Chris Packham: We're precipitating a mass extermination event

Our world has led a long, sometimes tumultuous and always complicated life. Telling that story is no small feat, but Earth, a five-part BBC documentary narrated by naturalist Chris Packham, sets out to do so by looking at significant moments in Earth's history, "its first step, its first word, its first marriage", says Packham. "And we've been very much driven by some of the more exciting new science as well." While the series deals with Earth's history on a geological scale - including how the climate has changed radically, often over millions of years, and sometimes with astonishing results - for Packham, it is the much more-recent legacy of accelerated human-driven climate change and biodiversity loss that troubles him the most. "I'm slightly troubled by the word loss," says Packham. "We haven't lost the species. We haven't inadvertently left them behind the shed. We've destroyed them or we've destroyed their habitats. So it's not a sixth mass extinction event that we're precipitating, it's a mass extermination event." There is, however, still time to make a difference, he says. "As a conscious organism, precipitating that type of event isn't conscionable from my perspective, which is why I would rather do something about it." – Learn more ➤ https://www.newscientist.com/article/... Subscribe ➤ https://bit.ly/NSYTSUBS Get more from New Scientist: Official website: https://bit.ly/NSYTHP Facebook: https://bit.ly/NSYTFB Twitter: https://bit.ly/NSYTTW Instagram: https://bit.ly/NSYTINSTA LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/NSYTLIN About New Scientist: New Scientist was founded in 1956 for “all those interested in scientific discovery and its social consequences”. Today our website, videos, newsletters, app, podcast and print magazine cover the world’s most important, exciting and entertaining science news as well as asking the big-picture questions about life, the universe, and what it means to be human. New Scientist https://www.newscientist.com/