‘Fear is motivating’ says Chris Packham as BBC series re-creates past extinction event

Earth draws parallels between human impact on climate and volcanic eruptions that ripped through planet's crust 250 million years ago

The terror factor" generated by the new BBC series Earth - which re-creates a climate change event that wiped out most species 250 million years ago - could help spur us on to do something" about the environment crisis, according to its presenter, Chris Packham.

Using the latest scientific discoveries and visual effects, the BBC's biography of Earth" shows the parallels between a deadly change in the atmosphere caused by a series of cataclysmic supervolcano eruptions millions of years ago and mankind's fossil fuel emissions, which Packham explains are destabilising ... with terrifying rapidity" Earth's protective layer of gases.