Katie Holm

ESE 360

Homework 6

I must admit, while reading Elizabeth Kolbert’s article I had the same sentiments that Dr. Kanter said his wife had while starting to read the book The Sixth Extinction: “This isn’t going to get any better, is it?” I did find myself able to finish the article though, because I could not stop myself from reading it. As devastating as the facts presented in the article are, I kept reading because Kolbert was able to reveal the facts in an intriguing way. The style in which she wrote the article was very descriptive and felt like a compelling story the entire time I was reading it, a “page turner” if you will. Like I mentioned, she was very descriptive when relating her experiences to the reader. Seeing a butterfly’s wings “the color of the sky” and entering a “concert-hall-size” chamber in an abandoned mine. This is a particularly intriguing style of writing to me. I am very much a visual learner, so her article was easy for me to follow and I was able to focus on her main points then of educating her audience about the mass extinctions that are happening around us that we do not even realize. So even though the article’s content was depressing, the read of it was compelling. I might even read the book now.