Photo/Illutration Demonstrators with placards at a nationwide protest in Manchester, Britain, seek stronger global climate actions during the concurrent U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Brazil on Nov. 15. REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja

We humans discovered extinction before we discovered evolution.


That striking notion of humanity grasping the finality of life before understanding its unfolding appears in “Zetsumetsu no Hakken” (The discovery of extinction) co-authored by Japanese paleontologist Makoto Manabe.

The book says humanity first became aware of extinction when people realized that many organisms—plants, animals and insects—whose specimens had been collected by naturalists from newly encountered lands during the Age of Exploration were no longer to be found.

This absence led to the startling recognition that entire species could disappear from Earth. It was only later that British naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) introduced his epoch-making theory of evolution.

At the National Museum of Nature and Science where Manabe served as vice president, a special exhibition titled “Mass Extinctions: Big Five” is now underway.

Over Earth’s 4.6-billion-year history, life has undergone multiple waves of extinction. This exhibition traces the five most consequential mass die-offs, collectively known as the “Big Five.”

Although the word “extinction” evokes catastrophe and irrevocable loss, the exhibition made me realize that it can also open the door to new evolutionary opportunities.

Take the so-called End-Cretaceous extinction—the fifth mass extinction, triggered by an asteroid impact 66 million years ago—which wiped out all non-avian dinosaurs.

In its aftermath, mammals rapidly diversified and grew larger, setting the stage for the evolutionary lineage that would eventually lead to human beings.

The final section of the exhibition, “We Who Live in the Period of the Sixth Mass Extinction,” left me deeply unsettled. To confront the fact that we are living amid an unfolding existential crisis, and that human activity is its primary cause, is profoundly sobering.

According to the exhibition, today’s climate change is advancing even faster than the environmental shifts that triggered past extinctions.

Meanwhile, in Brazil, COP30, the 30th United Nations Climate Change Conference, has convened at a critical moment for global climate negotiations.

The U.S. administration under President Donald Trump is not even participating. With no indication that the rise in global average temperatures is slowing, it is difficult to avoid a sense of foreboding.

Manabe writes that to keep the relay of life from breaking, people around the world must continue to speak with one another. Yet in an era of deepening division, one wonders whether humanity is still capable of doing so.

—The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 17

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.