If you have a global view, which - and science can give us - science would say that there are more species in danger of total disappearance than there have been in human history. I look at these images now and I realize that, although as a young man I felt I was out there in the wild experiencing the untouched natural world it was an illusion. I am David Attenborough, and I am 93. By burning millions of years worth of living organisms all at once as coal and oil, we had managed to do so in less than 200. Yet, we're nowhere near the stage where our population has stopped growing. Thats the sort of commitment you need if you want to even begin making a portrait of the living world. Sir David Attenborough explains what he thinks needs to happen to save David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. The biodiversity of the Holocene helped to bring stability, and the entire living world settled into a gentle, reliable rhythm the seasons. Sir David Attenborough was 28-years-old when he convinced his bosses at the BBC to let him travel the world and document his explorations. But during his lifetime, Attenborough has also seen first-hand the monumental scale of humanity's impact on nature. So let's go back to the beginning of this summary. Small creatures called polyps, create reefs by building walls of calcium carbonate to protect their tiny forms, while the fantastic colors of a coral reef come from the algae in their tissues. The return of the trees would absorb as much as two thirds of the carbon emissions that have been pumped into the atmosphere by our activities to date. There are signs that this has started to happen across the globe. The world population sits at 7.8 billion, the carbon in the atmosphere is 415 parts per million, and shockingly the remaining wilderness is 35%. Watch David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet | Netflix Official Site Kate Raworth, an economist at the University of Oxford, has added a social boundary to The Planetary Boundaries model - one that requires us to provide minimum levels of human well-being for all, including adequate housing, clean water, food, education, and justice. Algal forests would not attach to ice, damaging the ocean food chain. In the end, after a lifetimes exploration of the living world, Im certain of one thing. This most pristine and distant of ecosystems is headed for disaster. And we now had the means to make people across the world aware. We remember environmental disasters, but do we actually learn from them? That is my witness statement. Tasks . Regenerative and urban farming are two options. We seem to have broken loose from the restrictions that have governed the activities and numbers of other animals. And in life the animal itself lived in the chamber here and spread out its tentacles to catch its prey. For some time, climate scientists had warned that the planet would get warmer as we burned fossil fuels and released carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Its now time for our species to stop simply growing. As Attenborough reflects on his life, he begins each chapter with three facts. Even one as vast as the ocean. Theyd never seen sloths before. Attenborough is now 94, and throughout his long life, has watched the natural world wither before his eyes. Our closest relatives. As the ocean continues to heat and becomes more acidic, coral reefs around the world die. If we do things that are unsustainable, the damage accumulates ultimately to a point where the whole system collapses. We found humpbacks off Hawaii only by listening out for their calls. Just imagine that. One man has seen more of the natural world than any other. I wasn't prepared for it. Required fields are marked *. A Life on Our Planet David Attenborough A legacy-defining book from Sir David Attenborough, reflecting on his life's work, the dramatic changes to the planet he has witnessed, and what we can do to make a better future. A sixth mass extinction event is well underway. There was nothing left to restrict us. A habitat that is dead in comparison. If we travel back to modern-day Pripyat, David Attenborough tells us that nature is once again asserting itself. The wilder and more diverse forests are, the more effective they are at absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. Fossil fuels increase the greenhouse effect, releasing gases such as carbon dioxide. While the future of our planet may look bleak, Attenborough offers us hope and a vision for restoring our planet. We need to rediscover how to be sustainable. The future generations of many tree species would be at risk. The scale of the problem is so overwhelming . attenborough a life on our planet transcript life on earth the greatest story ever told david . Even in places where theres no land at all. 'David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet' review: The naturalist - CNN He researched how the Earth had experienced massive eruptions at specific points, destroying many species. So there's not a profit in it, we still go killing it, and they throw a heck of a lot of it back. They charted them as they moved across rivers, through woodlands, and over national borders. The ocean bears the brunt of this because it absorbs the excess heat of global warming. Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future. David Attenborough, A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future 33 likes Like "We live our comfortable lives in the shadow of a disaster of our own making. And that's because of the oceanic commons, as they say, the areas of the ocean in which anybody can do what they like. I'm quite sure. The most remote habitat of all exists at the extreme north and south of the planet. And I believe we can do our best. [Attenborough] By the end of the century, Borneos rainforest had been reduced by half. Copyright 2020 NPR. The number of children being born worldwide every year is about to level off. Ive visited the polar regions over many decades. 1954 WORLD POPULATION: 2.7 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 310 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 64%. And that completely changed the mindset of the population, the human population of the world. [Attenborough] We are facing nothing less than the collapse of the living world. In 1990, parts of the Mexican Coast were overfished, so a marine protected area was established. The global air temperature had been relatively stable till the 90s. Ways to fish our seas that enable them to come quickly back to life. You can be in one spot on the Serengeti, and the place is totally empty of animals, and then, the next morning [bellowing] one million wildebeest. A century from now, our planet could be a wild place again. In the 1950s, Borneo was three-quarters covered with rainforest. That without such an immense space, the herds would diminish and the entire ecosystem would come crashing down. Starring: David Attenborough. Let's briefly go back in time. SIMON: Sir David Attenborough - his book, along with his co-author Jonnie Hughes, is "A Life On Our Planet." Its crazy that our banks and our pensions are investing in fossil fuel when these are the very things that are jeopardizing the future that we are saving for. In 1937, at age 11, he would cycle from his home in Leicester into the countryside to study fossils in the rocks. A mass extinction has happened five times in lifes four-billion-year history. Follow him @davidattenborough. But it was noticeable that some of these animals were becoming harder to find. In Asia, the winds would create the monsoon on cue. I first witnessed the destruction of an entire habitat in Southeast Asia. Synopsis. And we don't learn the lessons. Vast forests. The very thing that weve removed. Because what youre looking at is skeletons. Sunlight, wind, water and geothermal. Interspersed with footage of his career and of a wide variety of ecosystems, he narrates key moments in his career and indicators of how the planet has changed over his lifetime. When I was a boy, I spent all my spare time searching through rocks in places like this for buried treasure. ATTENBOROUGH: I don't think it is a responsible thing to do is to simply say that what we see the future, it's very dangerous, and to hell with it. A key reason the population is still growing is because many of us are living longer. We have to do our best. Its the only way out of this crisis we have created. A knight framed for a crime he didn't commit turns to a shape-shifting teen to prove his innocence. Seasons blend into one another in these tropical conditions, with lush growth, abundant flowering, and seed production occurring in ongoing cycles. Palau is a Pacific Island nation reliant on its coral reefs for fish and tourism. I spent the latter half of the 1970s traveling the world, making a series I had long dreamed of called Life on Earth, the story of the evolution of life and its diversity. And we've exterminated the great fisheries. Attenborough urges us to restore biodiversity. In truth, I couldnt imagine living my life in any other way. Thank you so much for being with us. Skeletons of dead creatures. All rights reserved. When you think about it, were completing a journey. Back then, it seemed inconceivable that we, a single species, might one day have the power to threaten the very existence of the wilderness. This might all sound like a post-apocalyptic horror movie. "A Life on Our Planet" is as much a love story, a requiem, and a final request as it is a film about deforestation, overfishing, exponential population grown, and the various other culprits. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural history documentary series that form the Life collection, which form a comprehensive survey of animal and plant life on Earth. Instructions Preparation David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet | Official Trailer | Netflix Watch on Transcript Task 1 Task 2 Discussion Have you seen any of David Attenborough's films? Farming would be pushed to a crisis point. Our intelligence changed the way in which we evolved. david frost jimi hendrix; Membership. David Attenborough is a famous British naturalist. Attenborough's wildlife journey started at a young age. The natural world is fading. Hence, if we suffer the fallout of a natural disaster, we take notice of the planet. This begs the question, 'What will the next 100 years look like if we dont change?'. [Attenborough] Animals that had been viewed as little more than a source of oil and meat became personalities. This film is my witness statement and my vision for the future, the story of how we came to make this our greatest mistake, and how, if we act now, we can yet put it right. These mass extinctions have occurred five times during our planet's four billion-year lifespan. Millions of people rendered homeless. A renewable future will be full of benefits. Its been staring us in the face all along. An imaginative young squirrel leads a musical revolution to save his parents from a tyrannical leader. Without the white ice cap, less of the suns energy is reflected back out to space. They capture 3 trillion kilowatt-hours of solar energy every day. Life had no option but to rebuild. A 12-year-old boy learns he's the returned Jesus Christ, destined to save humankind. Ten thousand years ago, as hunter-gatherers, we lived a sustainable life because that was the only option. Do the preparation task first. But that distant world is changing. Attenborough's BBC production, The Blue Planet, changed this when its sophisticated camera equipment filmed a bait ball frenzy, a fantastic underwater hunt the likes of which no one had seen before.