Sixty Five million years ago, the dinosaurs were wiped out in a mass extinction. And now, according to Academy Award-winning director Louie Psihoyos, we are on the verge of the sixth mass extinction. His film Racing Extinction , a documentary that will be telecast on Discovery Channel on December 2, 9 p.m., deals with a new undercover operation to expose the world of endangered species trafficking and the race to prevent mass extinction. Spanning the globe to infiltrate the world’s most dangerous black markets and using high tech tactics to document the link between carbon emissions and species extinction, the 90-minute film reveals images, that “truly change” the way we see the world. The director, who received Academy Awards for The Cove , a groundbreaking film on mankind’s destructive effects on nature, shares his thoughts on his latest venture. As a species, we’re one step away either from greatness or the greatest disaster, he explains. “This new epoch is called Anthropocene. It means the age of man. The irony is that our own species named homo sapiens means the wise ones. How wise is it when one species through our, either deliberate or, unconsidered actions, is causing half the species of the planet to be wiped out, maybe in just a generation or two? So it’s important that we change the world if we want to save it.”
On what he wants people watching the movie to take away from it, Louie says: “First of all – the awareness about the mass extinction. It’s up to everyone involved to help solve this. The little actions we do each day are going to have a huge impact. We cannot all be eating meat for human consumption. I want people to realise that the burning of fossil fuels is affecting the oceans. We’re not going to have coral reefs. There are about a billion people that rely on coral reefs for food, sustenance and recreation. That’s going to disappear in just a few generations unless we get rid of fossil fuels.” He adds that the easiest way to reduce our fossil fuel consumption is to adopt more of a plant-based diet. “That’s because the raising of meat for human consumption causes more greenhouse gases than the emissions from the entire transportation sector. If you want to save the planet, change your diet. I’m not saying everybody has to become a vegetarian, but adopting a plant-based diet has huge effects. If everybody in America cut out meat, eggs and cheese for just one day a week in America, it would be the equivalents of taking 7.6 million cars off the road permanently.”
On how different Racing Extinction is from The Cove , Louie says both are eco-thrillers. “They’re exciting to watch and make. However, The Cove was the most award-winning documentary in history but people didn’t see it because it had the stigma of being a horror movie. There were scenes that were difficult for people to watch. In this film, we wanted to keep the bloody, awful-to-watch material out. We didn’t want to make this a cult film like The Cove . We wanted to make it a general movie that everyone can see. I believe it’s going to be a great success because Discovery is said to have access to three billion people. We also have the campaign. With The Cove , we spent all of our time and energy making the film.
But after that, we didn’t have a campaign for people who wanted to help. Now if people go to www.racingextinction.com and log on to the #StartWith1Thing campaign, they can start to figure out what’s the one thing they can do to start changing the world.”
Will showing the film to children and the youth will have a larger impact? “Yes!” Louie agrees. “We’ve been showing the film to school children. I think kids understand this and are enthusiastic about this issue. They understand that our generation, my generation is the one that really messed it up. And it’s up to them to fix it. I believe, now with Discovery, the Internet and children, things are going to happen at lightning speed. The change that we need is completely possible. I’m enthusiastic because it’s a new world right now.”
On a parting note, what if nature corrects itself and all of mankind is gone, which species will take over the planet? “Wow, you know, there are winners and losers in every extinction. Obviously, I have been around the world digging up dinosaurs and looking for early mammals with some of my friends. The winners in the ocean are going to be jellyfish. They are almost indestructible and thrive in an acidic ocean. But on land, I don’t know. It will probably be cockroaches and rodents. But I don’t want it to get to that point. Life on the planet before we go extinct is going to get more miserable for a lot of people. What we’re trying to do is prevent that from happening.”
