Attenborough fears for Life on Earth
Sir David Attenborough is nearing the end of his sweeping natural history television career. He is fearful of what the future holds for the Earth and its inhabitants.
His ‘Life on Earth’ series has been seen by hundreds of millions of people over 30 years. He has long been highlighting in his programmes the damage that human beings are doing to the planet - every series ends with a comment on this.
“The plain, simple, overwhelming fact of the matter is that since I started making programs, there are three times as many people on the Earth,” he said.
getting worse
“It is inevitable that you are going to make huge inroads into what was wild nature and that process is going on. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
Attenborough, younger brother of film director Richard, agreed with some scientists’ prediction that it was too late to reverse the impact of climate change.
deeply depressing
“Whatever we do now the world is going to change. The question is can we slow down those changes or reduce them? One clutches at straws to try and find something in this bleak picture which is not deeply depressing.”
Among those straws is the fact that governments are taking the issue seriously. Also, awareness of the dangers climate change poses to the environment has spread amongst the public.
outraged youngsters
He welcomed popular movements promoting a sustainable environment, saying young people were what counted. “…the people who are going to suffer are my grandchildren, and my grandchildren [ ] are outraged at what’s happening to the wild places of the Earth.”
Slowing down on the film-making front, he has not given up on sustainability. He is using air travel less in location work, to reduce his own carbon footprint. And he has recently launched a layer on Google Earth which illustrates the world’s endangered species, as a patron of endangered species organisation Wildscreen. He said “With the arrival of the internet, there are now even more opportunities to bring the wonders of the natural world to a global audience.”
Loading ...