Extinction A Very Short Introduction

Author : Paul B. Wignall
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0198807287
Total Pages : 145 pages
Book Rating : 4.85/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Extinction written by Paul B. Wignall and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Extinction has occurred throughout the history of life, and nearly all the species that have ever existed have now disappeared. In this 'Very Short Introduction', Paul B. Wignall looks at the causes and nature of extinction events, what makes a species vulnerable, and the debates in modern science of the role of climate and humans.

Author : Paul B. Wignall
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192534017
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.19/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Extinction: A Very Short Introduction written by Paul B. Wignall and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-06-27 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most people are familiar with the dodo and the dinosaur, but extinction has occurred throughout the history of life, with the result that nearly all the species that have ever existed are now extinct. Today, species are disappearing at an ever increasing rate, whilst past losses have occurred during several great crises. Issues such as habitat destruction, conservation, climate change, and, during major crises, volacanism and meteorite impact, can all contribute towards the demise of a group. In this Very Short Introduction, Paul B. Wignall looks at the causes and nature of extinctions, past and present, and the factors that can make a species vulnerable. Summarising what we know about all of the major and minor exctinction events, he examines some of the greatest debates in modern science, such as the relative role of climate and humans in the death of the Pleistocene megafauna, including mammoths and giant ground sloths, and the roles that global warming, ocean acidification, and deforestation are playing in present-day extinctions ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Author : Erle C. Ellis
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0192511386
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.86/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction written by Erle C. Ellis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-02-22 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The proposal that the impact of humanity on the planet has left a distinct footprint, even on the scale of geological time, has recently gained much ground. Global climate change, shifting global cycles of the weather, widespread pollution, radioactive fallout, plastic accumulation, species invasions, the mass extinction of species - these are just some of the many indicators that we will leave a lasting record in rock, the scientific basis for recognizing new time intervals in Earth's history. The Anthropocene, as the proposed new epoch has been named, is regularly in the news. Even with such robust evidence, the proposal to formally recognize our current time as the Anthropocene remains controversial both inside and outside the scholarly world, kindling intense debates. The reason is clear. The Anthropocene represents far more than just another interval of geologic time. Instead, the Anthropocene has emerged as a powerful new narrative, a concept through which age-old questions about the meaning of nature and even the nature of humanity are being revisited and radically revised. This Very Short Introduction explains the science behind the Anthropocene and the many proposals about when to mark its beginning: the nuclear tests of the 1950s? The beginnings of agriculture? The origins of humans as a species? Erle Ellis considers the many ways that the Anthropocene's "evolving paradigm" is reshaping the sciences, stimulating the humanities, and foregrounding the politics of life on a planet transformed by humans. The Anthropocene remains a work in progress. Is this the story of an unprecedented planetary disaster? Or of newfound wisdom and redemption? Ellis offers an insightful discussion of our role in shaping the planet, and how this will influence our future on many fronts. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Author : Mark Maslin
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191029114
Total Pages : 200 pages
Book Rating : 4.10/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Climate Change: A Very Short Introduction written by Mark Maslin and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-10-23 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change is still, arguably, the most critical and controversial issue facing the world in the twenty-first century. Previously published as Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction, the new edition is now Climate Change: A Very Short introduction, reflecting an important change in the terminology of the last decade. In the third edition, Mark Maslin includes crucial updates from the last few years, including the results of the 2013 IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, the effects of ocean acidification, and the impact of changes to global population and health. Exploring all of the key topics in the debate, Maslin makes sense of the complexities climate change involves, from political and social issues to environmental and scientific. Looking at its predicated impacts, he explores all of the controversies, and also explains the various proposed solutions. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Author : J. H. Lawton
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781383027792
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.9X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Extinction Rates written by J. H. Lawton and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a wide-ranging study of current and likely future species extinction rates, aimed at students and researchers in the environmental sciences. It highlights apparent differences in extinction rates among taxonomic groups and places, aiming to identify unresolved issues.

Author : Samuel T. Turvey
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 019157998X
Total Pages : 366 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Holocene Extinctions written by Samuel T. Turvey and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2009-05-28 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The extent to which human activity has influenced species extinctions during the recent prehistoric past remains controversial due to other factors such as climatic fluctuations and a general lack of data. However, the Holocene (the geological interval spanning the last 11,500 years from the end of the last glaciation) has witnessed massive levels of extinctions that have continued into the modern historical era, but in a context of only relatively minor climatic fluctuations. This makes a detailed consideration of these extinctions a useful system for investigating the impacts of human activity over time. Holocene Extinctions describes and analyses the range of global extinction events which have occurred during this key time period, as well as their relationship to both earlier and ongoing species losses. By integrating information from fields as diverse as zoology, ecology, palaeontology, archaeology and geography, and by incorporating data from a broad range of taxonomic groups and ecosystems, this novel text provides a fascinating insight into human impacts on global extinction rates, both past and present. This truly interdisciplinary book is suitable for both graduate students and researchers in these varied fields. It will also be of value and use to policy-makers and conservation professionals since it provides valuable guidance on how to apply lessons from the past to prevent future biodiversity loss and inform modern conservation planning.

Author : Lee Hannah
Publisher : Island Press
ISBN 13 : 1610911822
Total Pages : 417 pages
Book Rating : 4.25/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Saving a Million Species written by Lee Hannah and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2012-06-22 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The research paper "Extinction Risk from Climate Change" published in the journal Nature in January 2004 created front-page headlines around the world. The notion that climate change could drive more than a million species to extinction captured both the popular imagination and the attention of policy-makers, and provoked an unprecedented round of scientific critique. Saving a Million Species reconsiders the central question of that paper: How many species may perish as a result of climate change and associated threats? Leaders from a range of disciplines synthesize the literature, refine the original estimates, and elaborate the conservation and policy implications. The book: examines the initial extinction risk estimates of the original paper, subsequent critiques, and the media and policy impact of this unique study presents evidence of extinctions from climate change from different time frames in the past explores extinctions documented in the contemporary record sets forth new risk estimates for future climate change considers the conservation and policy implications of the estimates. Saving a Million Species offers a clear explanation of the science behind the headline-grabbing estimates for conservationists, researchers, teachers, students, and policy-makers. It is a critical resource for helping those working to conserve biodiversity take on the rapidly advancing and evolving global stressor of climate change-the most important issue in conservation biology today, and the one for which we are least prepared.

Author : Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0191044539
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.33/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction written by Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-20 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Utilitarianism may well be the most influential secular ethical theory in the world today. It is also one of the most controversial. It clashes, or is widely thought to clash, with many conventional moral views, and with human rights when they are seen as inviolable. Would it, for example, be right to torture a suspected terrorist in order to prevent an attack that could kill and injure a large number of innocent people? In this Very Short Introduction Peter Singer and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek provide an authoritative account of the nature of utilitarianism, from its nineteenth-century origins, to its justification and its varieties. Considering how utilitarians can respond to objections that are often regarded as devastating, they explore the utilitarian answer to the question of whether torture can ever be justified. They also discuss what it is that utilitarians should seek to maximize, paying special attention to the classical utilitarian view that only pleasure or happiness is of intrinsic value. Singer and de Lazari-Radek conclude by analysing the continuing importance of utilitarianism in the world, indicating how it is a force for new thinking on contemporary moral challenges like global poverty, the treatment of animals, climate change, reducing the risk of human extinction, end-of-life decisions for terminally-ill patients, and the shift towards assessing the success of government policies in terms of their impact on happiness. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Author : Douglas H. Erwin
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691165653
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Extinction written by Douglas H. Erwin and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-22 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some 250 million years ago, the earth suffered the greatest biological crisis in its history. Around 95 percent of all living species died out—a global catastrophe far greater than the dinosaurs' demise 185 million years later. How this happened remains a mystery. But there are many competing theories. Some blame huge volcanic eruptions that covered an area as large as the continental United States; others argue for sudden changes in ocean levels and chemistry, including burps of methane gas; and still others cite the impact of an extraterrestrial object, similar to what caused the dinosaurs' extinction. Extinction is a paleontological mystery story. Here, the world's foremost authority on the subject provides a fascinating overview of the evidence for and against a whole host of hypotheses concerning this cataclysmic event that unfolded at the end of the Permian. After setting the scene, Erwin introduces the suite of possible perpetrators and the types of evidence paleontologists seek. He then unveils the actual evidence--moving from China, where much of the best evidence is found; to a look at extinction in the oceans; to the extraordinary fossil animals of the Karoo Desert of South Africa. Erwin reviews the evidence for each of the hypotheses before presenting his own view of what happened. Although full recovery took tens of millions of years, this most massive of mass extinctions was a powerful creative force, setting the stage for the development of the world as we know it today. In a new preface, Douglas Erwin assesses developments in the field since the book's initial publication.

Author : Vanda Felbab Brown
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190911700
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Extinction Market written by Vanda Felbab Brown and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-11-15 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The planet is currently experiencing alarming levels of species loss caused in large part by intensified poaching and wildlife trafficking driven by expanding demand, for medicines, for food, and for trophies. Affecting many more species than just the iconic elephants, rhinos, and tigers, the rate of extinction is now as much as 1000 times the historical average and the worst since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. In addition to causing irretrievable biodiversity loss, wildlife trafficking also poses serious threats to public health, potentially triggering a global pandemic. The Extinction Market explores the causes, means, and consequences of poaching and wildlife trafficking, with a view to finding ways of suppressing them. Vanda Felbab-Brown travelled to the markets of Latin America, South and South East Asia, and eastern and southern Africa, to evaluate the effectiveness of various tools, including bans on legal trade, law enforcement, and interdiction; allowing legal supply from hunting or farming; alternative livelihoods; anti- money-laundering efforts; and demand reduction strategies. This is an urgent book offering meaningful solutions to one of the world's most pressing crises.