In 2008, academic researcher Maxwell Boykoff, studied UK tabloids to determine how climate change was represented across the widest circulating newspapers. You put crops on the land and get another reward. There just isnt the space. We must rewild the world. Regenerative and urban farming are two options. Polar bears need ice as the launching pads for hunting. We seem to have broken loose from the restrictions that have governed the activities and numbers of other animals. 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. We require wisdom. It's not too late. The 50,000 large dams in the world, change the water flow and temperature of rivers. If you have not used our catalog since prior to June 6, 2016 contact Circulation at the number below to get your PIN reset. 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. The true tragedy of our time is still unfolding across the globe, barely noticeable from day to day. As Attenborough reflects on his life, he begins each chapter with three facts. If the ice disappears, so does the algae that grow underneath. Weve come this far because we are the smartest creatures that have ever lived. It was the first time that any human had moved away far enough from the earth to see the whole planet. Do the preparation task first. The number that can be sustained on the natural resources available. Instructions. The herrings have disappeared from the North Sea. 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. It was a brutal and unpredictable world. A boundary that marks a profound, rapid, global change. A few millennia after this began, I grew up at exactly the right moment. David Attenborough is a famous British naturalist. Baitfish are driven into tight balls by tuna, before they attack, then sharks and dolphins join the hunt; they're followed by gannets, and even a whale. Every one has a critical role to play. Wherever I went, there was wilderness. Skeletons of dead creatures. But in certain places, there are hot spots where currents bring nutrients to the surface and trigger an explosion of life. Fast forward to 2021, and a far greater catastrophe looms. The Netherlands is one of the worlds most densely-populated countries. As a result, female polar bears are giving birth to smaller cubs, and these underweight cubs are less likely to survive. You saw a blue marble, a blue sphere in the blackness, and you realized that that was the earth. So, what do we do? A moment ago, we made this recording with an underwater microphone here in the Pacific near Hawaii. Iceland, Albania, and Paraguay generate their electricity without fossil fuels. In such places, huge shoals of fish gather. Seasons blend into one another in these tropical conditions, with lush growth, abundant flowering, and seed production occurring in ongoing cycles. Its rhythm of seasons was so reliable that it gave our own species a unique opportunity. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. SIMON: So what gives you hope? David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet 2020 | Maturity rating: PG | 1h 23m | Science & Nature Documentaries 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. The good news is that electric cars are already here. Air transport will be hugely problematic to solve, although electric and hydrogen planes are in the process of being developed. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. The problem is that our fishing fleets are just as good at finding those hot spots as are the fish. The ocean covers 70% of our planet's surface, and it's where all forms of life began. [Attenborough] I was in a television studio when the Apollo mission launched. Many people regarded it as the most costly in the history of mankind. Some of the numbers are slightly out too. If we do things that are unsustainable, the damage accumulates ultimately to a point where the whole system collapses. Uploaded by However, this time it included humans in its design. As a child, Attenborough enjoyed studying fossils. The healthier the marine habitat, the more fish there will be, and the more there will be to eat. For a long time, I and perhaps you have dreaded that future. [thunder rumbling] [lowing] On the tropical plains, the dry and rainy seasons would switch every year like clockwork. With this in mind, David Attenborough has dedicated his life to educating us about our planet, and making discourses visible, through his captivating storytelling. If we all had a largely plant-based diet, we would need only half the land we use at the moment. thank you soo much this script was very good, Your email address will not be published. It was extraordinary that you could see what a man out in space could see as he saw it at the same time. That disaster is being brought about by the very things that allow us to live our comfortable lives." web pages And there I was, actually being asked to explore these places and record the wonders of the natural world for people back home. 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. A century ago, more than three quarters of Costa Rica was covered with forest. So let's go back to the beginning of this summary. And we've exterminated the great fisheries. Attenborough is famous for many of the truly epic natural history documentaries on our planet. The history of all human civilization followed. The pace of change was getting faster and faster. A century from now, our planet could be a wild place again. This docuseries delves into one of our greatest modern mysteries: Flight MH370. To restore stability to our planet, we must restore its biodiversity. Right now, were facing a manmade disaster of global scale. 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. The more diverse it is, the better it does that job. Humpbacks living in the same area learn their songs from each other. In addition to this, we have an increased life expectancy. 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. The Masai in Kenya engages in projects to reduce their cattle herds and develop wildlife. But during his lifetime, Attenborough has also seen first-hand the monumental scale of humanity's impact on nature. We also have to rewild mangroves, salt marshes, and kelp forests to restore biodiversity. A prequel to "Nanti Kita Cerita Tentang Hari Ini," this film follows the love story of young Narendra and Ajeng who come from different backgrounds. This might all sound like a post-apocalyptic horror movie. Sir David, thanks so much for being with us. I wasn't prepared for it. We have arrived at locations expecting to find expanses of sea ice and found none. At 93, Sir David Attenborough has spent a lifetime studying the natural world, and been knighted for his efforts. Sitting on the edge of the Sahara, and cabled directly into southern Europe, Morocco could be an exporter of solar energy by 2050. [Attenborough] Animals that had been viewed as little more than a source of oil and meat became personalities. 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. They charted them as they moved across rivers, through woodlands, and over national borders. If we take care of nature, nature will take care of us. 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. The fishing quickly became so poor that countries began to subsidize the fleets to maintain the industry. With all these things, there is one overriding principle. And we don't learn the lessons. 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. They capture 3 trillion kilowatt-hours of solar energy every day. In 1998, a Blue Planet film crew stumbled on an event little known at the time. Due to carelessness, poor planning, and human error, it's probably the most devastating environmental disaster to date. Without large fish and other marine predators, the oceanic nutrient cycle stutters. There is a double incentive to cut down forests. 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. Filmmaker Sir David Attenborough has been documenting the natural world since the 1950s. And this is what they saw what we all saw. And the speed of global warming increases. Coral reefs were turning white. Our predators had been eliminated. We need to shift to plant-based diets. Raising yields tenfold in two generations while at the same time using less water, fewer pesticides, less fertilizer and emitting less carbon. Our impact now truly profound. Since I started filming in the 1950s, on average, wild animal populations have more than halved. When fish stocks began to reduce, the Palauans responded by restricting fishing practices and banning fishing entirely from many areas. Many experts wrote off Pripyat, and many of us are apathetic about the future of the planet. [NASA technician] Five, four, three, two one, zero. Humanitarian crises would result as people would be forced to relocate, triggering border conflict. 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. Working with their traditional technology, they were living sustainably, a lifestyle that could continue effectively forever. That may sound impossible, but there are ways in which we can do this. And ways to harvest our forests sustainably. 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. Any graph that measures their side-effects; carbon dioxide, methane, loss of land and sea wilderness, and increasing farmland will also illustrate a sharply accelerating increase. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. This city in Ukraine was once home to almost 50,000 people. In the process, they also provide us with simple solutions to saving our planet before it is too late. We have to do our best. Our imprint is now truly global. By 1975, the average was two. It was called natural history because thats essentially what it was all about history. 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). In the northern regions, the temperatures would lift in March, triggering spring, and stay high until they dipped in October and brought about autumn. Baby gorillas were at a premium, and poachers would kill a dozen adults to get one. 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. The deforestation of Borneo has reduced the population of orangutan by two-thirds since I first saw one just over 60 years ago. We have such a fascination for wildlife, but wild animals make up only 4% of the mammals on Earth. There was an edge to our existence. In the past, animals had to develop some physical ability to change their lives. Pripyat tells us otherwise. Their solution is to climb higher up the cliffs, but with their poor eyesight, they often fall from the tops of cliffs as the smell of the sea lures them closer. This begs the question, 'What will the next 100 years look like if we dont change?'. [chuckles] Because I wish the struggle wasnt there or necessary. But for us, an idea could do that. Today, the forest has taken over the city. The white color is caused by corals expelling algae that lives symbiotically within their body. The 'why' behind this, points to global warming. This is now our planet, run by humankind for humankind. 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. A line in the rock layers. His passion for protecting diverse wildlife, and reclaiming our wilderness is palpable, and A Life on Our Planet is his "witness statement." SIMON: Sir David Attenborough - his book, along with his co-author Jonnie Hughes, is "A Life On Our Planet." They are the best technology nature has for locking away carbon. It needs protecting. The Holocene was our Garden of Eden. Throughout the north, frozen soils thaw, releasing methane, a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide, accelerating the rate of climate change dramatically. There we are, on it, and everybody in the entire world is in that picture except for the two people in the spacecraft. [wildebeest snorting] For every single predator on the Serengeti, there are more than 100 prey animals. Once a species became our target, there was now nowhere on earth that it could hide. Synopsis. Yet the way we humans live on Earth now is sending biodiversity into a decline. Half of the worlds rainforests have already been cleared. [young Attenborough] We heard a crashing in the branches ahead. Tonight, weve got a rather different program for you. 1978 WORLD POPULATION: 4.3 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 335 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 55%. [whales singing] Their mournful songs were the key to transforming peoples opinions about them. We were transforming what a species could achieve. It triggered an environmental catastrophe that had an impact across Europe. The trick is to raise the standard of living around the world without increasing our impact on that world. In international waters, the UN is attempting to create the biggest no fish zone of all. It was designed for employees working at Chernobyl, a nearby nuclear plant. And in life the animal itself lived in the chamber here and spread out its tentacles to catch its prey. Clean energy has to replace fossil fuels. But whether it will survive in the form that will include us in it is just another question. And it lived about 180 million years ago. Sir David Attenborough is 94 years old and has some stark, startling sentences in the first few pages of his new book. The nearby nuclear power station of Chernobyl exploded. The cod fishery, I mean, we exterminated that from the Atlantic. 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. on the Internet. For 65 million years, its been at work reconstructing the living world until we come to the world we know our time. The predators help to keep nutrients in the oceans sunlit waters, recycling them so that they can be used again and again by plankton. There are no reviews yet. There's some good news though. A Life on Our Planet is a masterpiece that explores the life and legacy of natural historian and national treasure David Attenborough. Palau is a Pacific Island nation reliant on its coral reefs for fish and tourism. Summer sea ice in the Arctic has reduced by 40% in 40 years. And then, every hundred million years or so, after all those painstaking processes, something catastrophic happens, a mass extinction. The world population sits at 7.8 billion, the carbon in the atmosphere is 415 parts per million, and shockingly the remaining wilderness is 35%. Thank you so much for being with us. The truth is, with or without us, the natural world will rebuild. Again, the two features work together. They may have got time to actually - to pay more to sort things out. One Hundred Years of Solitude. But we can make them the only source. Um, so, the world is not as wild as it was. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. This most pristine and distant of ecosystems is headed for disaster. Accuracy and availability may vary. Life had no option but to rebuild. That non-human world is gone. A habitat that is dead in comparison. The Happy Planet Index measures both an ecological footprint and human well-being component in a country. Fortunately, Tanzania and Kenya took far-sighted action to safeguard the sacred paths of the Serengeti migration. Yet, theyve removed 90% of the large fish in the sea. Fishers survived on food vouchers but kept the faith, and today, marine life in that area has increased by more than 400%. Search the history of over 797 billion Large carnivores are rare in nature because it takes a lot of prey to support each of them. The killing of whales turned from a harvest to a crime. 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. Those forests and plains and seas were already emptying. 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. If we fast-forward to 2020, a mere 83 years later, the statistics are disheartening. Thats almost 20 times the energy we need just from sunlight. And skeletal is precisely what these reefs were becoming. All this was absolutely clear, it was only just stopped being a working quarry. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet is a 2020 film by the documentarian and natural historian David Attenborough. 1960 WORLD POPULATION: 3.0 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 315 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 62%.