• Listen to this segment

This year alone more than a million acres of forest have been reduced to ashes. According to a new report by the National Wildlife Federation, “wildfire frequency and severity are increasing because of rising temperatures, drying conditions, and more lightning brought on by global warming.” Evidence of environmental destruction caused by an unsustainable lifestyle can be found not just in the ashes of our forests, but all around us: from the melting ice caps of the Arctic, to the extreme hurricanes and storms across the world. Professor of Journalism Robert Jensen analyzes the many environmental crises of the age in a recent talk entitled, The Delusion Revolution: We’re on the Road to Extinction and in Denial.” In it Jensen likens our society to people riding a train that is heading toward an abyss. The only sane option is to stop the train immediately and go forward on foot but most prefer to stay on the train having grown comfortable riding it. We are the first species, says Jensen, that will have to self-consciously impose limits on ourselves if we are to survive.

GUEST: Robert Jensen, Professor of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, and author of several books including Citizens of the Empire, The Heart of Whiteness, and Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity.

Read Jensen’s article, The Delusion Revolution online at www.alternet.org.