It is not an exaggeration to call the future of the planet an apocalyptic, extinction-bearing time, according to physician and anthropologist Dr. Warren Hern. Hern joins Scheer Intelligence host Robert Scheer this week to discuss his latest book, “Homo Ecophagus: A Deep Diagnosis to Save the Earth.” Apart from conducting decades of research in fertility and population trends based in the Peruvian Amazon, Hern has had his clinical and epidemiological research published widely in respected journals as well as had his public advocacy of reproductive rights appear in The New York Times, The Washington Post and other publications.
The book title stems from what Hern wants to call the human species now, “the man who devours the ecosystem.” It also means, “we are a super organism on the planet that has all the major characteristics of a malignant process.”Hern likens the human species to a cancer on the planet, a harsh yet realistic examination of the behaviors of humans and their impact on the biosphere.
The time in which we are living and the times ahead are considered extinction events for Hern, so much so that he has given a name to this age: “We are conducting what I call the Anthropocene extinction event, which will be the sixth extinction event that the world has experienced in the last half billion years,”. “We are not adapted to the heat levels that we are going to experience and that means a lot of other species are going to go extinct.”