SIMON: You're 94, but I have to ask, for all you have seen - almost a century - in times that have been bleak, where does this moment rank? We had worked out how to produce food to order. This most pristine and distant of ecosystems is headed for disaster. Executive-produced by his sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo. And if you knock down the whole of the Amazon rainforest, the whole of the climatic systems of rainfall and other climatic factors will be - go off balance. The killing of whales turned from a harvest to a crime. And, of course, the ocean is important to all of us as a source of food. To establish a life on our planet in balance with nature. According to David Attenborough, we have 'overrun the Earth.' For the first time, Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garca Mrquez's masterwork comes to the screen. A broadcaster recounts his life, and the evolutionary history of life on Earth, to grieve the loss of wild places and offer a vision for the future. But on the 26th of April, 1986, it suddenly became uninhabitable. Urban farming is an option on rooftops, abandoned buildings, and exterior walls of city buildings. Pripyat is situated in Ukraine, and was built by the Soviet Union in the 1970s. By the 1980s, uncontrolled logging had reduced this to just one quarter. These rivers are also dumping grounds for chemicals and pesticides, destroying birds and freshwater fish. The worlds greatest wildlife reserve. Leading lives that interlock in such a way that they sustain each other. It was designed for employees working at Chernobyl, a nearby nuclear plant. And it relies on its biodiversity to run smoothly. If the ice disappears, so does the algae that grow underneath. David Attenborough. If we want to, we can kill almost anything in the sea that we wish. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet: Directed by Alastair Fothergill, Jonathan Hughes, Keith Scholey. Emmy-winning narrator David Attenborough ("Our Planet," "Planet Earth II") looks back and shares a way forward. We humans cannot presume the same. These simple statistics speak as eloquently for our planet as our author does. Planet Earth. This particular one has a scientific name of Tiltonicerus, because the first one ever was found near this quarry here in Tilton, in the middle of England. It's estimated that three-quarters of our food crops could fail. When you think about it, were completing a journey. A sixth mass extinction event is well underway. But the longer we leave it, the more difficult itll be to do something about it. on the Internet. We have pursued animals to extinction many times in our history, but now that it was visible, it was no longer acceptable. [Attenborough] It felt that nothing would limit our progress. I think the sudden sight that there were two people way out there, high up in the sky looking at the Earth from a distance where the whole globe was within one picture was an extraordinary realization, not only of the smallness of the planet but its isolation. Attenborough is famous for many of the truly epic natural history documentaries on our planet. For 65 million years, its been at work reconstructing the living world until we come to the world we know our time. A monoculture of oil palm. The government decided to act, offering grants to land owners to replant native trees. 2021 Scraps from the Loft. His book, "A Life On Our Planet: My Witness Statement And Vision For The Future" - and the highly honored broadcaster, historian of nature and best-selling author joins us now. A powerful shared conscience had suddenly appeared. Due to a planned power outage on Friday, 1/14, between 8am-1pm PST, some services may be impacted. 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. In this future, we discover ways to benefit from our land that help, rather than hinder, wilderness. In this world, a species can only thrive when everything else around it thrives, too. So it's very profitable in the short term. The resources they used naturally renewed themselves. SIMON: Sir David Attenborough - his book, along with his co-author Jonnie Hughes, is "A Life On Our Planet." In a single small patch of tropical rainforest, there could be 700 different species of tree, as many as there are in the whole of North America. It was shot in 39 countries. The 'why' behind this, points to global warming. He seems tired of keeping quiet about it. web pages It will survive. Sir David Attenborough is 94 years old and has some stark, startling sentences in the first few pages of his new book. In 2014, a plane with 239 people aboard vanishes from all radar. I am David Attenborough, and I am 93. And suddenly, we realized, you know, we're there together, and we're alone. Instead, cover crops are planted after harvest to protect the soil, and crops are rotated. This devastation could happen quickly, with water and food shortages, and the displacement of about 30 million people. Ice-free summers in the Arctic would also start. Palau is a Pacific Island nation reliant on its coral reefs for fish and tourism. The purpose of Boykoff's study was to examine environmental representations, to 'provide opportunities to interrogate how particular narratives are translated, and how they make (in)visible certain discourses.' Algal forests would not attach to ice, damaging the ocean food chain. Iceland, Albania, and Paraguay generate their electricity without fossil fuels. You can also read the transcript. The white color is caused by corals expelling algae that lives symbiotically within their body. As healthcare and education improved, peoples expectations and opportunities grew, and the birth rate fell. Fossils. We cant cut down rainforests forever, and anything that we cant do forever is by definition unsustainable. as they were made aware of the natural world. The scale of the problem is so overwhelming . Why wouldnt we want to do these things? Recent surveys indicate that one-third of the population has either stopped or reduced their meat consumption in the UK, and 39% of Americans are trying to eat less meat. While the future of our planet may look bleak, Attenborough offers us hope and a vision for restoring our planet. The Holocene was our Garden of Eden. David Attenborough has seen more of the natural world than any other. This city in Ukraine was once home to almost 50,000 people. 2.4M views 2 years ago In this unique feature documentary, titled David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet, the celebrated naturalist reflects upon both the defining moments of his. Attenborough's wildlife journey started at a young age. The white corals are ultimately smothered by seaweed. They have a symbiotic relationship; the algae absorb sunlight, which provides the polyps with the energy they need to snap up their passing prey, and expand their coral colony. As a child, Attenborough enjoyed studying fossils. SIMON: I feel the need to take up some of the very practical points that you raise in this book. If you have not used our catalog since prior to June 6, 2016 contact Circulation at the number below to get your PIN reset. The longer they have to wait for the ice to return, the more they use up their fat supplies. Walruses rest on the sea ice when they're not hunting, and because there isn't enough space on the diminishing ice, it becomes very overcrowded. In 1950, a Japanese family was likely to have three or more children. Sir David,. Copyright 2020 NPR. We must rewild the world!" David Attenborough That disaster is being brought about by the very things that allow us to live our comfortable lives." Based on the comic book series by Mark Millar and Peter Gross. If we travel back to modern-day Pripyat, David Attenborough tells us that nature is once again asserting itself. In previous events, it had taken volcanic activity up to one million years to dredge up enough carbon from within the earth to trigger a catastrophe. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. And the speed of global warming increases. It was a great place to come to as a boy, because this is, um, ironstone workings, but it was disused. A marked change in atmospheric carbon has always been incompatible with a stable earth. [Attenborough on video] Climbing over the tightly-packed bodies is the only way across the crowd. By and large, its a story of slow, steady change. Then watch the video and do the exercises. But Chernobyl was a single event. From a person that has seen just how quickly our natural world has disappeared in his own lifetime, at the present rate how little time could be left, what solutions, course to take. Trailer: David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. The evidence is all around. Today, it generates 40% of its needs at home from a network of renewable power plants, including the worlds largest solar farm. Two legendary Go players, once student and master, face victory and defeat as they inevitably come face to face as rivals. Protected fish populations soon became so healthy, they spilt over into the areas open to fishing. This unique feature documentary is his witness statement. And the rich and thriving living world around us has been key to this stability. And the idea could be passed from one generation to the next. J.P. Morgan: How One Man Financed America is a fast-paced and informative portrait of Americas most prolific banker a man so powerful that when he died, the NYSE paused all trading for half a day out of respect. Yet, theyve removed 90% of the large fish in the sea. And then you clear that furthermore for cattle. And powerful evidence that however grave our mistakes, nature will ultimately overcome them. [imperceptible] Theyve always been a place beyond imagination with scenery unlike anything else on earth and unique species adapted to a life in the extreme. Today, the forest has taken over the city. [snorting] Whenever we choose a piece of meat, we too are unwittingly demanding a huge expanse of space. Plankton would also be destroyed by the acid, affecting the entire food chain. After moving his family into his childhood home, a man's investigation into a local factory accident connected to his father unveils dark family secrets. 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. In 1998, a Blue Planet film crew discovered that the beautiful colors of the coral reefs were turning to skeletal chalky white. He and his son used a plane to follow the herds over the horizon. The true tragedy of our time is still unfolding across the globe, barely noticeable from day to day. It's a statement of his past experiences, what will happen if our current destructive path continues, and what we need to do to rehabilitate our remarkable planet. Sitting on the edge of the Sahara, and cabled directly into southern Europe, Morocco could be an exporter of solar energy by 2050. And freshwater is equally at risk. We learnt how to exploit the seasons to produce food crops. Some of the numbers are slightly out too. Or is that question not called for under the circumstances? If we take care of nature, nature will take care of us. watch for yourself. In the 1950s, Bernhard Grzimek, a German scientist, realized that wildlife was under threat in the Serengeti and needed the entire expanse of the plains to survive. The Maasai word Serengeti means endless plains. To those who live here, its an apt description. And we've exterminated the great fisheries. And the changes we have to make will only benefit ourselves and the generations that follow. Rewilding the world is simpler than you might think. Its quite straightforward. Required fields are marked *. And beyond that strip, there is nothing but regimented rows of oil palms. If herds of animals couldn't travel to new grazing, they, along with predators, would starve. [wildebeest snorting] For every single predator on the Serengeti, there are more than 100 prey animals. There are signs that this has started to happen across the globe. For a long time, I and perhaps you have dreaded that future. 1954 WORLD POPULATION: 2.7 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 310 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 64%. They had never seen the center of New Guinea before. This unique feature documentary is his witness statement. Mangroves and coral reefs along thousands of miles of coast have harbored nurseries of fish species that, when mature, then range into open waters. You say in this book, with us or without us ATTENBOROUGH: Oh, well, yes. Summer sea ice in the Arctic has reduced by 40% in 40 years. A meteorite impact triggered a catastrophic change in the earths conditions. As the ocean continues to heat and becomes more acidic, coral reefs around the world die. Our impact now truly profound. But for us, an idea could do that. 1960 WORLD POPULATION: 3.0 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 315 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 62%. Instructions. Sunlight, wind, water and geothermal. A mass extinction has happened five times in lifes four-billion-year history. And renewable energy will never run out. Vast forests. All rights reserved. I advocate that there should be zones, parts of the ocean where they should be absolutely sacrosanct, where, in fact, populations of fish can build up and actually from that, colonize the rest of the seas that we've stripped. As carbon release accelerates, the ocean will continue to absorb its share of this. Polar bears need ice as the launching pads for hunting. In such places, huge shoals of fish gather. The pace of change was getting faster and faster. Still, energy use, production, transport, farming, and telecommunication have also shown their sinister side. Video zone: David Attenborough: A Life on Our . It was an astonishing vision of a completely unknown world, a world that had existed since the beginning of time. And then, every hundred million years or so, after all those painstaking processes, something catastrophic happens, a mass extinction. Its covered with small family-run farms with no room for expansion. The future generations of many tree species would be at risk. Attenborough launched an official Instagram account on Thursday, Sept. 24, in support of the film. A century from now, our planet could be a wild place again. But whether it will survive in the form that will include us in it is just another question. Right now, were facing a manmade disaster of global scale. Politicians and corporates have to overcome vested interests and work towards the greater good. 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. It had everything a community would need for a comfortable life. Each generation able to develop and progress only because the living world could be relied upon to deliver us the conditions we needed. Humanitarian crises would result as people would be forced to relocate, triggering border conflict. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. There are many differences between humans and the rest of the species on earth, but one that has been expressed is that we alone are able to imagine the future. Boo! list the consequences of walking in darkness; tate brothers romania; lac courte oreilles tribal membership requirements; uva men's volleyball roster. All rights reserved. . From Pripyat, an area deserted after a nuclear disaster, Attenborough gives an overview of his life. All that evolution undone. Most of our diseases were under control. "No fishing" zones cover less than 7% of the ocean. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. David Attenborough, Our Planet In his 93 years, Attenborough has visited every continent on the globe, exploring the wild places of the planet and documenting the living world in all its variety and wonder. Once a species became our target, there was now nowhere on earth that it could hide. Nature is our biggest ally and our greatest inspiration. But you now want to explain to us what peril we are in. Amazingly the plants on Earth, together with their ocean counterparts of algae and phytoplankton, know all about solar power. You write, for example, we have become too skilled at fishing. Its happened in my lifetime. Our closest relatives. The very thing that weve removed. Fast forward to 2021, and a far greater catastrophe looms. Fishers survived on food vouchers but kept the faith, and today, marine life in that area has increased by more than 400%. You can be forgiven for thinking that these plains are endless when they could swallow up such a herd. There are something like 4,000 million of us today, and weve reached this position with meteoric speed. It was a very different world back then. And the extent of the polar ice has been critical, reflecting sunlight back off its white surface, cooling the whole earth. People benefit from the timber and then benefit again from farming the land thats left behind. And I believe we can do our best. What we see happening today is just the latest chapter in a global process spanning millennia. And in that one shot, there was the whole of humanity with nothing else except the person that was in the spacecraft taking that picture. Ocean life was also unravelling in the shallows.
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