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PEOPLE & ARTS A31
‘Racing Extinction’ sounds the alarm for vanishing species
LYNN ELBER
AP Television Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) — When
Discovery Channel’s “Rac-
ing Extinction” debuts
worldwide, the documen-
tary’s creators will be look-
ing for more than ratings
and critical reaction. It’s
action they’re after.
Oscar-winning director Lou-
ie Psihoyos (“The Cove”)
says the film is intended as
a call to arms to prevent a
grim future for Earth and its
steadily vanishing species.
“The loss of biodiversity will dance film festival screen- considered a delicacy. one that was shot in 1989,
be unimaginably horrific
for future generations if we
don’t do something about
it now,” Psihoyos said. “My
intention in making the
film is not just to create the this week’s United Na- but retains a focus on the he puts it.
awareness, but to create a
campaign, a movement”
that inspires change.
The film’s rollout matches
Psihoyos’ ambitions for it.
“Racing Extinction,” airing
9 p.m. EST Wednesday in
the United States and in lo-
cal prime time in 200-plus
countries and TV markets,
required some 50 versions
to accommodate vary-
ing languages and other
needs, said Discovery doc-
umentaries chief John Hoff-
man.
“If we can’t stand up and
say that we are a net-
work that must tell stories
about how we are putting
the health of the planet
at great risk, who else
should?” he said.
Hoffman, at Discovery for
a year after a long ten-
ure at HBO shepherding
well-regarded documen-
taries, says more such en-
CMT awards show honoring
ABC drama ‘Nashville’
NEW YORK (AP) — CMT is
honoring a television show
from another network on its
“Artists of the Year” special
that’s being telecast live on
Wednesday.
The music-oriented ABC
drama “Nashville” is be-
ing given CMT’s first-ever
“International Impact
Tuesday 1 December 2015

This 2015 photo provided by Discovery Channel shows a scene with methane exploding from what he calls “greenies,” is
“Racing Extinction.” The film airs on Dec. 2, 2015, in more than 240 countries and territories in a left to die in the ocean.
single day. That contrasts with un-
derwater footage of a
Associated Press maimed shark off the coast
of Indonesia, its fins sliced
vironmental programs are about it,” Psihoyos says. dicators. off and struggling to swim.
As disheartening as such
planned. He declined to His 2009 documentary, In the Discovery film, an images are, “Racing Extinc-
tion” manages to be ex-
put a price tag on “Racing “The Cove,” depicted how underwater photographer hilarating as well. One se-
quence offers breathtaking
Extinction,” which Discov- Japanese fishermen hunt compares a photo taken images of endangered ani-
mals projected onto land-
ery bought after its Sun- dolphins for their meat, of a barrier reef in 1960 to mark New York buildings
made into theater screens
for mass enlightenment.
ing earlier this year. “Racing Extinction” paints showing the once-beautiful A companion effort,
#StartWith1Thing, is aimed
Its telecast coincides with with a much broader brush area now gone “to hell,” as at getting people to make
a single change to help
protect the world, said
actor Fisher Stevens (“The
tions conference in Paris sea. The outcome of other, more Grand Budapest Hotel,”
‘’The Blacklist”), a producer
on climate change. That’s “The world can’t live with immediate human assaults on “The Cove” and “Rac-
ing Extinction.”
one of the threats to life an unhealthy ocean. Plank- on marine life are graphi- “If you connect emotion-
ally to the characters or
on land and sea that the ton generates over half the cally illustrated, along with species in the film, it’s go-
ing to affect you and make
film, paced like a thriller, oxygen we breathe,” but the efforts of those deter- you question certain things
you do in your life ... even
explores with help from ex- faces destruction from the mined to document and if it’s just not eating a ham-
burger or volunteering for a
perts and activists. increasing concentration expose them. day” with an environmen-
tal group, he said.
of carbon in the planet’s One sequence shows thou- A crucial step, he suggests,
is realizing what confronts
One dire warning comes waters, Psihoyos said in an sands of shark fins, espe- the planet and its inhabit-
ants, humans included.
from Stuart Pimm, a Duke interview earlier this year. cially valued for soup in “Part of the big problem,
and it’s the reason we
University professor of con- Rising levels of dissolved Asia, spread across a roof- make these movies, is that
people don’t really know
servation ecology, who carbon dioxide are jeop- top at a Hong Kong ware- (the situation) or think it
doesn’t affect them. But
says that species are be- ardizing the survival of sea house. At another business, the truth is that everything
is affecting them,” Stevens
coming extinct at a rate a organisms including corals described by Psihoyos as said.q
thousand times faster than and shellfish and as a result the “Wal-Mart for the en-
would happen naturally, could “substantially alter” dangered species trade in
without human influence. ocean biodiversity, the U.S. Hong Kong,” a worker con-
“It’s like we’re living in the Environmental Protection tends that every shark part
age of the dinosaurs, but Agency says in its descrip- is harvested and that no
we can do something tion of climate change in- shark, contrary to claims by
Award.” CMT said Monday come an international am-
that Kellie Pickler, who has bassador for country music.
her own show on CMT, will Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton,
present the award to most Florida Georgia Line, Sam
of the “Nashville” cast. The Hunt and Little Big Town are
CMT special is taking place being named CMT’s artists
in the city that gives the se- of the year. Kenny Rogers
ries its name. gets a lifetime achieve-
ment award and Chris
CMT President Brian Philips Stapleton will get a special In this image released by ABC, Hayden Panettiere portrays Ju-
said “Nashville” has be- “breakout” award.q liette Barnes in a scene from the series “Nashville.”
Associated Press