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Intro -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1. Extinction Events and Entangled Humanism -- 2. Planetary Memories -- 3. Photography after Extinction -- 4. The Six Extinctions -- 5. Condors at the End of the World -- 6. It's Not the Anthropocene, It's the White Supremacy Scene -- 7. Lives Worth Living -- 8. Biocapitalism and -- 9. Surviving the Sixth Extinction -- Acknowledgments -- Contributors -- Index

I argue that the current extinction crisis offers profound and unprecedented challenges to democratic theory. Other environmental problems, such as climate change, are fundamentally collective action problems of a familiar type. By contrast, the case of extinction has several unique implications for democratic theory. First, for fragile species whose medium term preservation is technically possible, democratic policy flux over time effectively reduces the scope of policy choice to one—extinction. This is the case because the normal policy flux that follows from alternation in power will drive a ratchet effect in which each win for the development side is permanent, while each win for the preservation side is temporary. Second, uncertainty about the value of endangered species, even considered from the point of view of the narrowest market-driven utilitarianism, calls into question the democratic legitimacy of policies allowing potentially essential species to go extinct. Such policies reduce the scope of future democratic decision-making irreversibly. This presents a paradox for democratic theory, since decisions that do not undermine democracy itself should always in principle be available for democratic decisionmaking. Third, beyond questions of democratic scope, the on-the-ground rulemaking processes in the case of species preservation policy exhibit possibly unique rhetorics of collective incapacity that undermine political agency at nearly every stage of decision. Fourth and finally, extinctions, even technically preventable extinctions, present a possible limit case to democratic politics: democratic polities find themselves constitutionally unable to achieve the policies that democratic theory suggests they should consider. Methodological note: this is a work of political theory, but it is based on both philosophical and empirical research. As part of my current book project, I am conducting case studies and a general survey of habitat conservation plans (HCPs) in the United States, to determine how these ...

Abstract
This essay explores the artist Gregory Chatonsky's development of a new type of image—the extinction image. Emerging as a by-product of new technologies such as deep learning and neural nets, this nonoperative image is typified by a painstaking attempt to come to grips with the current threat of human extinction. It arises as a symptom of numerous crises endemic to the Anthropocene, providing a speculative tool for planetary thinking to develop alternatives in and through what has been called postcinema by scholars such as Steve Shaviro and Shane Denson. For Chatonsky, the Earth itself must now be imagined as a disarticulate user of postcinematic media, producing images that display a stunning indifference to the presence or absence of the human species. Close examination of Chatonsky's work will reveal a radical ecopolitics defined by a concern for what Alexander Galloway has called whatever being. Urging us to think carefully about the planetary emergency presented by climate change and geopolitical unrest, the extinction image serves as a reminder that the future of life on Earth is not a foregone conclusion.

The primary goals of this project for JTO and ONR (Grant N00014-07-1-1060) were to further develop Extinction Imagers for use in the ocean environment, and to extend the capabilities into the Short Wave IR (SWIR). Extinction Imaging is a method for determining the effective extinction coefficient over an extended path using a sensor at one end of the path. It uses calibrated imagers to acquire the relative radiance of a dark target near the other the end of the path and the horizon sky in the direction of the dark target. It is completely passive and thus covert, and the hardware is robust and relatively inexpensive. It uses rigorous equations, which determine the extinction coefficient from the measured apparent contrast of the radiance of the dark target with respect to the horizon sky. The project was very successful. We found that the ocean surface could readily be used as a dark target in red and SWIR wavelengths. Both the red and the SWIR measurement results were excellent for daytime. Comparisons with standard instruments, as well as uncertainty analysis, indicated that extinction imagers provide better measurements of the atmospheric extinction losses over extended paths than other methods of which we are aware. Our secondary goals were to address the night regime, and to address slanted paths above the horizontal. Regarding night, we found that the visible sensor acquired excellent data, but the ocean surface was not a good dark target in our wavelengths. Recommendations on the handling of night are given in the report. Regarding the lines of sight above the horizon, we developed a slant path algorithm that determines beam transmittance. It performed very well. Recommendations are made regarding integration of these techniques for military applications.

This essay examines certain intersections between writing and extinction through an eco-deconstructive account of the psychoanalysis of water. Jacques Derrida has often drawn attention to the interplay between the sound 'O,' and 'eau,' in Maurice Blanchot's own proper name, as well as in his novels, récits and theoretical works; both the zero-degree of organic excitation towards which the death drive aims and the question of water. Sandor Ferenczi's notion of thalassal regression suggests that the desire to return to the tranquility of the maternal womb parallels a response to a traumatic prehistoric extinction event undergone by organic life once forced to abandon its aquatic existence. Through Gaston Bachelard's Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter, however, one can double the imaginary of water along the axes of a personal death organic life defers and delays, and an impersonal extinction it cannot. Derrida's unpublished 1977 seminar on Blanchot's 1941 novel Thomas the Obscure, however, allows us to imagine an exteriority to extinction, the possibility

Front Cover -- Back Cover -- Half-Title Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- 1 Preface to the Expanded Edition -- 2 A Global Attack on the Commons -- 3 An Etiology of the Present Catastrophe -- 4 Capitalism and Extinction -- 5 Decolonizing Conservation -- 6 Anti-Extinction -- 7 Radical Conservation -- 8 Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Acknowledgements -- Endnotes -- About the Author.

This book provides, for the first time, a comprehensive overview of the fundamental roles that ecological interactions play in extinction processes, bringing to light an underground of hidden pathways leading to the same dark place: biodiversity loss. We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction. We see species declining and vanishing one after another. Poached rhinos, dolphins and whales slaughtered, pandas surviving only in captivity are strong emotional testimonials of what is happening. Yet, the main threat to natural communities may be overshadowed by the disappearance of large species, with most extinctions happening unnoticed and involving less eye-catching organisms, such as parasites and pollinators. Ecosystems hide countless, invisible wires connecting organisms in dense networks of ecological interactions. Through these networks, perturbations can propagate from one species to another, producing unpredictable effects. In worst case scenarios, the loss of one species might doom many others to extinction. Ecologists now consider such mechanisms as a fundamental – and still poorly understood - driver of the ongoing biodiversity crisis. Hidden Pathways to Extinction makes the invisible links connecting the fates of species and organisms evident, exploring why complexity can enhance ecosystem stability and yet accelerate species loss. Page after page, Strona provides convincing evidence that we are primarily responsible for the fall in biodiversity, that we are falling too, and that we need to redouble our conservation efforts now, or it won't be long before we hit the ground.