Humans as an Invasive Species

Few of us like it when mold takes over our bread or weeds take over our garden. But what about when we humans take over everywhere and ruin the place? That's the premise of a new book just out by journalist Elizabeth Kolbert titled "The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History." The focus is on the way in which we have accelerated global environmental change in an almost certainly unsustainable manner and so our extinction will be the Sixth one. To her credit, she does have a sense of humor, as evidenced by her appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, which (full disclosure) is where I found out about the book. A quick search of the title revealed that anthropologist Richard Leakey published a book with the same title and premise about 20 years ago. Compare and contrast. And then let's go out and try to change how we live. We have that ability in a way that the mold and the weeds do not.