The thing we rely upon for every element of the lives we lead. Huge herds on the plains have kept the grasslands rich and productive by fertilizing the soils. In 1950, a Japanese family was likely to have three or more children. A moment ago, we made this recording with an underwater microphone here in the Pacific near Hawaii. And sadly, we don't only deplete our fish. Increasingly, theyre doing so sustainably. The white corals are ultimately smothered by seaweed. Urban farming is an option on rooftops, abandoned buildings, and exterior walls of city buildings. Search the history of over 797 billion David Attenborough, A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future 8 likes Like "To restore stability to our planet, therefore, we must restore its biodiversity, the very thing we have removed. To move from being apart from nature to becoming a part of nature once again. The Amazon Rainforest, cut down until it can no longer produce enough moisture, degrades into a dry savannah, bringing catastrophic species loss and altering the global water cycle. Within the span of the next lifetime, the security and stability of the Holocene, our Garden of Eden will be lost. Leading lives that interlock in such a way that they sustain each other. The orangutan. However, half the world's rainforests have been destroyed, and the orangutan population in Borneo has reduced to a third of what it was. But, there are ways to change direction and alter the doom and gloom we've created. You can also read the transcript. Its the only way out of this crisis we have created. The forest is growing, flowers and fruit trees blossom, and wild animals visit. 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. As a result, the no fish zones have increased the catch of the local fishermen, while at the same time allowing the reefs to recover. Starring: David Attenborough. The pace of progress was unlike anything to be found in the fossil record. Prehistoric Planet will be back for a second season. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. That is quite true. In the 1960s, families often had five children, but today the average is 2.5. The United Nations and World Trade Organisation are trying to establish new rules in international waters, which are notoriously overfished by large nations. The cod fishery, I mean, we exterminated that from the Atlantic. It had everything a community would needfor a comfortable life. In 1971, I set out to find an uncontacted tribe in New Guinea. In David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet (2020), which premiered on Netflix, co-director Keith Scholey of Silverback Films and producer Colin Butfield of the World Wildlife Fund bring us Sir David's witness statement. 2020 WORLD POPULATION: 7.8 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 415 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 35%, Science predicts that were I born today, I would be witness to the following. Whole habitats would soon start to disappear. Fossils. Focusing on a specific period, from the birth of Black Wall Street to its catastrophic downfall over the course of two bloody days, and finally the fallout and reconstruction. The ocean has long since become unable to absorb all the excess heat caused by our activities. A habitat that is dead in comparison. 2020 | Maturity Rating: PG | 1h 23m | Documentary Films. And all of them completely undisturbed by your presence. Theyd never seen sloths before. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. Ive always had a passion to explore, to have adventures, to learn about the wilds beyond. Based on a children's book by Paul McCartney. I am David Attenborough, and I am 93. Emmy-winning narrator David Attenborough ("Our Planet," "Planet Earth II") looks back and shares a way forward. Governments need to offer financial incentives to create wilderness areas or involve local communities that can benefit from rewilding. Sitting on the edge of the Sahara, and cabled directly into southern Europe, Morocco could be an exporter of solar energy by 2050. 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. However, if we had "no fishing" zones in one-third of the sea, our fish stocks could recover over the long term. The biodiversity of the Holocene helped to bring stability, and the entire living world settled into a gentle, reliable rhythm the seasons. Did you know that 1.8 trillion plastic fragments are currently drifting like a garbage site in the northern Pacific? As we improve our approach to farming, well start to reverse the land-grab that weve been pursuing ever since we began to farm, which is essential because we have an urgent need for all that free land. And it relies on its biodiversity to run smoothly. And yet, this is what weve been turning this dizzying diversity into. The living world is a unique and spectacular marvel. 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. Every one has a critical role to play. SIMON: I feel the need to take up some of the very practical points that you raise in this book. on October 24, 2021. Unless we stopped ourselves. When you first see it, you think perhaps that its beautiful, and suddenly you realize its tragic. Our planet, vulnerable and isolated. Do the preparation task first. And a few years later, that idea became obvious to everyone. The living world is essentially solar-powered. If you have not used our catalog since prior to June 6, 2016 contact Circulation at the number below to get your PIN reset. 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. And, of course, the ocean is important to all of us as a source of food. A powerful shared conscience had suddenly appeared. [Attenborough] They ate meat rarely. In just 25 years, the forest has returned to cover half of Costa Rica once again. All this was absolutely clear, it was only just stopped being a working quarry. And if we do it right, it can continue because theres a win-win at play. Back then, it seemed inconceivable that we, a single species, might one day have the power to threaten the very existence of the wilderness. After the death of their father, two half-brothers find themselves on opposite sides of an escalating conflict with tragic consequences. 1997 WORLD POPULATION: 5.9 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 360 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 46%. Still, energy use, production, transport, farming, and telecommunication have also shown their sinister side. In my time, Ive experienced the warming of Arctic summers. The Second World War was over, technology was making our lives easier. The various meetings that have been convened by the United Nations - setting out plans which need validation by national governments and which will cost national governments, and I think that we need to persuade our own government in this country - and maybe you in your country - that we as citizens recognize what's happening to the world. The global air temperature had been relatively stable till the 90s. Tasks . This trajectory is unsustainable, and the Great Acceleration will inevitably result in a "Great Decline.". People benefit from the timber and then benefit again from farming the land thats left behind. 1937 WORLD POPULATION: 2.3 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 280 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 66%. As Attenborough reflects on his life, he begins each chapter with three facts. As carbon release accelerates, the ocean will continue to absorb its share of this. [birds chirping] Just imagine if we achieve this on a global scale. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. We were apart from the rest of life on earth, living a different kind of life. Yet, theyve removed 90% of the large fish in the sea. Tune in for a live pre-show 30 minutes before Chris set, followed by an aftershow. We pull out 80 million tonnes of seafood every year, only to replace it with plastic. Renewable energy, such as solar, wind, and water, could supply power. This was before any of us were aware that there were problems. We found humpbacks off Hawaii only by listening out for their calls. 75% of all species were wiped out. authoritarian parents often quizlet; worley sustainability; joshua blake pettitte; arizona snowbowl ikon pass; upadhyay caste obc or general; when do baby . Levies and carbon taxes will go somewhere to shift this. Two legendary Go players, once student and master, face victory and defeat as they inevitably come face to face as rivals. Sir David. Were certainly the most numerous large animal. But in certain places, there are hot spots where currents bring nutrients to the surface and trigger an explosion of life. You could fly for hours over the untouched wilderness. In this trailer, he talks about his documentary A Life on Our Planet. When I filmed with the mountain gorillas, there were only 300 left in a remote jungle in Central Africa. 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. Many people regarded it as the most costly in the history of mankind. You and I belong to the most widespread and dominant species of animal on earth. . At first, they caught plenty of fish in their nets. The most remote habitat of all exists at the extreme north and south of the planet. We now have the opportunity to create the perfect home for ourselves, and restore the rich, healthy, and wonderful world that we inherited. [Attenborough] It was a stark contrast to the world I knew. attenborough a life on our planet transcript life on earth the greatest story ever told david . Our predators had been eliminated. Starring: David Attenborough. The ocean is a critical ally in our battle to reduce carbon in the atmosphere. What has that done? For example, the Costa Rican government offered farmers grants to replant indigenous trees twenty-five years ago. As the Arctic warms, the tundra in Alaska, northern Canada, and Russia, would collapse as the permafrost would not stay sufficiently frozen to hold the soil together. Attenborough is now 94, and throughout his long life, has watched the natural world wither before his eyes. 2020 | Maturity Rating: 7+ | 1h 23m | Science & Nature Docs. The vast majority, chickens. At some point in the future, the human population will peak for the very first time. For 65 million years, its been at work reconstructing the living world until we come to the world we know our time. The white color is caused by corals expelling algae that lives symbiotically within their body. Despite its size, the Netherlands is now the worlds second largest exporter of food. 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. Population growth peaked in about 1962. Planet Earth. Weve come this far because we are the smartest creatures that have ever lived. 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. Clean energy has to replace fossil fuels. 1954 WORLD POPULATION: 2.7 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 310 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 64%. [Attenborough] We had broken loose. If we fast-forward to 2020, a mere 83 years later, the statistics are disheartening. It was an astonishing vision of a completely unknown world, a world that had existed since the beginning of time. There is no international law at the moment to stop it. He has perpetually been on the road ever since. We humans cannot presume the same. And skeletal is precisely what these reefs were becoming. At the same time, the Arctic becomes ice-free in the summer. The world population was 2.3 billion, the carbon in the atmosphere was 280 parts per million, and the remaining wilderness was 66%. To restore stability to our planet, we must restore its biodiversity. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. Follow him @davidattenborough. Fortunately, Tanzania and Kenya took far-sighted action to safeguard the sacred paths of the Serengeti migration. As healthcare and education improved, peoples expectations and opportunities grew, and the birth rate fell. They are the best technology nature has for locking away carbon. A key reason the population is still growing is because many of us are living longer. A Life on Our Planet is a masterpiece that explores the life and legacy of natural historian and national treasure David Attenborough. Skeletons of dead creatures. The good news is that electric cars are already here. We are Canadian. Instead, cover crops are planted after harvest to protect the soil, and crops are rotated. So there's not a profit in it, we still go killing it, and they throw a heck of a lot of it back. We must rewild the world!" David Attenborough Environmental issues have historically had low news value. David Attenborough became a household name in 1979 with his ground-breaking BBC series, "Life On Earth," which was seen by an estimated 500 million people worldwide. Yet, we're nowhere near the stage where our population has stopped growing. The number that can be sustained on the natural resources available. David Attenborough has seen more of the natural world than any other. All sorts of things that you had no idea had ever existed, all in a multitude of colors, all unbelievably beautiful. Coral reefs don't like acid, and 90% of our reefs could die off in a few years. We need to rediscover how to be sustainable. After all, theres plenty of it. Attenborough says, We run life on the planet to meet our own ends.. [chuckles] Because I wish the struggle wasnt there or necessary. Millions of people rendered homeless. The last time it happened was the event that brought the end of the age of the dinosaurs. It's estimated that three-quarters of our food crops could fail. When her husband dies, Sole decides that the best way to take care of her son is to become a crime boss even if that means being her father's enemy. 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. Environmental economists are trying to address this. Yet the way we humans live on Earth now is sending biodiversity into a decline. I mean, we have completely well, destroyed that world. The worlds greatest wildlife reserve. It was shot in 39 countries. The Maasai word Serengeti means endless plains. To those who live here, its an apt description. And we're on the danger of doing that. In this time-jumping dramedy, a workaholic who's always in a rush now wants life to slow down when he finds himself leaping ahead a year every few hours. It is the only way out of this crisis that we ourselves have created. An imaginative young squirrel leads a musical revolution to save his parents from a tyrannical leader. 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.