Books
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert (Won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction in 2015) 336 pps.
New York Times Book Review: one of the 10 best books of the year, NY Times bestseller
National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, Los Angeles Times Book Prize Winner, 2014
Amazon blurb: Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. This time around, the cataclysm is us.
In The Sixth Extinction, two-time winner of the National Magazine Award and New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef.
Books
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert
She introduces us to a dozen species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamanian golden frog, staghorn coral, the great auk, and the Sumatran rhino. A major book about the future of the world, blending intellectual and natural history and field reporting into a powerful account of the mass extinction unfolding before our eyes. Through these stories, Kolbert provides a moving account of the disappearances occurring all around us and traces the evolution of extinction as concept, from its first articulation by Georges Cuvier in revolutionary Paris up through the present day.
The sixth extinction is likely to be mankind's most lasting legacy; as Kolbert observes, it compels us to rethink the fundamental question of what it means to be human.
My Note: this is not dry science; she's a story teller with fascinating information and personal insight into the story of plants and animals, the evolution of the idea of extinction (relatively recent), of paradigm shifts, Darwin, the asteroid responsible for the demise of dinosaurs, the discovery of the American mastodon, all in individual chapters easy to read one by one.
Books
Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane (384 pps.)
Amazon blurb: From the best-selling author of Underland and "the great nature writer…of this generation" (Wall Street Journal), a revelatory book that transforms how we imagine rivers—and life itself.
Hailed in the New York Times as “a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler,” Robert Macfarlane brings his glittering style to a profound work of travel writing, reportage, and natural history.
Is a River Alive? is a joyful, mind-expanding exploration of an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law.
Books
Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane (384 pps.)
Macfarlane takes readers on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people, stories, and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada—imperiled respectively by mining, pollution, and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane’s house, a stream who flows through his own years and days. Powered by dazzling prose and lit throughout by other minds and voices, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, challenge perspectives, and remind us that our fate flows with that of rivers—and always has.
My Note: again, not dry science but storytelling. This book is, more or less, a follow-up to the historical fiction, There are Rivers in the Sky, that we read at the end of spring term. And rivers are one of the critical elements in Climate Change.
Videos
Dolphin swims to diver to ask for help
https://www.facebook.com/thedodosite/videos/dolphin-swims-up-to-diver-to-ask-for-help/1091735387627802/
Octopus eats crabs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abRPaXgJGQg
Conger: Planet Earth III, Conger the humpback whale
https://mersociety.wordpress.com/tag/planet-earth-iii/#:~:text=Can%20you%20imagine%20what%20our,Conger's%20catalogue%20designation%20is%20BCY0728).Mpre bi;;
Conger
That moment when David Attenborough said “Conger” was the culmination of so many years where we have worked to increase understanding of the whales as individuals. Who they are – their life histories, feeding strategies, habitat use, relationships, and how they are impacted by threats such as collision and entanglement. In our education efforts, we speak about who the whales are, using their nicknames, to create connection and care about them as individuals. Conger is nicknamed for an eel-like marking on the underside of his tail; a shape like Conger Eel.
The main conservation message of the Planet Earth III segment featuring the Humpbacks we study was about the importance of individual whales – that every large whale helps life on Earth by sequestering approximately 33 tons of carbon from the atmosphere (the equivalent of 30,000 trees).
Conger (MERS—Marine Research & Education)
But . . . why Conger?
Why, of all the Humpback Whales from whom we have learned and who were filmed by the BBC, was Conger the lead ambassador? Many other whales also return to the area near northeastern Vancouver Island to feed and we would also be able to anticipate and interpret their behavior for the film crew.
It’s because Conger was the first whale we ever saw trap-feeding. This feeding behavior had never been seen anywhere else in the world with any other Humpback before we documented it in 2011 with Conger. This is what initially drew the attention of the BBC. We published on trap-feeding and continue to document which whales learn this behavior.
Conger (MERS—Marine Research & Education)
So it was Conger we most often focused on (literally) with the film crew. filming him using this new feeding strategy. It was important to get footage of him trap-feeding and lunge-feeding.
But, very unexpectedly, it became extremely challenging to film Humpbacks feeding near the surface in September 2021, NOT because of Conger. Rather, there was an “intrusion” of a species of bird that changed things. Short-tailed Shearwaters came into the area in the thousands. Commonly, they are in huge numbers further to the north. But this had never been documented before around northeast Vancouver Island.
How did they change the dynamics of Humpback feeding? The diving bird species that are usually in the area, namely Common Murres and Rhinoceros Auklets, corral juvenile Herring near the surface into a big ball. Gulls also try to snatch the Herring being pushed to the surface by these diving birds. Humpbacks target these “Herring balls” – engulfing the ball when they lunge-feed. Or, if the Herring are in a less concentrated aggregation, the whales might trap-feed.
Conger (MERS—Marine Research & Education)
However, the Shearwaters “bomb” the juvenile Herring at the surface, splitting up the ball and driving the Herring deeper. Thereby, there was far less feeding at the surface by Humpbacks.
Text stops here, so my summary of the film:
After Conger, and other whales imitating him, trap-feed, they poop, and it's very iron-rich, actually rust-colored. This feeds the plankton, who feed the herring, that birds and whales devour.
Origins of this course
It all started in 2017 with my first course on the mystery novel because the Atlantic magazine published an article that said women had taken over the mystery/crime novel genre. That in itself was a momentous event because women have never before had command of any facet of book publishing. For centuries, they have had to write under male pseudonyms just to get published. So I asked myself, if women have taken control of the mystery genre, what did they do with it.
They did borrow and combine elements of the hard-boiled detective, (Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler), as well as the cozy mystery, (Agatha Christie), but from the first they began to develop the modern women's mystery novel, primarily adding social commentary or themes.
P. D. James had done a little in that direction, but with Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky the inclusion was more overt. Their female detectives took on crimes that the legal system would not, or could not, address. And they worked with clients from underrepresented communities, other women specifically, and secured some form of justice, if not legal culpability, for their clients.
Origins of this course
Sara Paretsky was the most overt of these authors, setting all of her V. I. Warshawski novels in crime-ridden Chicago, controlled by the rich and politically powerful where the average man had no chance of bringing the culprit to justice. But her detective could wrest some justice for the damage done.
Their novels shone a light on crime and punishment from the blue-collar, working class perspective, and from the women's perspective. These women writers presented an alternative perspective—a messier, more complicated world where justice was more gray than black and white.
Origins of this course
In Agatha Christie's novels, crime was an aberration, a breach in the well organized social order, an offense against the hierarchical structure of its class system. And at the end of all her novels, the crime was solved, the structure repaired, and "all's right with the world."
In American hard-boiled detective novels, the world was a seedy place, inherently corrupt and immoral, its characters motivated exclusively by greed and violence and personal vengeance. Their detectives were able to right a wrong, this time, for this one individual, but the pattern would continue. They were the lone outliers, the heroe's, of this dark, violent, corrupt world.
All had different visions of the world order. Modern women authors provided a more middle of the road, everyday justice in a world populated by ordinary people, good and bad, and flawed, plagued by social issues that tormented the people just trying to live their lives.
Origins of this course
Martha Grimes took this idea of perspective to another level, publishing a couple of series novels written from yet other perspectives, that of a 12 year old girl, and that of a young woman who has lost her memory.
In Margaret Maron's novels, the social issues dominate; set in the "old South" culture of North Carolina, she grapples with the issues brought on by that area's transition from an agricultural economy to high tech industry, and the problems that generated in a culture firmly rooted, still, in the subjugation of both blacks and women.
Origins of this course
In short, and in summary, women authors provided an alternative perspective on the world they wrote about. That became blatantly obvious as I began to include some historical novels written by women. And my premise here was a statement from Ray Callahan, well known UD history professor, that men writing about historical events focused on the heroes, the winners, in those contests. Contributions from women were ignored, forgotten, overlooked, shoved in the closet.
But women resurrected those histories, most notably Kristin Hannah, with The Nightingale, the story of two French women during Germany's occupation of France in WWII. (P.S. over 370 K 5=star ratings, #1 bestseller in world historical fiction, being made into a movie—she continued with The Four Winds—Depression era, over 180K 5-star ratings, The Women, Vietnam era, over 293K 5-star ratings). Others in this group include Kate Quinn, The Rose Code (Bletchley Park, the enigma code), The Alice Network (WWII), Marie Benedict, The Personal Librarian, Belle de Costa Greene, The Only Woman in the Room, Hedy Lamarr.
Origins of this course
One of the most notable examples of an historical novel is Kate Grenville's The Secret River, which tells the story of the early settlement of Australia by British colonists and convicts. It set off the "history wars," the debate about truthful, factual, accurate accounts of historical events based on primary documents.
The problem was that this book told the story of early Australian settlement that some countrymen didn't like because it revealed that colonists and convicts alike stole the land belonging to the native aborigines, enslaved them, and massacred them to get control of the land. Critics charged that she had written fiction, defenders pointed out that the battles and conflicts described were verified by documents in the Australian government archives. In other words, she provided a truthful but unpopular perspective on the settling of that country.
Origins of this course
During these courses, I also started to incorporate literary novels, not just books from the various genres, but other books written by women. Geraldine Brooks' novel Horse did something similar to Grenville's. She wrote about the late 19th century race horse Lexington, whose skeleton was on display for years at the Smithsonian. And in that story of this racehorse she also described the love and loyalty of Black trainers, riders and groomsmen who managed these stables, stories that had been buried or ignored in previous accounts.
Their stories, and the skeleton now reside as the Musuem of the Horse in Lexington, Kentucky.
Origins of this course
I also included books about animals, selecting the incredibly popular Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby van Pelt, about the giant Pacific octopus Marcellus who solves the mystery of her son's death for aquarium cleaner Tova. And as part of my research, I studied octopuses, indeed remarkably bright creatures, although the title is actually a quote from Marcellus who finds humans remarkably bright. And there were other forays into novels with "animal planet" themes—like Richard Powers book about trees, called The Overstory, which describes a forest of trees as a community that communicates with one another through their vast root systems. And then most recently, we read There are Rivers in the Sky, and there are indeed rivers in the sky—air flows or climate rivers, as well as the water vesicles that flow through our cities—in this book, namely the Tigris and the Thames. The Tigris was damned and during warfare in 3500 BC literally clogged with the bodies of the massacred enemy, flowing red. And the Thames was so polluted with industrial and human waste that it was not drinkable. And the author of that novel, Elif Shafak alludes to buried rivers, droughts brought on by the changes to river flow, and various other human-made catastrophes.
Origins of this course
All of this was also fueled by my own observations. I'm not going to go into personal detail but I live in a forested area with a lot of wildlife and long ago was struck by the difference between those who actually see wildlife and their behaviors and those who treat them only as "dumb" trophy animals who live at the behest of humans.
So this is the merging of two threads, so to speak. During the past 8 years that my classes have been reading and discussing novels written by women, both mystery and historical, the dominant theme or literary message is that women provide an alternative perspective, another way of looking at human events and behavior.
But that also means they look at nature differently, as we saw in Remarkably Bright Creatures in particular. But it's not just women. For Richard Powers in Overstory, trees are more than just lumber to be cut down, hewn, and turned into furniture, or firewood, or paper.
Origins of this course
In short, scientists, naturalists, conservationists tell us that Climate Change is the result of human behavior, and an attitude that sees earth's environment, plants, animals, water resources as a possession, an "owned" object to be used as humankind sees fit. In other words, mankind "owns" this environment, it's a possession, when we should be acknowledging other life forms with whom we "share" this planet. We need to work with nature, not against her; we need an alternative perspective.
Origins of this course
One of the values of reading is the vicarious experience it provides. Through these literary creations, we can, for a time, drop into someone else's life; we can feel their emotions, we can live their experiences; we can see the world as they see it. Then we can drop in a book mark and go back to our own lives, but changed for having had this experience. We have learned from this vicarious trip, without the sorrow, the heartbreak, the personal damage that a real experience might cause. So that's what I'm proposing to do with these two courses.
First we will look at the facts—the science of climate change and our environment. Then we will "drop in on" Raising Hair, a memoir of one woman's experience rescuing this wild creature. What she learns, how it changes her life. Then we will "drop in on" Wolfe Island where the inhabitants are grappling with the realistic effects of climate change. This novel is truly a vicarious experience because we are dropping in on one woman's vision of what the future portends.
Rights of Nature (Wikipedia)
Rights of nature or Earth rights is a legal theory that describes the inherent (intrinsic) rights of ecosystems and species, similar to the concept of fundamental human rights. The rights of nature concept challenges twentieth-century laws as generally grounded in a flawed frame of nature as a "resource" to be owned, used, and degraded. Proponents argue that laws grounded in rights of nature direct humanity to act appropriately and in a way consistent with modern, system-based science, which demonstrates that humans and the natural world are fundamentally interconnected.
This school of thought is underpinned by two basic lines of reasoning. First, since the recognition of human rights is based in part on the philosophical belief that those rights emanate from humanity's own existence, logically, so too do inherent rights of the natural world arise from the natural world's own existence. A second and more pragmatic argument asserts that the survival of humans depends on healthy ecosystems, and so protection of nature's rights in turn advances human rights and well-being.
Rights of Nature (Wikipedia)
From a rights of nature perspective, most environmental laws of the 20th century are based on an outmoded framework that considers nature composed of separate and independent parts, rather than components of a larger whole.
A more significant criticism is that those laws tend to be subordinate to economic interests, and aim at reacting to and just partially mitigating economics-driven degradation, rather than placing nature's right to thrive as the primary goal of those laws. This critique of existing environmental laws is an important component of tactics such as climate change litigation that seeks to force societal action to mitigate climate change.
As of May 2024, close to 500 rights of nature laws exist at the local to national levels in 40 countries, including dozens of cities and counties throughout the United States. They take the form of constitutional provisions, treaty agreements, statutes, local ordinances, and court decisions.
Rights of Nature
Garn (Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature)
https://www.garn.org/
Harvard Law Review
https://harvardlawreview.org/forum/vol-134/rights-of-nature-rights-of-animals/
A New Perspective (AI summary)
The idea that male dominance extends to the earth's environment is a core concept of ecofeminism, a theory asserting that patriarchal social structures drive both the oppression of women and the exploitation of nature. Ecofeminists argue that historical and societal systems treat both women and the natural world as resources to be dominated and exploited for profit by a male-centric power structure.
Ecofeminist arguments for linking patriarchy and environmental damage
Dual oppression: The oppression of marginalized groups (women, people of color, the poor) and the degradation of nature are seen as linked phenomena stemming from the same hierarchical, patriarchal mindset. This worldview justifies domination over both.
Feminization of nature: Ecofeminist theory critiques the traditional Western idea of "Mother Nature," arguing that it justifies the exploitation of nature by first feminizing it. This creates a false dualism of "man" over "nature," where a perceived masculinity is defined in opposition to the environment.
A New Perspective
This attitude that nature and its ecosystems are the property of men in power can also be seen as part of the capitalistic, profit-driven, industralized west.
The American Indian, for example, believed that mankind was also a member of nature's community and should live cooperatively within its ecosystems.
Native Australians, the First Nations people, shared similar beliefs. They were unfamiliarwith the concept of "owned land" and personal property introduced to them by British settlers.
In other words, these populations had a different perspective on man's role within nature.
Scientists agree: Climate change is real, caused by people
Scientific academies, professional societies, associations, governmental and nongovernmental organizations and published research worldwide are aligned.
The scientific consensus that climate change is happening and that it is human-caused is strong. Scientific investigation of global warming began in the 19th century, and by the early 2000s, this research began to coalesce into confidence about the reality, causes, and general range of adverse effects of global warming. This conclusion was drawn from studying air and ocean temperatures, the atmosphere’s composition, satellite records, ice cores, modeling, and more.
In 1988 the United Nations and World Meteorological Organization founded the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, to provide regular updates on the scientific evidence on global warming.
In a 2013 report, the IPCC concluded that scientific evidence of warming is “unequivocal” and that the largest cause is an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a result of humans burning fossil fuels. The IPCC continues to assess this science, periodically issuing new reports.
IPCC
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. The IPCC was created to provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments on climate change, its implications and potential future risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation options.
https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
Paradigm Shift
A paradigm shift is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. It is a concept in the philosophy of science that was introduced and brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn, presented in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962).
Even though Kuhn restricted the use of the term to the physical sciences, the concept of a paradigm shift has also been used in numerous non-scientific contexts to describe a profound change in our understanding of science.
For example, Copernicus's discovery that the sun was the center of the universe rather than the earth was a profound paradigm shift that caused considerably distress, and reaction, or those who believed that earth was the center of the universe. Their ideas and perceptions had to change because of it, not an easy shift.
Next Week
Background on the subjects discussed in
The Sixth Extinction
Week after: discussion of the book