Extinction Begins with Silence: Apathy, Shifting Baselines, and Choosing to Act

All Creatures Podcast

Nature, Science, Natural Sciences

4.7 • 563 Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2026

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Chris opens this min episode by arguing that extinction begins with silence and that humans live in “awareness without response,” Citing species decline and ecosystem change, including emperor penguins being upgraded to endangered with a projected 90% decline by century’s end, he frames our current global reality. Chris states apathy, quoted from Dr. Jane Goodall, as a quiet, dangerous gap between knowing and acting, driven by disconnection, distance, and overwhelm. The time to act is now and Chris sets up for future episodes on how we will accomplish that. Timeline 00:00 Extinction Starts With Silence 01:01 Awareness Without Response 02:28 Apathy Not Ignorance 03:50 Vaquita And Pangolin Examples 05:31 Slow Collapse And Shifting Baselines 06:39 Birdsong Comparison Australia vs NZ 09:59 Forest Elephants And Ocean Declines 14:59 Migration Timing Breaking Down 17:31 Inaction Becomes A Decision 22:06 Responsibility And What We Can Do 23:03 Jane Goodall Hopeful Sendoff == Another thank you to all our Patreon supporters. You too can join for one cup of "good" coffee a month. With your pledge you can support your favorite podcast on Patreon and give back to conservation. With the funds we receive each month, we are have been sending money to conservation organizations monthly. We now send a check to every organization we cover, as we feel they all are deserving of our support. Thank you so much for your support and for supporting animal conservation. Please considering supporting us at Patreon HERE. We also want to thank you to all our listeners. We are giving back to every conservation organization we cover and you make that possible. We are committed to donating large portions of our revenue (at minimum 25%) to every organization we cover each week. Thank you for helping us to grow, and for helping to conserve our wildlife. Please contact us at advertising@airwavemedia.com if you would like to advertise on our podcast You can also visit our website HERE. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.
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0:27.7	Have you ever thought about what would happen if your airline window popped out?
0:30.9	Or if you could build a jetpack using only machine guns? Turns out you can, but you really
0:35.9	shouldn't. Hi, I'm Jill Chacha, host of a podcast
0:39.1	that's for weird people who like learning about weird stuff. It's called, well, that's interesting.
0:44.1	And it's a comedy science you show that tells the story behind the facts, because as it turns out,
0:48.4	those stories are funny. The facts are bizarre. The stories are epic and the laughter is plentiful.
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1:20.8	I really want you to think about this as we open this podcast episode.
1:29.5	Extinction does not begin with disappearance.
1:34.3	It begins with silence.
1:37.5	Now, today I'm going to challenge you to listen to this episode and kind of decide where you stand.
1:43.2	Where you will finally make a difference, because I'm
1:46.1	talking directly to you, wherever you are in the world listening to this. The challenge for us
1:53.3	is while we care, we feel helpless. And in this episode, we're going to talk about that. And in a future episode,
2:05.8	talk about how you can start making a difference. And this is the new frontier for us moving
2:13.4	forward is as we watch the world around us change.
2:20.7	We often feel helpless.
	...

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