After listening to the It Could Happen Here podcast, I was unable to find The Climate Leviathan or The Uninhabitable Earth at my library. I was able to pick up The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert (@ElizKolbert).

Kolbert briefly covers resistance to the idea of species extinction in uniformitarianism, the 5 extinctions in the geological record, and scientists who are studying the 6th extinction of the Anthropocene. Kolbert's fills the pages of 6th extinction with field journalism into frog extinction by chytrid fungi, coral reef destruction by ocean acidification, bat extinction by white nose syndrome, mass species extinction by the destruction of rainforest, and the extinction of large land mammals by human hunting. The grounding of her ideas in research done in the areas effected adds a great deal to the book.

If you don't fully understand the human threat to all other life on earth, this book provides a good foundation in ecology.