The ends of the world
by Peter Brannen · first published 2017
83% recommend17% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Accessible, journalistic primer on Earth's five major mass extinctions and their geologic causes, blending scientific detail with page-turning prose for readers new to deep time.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"As new groundbreaking research suggests that climate change played a major role in the most extreme catastrophes in the planet's history, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen takes us on a wild ride through the planet's five mass extinctions and, in the process, offers us a glimpse of our increasingly dangerous future."-- "A vivid tour of Earth's Big Five mass extinctions, the past worlds lost with each, and what they all can tell us about our not-too-distant future. Was it really an asteroid that killed the dinosaurs? Or carbon dioxide-driven climate change? In fact, scientists no
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I read an excellent book, The Ends of the World, on just this subject: https://jakeseliger.com/2017/09/18/the-ends-of-the-world-pet.... But the book gets there through looking at the last five mass extinction events. It turns out that either every…
on “What happened last time it was as warm as it’s going to get later this century?” ↗…the American Frontier. I had no idea the American frontier was home to devastating largest-in-the-world locust plagues that suddenly disappeared near the end of the 19th century. By Peter Brannen: The Ends of the World. A great primer on mass extinctions and their often geologic causes. By Rick Perstein: Nixonland. Still working on this one, but a deep dive into that era of American politics feels quite relevant at…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗'The Ends of the World' by Peter Brannen https://www.amazon.com/Ends-World-Apocalypses-Understand-Ext... It's about the major extinction events of the past and their relevance to our current situation. There is so much history…
on “Ask HN: Great books you read in 2018?” ↗…great read. Very basic. Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming by Paul Hawken is a good follow up for understanding what is necessary and what can be done. The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions by Peter Brannen explains how historically Carbon has controlled the Earth's climate system. That's my…
on “Antarctic ice cliffs may not contribute to sea-level rise as much as predicted” ↗Another recommended read (which I’m in the middle of right now) is The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions by Peter Brannen. Coincidentally I’ve just reached the Permian mass extinction event, where the author…
on “Where Have All the Ammonites Gone?” ↗…on this planet for the majority of life on the planet, this statement is false. Peter Ward's Under a Green Sky is a great read on this subject from a scientific point of view and Peter Brannen's The Ends of the World covers it more broadly with a more journalistic style. The geological evidence we have strongly suggests that rapid rise in CO2 and sudden climate change have been responsible for many of the great extinction…
If you are looking for an in depth (pop-sci) dive into the mass extinctions in earth's history definitely check out "The Ends of the World" by Peter Brannen. It covers the five mass extinctions with a good mix of scientific detail and entertaining writing. IIRC it discusses the likelier explanations for Silurian extinctions including disruptions…
on “Silurian Hypothesis” ↗Thinking about just how long the earth has been around fascinates me. I read (or listened to, rather) The Ends of the World by Peter Brannen, which was captivating. The audiobook is well-narrated too. We humans tend to think that the planet just "is" the way it is, but this is just how it exists in this moment in which we…
on “Matching dinosaur footprints found on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean” ↗Seconded. I learned a ton from it, as well as his previous book The Ends of the World on mass extinctions. His writing style is wonderful, he turns an academic subject into a page-turner. The Story of CO2 taught me something I had never considered. It wasn't exactly that photosynthetic…
on “Snowball Earth may hide a far stranger climate cycle than anyone expected” ↗There are a lot of good pop science books to read about the history of life on earth. "The Ends of the World" is probably the best one. "The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs" is also a good one, and it doesn't focus purely on the dinosaurs as the title suggests, but about how we know how they evolved and existed.
on “Swarm satellites probe weakening of Earth’s magnetic field” ↗This point, that the current age can't yet count as a mass extinction, was made well in the book "The Ends of the World", which is about the five major mass extinctions (and which was a good read). It's not that what we've done so far isn't a possible start on a mass extinction, it's just that the big five (and especially…
on “A Bestiary of Loss” ↗I'm reading "The Ends of the World: Supervolcanoes, Lethal Oceans, and the Search for Past Apocalypses" by Peter Brannen. Most of the book focuses on past mass extinction events, but there's a bit of discussion and comparison to what's…
on “Climate Solutions: Is It Feasible to Remove Enough CO2 from the Air?” ↗The Ends of the World by Peter Brannen
on “World Now Likely to Hit Watershed 1.5 °C Rise in Next 5 Years” ↗