Tag Archive for: mass extinction

The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions | Peter Brannen

The Ends of the World - Peter Brannen

When we talk about ‘saving the planet,’ we forget that the planet is perfectly capable of saving itself. In the last half billion years there have been five major Earth catastrophes resulting in mass extinction – most as a result of changing climate, and some even caused by the lifeforms they extinguished. But each time, life has bounced back, often more glorious and incredible than before.

Journalist Peter Brannen takes us on a wild ride through these mass extinctions and in the process, offers us a glimpse of our increasingly dangerous future. There are many analogs with present-day climate shifts and Brannen introduces us to the researchers on the front lines who are piecing together what really happened.

Part road trip, part history, and part cautionary tale, The Ends of the World takes a deep-time tour of the ways that our planet has clawed itself back from the grave, and casts our future in a completely new light. A fascinating and compelling read.

– Sandy Winterbottom

The European Eel | Steve Ely

‘These eels were born in a continent of ocean
​and their parents carried into that vastness
​on mindless, reliable, pot-luck currents
​from Iceland, Belgium, Tunisia, Spain.’

​The European Eel is a long poem that imagines the life cycle, ecological contexts and ​enigma of the charismatic and critically endangered fish of the poem’s title. Based on Ely’s in-depth engagement with the scientific literature, discussions with leading eel researchers and conservationists, and hands-on experience with the eel in river systems across the country and abroad, ​The European Eel is unique not only in its sustained birth-to-death focus on the eel, but in the vivid way the eel’s riverine and marine habitats are evoked and articulated—and in its portrayal of the daunting array of anthropogenic threats that are currently threatening this once common species with extinction. Although a poem first and foremost—an Expressionistic epic monology that transforms its natural history into a quasi-gnostic affirmation of the persistence of life in the context of the Anthropocene and the Sixth Extinction—the poem’s rootedness in research enables it to transcend its status as art to function as a credible piece of informed nature writing capable of shaping ecological debate. Seventeen pages of illustrations by the award-winning artist P.R. Ruby complement and interpret the text, and detailed notes provide context that further opens up the astonishing world of the European eel.

‘Steve’s research of the eel’s complex life history is reflected in this incredible long-form poem – anything shorter would not have done this fish justice.’  ~ Dr Matthew Gollock, Marine and Freshwater Senior Programme Manager, Zoological Society of London.

Source: London Review of Books