About the book: 2019 / Over the past 500 million years, the Earth has undergone five mass extinctions of biological species. The Sixth Extinction is happening right now, and this time it is caused entirely by human activity. A staff writer for The New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert traced the stories of several extinct species still living near us, visiting different parts of the globe and talking with leading scientists. Why are human activities so destructive to other species? Can we stop the Sixth Extinction??