I'm not a fan of The New Yorker. It's a very establishment publication and it helps define a certain "sophisticated" and supposedly "correct" perspective for it's very influential demographic. What it leaves out is simply not worthy of thought or discussion, and the few progressive pieces here and there don't change the general "cultured, urbane" capitalist viewpoint that it proliferates.
Someone brought this article to my attention, I haven't read it yet, but I will if I can find a free copy somewhere.
Elizabeth Kolbert, A Reporter at Large, “The Sixth Extinction?,†The New Yorker, May 25, 2009, p. 53
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/25/0905...
It’s now generally agreed among biologists that another mass extinction is under way. If current trends continue, by the end of this century as many as half of earth’s species will be gone.