Individual Change Is Key to Halting Extinction

Newswise — The voice of Cornell University’s Christopher Clark is among the first you’ll hear when the documentary Racing Extinction airs worldwide tonight, at 9:00 p.m. ET on the Discovery Channel. The film is a fast-paced exposé of illegal wildlife trafficking and the devastating ripple effects of fossil-fuel dependence, all of which leads to one conclusion – humans are destroying the planet and time is running out. Clark, the Johnson Senior Scientist in the Bioacoustics Research Program at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, says the key to saving endangered species lies with each of us. Clark says: “I compare the world’s sounds to a symphony. Due to increased carbon production, little by little, one by one, the musical instruments – in this case species­ – are being removed, driven to extinction. "Global warming is not a belief. It’s a fact. When I first went to the Arctic Ocean as a graduate student in 1979 to help census endangered bowhead whales, the ocean ice was 20 to 60 feet thick. Last year it was only 8 feet thick. “I’m passionate about getting people to understand that our carbon footprint is unsustainable. Racing Extinction offers a series of recommendations about what we as individuals can do to slow down the tidal wave of extinction, whether it’s skipping meat for a day, or switching to a greener source of energy. Science is important but it’s not the answer. The answer lies in human behavior. “The problem is so big that we have to engage, not a million people, not 10 million people, but billions of people. It really has to do with our responsibility to life on this planet, because what’s happening to the Earth is about all of us – we’re all in this together.” For interviews contact:Melissa Osgoodoffice: 607-255-2059cell: 607-882-3773[email protected] OR Pat LeonardCornell Lab of OrnithologyOffice: 607-254-2137[email protected]