I love the style that Oreskes and Conway chose to point out the folly of our current treatment of environmental issues. Writing "from the future" is a clever way to comment on events in recent history; they can appear to do so in an objective way, as though they are not living through this with uncertain knowledge of the consequences. They can also reveal the possible consequences as historical fact and not merely prediction, which makes those consequences seem more real for the reader.

I like Kolbert’s Sixth Extinction a lot. It’s illustrated in a more historical and scientific perspective, but it is very attractive though. I was drawn to the story of the frogs story and then subsequently interested in the reality of them. The proportion of illustration and example is crucial for me when I started reading something I don’t know, and I think this book is good for the induction to the kinds of serious events for the people who knows little about them. Moreover, this book provides a very interesting aspects to looking at the behaviors of humans. I do enjoy reading the chapters and learn some very useful information.

Reading through the first half of "The collapse of western civilization" made me feel despair. The contents were not new and I have learned most of it before, but it was what I don’t want to think about it. Because I feel helpless and I just end up thinking of the idea that nothing serious will happen before I die and I know it is very selfish. It is important to separate the idea of “saving the earth, animals and forest and so on” and “surviving as humans” because the earth can produce new environment and new life even if human being would extinct. The authors focus on the survival of humans and how they failed to do it.

            When I first read the assigned excerpts from “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History” by Elizabeth Kolbert I was shocked, dismayed, and surprised. I had never heard about most of what she wrote about. I had never heard of the “Big 5” extinctions or that we were in the middle of the 6^th. I had heard about the extinction of the dinosaurs but had never heard it been called one of the “Big 5”. The extinction of amphibians is happening today, yet I had heard nothing about it. Honestly, it scared me. As humans we are damaging the environment so much that we are one of the main causes of the sixth big extinction. We are destroying the planet and with that ourselves.

When I started The Sixth Extinction I did not have hopes for it. Though it was quite readable it didn't catch my attention as much as Ozeki's All Over Creation. I usually have a greater connection with fictional books, because I connect with people in a way that I cannot connect to the environment. Though that is not to say that I do not care about the environment, it's an critical issue in today's age. I found it surprising how Kolbert seemed to connect things, especially in the fifth chapter. I find it interesting that something as small as a plant can make entire species go extinct, or that a rat can deforest an entire area. I like the way that Kolbert set these ideas up in a way that made us, the reader, think about our play in this.

I was surprised by how readable Kolbert's book was for me. Usually, I tend to levitate towards novels and fictional stories, such as Orzeki's "All Over Creation." I did not have high hopes while starting Kolbert's "Sixth Extinction," but it was actually written in clear language and framed by an interesting lens. There were clear cause-and-effect chain of events, and I found myself eager to follow the direction Kolbert was taking me. I was incredibly surprised that the culprit behind the dying frogs was not directly humans -- rather it was indirectly humans by way of a mysterious bacteria that humans had spread through migration and globalization.

Options to consider if you're interested in continuing the work in the jail next semester:

You can apply for Kaye Edwards' new class called "Community Engagement and Social Responsibility Seminar" next semester, which will be organized around the theme "home"; students who are interested in the Thurs. news club can take this class.  Students need to know their placement when they submit the application, so they should talk to Romi if they are interested!

There were many parts of this book where Oreskes brought up some points with which I agreed. She talked a lot about the economy and market fundamentalism, which she argued valued the wrong things and drove the society in the wrong direction. The economy and market fundamentalism failed to take into account the costs of what they were doing on the environment, and instead focused solely on monetary profits. 

Another interesting point she brought up was how we often say that "knowledge is power", yet our words don't translate into actions. It certainly is ironic that we have a wealth of knowledge about how our actions are destroying the planet, yet the scientists don't have the power to change this fact. Money, rather than knowledge, is power. 

When I first see the title of this book "The Collapse of Western Civilization" , I thought it would be a book about the social or politics, but not environment. However, after reading the first chapter, I find it interesting that it talks about the recent issue of envrionment-- people are strongly influencing nature. This is kind of response to the last reading of Kolbert, but it is focus on the problems and pollutions which human noticed, which is different with Kolbert's. Although it is interesting to read a view to the future about environment and some truth of the issues nowadays are revealed in front of me, it is still a little bit hard for me to concentrate on because it is a scientific book.