Metropolitan Library System

"Over the last half-billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. Adapting from her New York Times-bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning adult nonfiction, Elizabeth Kolbert explores the Anthropocene...

'Before WICKED was formed, before the Glade was built, before Thomas entered the Maze, sun flares hit the earth and mankind fell to disease. Mark and Trina were there when it happened, and they survived. But surviving the sun flares was easy compared to what came next. Now a disease of rage and lunacy races across the eastern United States, and there's something suspicious about its origin. Worse yet, it's mutating, and all evidence suggests that...

"Katie lives alone in a stone house on Jacob's Ladder island. The neighboring island of Ringrock houses a secret: a government research facility. And now two agents have arrived on Jacob's Ladder in search of someone or something they refuse to identify. Although an air of menace hangs over these men, an infinitely greater threat has arrived, one so strange even the island animals are in a state of high alarm. Katie soon finds herself in an epic and...

"Every living creature contributes towards the richness and beauty of our planet. Each one has a reason to exist, from the giant panda to the pygmy possum, and if we lose them, it will be forever. Extinctopedia tells a complex story, not just of those who are extinct, but also of those in greatest peril, with explanations of what threatens their survival. It is also a story of hope-hope for animals who have been rediscovered, hope in the form of newly-discovered...

Learn about mass extinctions, including the history of Earth's five major mass extinctions, as well as the conditions of today's human-caused sixth extinction, which is the loss of animals from the planet. Understand the history of efforts to save Earth's biodiversity, what the most promising solutions are today, and ways in which you can contribute to these solutions.

Academy Award-winning filmmakers expose the forces that are leading our planet to its next mass extinction, potentially resulting in the loss of half of all species. A never-before-seen view of an international wildlife trade, operating in the shadows, reveals how creatures that have survived for millions of years may be wiped from Earth in our lifetime.