv in one remote everything that timothy at that

point and forgive it eighty percent of all marine the issue died out at that moment and in the worst of all mexicans in the third hole of the difficulty in permian extinction happened that turned fifty minute you're an ungainly ninety percent of our feature of an opponent rideout and the number three five was incomplete of extinction which occurred about fifty fifth minute ago that is from lloyd everyone i think consumer wiped out the dinosaurs and there's a pretty broad scientific consensus that point that was caused by an asteroid impact are you often hear scientists now that we are at the beginning our candidate that we were on a party that they think the future of people they and i have the kinds of things we are the afghan people you mentioned the asteroid that was a cause of one of the major extinctions in the past what were the causes for the other extinctions

very very hard one dimension or the mission which is you know a long time ago i have to say that you have to give the film really and detective work of a caucasian in a four hundred and fifty nine year old coach k fail to do the kind of detective work and if i looked at that and really complicated right now i think the prevailing theory for that is that i've covered by a very thin only he and a cold snap that occurred at that point that's the theory for about one third one of the mother of all that very very that it was caused by matthew the volcanic activity held for a cute approachable candidate committee and got a very sobering thought because of that that they would believe now that amount of fee or two and we are now leaving that's not been fitted for their peril there are frightening i'm diane warren and my guest is a thousand foot kolbert author of the book the sixth

extinction an unnatural history and you're tuned to the sustainability segment of mind over matter isn't most empowered k x p ninety three of them and on the web the caveats he died orgy you've referred to this a dead already but what is the evidence that a six great extinction is currently taking place and a very level is that we shouldn't he interviewed a lot of them how much of that and i mean on the one of the seven hundred years and for other groups have one advantage and even less frequent believed to be anything and quickly human lifetime for all intent and could not be able to stay in oregon and when to not be able to see that maliki earth and all the time i fell from finland that are now extinct and any confident about that out in the field of watching species good thing philip if that happened you know if something quite extraordinary going on now that the riots you know to the level of the

anchorage he thinks germany advantage of very very trivial compared to that but if you look at the number and proportion of extinction that we know about that are endangered people have done very careful how fattening food very good have been threatened and endangered them critically endangered and they'd actually tried to compare that to what we think might have happened during the map the path and they've concluded that what happened had the potential to be on the order of the tension continues a certain as to why is it didn't impose that our current era of the call the until the scene a lot of different way of thinking in that cats they end up if it's in the name that you've given that people were proposed that we've entered a new geological are chemically live in the hall of fame which is kind of the end of the last week he's in tobacco

bill and there are a lot of different ways to put the poem begins with a well in a new geological time period and one geologist forget that with a really technical question if they ok what did the producer of what we've done to plan everything that we think of the really important part at the home the literature music all that really gone with the left of the mark are you in the earth that if you were a geologist a hundred million years from now you could come back and faith something happened here and what they look at are things like for example carbon emission well and the other fossil fuel available and in addition to a printer and the air now leave behind a marker very different a marker the way that we've transformed for example the bottom of the few we crawl across the bottom of the food that we had to think of more are you willing to see that you know potentially quite a long time now how we've changed the bond fee the pollen record would change the ticket for turning into a

monoculture phones behind a very different ponder upon it incredibly durable it will still be around nine division of history for the guardian spirit have really very indian chemical markers that would dr jack mccallum if they have we entered know new country won't leave behind walker's know david before ever and part of that i think that will be the new creatures when they think that they will look like i'm in the moment and why is the rate of change an environment that humans are causing a particular problem we'd really get the heart of the issue because the league convention in the normal course of things happening like to fail roughly the family and extinction roughly down thing out and the diversity of the world will remain roughly constant issue

that the rate of extinction and obviously every kilogram drop an interim that what we're doing in terms of changing the world very quickly we're changing a lot can evolve and adapt to the change that now that the afghan war right now feel really true that to be very very significant you know there have been to both a world climate change in the past for example and that's absolutely true but it depended on the geological time to take a really long time for the famed for the changes that we are projecting now in a matter of a decade in the country indeed in the path eight hundred thousand million years they'll really very dependent on an issue that you have to migrate it will evolve to try to keep up with that what is known about the ability of theses to move geographically to adapt to climate change where does the research you speak about your book show yao only mcgregor the andes and the guy

watching how true a moving up flow in the hind and no obviously true can't move but they can and that fee that will feed them fell and now there's even though they hired her elevation can watch be configured it what elevation now we can find them higher and higher on the mound and that thirty and others like it have shown very differently with a lot of these trees like metaphorically waking up a mountain and from a larger thinner and what we can infer from that is that the forthcoming either didn't vote or radically different way different from what they were you know twenty years ago and they're going to keep changing and how all the analytic and depend on the difference between how they're going to drive to help that they can have a question that only hard to answer that you have to have very very than thirty people are kind of but we don't really have we

just think about the disappearance of amphibians that is currently going on beyond that had caught in indian cricket and then emptied into the cove in the endangered class family and outgoing now something like forty percent of on our foot five endangered that we know that you know that we have enough information about him and one of the big factors in the dark has been a phone or beneath that somehow but around the world can agree by people moving things around the world but no known exactly how very good it can travel along in the water so i went to a place in panama for example central panama which used to have a lot of religion and have to be beautiful fraud including banquo the panamanian golden frog the taxi they have yellow on the very lovely if at all over

people with how you'd go in depth on that they want to scream and then they found it came through and people want to come through and it just wiped out everything and now that far pan loan fund for example and the clinton while there's talk on the new budget fix what thoughts about why the funguses reading now as opposed to some point in the past or the theory and it had to have a lot of very complicated genetic people look at the phone with them they're kind of trace it back to thumb through your foundation is there and they had trouble doing that but the theory at that point in a pretty weakened path of people moved amphibian go round and one candidate that often mentioned in this struggle of the african clawed frog twitch they rejected it vernon pregnant have fallen

way before we had to get it going to be to have that you could go to the drugstore and buy obstetricians would keep and people at the end of a long narrative in front of her office in and they were moved all around the world from africa and one theory of the day to perform it around the world but no one insurer that overall how large it that are invasive species to biodiversity and how are humans causing the spread of these well and there had to be a really really serious threat and they're implicated in many of the noun that have occurred to the end if you include in that interview pathogens really that followed and given the number of people when you think about it it's really really hard and they're pre human narrated very very hard for a landlord in the end to cross the ocean and it's very very hard from where you're given to get from one ocean to another but what

we do jeannie everything that gave move hundred thousand and when you bring together these evolutionary lineages that advocates a long time very weird things can happen for example that have not liked that really wiped out that have country americans have that which are the dominant tree in the part of the world that i live in and over a quarter of a complicated because it has not wiped out that once again brought treatment for may have a caribbean that would have that the country couldn't fill in the vacuum ample of just very very fat way that i'm introduced to invade the way that he lived mainly town alone could bring creditors and on beaches tend to not have very many predators they had the behaviors to defend and felt it fit for them from any island would have been wiped out that way between that and talk to them in the live good on and on

you are attuned to the sustainability segment of mind over matter some k x p seattle nine point your phone and on the web add k x p dot org et i'm diane warren and my guest is elizabeth kolbert author of the book the sixth extinction an unnatural history you also spent time in your book talking about the effect of carbon dioxide on the oceans and the effect on biodiversity that comes from that would you say a few words on that topic often called global warming's equally evil plan reflect the fact that a lot of medical not that they were putting into the air is being absorbed by the ocean see an actual exchange of data between the atmosphere and the ocean for whatever we put up there about a third of it is pretty quickly ending up in the ocean and when he had to be involved in water if one thing after the week after that with an african american air and you change the chemistry of the ocean floor do not very well documented very clear and

baking a marine chemistry note it changes a lot of african marine life in a particularly if you've made quite difficult for creature that built shelves or incompetent for that a lot of creature that we recognize that point through the marshal of the court called the common core and one of the really interesting thing i did for the book and i went to a part of the day people that have been here two coming up actually out of them bottom of the three fifth of the volcanic vent and for creating this film actually vilified water and find have you gone out of the way to look into the future if we continue to pump it into the air and fill affectively into the ocean then the ocean is going to eventually reach the famed be a big part of the bay of naples then when go there in may and i did you can be that away

from japan nearly the a lot of corey a lot of lyric in the a lot of barnacles a lot of critters with health and then when you get out of an irritant than a very very little and to live there that's a way of trying to look at what the impact of what we're doing are and that i found very very dramatic to what extent have humans caused extinction historically before the present day well the evidence you have to figure that we've been at this project actually quite a while when are very gifted and characters got to australia when they got in north america are running at help america people in finland with people arriving within the next year and a lot of the large animal different here and there's definitely do debate for quite a long time people will live the corner we're going although that day and there's definitely been a wide advocate for an increasingly pretty clear today

with people people probably mostly hunting but perhaps felt a change in the landscape in their lives and that they're large and fully pretty panel couldn't keep up and not why we don't have that and other content and while we don't have them after a lot of wattage began with big cat giant lofty head on it that were north america before people got here some of the birds to extinction well there is a massive effort to prevent expansion and i guess you could say they come into a variety of them one of the real ideas the heat the heat will have endangered species actually ramped one race can apply on the verge of extinction them go in a lot of protection to kick in about one american really lonely effort to try to be a feature of the american convoy of sample of the multi multi million dollar project to try figure

for the larger plan for the north america of which there were only twenty two left at one point now vaca in a very very fast so that one foot an effort to protect the he even then there are broader effort to preserve the track of habitat and hope hope that the heat in their will do ok he a lot of and obviously on some level all of the national park the national world fell for the team get that the effort that people making tried active often what do you hope your book will accomplish family home my book will change the way people look at the world i get that mnemonic hope that i get that that people go to put things together and understand how we are changing world and how what were doing even if i do think that we can

be really really only really turned out to be for example even driving our kids to go home that turned out to be a really unusual thing to happen trump at the whole history of the flu a lot of tonkin gulf a minute the history of science have tended to crumble people building efforts we had to deal with that that the fundamental long run the earth ie are affected and withdrawing that we are really just another speech he'd make any other species that defended from ancient forbearance and thought about them for eternity people know play which apparently trial but i think what i would like people to realize that say that people are trying out to be extraordinary mr extraordinary in a way that we can really dominate the permanent financially under control i think we're not quite sure drilling and that we really need to get up to that and take responsibility for that

why he thinks humans have survived but not neanderthals are other human rights feces and i am sure they're quite financial blog below the group weren't there and that i think that a lot of the quality of the turnout me keenan both have for the fact that were very smart and were capable of forming very very sophisticated social groups that we have knowledge on the theme the aid and technical knowledge can argue that have grown in quantitative in half down from generation to generation they've given advantages of worry you know all of our competitors and the neanderthals were one of our competitors and literally you told them off default who are we have very very good job in that we turn out to have had record before we kill them off the field by genetic now

in the book and so many of the launch of the iphone really all people who are not offended rapper can carry a little bit of neanderthal genome what's the message you'd like to leave our listeners i guess i'd like people live that live in extraordinary moment in time in which we really are fighting without meaning to what can happen to pretty much everything out from upon an end but i think people in the conduct that pretty clear what in some intriguing hear listener bo and for having me you were just listening to elizabeth kolbert author of the book the sixth extinction an unnatural history published in two thousand and fourteen by henry holt and company for more information check on the web as elizabeth kolbert dot com again that's elizabeth taylor well the arty dot com the sustainability segment of mind over matters program you've just heard me on the

streaming archives section of caveats these website at atx to eat out or g for the next fourteen days and edition sustainability sigmund interviews are available as podcasts along with caveats these music podcasts go to k x p dowd orgy click on demand and then podcasting i'm diane warren thanks for listening and be sure to tune into the sustainability segment again next week and listener current ninety point three of them and k e x p double archie