Video: Call of Life - Facing the mass extinction

While writing the article on Biodiversity crisis: Habitat loss and climate change causing 6th mass extinction I came across this film - Call of Life - Facing the mass extinction made by Species Alliance and released in 2010. I found the interviews with scientists and academics engaging and in the sum total empowering to face this issue of the biodiversity crisis and the 6th mass extinction which humans are causing.

From the Call of Life story page

Researchers have identified six primary direct drivers of extinction and all are the result of human behavior: habitat loss, invasive species, pollution, climate change, over-exploitation of resources, and above all—the factor that magnifies all the others—human overpopulation. Any of these drivers can wreak havoc by itself, but in combination with each other and with other social and environmental factors, their cumulative effects are devastating. The mass extinction will not be slowed or averted until each of these direct drivers is controlled or eliminated.

Call of Life examines the collective and individual responses that will be needed to mitigate the impacts of the mass extinction and makes clear the critical choices we have before us. We face the potential of the natural world devastated beyond recognition, with the loss of human life in the billions. Yet, we still have time to avert the worst of the crisis and save much of the biosphere, if we act now. The first step to is to create broad public awareness of the problem—its magnitude and its implications. Only then can our whole society begin to recognize the systemic changes that will be required. The solution is clear: in order to save our planet and secure a future for our own species and all species, we need a new worldview. We must recognize that technology alone cannot save us. We must realize that business-as-usual is no longer an option. Instead, we need to create fundamental change in our culture, our minds, and our hearts. Unique among all human generations, those of us alive today have been given a great opportunity: one last chance to preserve the vitality and magnificence of the living planet that brought us into being, and is our only home.

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Part 6

If you appreciated this film, you can donate to Species Alliance to support their work, or you can purchase the DVD to host a home or community screening.

Background

• Species Alliance
  
• Movie website - Call of Life - Facing the Mass extinction