Terra: Our 100-Million-Year-Old Ecosystem--and the Threats That Now Put It at Risk

by Michael Novacek

" Terra is one of the important books of our time―and it will change the way you think about the world." ―Neil Shubin, Provost, Field Museum of Natural History

The natural world as humans have always known it evolved close to 100 million years ago with the appearance of flowering plants and pollinating insects during the age of the dinosaurs. Its tremendous history is now in danger of profound, catastrophic disruption. In this brilliant synthesis of evolutionary biology, paleontology, and modern environmental science, Michael Novacek shows how we can understand and prevent what he and others call today's "mass extinction event."

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Palaeontology, Environment, Biology, History, Evolution

480 pages, Paperback

First published November 13, 2007

Reviews

[Peter Corrigan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elizabeth Kolbert won a Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 2015 for her book 'The Sixth Extinction'. She must have had a much better publicist than Michael Novacek had in 2007 for 'Terra'. I can't recall if she claimed to be the first to employ the term 'Sixth Extinction' (referring to the five great extinctions of geological history and the current man-made disaster) but she clearly was not the first as Novacek uses the term (p. 340) and also the relatively new and still debated term 'Anthropocene' as a geological epoch versus the standard Holocene. Given the similarity in themes, I could not help but compare the two books--Novacek's effort is far superior to Kolbert's book in breadth, depth and scientific rigor. I suppose you might expect that as he is a trained (Ph.D. from UC Berkeley) paleontologist and evolutionary biologist who worked for many years at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. Interestingly, he was at UC Berkeley doing his own 'thing' (fossil collection) at the same time (around 1977) as Walter Alvarez and his father Luis Alvarez (Nobel physicist) were two floors up in the geology and geophysics departments unwinding one of the greatest mysteries of all time--what killed the dinosaurs? He goes into a little detail on that fantastic story (told really well in Walter Alavarez' 'T Rex and the Crater of Doom') with the requisite visit to Gubbio, Italy. In fact he travels to many places around the world to tell his story; Antarctica, Tanzania, Mongolia, China, Australia, etc. Kolbert, on the other hand is a journalist who presents some of the same material but it is perhaps more 'readable' for the general public. Her footnotes are a smattering compared to Novacek's 75 dense pages. I read her book back in 2022 and gave it 5-stars probably cause the subject was much newer to me and the impact seemed to merit the highest praise. But compared to 'Terra' it is really just a 3-star and she really might have given him (or others) credit for the 'Sixth' term. Another book that came to mind in reading 'Terra' was Richard Fortey's book 'Life' which I read some years back and which is also excellent.

Part of me wanted to give 'Terra' only 3 stars cause it was just so darn depressing but that would have been 'shooting the messenger' something he specifically begged the reader not to do! It is certainly worthy of 4.5 stars with only a few minor criticisms. The charts and graphs are small and hard to read in some cases and some of the material is already mildly 'dated'. In addition, for someone wanting to skip an intro class in paleontology and evolutionary biology (which I found fascinating) they might want to go straight to Kolbert to get what amounts to the Cliff Notes of the same grim story.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has everything you ever wanted to know about climate change. Climate change is monitored by so many things other than air temperature. A relatively small change in temperature affects every living thing on the planet and this information has been monitored for years. This book has 70 pages of references. Thought the material is difficult sometimes, Dr. Novacek is an excellent writer.

[Last Ranger · Rating 5 out of 5]

To Pillage the Garden:

Paleontologist Michael Novacek has written another fine book. Terra is nothing less than the story of life on earth and the ecological forces that govern its evolution. A chance encounter with a wayward hyena starts you on a journey through time, from life's raw beginning over 500m YBP through the long eons of changing conditions to, at last, the world of today. The author covers a variety of subjects and addresses some of the vital issues that threaten our present day ecosystems. From the start, life has faced one challenge after another; changing climate, moving into new habitats, invaders from other habitats and geological forces that push life to the brink of extinction. With each barrier breached comes a new beginning for any organisms that survive the change. Extinction and recovery are a recurring theme for life on earth and Novacek covers the three main ones in some detail; the end Permian event that seems to be the biggest one yet, the K/T event that ended the Mesozoic and ushered in the Cenozoic and the mysterious event just within the last 13,000 years that saw the end of some Mega-Fauna in many parts of the world. What caused these extinctions: volcanoes, extraterrestrial impacts, major climate change or a combination of causes? Humans may have had a hand in the last one. Each theory proposed spurs intense controversy and endless debate that shows no sign of letting up. But there's more to Terra than just past extinction. Humans have been exploiting the natural world for most of our history but starting with the industrial revolution things really took off. Decades of harmful land use, unrestrained consumption of natural resources, pollution on a unprecedented scale all put our present day ecosystem at risk. Terra is truly a marvelous book and no review, including this one, can do it justice. The full breadth and range of the author's knowledge on the many subjects covered in Terra is astounding. You may not agree with all of his conclusions but if you'r at all interested in the history of life on earth, the current health of our ecosystem and what role humans are playing in the environmental problems that we are now facing then you may find this to be a fascinating read. In 1962 Rachel Carson published Silent Spring and now, some 50 years later, Michael Novacek gives us a 21st Century take on some of the same issues.
I had no technical problems with this Kindle edition.

Last Ranger

[Dyslexic Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome book. Doesn't belittle the reader by softening the scientific language too much but is still clear and thorough in his explanations. A wonderful book full of information you may have thought you knew, then again, you probably haven't thought too hard about dinosaurs in at least 15 years. I would highly recommend this book as a versatile starting point for understanding Earth's geologic history and its give and take relationship with its biota.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book summarized a lot of fascinating information about how the world as we know it developed and how we discovered what we know about past and present ecosystems and extinction events. It connected this information to our expectations of future changes in the global environment, considering not just the climate and sea level changes that have made headlines but what they might mean to various types of living things. It was pleasant to read, well-referenced, and interesting.

[Kitty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good information on how our current ecosystem began, the evolution of various forms, and how what happens in the natural world, and what we do, makes a difference in the atmosphere.

For a comprehensive picture, read this in conjunction with Rivers In Time by Peter D. Ward, Censoring Science by Mark Bowen, and The World Without Us by Alan Weisman.

[Hans007 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very interesting 100 million year history of our world ecosystem including the astounding events thave occured during this time, such as the extinction of dinosaurs, evolutions of humans etc.

[Kate]

I wanted to like this but I found the prose too darn turgid. It's not you, big book, it's me.

[Morrigan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was not an easy read but it was well worth the time and the effort. I enjoyed the ever expanding definitions of ecosystems and how any action ripples out and out and out.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was expected more about the past ecosystem...or at least some detail about the current one...it turned out to be more of a 'we-must-save-the-earth' essay.

[Charles Kingsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book everyone should read if they want to understand the planet they live on.