Program Information

#630 - The 6th Mass Extinction

Series:

Subtitle:

And What To Do About It

Program Type:

Weekly Program

Featured Speakers/Commentators:

Norman Myers, Ignacio Chapela, Derrick Jensen, Bernard Zaleha, Tyrone Hayes, Oren Lyons, Steven Beissinger and others, Jean Giono (reading)

Contributor:

Unwelcome Guests Collective Contact Contributor

Date Published:

Nov. 25, 2012, 1:40 a.m.

Summary: Did you know that the earth is currently experiencing the biggest mass extinction in in the last 65 million years? That half the worlds' plants and animals may go extinct in the next 30 years? Or that extinctions are happening at an accelerating pace already around 1000 times the natural rate?

Credits: Thanks to PETA for making Meat Your Meat

Notes: If the world was invaded by aliens who set about systematically killing the planet, eliminating the both variety and number of living creatures, that would certainly be big news. So why is it not big news when corporations do it? This week we shift focus away from money and debt to look instead at the real world. How is the life on earth faring under globalization?

A wide range of voices mainly from the academic community contribute our first piece this week which is a radio adaptation of the video, Call of Life. Its focus is the mass extinction already under way, the 6th in earth's history, and the greatest for at least 65,000,000 years. We then take a 4 minute snippet of a video from PETA, entitled 'Meet Your Meat' about the suffering inflicted on animals by the agribusiness industry.

Our concluding piece, another radio adaptation, is a contrast with the earlier material. It has no statistics, facts or academics and is in fact a work of fiction rather than fact. It presents a simple and compelling vision of what could be achieved through determined direct action to resist the culture of death and commodification. We hear the soundtrack of a 1987 animated film of the novel by Jean Giono, The Man Who Planted Trees which tells the enchanting story of ElzÃ©ard Bouffier, a French shepherd determined to re-forest a desolate valley in the foothills of the Alps in Provence throughout the first half of the 20th century.

Version 1: Complete audio