A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future
by Sir David Attenborough
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Then-93-year-old Sir David Attenborough sends out an urgent call to humanity to “put it right,” while showing stunning images from the film based on “A Life on Our Planet.” The footage is a mix of vintage clips from Attenborough’s early career, wild animals in their natural habitats, solution-oriented things like windmills, and man-made industrial disasters. The maker of such popular shows as “Blue Planet” says he has lived an extraordinary life but did not realize until recently exactly how extraordinary.
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As far as we know, there have been five major extinction events on our planet. Attenborough warns that we are currently in the midst of the sixth mass extinction. As we conduct our daily lives, we don’t realize that the natural world is experiencing a disaster on the scale of the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. While Nature once determined how we survived, it’s now in our hands to determine how Nature survives, and the result will affect our future or lack of it.
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When asked to pinpoint the moment when he realized that the planet is on a fast track to extinction, the author says that although he had noticed retreating glaciers and other possible signs, that shocking moment for him came when he was diving off Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and saw bleached, dead coral where before he had known a vibrant, living organism. He says that although things like controlling population growth will help, he is not confident that humans will act in time to avert the coming disaster.
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The author warns that we are facing a disaster on the level of the extinction of the dinosaurs. He observes that during his long life he has seen the Earth's population triple and temperatures rise dramatically; he has seen coral reefs die and tropical rainforests disappear. While humans destroy the natural world, we are simultaneously totally dependent on it for every mouthful we eat and every breath we breathe. He says there is still time to change course, and that his book contains a plan for doing so.
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