Kyle Harper: Historians and the Sixth Extinction

The Sixth Extinction is the popular name for the ongoing human-driven biodiversity crisis. The name evokes the biggest mass extinctions in the geological record and proposes that humans are responsible for massive declines in biodiversity, on par with past episodes of geological catastrophe. But what is the history of this crisis? This talk will explore these themes and suggest how historians might contribute to our understanding of this enormous contemporary challenge.