The very thing that weve removed. And to begin with, it was quite easy. Ways to fish our seas that enable them to come quickly back to life. The sooner it happens, the easier it makes everything else we have to do. The ocean bears the brunt of this because it absorbs the excess heat of global warming. A knight framed for a crime he didn't commit turns to a shape-shifting teen to prove his innocence. Pollinating insects disappear. Scientists call it the Holocene. Insects, our small hunters, and pollinators have reduced by one quarter. David Attenborough. Sir David, thanks so much for being with us. It was a rediscovery of a fundamental truth. [thunder rumbling] [lowing] On the tropical plains, the dry and rainy seasons would switch every year like clockwork. . Imagine if we committed to a similar approach across the world. Addeddate In international waters, the UN is attempting to create the biggest no fish zone of all. Nothing to stop us. In just 25 years, the forest has returned to cover half of Costa Rica once again. We rely entirely on this finely tuned life-support machine. 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. An imaginative young squirrel leads a musical revolution to save his parents from a tyrannical leader. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet is a 2020 film by the documentarian and natural historian David Attenborough. As a child, Attenborough enjoyed studying fossils. There's some good news though. Amazingly the plants on Earth, together with their ocean counterparts of algae and phytoplankton, know all about solar power. There just isnt the space. And all of them completely undisturbed by your presence. The Plant-Based Gut Health Program for Losing Weight, Restoring Your Health, and Optimizing Your Microbiome, Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are, An Introductory Guide to Deeper States of Meditation, Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun, 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind. It will survive. David Attenborough is a famous British naturalist. This city in Ukraine was once home to almost 50,000 people. 2030s. A speed of change that exceeds any in the last 10,000 years. The pace of change was getting faster and faster. But Ive had unbelievable luck and good fortune. A line in the rock layers. [whales singing] [whales continue singing]. The history of all human civilization followed. The pace of progress was unlike anything to be found in the fossil record. Complete the sentences with words from the . At times, our ancestors existed only in tiny numbers, but just over 10,000 years ago, that number suddenly stabilized and with it, Earth's climate. If we want to, we can kill almost anything in the sea that we wish. Overnight, Pripyat transformed from a pleasant, bustling town to a nightmarish disaster zone. So there's not a profit in it, we still go killing it, and they throw a heck of a lot of it back. And it lived about 180 million years ago. Phytoplankton at the oceans surface and immense forests straddling the north have helped to balance the atmosphere by locking away carbon. There are something like 4,000 million of us today, and weve reached this position with meteoric speed. Nature, once again, had to start again. [1] Initially scheduled for cinematic release on 16 April 2020, the film was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We filmed 650 species, and we traveled one and a half million miles. Coral reefs don't like acid, and 90% of our reefs could die off in a few years. 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. Palau is a Pacific Island nation reliant on its coral reefs for fish and tourism. This city in Ukraine was once home to almost 50,000 people. 1954 WORLD POPULATION: 2.7 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 310 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 64%. The problem is that our fishing fleets are just as good at finding those hot spots as are the fish. Haunted by an unsolved murder, brilliant but disgraced London police detective John Luther breaks out of prison to hunt down a sadistic serial killer. There is no international law at the moment to stop it. Vast forests. Mangroves and coral reefs along thousands of miles of coast have harbored nurseries of fish species that, when mature, then range into open waters. All rights reserved. This too is happening as a result of bad planning and human error and it too will lead to what we see here. Remember you can read the transcript at any time. 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. We humans cannot presume the same. The more diverse it is, the better it does that job. A further 60% are the animals we raise to eat. Prehistoric Planet will be back for a second season. Our planet, vulnerable and isolated. The number that can be sustained on the natural resources available. These people were hunter-gatherers, as all humankind had been before farming. 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. Every one has a critical role to play. Ocean life was also unravelling in the shallows. [whales singing] Their mournful songs were the key to transforming peoples opinions about them. However, if we had "no fishing" zones in one-third of the sea, our fish stocks could recover over the long term. In one act, this would transform the open ocean from a place exhausted by subsidized fishing fleets to a wilderness that will help us all in our efforts to combat climate change. We can start to produce food in new spaces. I'm quite sure. And the extent of the polar ice has been critical, reflecting sunlight back off its white surface, cooling the whole earth. Mistakes. 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. Then you deal so with the land. He researched how the Earth had experienced massive eruptions at specific points, destroying many species. Your email address will not be published. Plankton would also be destroyed by the acid, affecting the entire food chain. It was designed for employees working at Chernobyl, a nearby nuclear plant. Sir David Attenborough was 28-years-old when he convinced his bosses at the BBC to let him travel the world and document his explorations. The true tragedy of our time is still unfolding across the globe, barely noticeable from day to day. The natural world will survive. Not just ruined it. Attenborough's BBC production, The Blue Planet, changed this when its sophisticated camera equipment filmed a bait ball frenzy, a fantastic underwater hunt the likes of which no one had seen before. Which is why weve cut down three trillion trees across the world. Thank you for the feedback, the missing data has been added and incorrect year amended. [Attenborough] It felt that nothing would limit our progress. SIMON: Sir David Attenborough - his book, along with his co-author Jonnie Hughes, is "A Life On Our Planet." He believes that we have The Planetary Boundaries model as our guide, and that we should be looking to it for inspiration. How did that change our view of the world? Some of the numbers are slightly out too. Chris Rock makes comedy history with this global livestreaming event. Wherever I went, there was wilderness. [birds chirping] Just imagine if we achieve this on a global scale. The truth is, with or without us, the natural world will rebuild. We must rewild the world. The start of my career in my 20s coincided with the advent of global air travel. The predators help to keep nutrients in the oceans sunlit waters, recycling them so that they can be used again and again by plankton. The living world is a unique and spectacular marvel. It seems possible for us to feed ourselves quite happily using half the land we currently use. 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. Governments need to offer financial incentives to create wilderness areas or involve local communities that can benefit from rewilding. It triggered an environmental catastrophe that had an impact across Europe. [wildebeest snorting] For every single predator on the Serengeti, there are more than 100 prey animals. ATTENBOROUGH: That means that nothing is safe. The earths plants capture three trillion kilowatt-hours of solar energy each day. And that completely changed the mindset of the population, the human population of the world. 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. But the longer we leave it, the more difficult itll be to do something about it. [Attenborough] If we can change the way we live on Earth, an alternative future comes into view. [reindeer grunting] [birds hooting] [buffalo snorting] [birds cawing] [elephants trumpeting]. We pull out 80 million tonnes of seafood every year, only to replace it with plastic. But in certain places, there are hot spots where currents bring nutrients to the surface and trigger an explosion of life. As healthcare and education improved, peoples expectations and opportunities grew, and the birth rate fell. Life had no option but to rebuild. 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. That may sound impossible, but there are ways in which we can do this. Did you know that 1.8 trillion plastic fragments are currently drifting like a garbage site in the northern Pacific? Two legendary Go players, once student and master, face victory and defeat as they inevitably come face to face as rivals. The nearby nuclear power station of Chernobyl exploded. In this trailer, he talks about his documentary . [Attenborough] By the time Life on Earth aired in 1979, I had entered my 50s. The natural world is, fading, he writes. We need to shift to plant-based diets. And as the natural environment fails, pandemics are likely to increase. Attenborough says, We run life on the planet to meet our own ends.. We have to do our best. We will finally learn how to work with nature rather than against it. In this trailer, he talks about his documentary A Life on Our Planet. 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 since he was born in 1926. In the 30 years since the evacuation of Chernobyl, the wild has reclaimed the space. Then watch the video and do the exercises. For 65 million years, its been at work reconstructing the living world until we come to the world we know our time. Its a sanctuary for wild animals that are very rare elsewhere. Large parts of the earth are uninhabitable. A Life on Our Planet David Attenborough A legacy-defining book from Sir David Attenborough, reflecting on his life's work, the dramatic changes to the planet he has witnessed, and what we can do to make a better future. Japans standard of living climbed rapidly in the latter half of the 20th century. People had never seen pangolins before on television. Unlike land chains, which may have three food chain links, such as grass, to wildebeest, to lion, the sea has about five, so if we overfish at one point, we collapse the entire system. Sir David Frederick Attenborough (; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster and naturalist. But it was noticeable that some of these animals were becoming harder to find. As carbon release accelerates, the ocean will continue to absorb its share of this. At some point in the future, the human population will peak for the very first time. A boundary that marks a profound, rapid, global change. And sadly, we don't only deplete our fish. Sir David Attenborough is a BAFTA and Emmy-Award winning broadcaster and natural historian.He is the internationally bestselling author of over 25 books, including Life on Earth.He also served as controller of BBC Two and director of programming for BBC Television in the 1960s and 1970s, and as the President of the Royal Society for Nature Conservation in the 90s. [Attenborough] At the turn of the century, Morocco relied on imported oil and gas for almost all of its energy. And they are centers of biodiversity. The living world cant operate without a healthy ocean and neither can we. We must rewild the world!" David Attenborough In his latest book and film, "A Life on Our Planet," he offers a grave and alarming assessment about . In 2014, a plane with 239 people aboard vanishes from all radar. By the 1980s, uncontrolled logging had reduced this to just one quarter. These mass extinctions have occurred five times during our planet's four billion-year lifespan. Planet Earth. It was the first indication to me that the earth was beginning to lose its balance. It's estimated that three-quarters of our food crops could fail. Our blind assault on the planet has finally come to alter the very fundamentals of the living world. Orangutan mothers have to spend ten years with their young, teaching them which fruits are worth eating. 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. I am David Attenborough, and I am 93. Im talking about the loss of our planets wild places, its biodiversity. 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. Farming would be pushed to a crisis point. Great numbers of species disappear and are suddenly replaced by a few. It revealed a cold reality. In the extreme Alaskan wild, 16 survivalists compete for a chance to win a massive cash prize but these lone wolves must be part of a team to win. 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. After all, theres plenty of it. This was before any of us were aware that there were problems. [Attenborough] We had broken loose. Whole habitats would soon start to disappear. [Attenborough] They ate meat rarely. Trailer: David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. As nations develop everywhere, people choose to have fewer children. Uploaded by In this . And renewable energy will never run out. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. david frost jimi hendrix; Membership. Its a creature called an ammonite. It was going to bring everything we had ever dreamed of. We had worked out how to produce food to order. Again, the two features work together. And, of course, the ocean is important to all of us as a source of food. Its only now that I appreciate how extraordinary. It will lead to our destruction. The only way to keep them alive was for rangers to be with them every day. 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. They were virtually impossible to find. Starring: David Attenborough. None of us can afford for it to happen. Farmers in developed countries could be incentivized to build biodiversity on their farms. And we've exterminated the great fisheries. Copyright 2020 NPR. A thick belt of jungles around the equator has piled plant on plant to capture as much of the suns energy as possible, adding moisture and oxygen to the global air currents. As with the citizens of Pripyat, we carry on with our daily lives, unaware that our carelessness and lack of planning will ultimately destroy us, and our natural world, unless we alter our self-destructive trajectory. Many people regarded it as the most costly in the history of mankind. The healthier the marine habitat, the more fish there will be, and the more there will be to eat. urgency ? According to David Attenborough, we have 'overrun the Earth.' 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. Even one as vast as the ocean. And if there's a profit in it, we do that - worse than that, even when there's not a profit in it, when governments actually see fit to subsidize it. we would keep consuming the earth until we had used it up. In the northern regions, the temperatures would lift in March, triggering spring, and stay high until they dipped in October and brought about autumn. The world population was 2.3 billion, the carbon in the atmosphere was 280 parts per million, and the remaining wilderness was 66%. Without large fish and other marine predators, the oceanic nutrient cycle stutters. It was the first time that any human had moved away far enough from the earth to see the whole planet. [protester over megaphone] We are men and women, and we speak for children, and were all saying, Please stop killing the whales.. The point for me was simple: the wild is far from unlimited. The trick is to raise the standard of living around the world without increasing our impact on that world. Protected fish populations soon became so healthy, they spilt over into the areas open to fishing. Indoors, within cities. If we fast-forward to 2020, a mere 83 years later, the statistics are disheartening. This begs the question, 'What will the next 100 years look like if we dont change?'. Kate Raworth, an economist at the University of Oxford, has added a social boundary to The Planetary Boundaries model - one that requires us to provide minimum levels of human well-being for all, including adequate housing, clean water, food, education, and justice. ATTENBOROUGH: I don't think it is a responsible thing to do is to simply say that what we see the future, it's very dangerous, and to hell with it. These rivers are also dumping grounds for chemicals and pesticides, destroying birds and freshwater fish. If herds of animals couldn't travel to new grazing, they, along with predators, would starve. A century from now, our planet could be a wild place again. Jonnie Hughes served as director and producer, as he has on Attenborough's documentaries since 2000. So, how do we recognize critical thresholds? It had everything a community would needfor a comfortable life. It was only in the 50s that large fleets first ventured out into international waters to reap the open ocean harvest across the globe. The evidence is all around. The most remote habitat of all exists at the extreme north and south of the planet. And skeletal is precisely what these reefs were becoming. David Attenborough is a famous British naturalist. At first, the cause of the bleaching was a mystery. 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. Coral reefs were turning white. A story of global decline during a single lifetime. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. 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. We were apart from the rest of life on earth, living a different kind of life. [exclaiming in surprise] And Im still learning. [NASA technician] Five, four, three, two one, zero. If the ice disappears, so does the algae that grow underneath. Theyd never seen sloths before. For example, the Costa Rican government offered farmers grants to replant indigenous trees twenty-five years ago. A 12-year-old boy learns he's the returned Jesus Christ, destined to save humankind. Ive experienced the living world firsthand in all its variety and wonder. He and his son used a plane to follow the herds over the horizon. So, Dutch farmers have become expert at getting the most out of every hectare. People benefit from the timber and then benefit again from farming the land thats left behind. SIMON: You advocate what you call no-fish zones. The biodiversity of the Holocene helped to bring stability, and the entire living world settled into a gentle, reliable rhythm the seasons. There are signs that this has started to happen across the globe. Let's rewind to 1937 and some of the statistics of that time. 2020 | Maturity Rating: PG | 1h 23m | Documentary Films. To start to thrive. And this is what they saw what we all saw. It was extraordinary that you could see what a man out in space could see as he saw it at the same time. Saving individual species or even groups of species would not be enough. In the past, animals had to develop some physical ability to change their lives. Preparation. [indistinct chatter] But if you get in a helicopter, you see that that is a strip about half a mile wide. 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. The government decided to act, offering grants to land owners to replant native trees. There we are, on it, and everybody in the entire world is in that picture except for the two people in the spacecraft. There was an edge to our existence. The future generations of many tree species would be at risk. 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. 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. 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. Yet, theyve removed 90% of the large fish in the sea. Ive seen it with my own eyes. 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? "A Life on Our Planet" is as much a love story, a requiem, and a final request as it is a film about deforestation, overfishing, exponential population grown, and the various other culprits. It was a very different world back then. The Happy Planet Index measures both an ecological footprint and human well-being component in a country. For some time, climate scientists had warned that the planet would get warmer as we burned fossil fuels and released carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. Thats almost 20 times the energy we need just from sunlight. The Holocene was our Garden of Eden. A Life on Our Planet is a masterpiece that explores the life and legacy of natural historian and national treasure David Attenborough. David Attenborough has seen more of the natural world than any other. And the idea could be passed from one generation to the next. In the Frozen Planet series, filming crews noticed that the Arctic summers were growing longer, the summer sea ice had reduced by 30% in thirty years, and glaciers were far smaller. on October 24, 2021. You can see it. Hence, if we suffer the fallout of a natural disaster, we take notice of the planet. And because we would be then dedicated to raising plants, we could increase the yield of this land substantially. 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]. In one person's lifetime, we have demolished our land and sea wilderness. [groaning] Those beneath can get crushed to death. A world that demanded more every day. Our predators had been eliminated. Sitting on the edge of the Sahara, and cabled directly into southern Europe, Morocco could be an exporter of solar energy by 2050. Attenborough, David, 1926-2 Entertain (Firm) BBC Video (Firm) British Broadcasting Corporation; . Preparation task . Without this training, they would not complete their role in dispersing seeds. Below the line are a multitude of lifeforms. Air transport will be hugely problematic to solve, although electric and hydrogen planes are in the process of being developed. When you first see it, you think perhaps that its beautiful, and suddenly you realize its tragic. His passion for protecting diverse wildlife, and reclaiming our wilderness is palpable, and A Life on Our Planet is his "witness statement." But lines blur when a key informant makes a big ask. In 1937, at age 11, he would cycle from his home in Leicester into the countryside to study fossils in the rocks. 1937 WORLD POPULATION: 2.3 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 280 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 66%. Our greatest threat in thousands of years. And we were responsible. Our home was not limitless. In this summary, we'll briefly explore what Attenborough calls "the tragedy of our time," and how, with immediate and decisive action, disaster can be averted. Just imagine that. For much of its expanse, the ocean is largely empty. 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. This alga is vital because it's the start of the Arctic and Antarctic food chains. The thing we rely upon for every element of the lives we lead. If you have not used our catalog since prior to June 6, 2016 contact Circulation at the number below to get your PIN reset. 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. The fishing quickly became so poor that countries began to subsidize the fleets to maintain the industry. In fact, in 2019, New Zealand dropped GDP as its formal measurement of progress and created its own index, taking into account people, profit, and the planet. You can be forgiven for thinking that these plains are endless when they could swallow up such a herd. 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. But Chernobyl was a single event. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet - Transcript October 14, 2020 David Attenborough has seen more of the natural world than any other. [Attenborough] Ive been lucky enough to spend my life exploring the wild places of our planet. In this world, a species can only thrive when everything else around it thrives, too. Buy now Raising yields tenfold in two generations while at the same time using less water, fewer pesticides, less fertilizer and emitting less carbon. 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. We were transforming what a species could achieve. The good news is that electric cars are already here. However, half the world's rainforests have been destroyed, and the orangutan population in Borneo has reduced to a third of what it was. It seems utterly impossible that after such a devastating environmental disaster, there would be any kind of happy ending. Be the first one to, David Attenborough - A Life on Our Planet 2020, Advanced embedding details, examples, and help, Terms of Service (last updated 12/31/2014). Weve come this far because we are the smartest creatures that have ever lived. However, Attenborough points out that vested interests will hold us back. Emmy-winning narrator David Attenborough ("Our Planet," "Planet Earth II") looks back and shares a way forward. The cod fishery, I mean, we exterminated that from the Atlantic. However, here's a curveball. In 1998, a Blue Planet film crew discovered that the beautiful colors of the coral reefs were turning to skeletal chalky white. We are ultimately bound by and reliant upon the finite natural world about us. In 1950, a Japanese family was likely to have three or more children. Humanitarian crises would result as people would be forced to relocate, triggering border conflict. Our intelligence changed the way in which we evolved. [Attenborough] Animals that had been viewed as little more than a source of oil and meat became personalities. Filmmaker Sir David Attenborough has been documenting the natural world since the 1950s. Der Emmy-gekrnte Naturforscher David Attenborough (Unser Planet", Planet Erde II") hat einen Plan fr die Zukunft. A key reason the population is still growing is because many of us are living longer. Working together to benefit from the energy of the sun and the minerals of the earth. 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. And when the government of Brazil is saying that that's what they actually want to happen because knocking down the rainforest is a very good (ph) way to get a quick buck.

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