Non-Fiction Critical Analysis #2
     The article "The Sixth Extinction," by Elizabeth Kolbert in the Upfront Magazine is about a possible extinction occurring now. The author gives a little background about the earlier extinctions such as the dinosaur extinction and then explains why a sixth extinction may be happening. She also adds a timeline showing all of the earlier extinctions. The author's purpose of writing this article was to inform the reader about animals that are facing extinction right now.
     Elizabeth Kolbert goes into some detail about earlier  extinctions. She talks about the oldest extinction saying "The first one took place 444 million years ago, when creatures like trilobites, which resembled horseshoe crabs, and conodonts, which looked like eels, roamed the ocean." This quote gives the reader a picture in their minds about something that lived before us and what the general idea of them was. She also explains the most recent one, the dinosaur extinction. She quotes "The most recent of the big five was caused 65 million years ago by a six mile wide asteroid that was traveling at 25,000 mile per hour when it hit earth in what is now the Gulf Of Mexico." This explains to the reader that extinction will happen more than once and that even the biggest of animals can become extinct. She explains why the sixth extinction may be possible. She says "This time, a giant asteroid isn't to blame. We are, most scientists agree. Because of human activity." She then goes on to explain what we are doing to cause this mass extinction. I think she wrote this article to bring attention to all the harm that we are doing  to the world without knowing it.
      I don't like that we are causing species to become extinct. We are developing too fast and because of this animals are dying. We need to find a better way to develop without harming the animals. We could make energy efficient cars, or stop using tree made paper and reuse the paper we've thrown out. There are many different solutions to stop this and I think we should take action.