When someone like Sir David Attenborough speaks, he does it with class, dignity & passion that will make any person on this planet pay attention.
‘A Life on Our Planet’ on Netflix is Sir Davids witness statement taking a look back at his lifetime on our planet right up to modern day.
Looking back at when he first started exploring the planet, compared to where we are now is a stark contrast and is summed up to perfection by Attenborough when he says:
“Our impact is now truly global, our impact now truly profound, our blind assault on the planet has finally come to alter the very fundamentals of the living world”
This is no understatement when he then goes on to state the following facts:
- That we have now overfished 30% of fish stocks to critical levels
- We now cut down 15 billion trees each year
- By damming, polluting and over extracting rivers and lakes, we have reduced the size of fresh water populations by over 80%
- Half of the fertile land on earth is now farmland
- 70% of the mass of birds on this planet are domestic birds – the vast majority chickens.
- We account for over 1/3 of the weight of mammals on earth. A further 60% are the animals we raise to eat. The rest from mice to whales make up just 4%.
“We are replacing the wild with the tame. This is now our planet, run by human kind for human kind. There is little left for the rest of the living world” says Sir David with almost a tear in his eye.
He then follows this up with his withness statement which is so profound that it will almost inevitably echo through the ages:
“Since I started filming in the 1950’s, on average wild animal populations have more than halved. I look back at these images now and I realise that although as a young man I felt I was out there in the wild, experiencing the untouched natural world, it was just an illusion. Those forests, plains and seas were already emptying, so the world is not as wild as what it was. We have destroyed it, not just ruined it, completely destroyed that world, its gone, human beings have overrun the world”.
“If we continue on our current course, the damage that has been the defining feature of my lifetime, will be eclipsed by the damage coming in the next”
With not a single word of exageration, we are then told about how our future will unfold if we persist on our current course:
2030’s
- The Amazon Rainforest will continue to be cut down until it can no longer produce enough moisture, which will then degrade into a dry savanna, bringing catastrophic species loss & altering the global water cycle.
- At the same time, the Artic becomes ice free in the summer. Without the white ice cap, less sun of the suns energy is reflected back out to space, and the speed of global warming increases.
2040’s
- Through out the North frozen soils thaw, releasing methane. A greenhouse gas many times more potent that carbon dioxide, excelerating the rate of climate change dramatically.
2050’s
- As the ocean continues to heat and becomes more acidic, coral reefs around the world die.
- Fish populations crash.
2080’s
- Global food production enters a crisis, as soils become exhausted by over use.
- Pollinating insects disappear and the weather is more and more unpredictable.
2100’s
- Our planet becomes four degrees celsius warmer.
- Large parts of the earth are uninhabitable, millions of people are rendered homeless.
- A sixth mass extinction event is well underway.
“This is a series of one way doors, bringing irreversible change within the span of the next lifetime. The security and stability of our garden of eden will be lost. We are facing nothing less than the collapse of the living world” states Sir David.
So what do we do?
“Well ts been staring us in the face all along. To restore stability to our planet, we must restore its biodiversity. The very thing that we have removed. Its the only way out of this crisis we have created. We must rewild the world, which is simpler than you might think. These changes changes we have to make will benefit ourselves and the generations that follow”.
The required changes:
- Slow population growth down, reaching a peak global population ASAP and raising the standard of living around the world.
- Harnessing solar, wind, water and geothermal power and fazing out fossil fuels which will lead to energy becoming more affordable, cities becoming cleaner and quieter. Also renewable energy will never run out.
- Fish responsibly – create no fishing zones and protect fish species.
- Radically reduce the land we use farm & make space for returning wilderness. The quickest and easiest way to do this is for everyone to change our diet, as the planet can NOT support billions of meat eaters. By switching over to a plant based diet, we would only need half of the land we use at the moment for farming.
- Maximise the land we use to grow food, being creative & using innovative technology like they are doing in the Netherlands.
- Immediately halt deforestation everywhere and only grow palm oil and soya on land that was deforested long ago.
- Offer grants for re-planting native trees.
With that, Sir David Attenborough has told us where we are potentially heading with our future and what we can do ensure that we have a brighter, greener future. Is any of that really unreasonable?
He then proceeds to sum up ‘A Life on Earth’ perfectly with the following quote:
“Nature is our biggest ally and our greatest inspiration. If we take care of nature, nature will take care of us”
Its not over to the rest of us to make changes and forge a better future.