Earlier this afternoon, a man – reported to be 43 year old James Lee – took a number hostages at the Discovery Channel headquarters in Silver Spring, MD. According to CBS News, “A man upset with the Discovery Channel’s environmental programming who took three people hostage at gunpoint at the company’s headquarters Wednesday has been shot and killed by police.” Lee allegedly authored a manifesto (the title of which is “The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet and to do the following IMMEDIATELY” that demanded the cable network change their programming to reflect an anti-population growth ethic that has come to dominate many of the shows found on the family of channels run by Discovery Channel, which include shows like Jon and Kate Plus 8 and 19 Kids & Counting. 

According to The Guardian, “Lee waged a one-man campaign aimed at forcing the Discovery Channel to run programmes encouraging human sterilisation and wildlife preservation.” In his manifesto, posted online and headlined: “The Discovery Channel MUST broadcast to the world their commitment to save the planet.” MSNBC reported that Lee “experienced an ‘‘awakening’ when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary An Inconvenient Truth.”

While we do not condone violence in the aim to bring about the second green revolution, it is difficult not to see the irony in Lee’s death. Although one less person may not accomplish his aims, the world population did decrease by one.

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