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. The 50,000 large dams in the world, change the water flow and temperature of rivers. Even one as vast as the ocean. The cod fishery, I mean, we exterminated that from the Atlantic. One of the greatest films ever made, The Sorrow and The Pity is a contribution to history, to social psychology, to anthropology, and to art. 1978 WORLD POPULATION: 4.3 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 335 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 55%. And then we will suddenly discover that suddenly the seas are almost empty. If we fast-forward to 2020, a mere 83 years later, the statistics are disheartening. Ten thousand years ago, as hunter-gatherers, we lived a sustainable life because that was the only option. Tune in for a live pre-show 30 minutes before Chris set, followed by an aftershow. These people were hunter-gatherers, as all humankind had been before farming. For a long time, I and perhaps you have dreaded that future. Sitting on the edge of the Sahara, and cabled directly into southern Europe, Morocco could be an exporter of solar energy by 2050. His passion for protecting diverse wildlife, and reclaiming our wilderness is palpable, and A Life on Our Planet is his "witness statement." Then watch the video and do the exercises. It was a great place to come to as a boy, because this is, um, ironstone workings, but it was disused. A few millennia after this began, I grew up at exactly the right moment. As a result, the average global temperature today is one degree Celsius warmer than it was when I was born. With this in mind, David Attenborough has dedicated his life to educating us about our planet, and making discourses visible, through his captivating storytelling. Walruses rest on the sea ice when they're not hunting, and because there isn't enough space on the diminishing ice, it becomes very overcrowded. Just listen to this. More than half of the species on land live here. Every human can make a difference, but we have to come together internationally, and support the many people already hard at work to save our planet. He has perpetually been on the road ever since. This most pristine and distant of ecosystems is headed for disaster. 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. If herds of animals couldn't travel to new grazing, they, along with predators, would starve. Attenborough is now 94, and throughout his long life, has watched the natural world wither before his eyes. They are the best technology nature has for locking away carbon. David Attenborough is a famous British naturalist. Soil would be inadequate, insects and bees destroyed, and droughts and flooding would increase. 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. This unique feature documentary is his witness statement. David Attenborough has seen more of the natural world than any other. 2020 | Maturity Rating: PG | 1h 23m | Documentary Films. They may have got time to actually - to pay more to sort things out. You say 75% of the Amazon rainforest could be gone. Nobody wanted animals to become extinct. We are Canadian. Did you know that 1.8 trillion plastic fragments are currently drifting like a garbage site in the northern Pacific? Starring: David Attenborough. Some of the numbers are slightly out too. We seem to have broken loose from the restrictions that have governed the activities and numbers of other animals. It was a very different world back then. Most of our diseases were under control. It was an astonishing vision of a completely unknown world, a world that had existed since the beginning of time. The very thing that weve removed. The Holocene was our Garden of Eden. 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. And beyond that strip, there is nothing but regimented rows of oil palms. Download Worksheet Language level 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. This too is happening as a result of bad planning and human error and it too will lead to what we see here. From Pripyat, a deserted area after the nuclear disaster, Attenborough gives an overview of his life. Amazingly the plants on Earth, together with their ocean counterparts of algae and phytoplankton, know all about solar power. But that rainforest is one of the key elements in the whole of the weather patterns of the world. And sadly, we don't only deplete our fish. The result is that the population has now stabilized and has hardly changed since the millennium. Synopsis. That non-human world is gone. Fossil fuels increase the greenhouse effect, releasing gases such as carbon dioxide. 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. 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. The killing of whales turned from a harvest to a crime. We pull out 80 million tonnes of seafood every year, only to replace it with plastic. Then watch the video and do the exercises. According to Attenborough, the 22nd century could herald massive enforced human migration. The 'why' behind this, points to global warming. Thank you so much for being with us. If this is the case, surely it's up to us to treat our planet with kindness and respect. Without the white ice cap, less of the suns energy is reflected back out to space. The pace of change was getting faster and faster. Buy now But it was noticeable that some of these animals were becoming harder to find. The orangutan. Ive always had a passion to explore, to have adventures, to learn about the wilds beyond. Sample Page; ; And the quickest and most effective way to do that is for us to change our diet. Insects, our small hunters, and pollinators have reduced by one quarter. And we don't learn the lessons. It's not too late. Life in Pripyat continued comfortably until 26 April 1986, when reactor number 4 at Chernobyl exploded. 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. 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. Environmental economists are trying to address this. In this world, a species can only thrive when everything else around it thrives, too. Pripyat is situated in Ukraine, and was built by the Soviet Union in the 1970s. The purpose of Boykoff's study was to examine environmental representations, to 'provide opportunities to interrogate how particular narratives are translated, and how they make (in)visible certain discourses.' . 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. Those forests and plains and seas were already emptying. No plowing and no fertilizers are used. In 1950, a Japanese family was likely to have three or more children. The truth is, with or without us, the natural world will rebuild. The deforestation of Borneo has reduced the population of orangutan by two-thirds since I first saw one just over 60 years ago. All rights reserved. There we are, on it, and everybody in the entire world is in that picture except for the two people in the spacecraft. A sixth mass extinction event is well underway. [groaning] Those beneath can get crushed to death. But, the moral of the story is indeed a positive one. And of course, if we increase our wilderness areas, we have a natural way of capturing carbon. With nothing to restrict us, our population has been growing dramatically throughout my lifetime. One of the extraordinary things about it was that the world could actually watch it as it happened. A story of global decline during a single lifetime. Within 20 years, renewables are predicted to be the worlds main source of power. The thing we rely upon for every element of the lives we lead. Its finite. And ways to harvest our forests sustainably. If we do things that are unsustainable, the damage accumulates ultimately to a point where the whole system collapses. 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. And the extent of the polar ice has been critical, reflecting sunlight back off its white surface, cooling the whole earth. But somehow, it really changed the attitude of people. We have overfished 30% of fish stocks to critical levels. The evidence is all around. If you have not used our catalog since prior to June 6, 2016 contact Circulation at the number below to get your PIN reset. as they were made aware of the natural world. We eat 50 billion chickens a year and feed them with soy planted on deforested land. We must rewild the world. The number that can be sustained on the natural resources available. [Attenborough] By the time Life on Earth aired in 1979, I had entered my 50s. And then, every hundred million years or so, after all those painstaking processes, something catastrophic happens, a mass extinction. Because what youre looking at is skeletons. We will finally learn how to work with nature rather than against it. on the Internet. Why wouldnt we want to do these things? Giving people a greater opportunity of life is what we would want to do anyway. Preparation. 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. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet is a 2020 film by the documentarian and natural historian David Attenborough. The Netherlands is one of the worlds most densely-populated countries. [Attenborough] They lived in small numbers and didnt take too much. This city in Ukraine was once home to almost 50,000 people. And in less than 48 hours, the city was evacuated. [exclaiming in surprise] And Im still learning. But it now appeared this was only because the ocean was absorbing much of the excess heat, masking our impact. Our impact now truly profound. 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. The more diverse it is, the better it does that job. 1960 WORLD POPULATION: 3.0 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 315 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 62%. It had everything a community would needfor a comfortable life. But what if Nimona is the monster he's sworn to kill? By and large, its a story of slow, steady change. 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. How many people can the Earth carry? So, Dutch farmers have become expert at getting the most out of every hectare. Go behind the scenes of Netflix TV shows and movies, see what's coming soon and watch bonus videos on, Trailer: David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. Ive traveled to every part of the globe. By 1975, the average was two. The start of my career in my 20s coincided with the advent of global air travel. [NASA technician] Five, four, three, two one, zero. Urban farming is an option on rooftops, abandoned buildings, and exterior walls of city buildings. Haunted by an unsolved murder, brilliant but disgraced London police detective John Luther breaks out of prison to hunt down a sadistic serial killer. 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. But, there are ways to change direction and alter the doom and gloom we've created. As carbon release accelerates, the ocean will continue to absorb its share of this. Furthermore, less ice means that the Arctic would be unable to cool the planet down. Its entirely possible for us to apply both low-tech and hi-tech solutions to produce much more food from much less land. We have such a fascination for wildlife, but wild animals make up only 4% of the mammals on Earth. Boo! We had very little understanding of how the living world actually worked. In the past, animals had to develop some physical ability to change their lives. 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. Well, weve destroyed it. A 12-year-old boy learns he's the returned Jesus Christ, destined to save humankind. There's some good news though. In my time, Ive experienced the warming of Arctic summers. A century ago, more than three quarters of Costa Rica was covered with forest. Each generation able to develop and progress only because the living world could be relied upon to deliver us the conditions we needed. Downloads only available on ad-free plans. Morocco generates 40% from renewable power plants and exports solar energy. But its now becoming apparent that its not all doom and gloom. Otherwise, this is brilliant!