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  • Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction
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Customer reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
234 global ratings
5 star
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4 star
27%
3 star
16%
2 star
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1 star
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Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction

Scatter, Adapt, and Remember: How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction

byAnnalee Newitz
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Top positive review

Positive reviews›
Hill Country Bob
5.0 out of 5 starsInteresting approach and thoughts
Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2014
Interesting and positive book about the survival of mankind after a catastrophic event on earth.

The author reviews what has occurred on earth in the past and may occur in the future which has or would impact people. Things like a impact with a heavenly body like a large asteroid, can really impact the people. A worldwide flu or other epidemic like the great plague epidemic could have a catastrophic impact on mankind. Eruption of a super volcano like Yellowstone would have a large impact on the earth population. There there is always the favorite of the environmental community CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic (man caused) Global Warming). A world wide Carrington electromagnetic event or EMP pulse generated by mankind would have a catastrophic impact on much of the world's inventory of electronics and electrical supply systems. This in turn would impact the ability to feed the people, by growing food, and distributing where it is needed.

She is optimistic throughout that mankind will come through. Yes, there are many different events that could have a very significant impact on the world's population, and some of them could kill off a large percentage of humankind. However, she believes that mankind have proved in that past that he is a dap;table, and capable of moving around the earth, and working out how to change to survive. She believes that mankind will do this again as necessary to survive.

An interesting thought book, as she presents things in ways that I had never thought of previously, and is positive about the outcome. I recommend this book to people who are interested in the possibility of catastrophic events on earth, and what might result.
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3 people found this helpful

Top critical review

Critical reviews›
Steve in Monterey
3.0 out of 5 starsLots of good facts and ideas, but I'm not buying the whole package
Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2022
The author has brought together a lot of diverse information about what helps populations (human or otherwise) survive times of stress. I have definitely learned some new things, and been given new ways of looking at others.

Like some political platforms, this is a book where I find myself nodding in agreement with four things in a row, and then totally rejecting the fifth. That's not all bad, if you think of it as food for thought.

She tends to assume that we can be satisfied with being packed into densely-packed habitats, which doesn't sound very inviting to me. I don't see our ability to produce large populations as a plus, as the author suggests early on. Over-use of resources is a big part of what has us in trouble today. Our use of industrial technology is factor which has done a lot of harm, but which can also be improved to do some good. On the other hand, more people always means more resources used, more CO2 released, and less space for the forests and crop lands we benefit from. There needs to be more attention here to how large a population can reasonably be sustained, whether on today's Earth or in some future space-based solution.

The book gives some hope that the next great extinction (whether it has already started or not) won't kill us all off, but it certainly isn't a blueprint for making that happen. It is probably worth a read.
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5 people found this helpful

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From the United States

Hill Country Bob
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting approach and thoughts
Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2014
Verified Purchase
Interesting and positive book about the survival of mankind after a catastrophic event on earth.

The author reviews what has occurred on earth in the past and may occur in the future which has or would impact people. Things like a impact with a heavenly body like a large asteroid, can really impact the people. A worldwide flu or other epidemic like the great plague epidemic could have a catastrophic impact on mankind. Eruption of a super volcano like Yellowstone would have a large impact on the earth population. There there is always the favorite of the environmental community CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic (man caused) Global Warming). A world wide Carrington electromagnetic event or EMP pulse generated by mankind would have a catastrophic impact on much of the world's inventory of electronics and electrical supply systems. This in turn would impact the ability to feed the people, by growing food, and distributing where it is needed.

She is optimistic throughout that mankind will come through. Yes, there are many different events that could have a very significant impact on the world's population, and some of them could kill off a large percentage of humankind. However, she believes that mankind have proved in that past that he is a dap;table, and capable of moving around the earth, and working out how to change to survive. She believes that mankind will do this again as necessary to survive.

An interesting thought book, as she presents things in ways that I had never thought of previously, and is positive about the outcome. I recommend this book to people who are interested in the possibility of catastrophic events on earth, and what might result.
3 people found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars "Utopian speculations ..must come back into fashion."
Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2013
Verified Purchase
Overall, I found this book to be a worthwhile discussion of mass extinction. I personally found the first couple of chapters to be simplistic and even a bit condescending in tone to the point I nearly stopped reading at that point. I would urge you to continue the book past that point, because the writing takes on a polish and flow as it proceeds.

Questionable editorial mistakes have been noted in other reviews . I am not familiar with those points. I would add the author's labeling of the story of Exodus as the start of the Jewish diaspora. She does go on to to discuss the diaspora the Jews experienced when forced out of Jerusalem by Babylon. This dispersal is in fact the classic start of the diaspora. Her citation of Jerry Vizenor's survivance is another concept that is hazy. This refers to not surviving the destruction of a civilization at a subsistence but "but living a life that is freely chosen." The author herself has stressed that the forces that would destroy a civilization often make that choice impossible.

I have in fact pondered the choice of rating given the editorial exceptions both noted by other reviewers and from my own understanding. This book covers a tremendous amount of data and theory. The premise of our entering a possible sixth age of mass extinction is a huge undertaking, and differentials in weighing evidence would be expected. The prose is pleasing and the author's theories add a definite format to the discussion of survival, so I would recommend this book.
17 people found this helpful
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Steve in Monterey
3.0 out of 5 stars Lots of good facts and ideas, but I'm not buying the whole package
Reviewed in the United States on October 17, 2022
Verified Purchase
The author has brought together a lot of diverse information about what helps populations (human or otherwise) survive times of stress. I have definitely learned some new things, and been given new ways of looking at others.

Like some political platforms, this is a book where I find myself nodding in agreement with four things in a row, and then totally rejecting the fifth. That's not all bad, if you think of it as food for thought.

She tends to assume that we can be satisfied with being packed into densely-packed habitats, which doesn't sound very inviting to me. I don't see our ability to produce large populations as a plus, as the author suggests early on. Over-use of resources is a big part of what has us in trouble today. Our use of industrial technology is factor which has done a lot of harm, but which can also be improved to do some good. On the other hand, more people always means more resources used, more CO2 released, and less space for the forests and crop lands we benefit from. There needs to be more attention here to how large a population can reasonably be sustained, whether on today's Earth or in some future space-based solution.

The book gives some hope that the next great extinction (whether it has already started or not) won't kill us all off, but it certainly isn't a blueprint for making that happen. It is probably worth a read.
5 people found this helpful
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Maureen Ogle
5.0 out of 5 stars Thinking like a species
Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2014
Verified Purchase
I'm a historian and so I'm also a future-optimist: If we understand that the present is different from the past, then the future is ours to create. But because I'm a historian, I also know that what happens today or happened last year or will happen in ten years has relatively little impact on "the future." Because change happens slow.

So Newitz's book is, in my mind, a refreshing departure from the usual "we're all gonna die" scenarios about the future. I gather some readers here at Amazon disagree with her interpretation of science, dislike her interest in "science fiction," and were totally put off by her speculations about possible (optimistic) futures. Okay, fine.

My take is this: Newitz is dead right in her view that we humans need to think like a species if we want to survive whatever the future brings. And the book's structure supports her view: she starts with the apocalyptic "environmental" catastrophes of millennia ago to demonstrate that whatever we think is going on now is, um, short-sighted to say the least. And from there she guides through possible scenarios in which humans can survive (by scattering, adapting, and/or remembering).

Will this book appeal to the doomday-ers? No. But it sure appealed to and intrigued this optimist.
7 people found this helpful
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Scott E. Allen
5.0 out of 5 stars You don't have to be a "doomsday prepper" to appreciate this book.
Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2017
Verified Purchase
You don't have to be a "doomsday prepper" to appreciate this book. I originally read Scatter in audio, then re-purchased it on Kindle so I could take notes. Has the planet already experienced 5 mass extinctions? Is the 6th one looming? This book does an excellent job of reinforcing the precarious nature of humanity's very existence and the need for humans to become a space-faring civilization. What sort of creature can adapt to such cataclysms? How will we remember, retain who we are? As Annalee says, "We are adapted nicely to live inside the thin layer of gas surrounding the rock we call home, but in may ways that makes us terrible space travelers."
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Schettig
4.0 out of 5 stars interesting speculation
Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2014
Verified Purchase
There are many interesting theories here about where we will go in the future, but not much that I hadn't already heard about from other sources. There isn't a huge amount of detail or even scientific backup either. It feels very general and speculative. I don't think anyone is going to want to throw away globalization for localized farm cities either. See Freakenomics about the real costs of localization vs globalization.
2 people found this helpful
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George E. Mobus
2.0 out of 5 stars Relatively sensible until you get to Part IV!
Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2013
Verified Purchase
The author has assembled evidence for a reasonable thesis - the there will more than likely be a calamitous event leading to the collapse of global civilization. The title grabbed my attention because those words are exactly the kind of things I've been writing about for several years. The post-carbon era is close to hand and there is no viable alternative that could be scaled up in time to avert substantial loss of net available energy per capita. And all the carbon we have burned and will before the fuel lines run dry have guaranteed that we face a chaotic climate future. She basically got that last one right. There is no solution that will preserve our profit-motivated, capitalistic, eternal growth economic model. It even now is beginning to look like we can't even save a semblance of civilization (say as small localized communities) with technology. Instead it looks like the best course of action is to scatter (take up a nomadic lifestyle), adapt (learn to eat new foods and find new usable resources), and remember (tell our children stories of the mistakes our human hubris led us to).

So naturally I thought the author would follow through. Instead, starting in chapter 14 she turns to the technophilic belief that somehow we could find ways (doing things differently of course) to go ahead and save civilization. I knew I would be disappointed as soon as she started writing about vertical agriculture in cities.Right then I realized she was not really connecting all of the dots (e.g. where does the energy come from to run those sun lamps?) It got worse after that.

As with so many authors who write about a potential doom scenario Ms. Newitz must have felt compelled to turn upbeat toward the end - the we really can save ourselves, so it's all OK. It is probably true that if your conclusion, in such a book, is no there is no solution, you probably aren't going to make the NYT bestseller list!
5 people found this helpful
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Tipper
5.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyed greatly
Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2020
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This book had the potential to be very boring. I was delighted to find it is well written and very engaging. The concept of multiple extinction events was new to me and fascinating. A great read to stimulate thinking.
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David Savageau
3.0 out of 5 stars Why this title isn't the LA Times Science Book of the Year
Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2014
Verified Purchase
1. It lost out to Alan Weisman's, Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? And rightly so.

2. There is a forced, overboard, breeziness in the writing. Organisms eat or consume; they do not "scarf down" or "chomp" or "munch" food. Creatures don't "get laid" when coupling or having sex. Ultimately, one's writing can be so hip that it becomes insulting.

3. There is way too much academic card stacking. Over and over again the author uses a visit to a professor to introduce a subtopic. Not all concepts are so vital they must be left entirely up to professors. Pole your raft away from that dock and float on your own good knowledge and common sense.

4. Way too much first person singular ("I"). Readers might come to think it's all about the author. I attended a geekout conference on space elevators, I stayed in a hotel in Turkey carved into the subterranean tufa, I bobbed on a whale-watch vessel in California, and I had tea with an Oxford Don on a drizzly afternoon.

I have a strong impression that this book is a re-purposed script for a documentary because of the last three points mentioned above.

For all that, this is a good book with awfully good prose notes. I nearly abandoned the book, but lucked into the section on geoengineering and everything that followed as enjoyable and rewarding.
23 people found this helpful
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RSKrules
3.0 out of 5 stars Title is misleading, but it's OK for what it is.
Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2017
Verified Purchase
I bought this book because it said "How Humans Will Survive a Mass Extinction." I want to be clear - this book is not about that.

Half the book is about past extinction events, not human ones, but I learned a lot about cyano-bacteria. The other half is a grab-bag of futuristic, it'd-be-cool-someday ideas, from fully self-sufficient underground cities to uploaded-consciousness robots living among the stars.

It, in no way, talked about today-humans surviving a mass extinction event outside of the author's assertion that only some lucky city-dwellers with access to tunnels might get by. The author takes the long, long view - a million years out, by which time we'll no longer be Homo Sapiens - and which, I just realized, renders the title even more inaccurate than before.

If you're looking for a human-centric book on past human extinction events and informed ideas on how you and I might survive such an event today, this is not the book for you. And I wish someone told me that before I bought this book.

That said, if you're into what is actually covered in the book, you'll probably enjoy it.
32 people found this helpful
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