What are the most extreme extinction events in Earth's history? And what should we learn from them to avoid a similar fate? Today's guest, Peter Brannen, is an expert in these extinctions, having written one of the key books on the topic, The Ends of the World.

It’s an invigorating read, in part because you really confront the raw power and volatility of this planet—and because you can then more thoroughly appreciate the blissful window of relative stability that humanity has evolved within. You then must confront the fact that techno-industrial civilization is undertaking many of the same processes that brought about past mass extinctions...

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My guest this week is Peter Brannen.

Peter Brannen is a science journalist and contributing writer at The Atlantic. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and The Guardian among other publications. His book, The Ends of the World, about the five major mass extinctions in Earth's history, was published in 2017 by Ecco. He was most recently a visiting scholar at the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, and is an affiliate at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

CREDITS: This podcast is edited and produced by Adam Labrie and me, Jesse Damiani. Adam Labrie also directed, shot, and edited the video version of the podcast, which is available on YouTube. The podcast is presented by Reality Studies. If you appreciate the work I’m doing, please subscribe and share it with someone you think would enjoy it.

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