‘A climate of unparalleled malevolence’: are we on our way to the sixth major mass extinction?

The Audio Long Read

The Guardian

Society & Culture

4.3 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 29 September 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Churning quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at the rate we are going could lead the planet to another Great Dying By Peter Brannen. Read by Lincoln Conway. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The Guardian.
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0:46.0	showcasing the best long-form journalism
0:48.1	covering culture, politics and new thinking.
0:50.7	For the text version of this and all our long reads,
0:53.1	go to the Guardian.com forward
0:54.7	slash long read.
0:59.5	A climate of unparalleled malevolence. Are we on our way to the sixth major mass extinction?
1:05.7	By Peter Brannon. Read by Lincoln Conway.
1:18.8	Thank you. Read by Lincoln Conway. Daniel Rothman works on the top floor of the building that houses the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
1:24.7	MIT, Department of Earth, atmospheric, and planetary sciences.
1:29.6	A big, concrete domino that overlooks the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1:35.3	Rothman is a mathematician interested in the behavior of complex systems, and in the Earth,
1:40.3	he has found a worthy subject.
1:43.0	Specifically, Rothman studies the behavior of the planet's carbon cycle,
	...

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