We need to not just to talk about what we can do, but to do what we can. Ive visited the polar regions over many decades. And you see this curtain of green with occasionally birds in it, and you think its perhaps okay. This unique feature documentary is his witness statement. An hour-long episode will actually only take him about two hours to record. We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly. For 65 million years, its been at work reconstructing the living world until we come to the world we know our time. It was a feature of all five mass extinctions. Our greatest threat in thousands of years. Sir David Attenborough, who will present a new series about nature across the Uk an Ireland for the BBC. Show more . Ultimately, all of us will feel the impact, some of which are now unavoidable. Um, and I certainly would feel very guilty if I saw what the problems are and decided to ignore them. 47 programmes available. For the first time civilization was possible and we wasted no time in taking advantage of that. David Attenborough: (00:48) Details a But Ive had unbelievable luck and good fortune. So, Dutch farmers have become expert at getting the most out of every hectare. 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. Thats the sort of commitment you need if you want to even begin making a portrait of the living world. 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. The white corals are ultimately smothered by seaweed. David Attenborough: ( 00:48) For much of humanity's ancient history, that number bounced wildly between 180 and 300, and so too did global temperatures. We cant cut down rainforests forever, and anything that we cant do forever is by definition unsustainable. For a long time, I and perhaps you have dreaded that future. [Attenboroughs] voice makes it feel like hes only talking to you and he has something very important to tell you, super-composer Hans Zimmer, who does the music for Planet Earth, comments. But it now appeared this was only because the ocean was absorbing much of the excess heat, masking our impact. David Attenborough: (06:09) A new industrial revolution, powered by millions of sustainable innovations, is essential, and is indeed already beginning. People benefit from the timber and then benefit again from farming the land thats left behind. It was a rediscovery of a fundamental truth. And the changes we have to make will only benefit ourselves and the generations that follow. These people were hunter-gatherers, as all humankind had been before farming. But you now want to explain to us what peril we are in. To save the humanity, we have to save the earth. A renewable future will be full of benefits. We actually have no control. We found humpbacks off Hawaii only by listening out for their calls. Whales were being slaughtered by fleets of industrial whaling ships in the 1970s. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum. Which is why weve cut down three trillion trees across the world. All sorts of things that you had no idea had ever existed, all in a multitude of colors, all unbelievably beautiful. But its possible to slow, even to stop population growth well before it reaches that point. Im absolutely terrified to bring a child to this world. So, I had the privilege of being amongst the first to fully experience the bounty of life that had come about as a result of the Holocenes gentle climate. Nobody wanted animals to become extinct. 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. Did that number stop rising and start to drop, as a result of commitments made here? For 10,000 years, the average temperature has not wavered up or down by more than one degree Celsius. To move from being apart from nature to becoming a part of nature once again. In Asia, the winds would create the monsoon on cue. At the age of 92, Attenborough remains committed to that mission. Each generation able to develop and progress only because the living world could be relied upon to deliver us the conditions we needed. His voice is more important to this world now than ever before.. I got as close as I did only because the gorillas were used to people. The Holocene was our Garden of Eden. [reindeer grunting] [birds hooting] [buffalo snorting] [birds cawing] [elephants trumpeting]. [thunder rumbling] And the weather is more and more unpredictable. It revealed a cold reality. David Attenborough has seen more of the natural world than any other. Why wouldnt we want to do these things? Mountain gorilla numbers now exceed 1,000 individuals thanks to concerted conservation efforts. 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. The white color is caused by corals expelling algae that lives symbiotically within their body. [snorting] Whenever we choose a piece of meat, we too are unwittingly demanding a huge expanse of space. Christopher Hooton. No one wants this to happen. His interactions with the habituated troop of a species with only 300 individuals remaining, remain unforgettable. Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet is a documentary about the end of the world. Some of the numbers are slightly out too. David Attenborough, A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future. Make your content more accessible to people with disabilities. Ten thousand years ago, as hunter-gatherers, we lived a sustainable life because that was the only option. Your email address will not be published. Theres a chance for us to make amends, to complete our journey of development, manage our impact, and once again become a species in balance with nature. Nature is resilient, if humanitys foot is removed from its throat. We were transforming what a species could achieve. 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. To accentuate the seriousness of the situation, these experts lean hard on metaphors we hear a lot about falling dominoes, tipping points, danger zones, runaway trains, open windows, the sides of coins and, most whimsically, planetary friends and planetary foes.. Watch on Netflix. [Attenborough] It was a stark contrast to the world I knew. 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. In the 30 years since the evacuation of Chernobyl, the wild has reclaimed the space. 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. Nothing to stop us. Experts examine the consequences of . We filmed 650 species, and we traveled one and a half million miles. And the rich and thriving living world around us has been key to this stability. [young Attenborough] We heard a crashing in the branches ahead. Nationalism must end we need to recognize that we are all inhabitants of this planet and humanity will be devastated unless we address climate change and the biodiversity crisis. This truth defined the life we led in our pre-history, the time before farming and civilization. The biodiversity of the Holocene helped to bring stability, and the entire living world settled into a gentle, reliable rhythm the seasons. [chuckles] Because I wish the struggle wasnt there or necessary. But to Attenborough, he was reliving the same phenomena he had observed as a child in the fossils he found at his local quarry extinction, during his very lifetime. A few days after that and theyre gone over the horizon. David discusses ornamental decorations with the Biami tribe, without a translator. A story of global decline during a single lifetime. And to begin with, it was quite easy. Fossils. Sparkling coastal seas. The sooner it happens, the easier it makes everything else we have to do. Were going to have to learn together, how to achieve this, ensuring none are left behind. It was called natural history because thats essentially what it was all about history. They were virtually impossible to find. We are already in trouble. He meets the local people who are standing side by side with the wildlife at this pivotal moment in their history. Large carnivores are rare in nature because it takes a lot of prey to support each of them. Its the only way out of this crisis we have created. It triggered an environmental catastrophe that had an impact across Europe. Forests are a fundamental component of our planets recovery. And beyond that strip, there is nothing but regimented rows of oil palms. And ways to harvest our forests sustainably. Discover why Rev is the #1 speech-to-text service in the world. 1978 WORLD POPULATION: 4.3 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 335 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 55%. Estimates suggest that no fish zones over a third of our coastal seas would be sufficient to provide us with all the fish we will ever need. Half of the worlds rainforests have already been cleared. [Attenborough] Animals that had been viewed as little more than a source of oil and meat became personalities. Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet. Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. To establish a life on our planet in balance with nature. In the end, after a lifetimes exploration of the living world, Im certain of one thing. 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. We must immediately halt deforestation everywhere and grow crops like oil palm and soya only on land that was deforested long ago. Thank you for the feedback, the missing data has been added and incorrect year amended. You can see it. Ive experienced the living world firsthand in all its variety and wonder. Were certainly the most numerous large animal. Right now, were facing a manmade disaster of global scale. This is a series of one-way doors bringing irreversible change. Build with the best speech-to-text APIs around. Its a creature called an ammonite. We will all share in the benefits. A meteorite impact triggered a catastrophic change in the earth's conditions. BBC One posted a behind-the-scenes video of him working on Planet Earth II this week, documenting his role in proceedings. When Bernard Grzimek illustrated to the world in 1960 that wildlife needed huge areas, like the Serengeti, to persist, the planets wilderness had dropped to 62%. A century from now, our planet could be a wild place again. Our imprint is now truly global. Today, the forest has taken over the city. Today, it generates 40% of its needs at home from a network of renewable power plants, including the worlds largest solar farm. Another potential solution is to get the generations communicating. This was particularly the case in the final episode of Planet Earth II, Cities, in which he did a piece to camera calling for the world to think more carefully about wildlife when it comes to urban development. David Attenborough talks about his longstanding fascination with discovering fossils. In 1950, a Japanese family was likely to have three or more children. Making Waves. Arguably one of David Attenborough's best documentaries of all time, The Blue Planet consists of eight 50-minute episodes examining the many wonderful and complex facets of the marine environment and life in it. Like "For life to truly thrive on this planet, there must be immense biodiversity. Its now time for our species to stop simply growing. The most remote habitat of all exists at the extreme north and south of the planet. Palau is a Pacific Island nation reliant on its coral reefs for fish and tourism. Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale. Finally, Attenborough urges us to listen to experts scientists may have been illustrating the problems for several decades, but politicians have preferred to play the short game and ignore the evidence. Vast forests. Thank you. But for us, an idea could do that. Translated on-screen subtitles for videos. Fair use is permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. A mass extinction has happened five times in lifes four-billion-year history. we would keep consuming the earth until we had used it up. 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Because what youre looking at is skeletons. Its quite straightforward. Its happened in my lifetime. David Attenborough returns in this breathtaking documentary showcasing life on Planet Earth. But we can make them the only source. Your excellencies, delegates, ladies and gentlemen, as you spend the next two weeks, debating, negotiating, persuading and compromising, as you surely must, its easy to forget that ultimately the emergency climate comes down to a single number, the concentration of carbon in our atmosphere. as they were made aware of the natural world. At 90, Sir David Attenborough might be appearing on location in nature documentaries less than he used to, but he is still very much involved in the editing process, writing the scripts for his narration which give the episodes their intimate and wondrous feel. The largest whales, the blues, numbered only a few thousand by then. Leading lives that interlock in such a way that they sustain each other. The green sea turtle is one of the largest and most widespread of all the marine turtles. Saving individual species or even groups of species would not be enough. But if you get in a helicopter, you see that that is a strip about half a mile wide. In this future, we discover ways to benefit from our land that help, rather than hinder, wilderness. Nature is a key ally. The voice that has characterised over 60 years of natural history content at the BBC - here are our top 5 David Attenborough moments.Subscribe: http://bit.ly. We urgently need society (and the politicians we elect) to recognize the broader destruction of our natural world by a thousand cuts, and refuse to accept this any longer. Just listen to this. By the time Frozen Planet aired in 2011, the reasons for these changes was well established. In 1998, a Blue Planet film crew stumbled on an event little known at the time. 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. Sir David Frederick Attenborough (; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster and naturalist. See related: Biologists warn extinction denial is the latest anti-science conspiracy theory. This story is one of inequality, as well as instability. The process of extinction that Id seen as a boy in the rocks, I now became aware was happening right there around me to animals with which I was familiar. And all of them completely undisturbed by your presence. When David gets a thorn stuck in his hand, Charles Lagus comes to the rescue. Published December 29, 2008. Baby gorillas were at a premium, and poachers would kill a dozen adults to get one. And we now had the means to make people across the world aware. 75% of all species were wiped out. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. David Attenborough describes the massive variety of life that lives on Earth. Its the news, without the news. The number of children being born worldwide every year is about to level off. You saw a blue marble, a blue sphere in the blackness, and you realized that that was the earth. On an expedition in New Guinea, the BBC film crew give gifts to the Biami tribe. [Attenborough] If we can change the way we live on Earth, an alternative future comes into view. This too is happening as a result of bad planning and human error and it too will lead to what we see here. The stability we all depend on is breaking. There are solutions whaling almost sent the great whales extinct, but its cessation after society changed its perspective to this being unacceptable has led to one of the planets greatest wildlife recoveries. David Attenborough and scientist Johan Rockstrm examine Earth's biodiversity collapse and how this crisis can still be averted.David Attenborough and scientist Johan Rockstrm examine Earth's biodiversity collapse and how this crisis can still be averted.David Attenborough and scientist Johan Rockstrm examine Earth's biodiversity collapse and how this crisis can still be averted. Hilde Schwab and Sir David Attenborough at the 25th Annual Crystal Awards Image:World Economic Forum / Manuel Lopez. As the ocean continues to heat and becomes more acidic, coral reefs around the world die. Many of the millions of species in the forest exist in small numbers. [Attenborough] They lived in small numbers and didnt take too much. All have a journey still to complete so that all nations have a good standard of living and a modest footprint. To restore stability to our planet, we must restore its biodiversity. It focuses on nine planetary thresholds, outlined by the Swedish scientist and environmental science professor Johan Rockstrom, which, if exceeded, will make life on Earth no longer sustainable. You and I belong to the most widespread and dominant species of animal on earth. Its all happened within the last 2,000 years or so. There is a double incentive to cut down forests. [Attenborough] By the time Life on Earth aired in 1979, I had entered my 50s. We can start to produce food in new spaces. Our home was not limitless. If working apart, we are force powerful enough to destabilize our planet, surely, working together, we are powerful enough to save it. Coral reefs were turning white. Even in places where theres no land at all. Our past impacts on the species we share this planet with are reprehensible, and the future on this trajectory will be bleak. The truth is, with or without us, the natural world will rebuild. David Attenborough and scientist Johan Rockstrm examine Earth's biodiversity collapse and how this crisis can still be averted. And powerful evidence that however grave our mistakes, nature will ultimately overcome them. We invented farming. Over billions of years, nature has crafted miraculous forms, each more complex and accomplished than the last. Half of the fertile land on earth is now farmland. The evidence is all around. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? We need to rediscover how to be sustainable. Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre | Transcript, The Sorrow and the Pity (1969) Review by David Denby, J.P. Morgan: How One Man Financed America [Transcript]. David, that was inspiring, it taught me a lesson of life. Calculate how much it costs to transcribe, caption, or subtitle your content. Mistakes. And then, every hundred million years or so, after all those painstaking processes, something catastrophic happens, a mass extinction. The mountain gorilla is one of the three subspecies of the eastern gorilla. That is my witness statement. We accept the evidence for 3.5 degrees increase is disputable and the commentary should have reflected that, therefore the line is being removed from the episode repeat (10 February) and the iPlayer version replaced. Speaker 7: (05:55) A sixth mass extinction event is well underway. No ecosystem, no matter how big, is secure. The explosion was a result of bad planning and human error. There were twice the number of people on the planet as there were when I was born. .chakra .wef-facbof{display:inline;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-facbof{display:block;}}You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in our emails. Fish populations crash. We cut down over 15 billion trees each year. It was only in the 50s that large fleets first ventured out into international waters to reap the open ocean harvest across the globe. It always counts to do whatever it takes to save the humanity. Read about our approach to external linking. Nature is our biggest ally and our greatest inspiration. 70% of the mass of birds on this planet are domestic birds. None of us can afford for it to happen. This city in Ukraine was once home to almost 50,000 people. Giving people a greater opportunity of life is what we would want to do anyway. A marked change in atmospheric carbon has always been incompatible with a stable earth. The only way to keep them alive was for rangers to be with them every day. He meets the local people who are supporting wildlife and investigates what is needed to save a species. Your life on earth . Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses. It needs protecting. The Best Speech-to-Text Solution for Your Business Learn how Rev fits into your businesses workflow. Scientists call it the Holocene. In my time, Ive experienced the warming of Arctic summers. By the 1980s, uncontrolled logging had reduced this to just one quarter. 75% of all species were wiped out. Life had no option but to rebuild. A habitat that is dead in comparison. Sunlight, wind, water and geothermal. Wild Isles. Anyone can read what you share. David Attenborough with an armadillo on BBC TV in 1963. . Everything weve achieved in the last 10,000 years was enabled by the stability during this time. David Attenborough takes a stark look at the facts surrounding climate change in today's world, detailing the dangers we are already having to deal with and future threats, but also the possibilities for prevention and radical political, social and cultural change. A speed of change that exceeds any in the last 10,000 years. Ive always had a passion to explore, to have adventures, to learn about the wilds beyond. My answer would be, yes, we have to. Can we fix climate problem in one generation? Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in, An hour-long episode will actually only take him about two hours to record, Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile. Narrated by Sir David Attenborough, the perennial voice of the British nature doc, "Breaking Boundaries" is brimming with grim scientific insight and urgent cautionary pronouncements, but its . A powerful shared conscience had suddenly appeared. As well as appearing on screen, he was very involved in the script. 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. 1960 WORLD POPULATION: 3.0 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 315 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 62%. Working together to benefit from the energy of the sun and the minerals of the earth. Our blind assault on the planet has finally come to alter the very fundamentals of the living world. In truth, I couldnt imagine living my life in any other way. The nearby nuclear power station of Chernobyl exploded. Breaking Boundaries may have interesting even critical information to convey about the future of our species and the fate of the planet. Dr. Matt Hayward is Associate Professor of Conservation Biology in the School of Environmental and Life Sciences at the University of Newcastle in New South Wales, Australia. David reads out the final paragraph of Charles Darwin's work of scientific literature. Honest, revealing and urgent, David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet is a powerful first-hand account of humanity's impact on nature and a message of hope for future generations. Rewilding the world is simpler than you might think. 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. [protester over megaphone] We are men and women, and we speak for children, and were all saying, Please stop killing the whales.. The resources they used naturally renewed themselves. By damming, polluting, and over-extracting rivers and lakes, weve reduced the size of freshwater populations by over 80%. The black rhinoceros, also known as the hook-lipped rhinoceros,is the best known of the five living rhinoceros species, with its aggressive reputation and highly publicised international conservation drive. The Netherlands is one of the worlds most densely-populated countries. David Attenborough COP26 Climate Summit Glasgow Speech Transcript, Congressional Testimony & Hearing Transcripts. The predators help to keep nutrients in the oceans sunlit waters, recycling them so that they can be used again and again by plankton. We had worked out how to produce food to order. Our closest relatives. Sir David Attenborough explains how humans can take charge of our future and save our planet. Planet Earth: With Sigourney Weaver, David Attenborough, Nikolay Drozdov, Thomas Anguti Johnston. The planet cant support billions of large meat-eaters. The living world will endure. With all these things, there is one overriding principle. The point for me was simple: the wild is far from unlimited. Attenborough has lived through the initiation of the crisis when he was a small boy exploring the extinct species found in quarries in 1937, 66% of the planet was wilderness. We are after all, the greatest problem solvers to have ever existed on Earth. The Maasai word Serengeti means endless plains. To those who live here, its an apt description. Without predators, nutrients are lost for centuries to the depths and the hot spots start to diminish. Education leads to increased wealth and reduced birth rates a solution to humanitys overpopulation problem. Explore and monitor how Future of the Environment is affecting economies, industries and global issues. He was sent it two . When you think about it, were completing a journey. 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. The African elephant is the largest living terrestrial mammal, with the largest recorded individual reaching four metres at the shoulder and weighing 10 tonnes! In international waters, the UN is attempting to create the biggest no fish zone of all. In 1971, I set out to find an uncontacted tribe in New Guinea. Sir David Frederick Attenborough (; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster and naturalist. Most of our diseases were under control. Walking through the ruins of a school evacuated after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown (perhaps the most devastating environmental impact on the planet), Attenborough illustrates that all is not lost nature can bounce back if we give it a chance. Try Rev and save time transcribing, captioning, and subtitling. There is little left for the rest of the living world. There are something like 4,000 million of us today, and weve reached this position with meteoric speed. Back then, it seemed inconceivable that we, a single species, might one day have the power to threaten the very existence of the wilderness. As a result, the average global temperature today is one degree Celsius warmer than it was when I was born. More than half of the species on land live here. This is not about saving our planet its about saving ourselves. The veteran naturalist and filmmaker Sir David Attenborough has told world leaders at the COP26 climate summit to "rewrite our story," and that future generations . We see Sir David enjoying a good rapport with the sound recordists, joking with them as they put together episodes that will be watched by millions. And we were responsible. All available episodes (9 total) Supporting Content. There was nothing to stop us, unless we stopped ourselves, he says in the new documentary and sadly, we have not. [wildebeest snorting] For every single predator on the Serengeti, there are more than 100 prey animals. Mountains 58 mins Humans like to think that once they have climbed a mountain, they have somehow conquered it. The rest, from mice to whales, make up just 4%. David Attenborough's breathtaking journey through Africa. That may sound impossible, but there are ways in which we can do this. A weekly update of the most important issues driving the global agenda. And this is what they saw what we all saw. From Pole to Pole 59 mins This episode journeys across the planet, from pole to pole, following the influence of the sun and discovering how its seasonal journey affects the lives of all who live on earth.