The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

This review in The Guardian by Caspar Henderson does a wonderful job of contextualizing (literarily) and summarizing the Pulitzer Prize-winning (2015, General Non-fiction) piece of science writing by Elizabeth Kolbert--better than I could ever do. There have been five major extinctions in the history of planet earth and Kolbert documents the evidence that bolsters the assertion that human beings are the cause of the sixth. A major extinction is an "an event in which a significant proportion of life is eliminated in a geologically insignificant amount of time" (see The Guardian) whether the cause is a catastrophic event like the asteroid which wiped out 75% of the planet's life forms in a matter of weeks or the human-caused acidification of the oceans, deforestation, and warming of the atmosphere in the last few decades.
Kolbert travels to numerous places around the world to observe and question those scientists doing work in the study of various animal and plant extinctions today, thus offering the reader a rigorous and first hand look at the extent of damage caused and the irreversible effects of our rapidly burgeoning, increasingly mobile population. She provides an overview of history in the big sense--beyond human habitation--to put this in perspective. Which makes the rapid rate of extinctions occurring today, at one and the same time just another cycle in the big picture, and also a tragic tale of loss and destruction that will inevitably lead to a very different world in the near future.
She reports; she does not lecture or advise for she does not see that as her role. Often compelling, sometimes an effort, it is a sobering read but well worth the effort. Several online interviews with Kolbert are available including this one in the NYTimes.