What comes to mind when you think of the term mass extinction, an alien invasion,
a meteorite charging to Earth, or some other catastrophic event that threatens our very future existence?
Well, what if I was to tell you that a mass extinction is actually happening right now?
You're living through one.
Welcome to LSE IQ, the podcast where we ask social scientists to answer one intelligent question.
I'm Anna Bevan from the IQ team.
We work with academics and other experts to tell you about their latest research and ideas.
Up until now, I've been mostly behind the scenes editing episodes,
but this month I'm asking, how can we survive the next mass extinction?
I'll be hearing about the dangers of greenwashing, what it's like to witness an environmental catastrophe,
and how we can change our behaviour to benefit the planet.
In the past, there have been five mass extinction events,
of which the most famous was probably the dinosaur extinction, right?
But now we're actually in the middle of a mass extinction event,
or where it's happening, where we're losing plants and animals worldwide at a very rapid rate.
Up to 75% of the diversity of the species of life on Earth are on their way to becoming extinct,
which has huge implications for how we actually have lived on our planet and how we can live on our planet in the future.
That's Dr.
Ganga Sridhar, assistant professor in LSE's department of psychological and behavioural science.
As an applied behavioural and experimental economist,