Chapter 8 (Kwasi Obeng-Dankwa)

Chapter 8 starts off by putting us in east Peru. There, we meet Miles Silman and the topic of global warming is brought up. The chapter makes sure to let the readers know that global warming affects both cold-loving organisms as well as organisms that live in tropical climates. The biodiversity of tropical climates is shown to be greater than those of colder climates which also makes them more prone to being greatly affected by human actions. Silman focuses on the effects of global warming on forests and trees. It has been shown that a Peruvian tree has been showing up in higher altitudes as a result of the increase in temperature. Speaking of the increases in temperature, scientists predict that the average world temperature will considerably increase which poses an even bigger threat to all of earth's organisms. Furthermore, as a result of humans decreasing the amount of land available for species to inhabit, this is decreasing the total amount of species, leading to the death of many

In this chapter, I realized that Kolbert seems to care very much about the thought and speech of Silman. For example, he states " Silman talks about plants the way other people speak about movie stars. One tree he described to me as "charismatic." Others were "hilarious, "crazy," "neat," "clever," and "amazing." In this quote, I feel as if Kolbert is judging Silman for being so intrigued and awed by trees, sighting words such a hilarious and crazy. She then goes on to talk about their encounter with coca leave sellers which seems pointless to the whole chapter but shows just how much Kolbert cared about the actions of Silman. This chapter connects very well with the theme of: Technology and population growth have enabled humans to increase both the rate and scale of their impact on the environment. This effect is exemplified in the chapter when it states "One... way of conceiving of what humans are doing to the world is that we are everywhere changing the value of A... If warming were to reach what was at that point considered a likely maximum... between 38 and 52 percent of the species would be fated to disappear(166-167)." As a result of a large number of humans, we are taking up vasts amount of space which is decreasing the space for other species to inhabit. As a result, their numbers are decreasing while we continue to increase. Furthermore, as a result of there being more humans, we have increased temperatures and this is causing many species to die out and find Earth to be inhabitable. There are so many of us that it is almost impossible for us to not have a negative impact on other organisms. We are also greedy in the land we take and as a result, we are taking away the homes of thousands of other organisms for our own homes and greedy desires. Our continued negative effect on the planet is inevitable and we as a collective unit have to figure out a solution before all other organisms are in danger or extinct as a result of our selfish ways.

A picture of a Alzatea verticillata.