Just like its name suggests, ‘Extinction: Not the End of the World?’ is brimming with questions. Is extinction a creative as well as a destructive force? (Certainly.) Are humans causing the sixth mass extinction? (Probably.) And when will it be our turn to go? (Who knows, but damned if the NHM’s list of possible causes doesn’t read like Michael Bay’s IMDB page.) The answers, insofar as they exist, are handled with care, but conservationists should prepare to be shaken. Alongside extinction’s greatest hits – dinosaurs, the dodo – the NHM displays a heartbreaking cast of recent losses, not least the Baiji dolphin, gone from China’s Yangtze River as recently as 2006. All the more impressive, then, that ‘Extinction’ never feels didactic. Visit before it’s gone forever.
