Enjoy nature? Well, do it while you can. We’re losing as many as 200 species a day, scientists say – plants, animals, birds, bugs – with cascading effects for all other species, including humans. And it's humans – our factories, cars, planes and power plants, our sprawling cities and mono-culture farms – who have disrupted complex ecosystems and are speeding climate change.

Dr. Gretta Pecl and Sakhile Koketso join this episode to discuss the many impacts of biodiversity loss, the challenges of combatting climate change at various scales, why biodiversity matters to all of us, and how our current trajectory is on track to making us the ‘crappiest ancestors ever’ for all our future generations – though we still have time to avoid the worst, with the right actions now.

Guest Bios

Dr. Gretta Pecl is a professor of marine ecology at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, and the Director of the Centre for Marine Socioecology. She leads many projects and initiatives, including the Future Seas project, the citizen science project Redmap Australia, and the Species on the Move conference. She is a lead author on the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report on Impacts, Vulnerability and Adaptation.

Sakhile Koketso heads Science, Policy and Governance at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). She has also worked with Whitebird Environ Consult Inc., the Green Climate Fund, the Kalahari Conservation Society, the United Nations Development Programme, and with national parks in Botswana, her country of origin.

Guest Host Bio

Taili Ni, assistant producer of the COAL+ICE Podcast, is a program officer at Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations.

Clownfish episode photo: Copyright Bing Lin.