Book Review - Extinctions: How Life Survives, Adapts and Evolves

Title: Extinctions: How Life Survives, Adapts and Evolves
Author: Michael J. Benton
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: I loved this book. My main reason for reading it was to better understand how life has evolved on Earth. Scientists have determined Earth has experienced at least five major mass extinctions - 

1. End-Ordovician (444 million years ago) - Caused by rapid global cooling and glaciation, which caused sea levels to drop drastically and destroyed shallow marine habitats, followed by quick warming and oxygen loss.
2. Late Devonian (360 million years ago) - Caused by massive ocean anoxia (oxygen depletion) and nutrient overloads (eutrophication), partly linked to early land plants weathering soil and altering atmospheric carbon dioxide
3. End-Permian / "The Great Dying" (250 million years ago) - Triggered by colossal flood basalt volcanic eruptions (the Siberian Traps) that released massive greenhouse gases, causing extreme global warming, ocean acidification, and sulfidic, oxygen-starved oceans. This was the worst event, wiping out 96% of species.
4. End-Triassic (200 million years ago) - Caused by intense volcanic activity tied to the breakup of Pangea, which rapidly pumped carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and drove severe climate change and ocean acidification
5. End-Cretaceous (66 million years ago) - Caused by a huge asteroid impact resulting in the Chicxulub crater in modern-day Mexico, which triggered a prolonged "impact winter," blocking sunlight, halting photosynthesis, and collapsing global food chains. The fifth extinction wiped out about 80 percent of all species, including the dinosaurs.

While extinction events are not common, it appears they are a natural part of how life evolved on Earth. Many scientists believe that Earth is now experiencing a human caused "sixth extinction" event (Holocene or Anthropocene extinction) due to habitat destruction, climate change, pollution and over exploitation of natural resources. On a geologic time scale, humans are just a blip and at the rate we're going, I truly believe humans could end up going extinct just like the billions of other species before us. 

Description (Audible): Cutting-edge techniques across biology, chemistry, physics, and geology have transformed our understanding of the deep past, including the discovery of a previously unknown mass extinction. This compelling evidence, revealing a series of environmental crises resulting in the near collapse of life on Earth, illuminates our current dilemmas in exquisite detail.

Beginning with the oldest, Professor Michael J. Benton takes us through the "big five" die outs: the Late Ordovician, which set the evolution of the first animals on an entirely new course; the Late Devonian, apparently brought on by global warming; the cataclysmic End-Permian, also known as the Great Dying, which wiped out over 90 percent of all life on Earth; the newly discovered Carnian Pluvial Event; and the End-Cretaceous asteroid. He examines how global warming, acid rain, ocean acidification, erupting volcanoes, and meteorite impact have affected conditions on Earth, and how life survived, adapted, and evolved.

In Extinctions, listeners will learn about revolutionary new tools used to uncover ancient extinction events and processes in forensic detail, and how scientists are improving our understanding of the deep past. New research allows us to link long-ago upheavals to crises in our current age, the Anthropocene, with important consequences for us all.

Review: Paleontolgical Society

Book Review - The Twilight Forest: An Elegy for Ponderosa in a Changing West

Title: The Twilight Forest: An Elegy for Ponderosa in a Changing West
Author: Gary Ferguson

My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: I have many fond memories of hiking and camping in the Sierra Nevada mountains and Southern California mountains where Ponderosa Pine forests are common. I love their rugged beauty and sweet vanilla smell. This book has been an revelation to me on how human caused climate change, fire, insects, disease, habitat destruction and over harvesting are contributing to the loss of not only Ponderosa Pines but also many other tree species in the United States. According to the author, only a small percent of Ponderosa Pines will remain by mid century. Sadly, considering the current administrations stance on the environment, I would say that's a conservative estimate. 

Description (Audible): With their towering, cinnamon-colored trunks and dusky green canopies, ponderosa pine has long been a charismatic icon of the American West. Yet a quiet unraveling has begun: in the past decade, in a vast area from Santa Fe to the Sierras, more than two hundred million ponderosa have died. While some trees will survive in cooler places, scientists estimate that by mid-century less than five percent of the ponderosa in the American Southwest may remain. As the very character of this vast region shifts, what will be left behind? And how can we come to terms with such profound loss?

In The Twilight Forest, Gary Ferguson brings listeners on an expansive journey through the ponderosa forests of the Southwest both to mourn—and to celebrate—the forests that nurtured him. In warm and luminous storytelling, Ferguson weaves together the human and natural history of ponderosa, from its march across the West more than 10,000 years ago, to centuries of artists inspired by its dazzling stature and shady passageways. Both wildfire and climate change are constant presences on this journey. Fire is necessary for healthy forests but has turned deadly, while climate change stresses even the hardiest beings of the natural world. Yet the story of ponderosa reminds us that loss can be a gateway to connection—to nature and each other.

Gary Ferguson - The Eight Master Lessons of Nature: What Nature Teaches Us About Living Well

Book Review - A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters

Title: A Brief History of Earth: Four Billion Years in Eight Chapters

Author: Andrew H. Knoll
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍

My Review: I like science and I really appreciate books like this that distill information and make science more accessible. This book definately does that. However, it did feel a bit like a firehose of information. My favorite chapter was the last one that discussed the impacts humans are having on the planet. Needless to say, humans are not good stewards and our time on earth may end up being less than a blink of the eye.  

Description (Audible): Odds are, where you’re standing was once cooking under a roiling sea of lava, crushed by a towering sheet of ice, rocked by a nearby meteor strike, or perhaps choked by poison gases, drowned beneath ocean, perched atop a mountain range, or roamed by fearsome monsters. Probably most or even all of the above.

The story of our home planet and the organisms spread across its surface is far more spectacular than any Hollywood blockbuster, filled with enough plot twists to rival a bestselling thriller. But only recently have we begun to piece together the whole mystery into a coherent narrative. Drawing on his decades of field research and up-to-the-minute understanding of the latest science, renowned geologist Andrew H. Knoll delivers a rigorous yet accessible biography of Earth, charting our home planet's epic 4.6 billion-year story. Placing twenty first-century climate change in deep context, A Brief History of Earth is an indispensable look at where we’ve been and where we’re going.

Book Review - The Worst Hard Time The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

Title: The Worst Hard Time The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

Author: Timothy Egan
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: Timothy Egan is one of my favorite authors. I've read several of his books and they're all great. This book is one of his best. It tells the tragic story of the 1930s dust bowl and the people who lived through it. This book is especially prescient and shows how easy it is for humans to destroy our environment and how we need to be more aware of how our actions affect the planet. I loved this book. 

Description (Audible): In a tour de force of historical reportage, Timothy Egan’s National Book Award–winning story rescues an iconic chapter of American history from the shadows.

The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Timothy Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, he does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes, “the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgency and respect” (New York Times). In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, The Worst Hard Time is “arguably the best nonfiction book yet” (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and a powerful reminder about the dangers of trifling with nature.

KU Common Books - Timothy Egan speaks at The University of Kansas about his book "The Worst Hard Time The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl"  (1:14:00)

Oklahoma Horizon TV - Timothy Egan discusses his book and the sense of urgency behind capturing these stories before they are lost to history (6:40)

Book Review - Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization

Title: Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization

Author: Bill McKibben
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: I can't believe I'm saying this but, Bill McKibben and this book give me a SMALL BIT of hope that humanity could potentially mitigate a human-caused climate crisis by replacing fossil fuels with solar, wind and battery power.  I was a little dismayed to learn that China is light-years ahead of the US in the development of solar, wind and battery power and is actually able to daily deploy the equivalent power of one coal-fire power-plant with solar energy. China is also rapidly improving solar, wind and battery technology and becoming the dominant source for alternative energy. By contrast, the Trump administration is doing the exact opposite and even going out its way to prevent development of solar, wind and battery technology. Time is running out and humans need to break their addiction to fossil fuels as soon as possible. Thankfully there is a solution and, according to this book, that solution is solar, wind and battery power. This book is a must read for anyone who cares about climate change. 

      

Description (Audible): Every eighteen hours, the world puts up a nuclear power plant's–worth of solar panels. At the same time, combustion continues to melt our poles, poison our bodies, and drive our global inequality. And it is no longer necessary: For the first time in 700,000 years, we know how to catch the sun’s rays and convert them into energy.

In Here Comes the Sun, world-renowned author Bill McKibben tells the story of our sudden spike in power from the sun and wind. McKibben traces the arrival of plentiful, inexpensive solar energy, which, if it accelerates, gives us a chance not just to limit climate change’s damage, but to reorder the world on saner and more humane grounds. Getting there means overcoming obstacles like Big Oil, but McKibben sees a chance for a new civilization: one that looks up to the sun, every day, as the star that fuels our world.

Democracy Now -Bill McKibben talks about Renewable Energy, “Sun Day” & the “Last Chance” for Climate

Media Santuary Book Club - Bill McKibben talks about the power of solar energy and his book "Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization"

 

Description (ChatGPT): Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization by Bill McKibben is an urgent yet surprisingly hopeful look at the climate crisis and the rapid rise of renewable energy. McKibben argues that while global warming can no longer be fully stopped, the explosive growth of solar and wind power offers humanity a real chance to prevent the worst outcomes and build a fairer, more sustainable civilization. Blending science, politics, and personal storytelling, he makes complex climate issues accessible without losing their seriousness.

What sets the book apart is its balance of realism and optimism. McKibben does not minimize the dangers posed by fossil fuels and political resistance, but he also refuses to accept climate doom as inevitable. The result is an inspiring and thought-provoking call to action that encourages readers to see clean energy not just as a technological shift, but as an opportunity to reshape society for the better.

Book Review - Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet

Title: Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet
Author: Kate Marvel
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: I think I may be a wee bit masochistic because I enjoy reading books like this that explain how humans are destroying the planet. It's hard to understand how there are still people who do not believe that humans are the primary cause of climate change. I just wish they would read a book like this that explains in simple, clear language and with scientific evidence how, within just the last 100 years, humans have managed to change the planet so much that even if we were to stop now, it will take thousands of years to reverse the damage.  I loved this book and am grateful for scientists like Kate Marvel who are studying climate change and hopefully waking people up to the reality of climate change before it's too late.  

Kate Marvel interview: Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet - July 2025

Kate Marvel TED Talk - Can clouds buy us more time to solve climate change? - April 2017

Kate Marvel speech: Inner Climate 2025

Kate Marvel & Friends - Feeling Climate Change - June 2025

Description (Audible): A captivating exploration of climate change that uses nine different emotions to better understand the science, history, and future of our evolving planet

Scientist Kate Marvel has seen the world end before, sometimes several times a day. In the computer models she uses to study climate change, it’s easy to simulate rising temperatures, catastrophic outcomes, and bleak futures. But climate change isn’t just happening in those models. It’s happening here, to the only good planet in the universe. It’s happening to us. And she has feelings about that.

Human Nature is a deeply felt inquiry into our rapidly changing Earth. In each chapter, Marvel uses a different emotion to explore the science and stories behind climate change. As expected, there is anger, fear, and grief—but also wonder, hope, and love. With her singular voice, Marvel takes us on a soaring journey, one filled with mythology, physics, witchcraft, bad movies, volcanoes, Roman emperors, sequoia groves, and the many small miracles of nature we usually take for granted.

Hopeful, heartbreaking, and surprisingly funny, Human Nature is a vital, wondrous exploration of how it feels to live in a changing world.

Description (ChatGPT): Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet by Kate Marvel is a thoughtful, emotionally intelligent exploration of climate change that goes beyond science into the realm of human feeling. Marvel organizes the book around nine emotions—like wonder, anger, and hope—using each as a lens to better understand our relationship with the planet.

What makes this book stand out is its balance: it’s grounded in clear scientific insight, yet deeply personal and reflective. Marvel doesn’t preach or overwhelm; instead, she invites readers to sit with the complexity of climate change without losing sight of possibility.

Concise, humane, and quietly powerful, Human Nature is a refreshing take on a heavy subject—one that leaves you not just informed, but more connected to both the Earth and your own emotional response to it.

Book Review - A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future

Title: A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future

Authors: David Attenborough, Jonnie Hughes
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: I loved this book and highly recommend it. It's hard to not be cynical these days. Every day it seems like there's something new to worry about. This book follows David Attenborough's life from his early years to present, providing an amazing perspective on how humans have changed the planet to the point of potentially causing a "sixth extinction", which incidently, could include humans. The book does try to provide ways that humans could prevent our demise which I found to be reassuring. However, considering the book was written prior to Trump's second administration, I'm tending to favor a more cynical view for human survival.  

Description (Audible): In this scientifically informed account of the changes occurring in the world over the last century, award-winning broadcaster and natural historian, David Attenborough shares a lifetime of wisdom and a hopeful vision for the future.See the world. Then make it better.

Description (ChatGPT): This powerful and deeply personal book reads like both a memoir and a warning. Drawing on decades of firsthand observation, Attenborough traces the dramatic decline of Earth’s biodiversity alongside the rise of human impact, making the environmental crisis feel immediate and undeniable. What sets the book apart is its tone: while the middle sections paint a stark picture of climate change, habitat loss, and a possible “sixth mass extinction,” Attenborough never settles into despair. Instead, he offers a clear, science-based vision for restoring the planet—through renewable energy, rewilding, and changes in how we live and consume (SuperSummary)

Concise, accessible, and quietly urgent, A Life on Our Planet is less about guilt and more about responsibility. It leaves readers not just informed, but motivated—reminding us that while the damage is real, so is the possibility of recovery if action is taken now.

Book Review - Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces That Threaten Our World

Title: Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces That Threaten Our World

Author: Michael E. Mann, Peter J. Hotez
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: Pending...

Description (Audible): Two of the world’s most respected scientists reveal the forces behind the dangerous anti-science movement—and show us how to fight back. 

From pandemics to the climate crisis, humanity faces tougher challenges than ever. Whether it’s the health of our people or the health of our planet, we know we are on an unsustainable path. But our efforts to effectively tackle these existential crises are now hampered by a common threat: politically and ideologically motivated opposition to science.

Michael E. Mann and Peter J. Hotez are two of the most respected and well-known scientists in the world and have spent the last twenty years on the front lines of the battle to convey accurate, reliable, and trustworthy information about science in the face of determined and nihilistic opposition.

In this powerful manifesto, they reveal the five main forces threatening science: plutocrats, pros, petrostates, phonies, and the press. It is a call to arms and a road map for dismantling the forces of anti-science. Armed with the information in this book, we can be empowered to promote scientific truths, shine light on channels of dark money, dismantle the corporations poisoning the planet, and ultimately avert disaster.

Description (ChatGPT): “Science Under Siege” is an essential read — particularly for those who care about climate, public health, science communication, or democracy. It confronts a real crisis: not just that we may lack scientific knowledge, but that our ability to accept and act on that knowledge is under systemic threat. Mann and Hotez succeed at both diagnosing the problem and offering reasons for hope. If the book has a mission, it is to push us from helplessness into action. It may feel like a rallying cry, but it’s a rallying cry grounded in science.

If you're looking for something inspirational and deeply informed, this will meet (or exceed) expectations. If you're hoping for a blueprint with all obstacles already overcome, you might find some parts frustrating. But perhaps that’s the point: the work is not done, and this book insists we become part of it.

Book Review - Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis

Title: Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis

Author: Michael E. Mann
My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: I loved this book but I think I need to read it a few more times to absorb what it's saying. Our Earth and its climate are complicated and this book does an excellent job of describing how Earth has evolved to allow humans to survive and perhaps thrive. Humans are just a blip on Earth's timeline and if we don't do a better job of taking care of the Earth, that blip may be shorter than we realize.  

Description (Audible): In this sweeping work of science and history, the renowned climate scientist and author of The New Climate War shows us the conditions on Earth that allowed humans not only to exist but thrive, and how they are imperiled if we veer off course. For the vast majority of its 4.54 billion years, Earth has proven it can manage just fine without human beings. Then came the first proto-humans, who emerged just a little more than 2 million years ago—a fleeting moment in geological time. What is it that made this benevolent moment of ours possible? Ironically, it’s the very same thing that now threatens us—climate change. The drying of the tropics during the Pleistocene period created a niche for early hominids, who could hunt prey as forests gave way to savannahs in the African tropics. The sudden cooling episode known as the “Younger Dryas” 13,000 years ago, which occurred just as Earth was thawing out of the last Ice Age, spurred the development of agriculture in the fertile crescent. The “Little Ice Age” cooling of the 16th-19th centuries led to famines and pestilence for much of Europe, yet it was a boon for the Dutch, who were able to take advantage of stronger winds to shorten their ocean voyages.The conditions that allowed humans to live on this earth are fragile, incredibly so. Climate variability has at times created new niches that humans or their ancestors could potentially exploit, and challenges that at times have spurred innovation. But there’s a relatively narrow envelope of climate variability within which human civilization remains viable. And our survival depends on conditions remaining within that range.In this book, renowned climate scientist Michael Mann will arm listeners with the knowledge necessary to appreciate the gravity of the unfolding climate crisis, while emboldening them—and others--to act before it truly does become too late.

Description (ChatGPT): In Our Fragile Moment, climate scientist Michael E. Mann presents a compelling, deeply researched narrative that explores Earth's climate history to contextualize today's climate crisis. Mann examines past episodes of dramatic climate shifts—from the Ice Ages to the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum—to highlight the resilience and vulnerability of life on Earth. The core message is clear: while the planet has survived extreme changes before, human civilization is uniquely sensitive to today's rapid, human-driven warming. Mann rebuts climate doomerism as firmly as he does denialism, arguing that we are not powerless—our choices now will define the future. Accessible yet rigorous, Our Fragile Moment is both a wake-up call and a guidepost. Mann blends scientific insight with urgency and optimism, making this book an essential read for anyone concerned about climate and humanity’s place within it.

Happy Earth Day! - Limerick

Happy Earth Day!

The Earth is an amazing planet

A home for all life that's on it

But if we abuse it

We will certainly loose it

So protect the planet damn it!

Book Review - The Little Ice Age

Title - The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850
Author: Brian Fagan

My Rating: 👍👍👍👍👍
My Review: Pending ....

Description (Audible): The Little Ice Age tells the story of the turbulent, unpredictable, and often very cold years of modern European history, how climate altered historical events, and what they mean in the context of today’s global warming. Only in the last decade have climatologists developed an accurate picture of yearly climate conditions in historical times. This development confirmed a long-standing suspicion: that the world endured a 500-year cold snap, a little ice age, that lasted roughly from AD 1300 until 1850. With its basis in cutting-edge science, The Little Ice Age offers a new perspective on familiar events. Renowned archaeologist Brian Fagan shows how the increasing cold affected Norse exploration; how changing sea temperatures caused English and Basque fishermen to follow vast shoals of cod all the way to the New World; how a generations-long subsistence crisis in France contributed to social disintegration and ultimately revolution; and how English efforts to improve farm productivity in the face of a deteriorating climate helped pave the way for the Industrial Revolution and hence for global warming.

Description (ChatGPT): Brian Fagan’s The Little Ice Age serves up a frosty historical tale that proves the weather has always been more than just small talk. With vivid storytelling and a scientist’s eye, Fagan unpacks how Europe’s cooler-than-usual weather from 1300 to 1850 froze crops, stoked political unrest, and even shaped the course of wars. If you thought your winter commute was bad, imagine living through crop failures, famines, and freezing rivers—now that's a cold front of history. Fagan's research is solid, his writing sharp, and his ability to tie climate shifts to human drama is downright chilling. A must-read for anyone who thinks the weather doesn't affect the world. Spoiler alert: it does—just ask history.

Winter Weather Woes

According to the weather reports, we recently received 10-15 inches snow which is a lot for Vancouver, WA. Normally, we only get about 4-5 inches per year. I don’t mind snow in moderation but I really don’t like the ice storms that seem to always follow the snow. This time, we received a coating of about 1/2 to 1 inch ice on everything which makes walking & driving pretty risky. The good news is the ice doesn’t last too long & makes for some nice photo opportunities 📷 😎