On extinction
Subtitle: how we became estranged from nature
By: Melanie Challenger
Publisher: Counterpoint; Distributed by Publishers Group West
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Berkeley, CA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 332
ISBN-13: 9781619020184; 9781619021945
Subjects: Umweltethik; Environmental degradation; Description and travel; Nature; Travel; Effect of human beings on; Extinction (Biology); Naturerlebnis; Environmental responsibility; Aussterben
Other titles: How we became estranged from nature
Description: How do we think about the things we have lost? How can we use what we know about extinctions - cultural, biological and industrial - to reconnect with nature? When the gigantic bones of mammoths were first excavated from the Siberian permafrost in the eighteenth century, scientists were forced to consider a terrifying possibility: many species that had once flourished on the Earth no longer existed. For the first time, humans had to contemplate the idea of extinction. From our destruction of the natural world to the human cultures that are rapidly dying out, On Extinction is a passionate exploration of these disappearances and why they should concern us. Challenger asks questions about how we've become destructive to our environment, our emotional responses to extinctions, and how these responses might shape our future relationship with nature. She travels to the abandoned whaling stations of South Georgia, the melting icescape of Antarctica and the Inuit camps of the Arctic, where she traces the links between human activities and environmental collapse. On Extinction is an account of Challenger's journey that brings together ideas about cultural, biological and industrial extinction in a beautiful, thought-provoking and ultimately hopeful book.
Notes: Originally published: London : Granta, 2011.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 315-326).
Table of contents: title: Beginnings : Natural History Museum, London; title: The first peregrination : West Penwith, Cornwall: Wild flowers ; Tin ; Ghosts; title: The second peregrination : South Georgia, Antarctica and the Falkland Islands: Whales ; Ice ; Savages; title: The third peregrination : North Yorkshire, Manhattan Island and Baffin Island: Bones ; Tundra; title: Endings : Wicken Fen, Cambridgeshire.