Let me just ask you about the 2030s. . Nobody wanted animals to become extinct. We have arrived at locations expecting to find expanses of sea ice and found none. However, as it does this, carbon dioxide changes into carbonic acid. Without large fish and other marine predators, the oceanic nutrient cycle stutters. Today, forests cover half of Costa Rica. The living world is essentially solar-powered. Based on a children's book by Paul McCartney. It had everything a community would need for a comfortable life. A century ago, more than three quarters of Costa Rica was covered with forest. His passion for protecting diverse wildlife, and reclaiming our wilderness is palpable, and A Life on Our Planet is his "witness statement." In the past, animals had to develop some physical ability to change their lives. He and his son used a plane to follow the herds over the horizon. [Attenborough] I was in a television studio when the Apollo mission launched. The cod fishery, I mean, we exterminated that from the Atlantic. Rainforests are particularly precious habitats. My first visit to East Africa was in 1960. SIMON: You were a BBC executive in the control room when the first pictures of Earth were sent back by the Apollo 8 crew. However, half the world's rainforests have been destroyed, and the orangutan population in Borneo has reduced to a third of what it was. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Its finite. Your email address will not be published. [Attenborough] We had broken loose. If theres any justice in the world, Marcel Ophls monumental labor will be studied and debated for years. The Maasai word Serengeti means endless plains. To those who live here, its an apt description. In a single small patch of tropical rainforest, there could be 700 different species of tree, as many as there are in the whole of North America. We have pursued animals to extinction many times in our history, but now that it was visible, it was no longer acceptable. A habitat that is dead in comparison. SIMON: What does that mean? At first, the cause of the bleaching was a mystery. Levies and carbon taxes will go somewhere to shift this. You knock down a rainforest tree, and you get a lot of money from the timber which you sell. 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. [Attenborough] At the turn of the century, Morocco relied on imported oil and gas for almost all of its energy. Then watch the video and do the exercises. You say 75% of the Amazon rainforest could be gone. Sir David, thanks so much for being with us. And you see this curtain of green with occasionally birds in it, and you think its perhaps okay. This city in Ukraine was once home to almost 50,000 people. More recently, you may have heard of Pripyat from the HBO series Chernobyl? 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. 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%. How did that change our view of the world? In just 25 years, the forest has returned to cover half of Costa Rica once again. Due to a planned power outage on Friday, 1/14, between 8am-1pm PST, some services may be impacted. But for us, an idea could do that. Sir David Frederick Attenborough (; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster and naturalist. We filmed 650 species, and we traveled one and a half million miles. If we push beyond even one of them, we destabilize the balance of our planet. However, these marvels of the underwater food chain have become rarer, owing to overfishing, and because of disruptions in the food chain, our oceans are dying. And yet, this is what weve been turning this dizzying diversity into. If we continue on our current course, the damage that has been the defining feature of my lifetime will be eclipsed by the damage coming in the next. 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. 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. 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. One man has seen more of the natural world than any other. A determined detective continues his search for the truth behind Asia's largest drug organization and its elusive boss he has unfinished business with. Der Emmy-gekrnte Naturforscher David Attenborough (Unser Planet", Planet Erde II") hat einen Plan fr die Zukunft. And ways to harvest our forests sustainably. There is no international law at the moment to stop it. And if we do it right, it can continue because theres a win-win at play. [exclaiming in surprise] And Im still learning. Sitting on the edge of the Sahara, and cabled directly into southern Europe, Morocco could be an exporter of solar energy by 2050. on the Internet. It worked out the secret of life long ago. We remember environmental disasters, but do we actually learn from them? The herrings have disappeared from the North Sea. Mangroves and coral reefs along thousands of miles of coast have harbored nurseries of fish species that, when mature, then range into open waters. Were certainly the most numerous large animal. Half of the worlds rainforests have already been cleared. Tune in for a live pre-show 30 minutes before Chris set, followed by an aftershow. 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. As much now as I did when I was a boy. After moving his family into his childhood home, a man's investigation into a local factory accident connected to his father unveils dark family secrets. Life had no option but to rebuild. It was designed for employees working at Chernobyl, a nearby nuclear plant. And we're on the danger of doing that. In 1950, a Japanese family was likely to have three or more children. Seasons blend into one another in these tropical conditions, with lush growth, abundant flowering, and seed production occurring in ongoing cycles. In the 1950s, Borneo was three-quarters covered with rainforest. Um and, in a way, I wish I wasnt involved in this struggle. Insects, our small hunters, and pollinators have reduced by one quarter. SIMON: Sir David Attenborough - his book, along with his co-author Jonnie Hughes, is "A Life On Our Planet." And in less than 48 hours, the city was evacuated. Ten thousand years ago, as hunter-gatherers, we lived a sustainable life because that was the only option. Required fields are marked *. The Happy Planet Index measures both an ecological footprint and human well-being component in a country. But during his lifetime, Attenborough has also seen first-hand the monumental scale of humanity's impact on nature. It seems possible for us to feed ourselves quite happily using half the land we currently use. But, the moral of the story is indeed a positive one. So it's very profitable in the short term. Half a million gazelle. 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. In the process, they also provide us with simple solutions to saving our planet before it is too late. In my time, Ive experienced the warming of Arctic summers. [Attenborough] By the end of the century, Borneos rainforest had been reduced by half. Attenborough is now 94, and throughout his long life, has watched the natural world wither before his eyes. Half of the fertile land on earth is now farmland. 2030s. It was a very different world back then. Its a sanctuary for wild animals that are very rare elsewhere. 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. Ways to fish our seas that enable them to come quickly back to life. Preparation. The planet cant support billions of large meat-eaters. Thank you. So let's go back to the beginning of this summary. Nothing to stop us. We require wisdom. If we want to, we can kill almost anything in the sea that we wish. One of the significant findings was that we pay attention to the environment when it affects us. One Hundred Years of Solitude. In 1937, at age 11, he would cycle from his home in Leicester into the countryside to study fossils in the rocks. 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. 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). You write, for example, we have become too skilled at fishing. How many people can the Earth carry? [imperceptible] Theyve always been a place beyond imagination with scenery unlike anything else on earth and unique species adapted to a life in the extreme. And it relies on its biodiversity to run smoothly. That may sound impossible, but there are ways in which we can do this. But lines blur when a key informant makes a big ask. 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. There are something like 4,000 million of us today, and weve reached this position with meteoric speed. Narrated by David Attenborough, the five-episode second season will premiere globally in a five-day week-long event beginning May 22 on Apple [] No ecosystem, no matter how big, is secure. The forest is growing, flowers and fruit trees blossom, and wild animals visit. A mass extinction has happened five times in lifes four-billion-year history. That non-human world is gone. At the same time, the Arctic becomes ice-free in the summer. After all, theres plenty of it. Working with their traditional technology, they were living sustainably, a lifestyle that could continue effectively forever. Overnight, Pripyat transformed from a pleasant, bustling town to a nightmarish disaster zone. Clean energy has to replace fossil fuels. 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. 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. But somehow, it really changed the attitude of people. Fossil fuels increase the greenhouse effect, releasing gases such as carbon dioxide. Renewable energy, such as solar, wind, and water, could supply power. Each generation able to develop and progress only because the living world could be relied upon to deliver us the conditions we needed. If there is no corner of the oceans which is safe from fishing vessels of one kind or another, we are heading for total elimination of the edible fish from the sea. This unique feature documentary is his witness statement. In 2008, academic researcher Maxwell Boykoff, studied UK tabloids to determine how climate change was represented across the widest circulating newspapers. 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. 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. Nature is our biggest ally and our greatest inspiration. Journalist Jenny Eliscu and filmmaker Erin Lee Carr investigate Britney Spears fight for freedom by way of exclusive interviews and confidential evidence. Within the span of the next lifetime, the security and stability of the Holocene, our Garden of Eden will be lost. 2021 Scraps from the Loft. 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. Imagine if we committed to a similar approach across the world. In his more recent travels, Attenborough noticed fishers using mosquito nets in the hope of catching something to eat. And there I was, actually being asked to explore these places and record the wonders of the natural world for people back home. Indoors, within cities. It was a great place to come to as a boy, because this is, um, ironstone workings, but it was disused. 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. Summer sea ice in the Arctic has reduced by 40% in 40 years. Recordings like these revealed that the songs of the humpbacks are long and complex. 2020 | Maturity Rating: PG | 1h 23m | Documentary Films. As a child, Attenborough enjoyed studying fossils. Do the preparation task first. Large carnivores are rare in nature because it takes a lot of prey to support each of them. 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. Since the Second World War, what's known as the "Great Acceleration" has brought us many progressive things, as our GDPs indicate. From Pripyat, a deserted area after the nuclear disaster, Attenborough gives an overview of his life. Its an achingly intricate labor. We pull out 80 million tonnes of seafood every year, only to replace it with plastic. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet - Transcript October 14, 2020 David Attenborough has seen more of the natural world than any other. This devastation could happen quickly, with water and food shortages, and the displacement of about 30 million people. The deforestation of Borneo has reduced the population of orangutan by two-thirds since I first saw one just over 60 years ago. And the quickest and most effective way to do that is for us to change our diet. The government decided to act, offering grants to land owners to replant native trees. The future was going to be exciting. Millions of people rendered homeless. on October 24, 2021. This city in Ukraine was once home to almost 50,000 people. If you have not used our catalog since prior to June 6, 2016 contact Circulation at the number below to get your PIN reset. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet . Even in places where theres no land at all. At first, they caught plenty of fish in their nets. Life in Pripyat continued comfortably until 26 April 1986, when reactor number 4 at Chernobyl exploded. Many new plant-based foods are on the market, and in the future, biotechnology may be able to use microorganisms to provide us with proteins. This unique feature documentary is his witness statement. The number of children being born worldwide every year is about to level off. Whole habitats would soon start to disappear. As carbon release accelerates, the ocean will continue to absorb its share of this. Ive seen it with my own eyes. The last time it happened was the event that brought the end of the age of the dinosaurs. 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. It was an astonishing vision of a completely unknown world, a world that had existed since the beginning of time. None of us can afford for it to happen. More than half of the species on land live here. And then you clear that furthermore for cattle. Thats the sort of commitment you need if you want to even begin making a portrait of the living world. 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. We can start to produce food in new spaces. The worlds greatest wildlife reserve. It has hidden its secrets well because of the difficulties of filming underwater. But Ive had unbelievable luck and good fortune. In the end, after a lifetimes exploration of the living world, Im certain of one thing. Unless we stopped ourselves. 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. Many people regarded it as the most costly in the history of mankind. The scale of the problem is so overwhelming . The fishing quickly became so poor that countries began to subsidize the fleets to maintain the industry. Two legendary Go players, once student and master, face victory and defeat as they inevitably come face to face as rivals. You put crops on the land and get another reward. I've seen it with my own eyes. 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. We will finally learn how to work with nature rather than against it. A line in the rock layers. And the songs have distinct themes and variations which evolve over time. [Attenborough] If we can change the way we live on Earth, an alternative future comes into view. 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. In 1998, a Blue Planet film crew discovered that the beautiful colors of the coral reefs were turning to skeletal chalky white. 1954 WORLD POPULATION: 2.7 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 310 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 64%. And of course, if we increase our wilderness areas, we have a natural way of capturing carbon. But whether it will survive in the form that will include us in it is just another question. Weitere Details. Its all happened within the last 2,000 years or so. Um, and I certainly would feel very guilty if I saw what the problems are and decided to ignore them. The Amazon rainforest could suffer from "forest dieback" and be starved of moisture, becoming an open savannah and destroying its biodiversity. In 1937, at age 11, he would cycle from his home in Leicester into the countryside to study fossils in the rocks. Its covered with small family-run farms with no room for expansion. Raising yields tenfold in two generations while at the same time using less water, fewer pesticides, less fertilizer and emitting less carbon. And there, only a few yards away, we spotted a great furry red form swaying in the trees. 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. We rely entirely on this finely tuned life-support machine. In international waters, the UN is attempting to create the biggest no fish zone of all. Giving people a greater opportunity of life is what we would want to do anyway. In this future, we discover ways to benefit from our land that help, rather than hinder, wilderness. A knight framed for a crime he didn't commit turns to a shape-shifting teen to prove his innocence. Plankton would also be destroyed by the acid, affecting the entire food chain. Two legendary Go players, once student and master, face victory and defeat as they inevitably come face to face as rivals. In addition to this, we have an increased life expectancy. Many experts wrote off Pripyat, and many of us are apathetic about the future of the planet. There's some good news though. The evidence is all around. I wasn't prepared for it. And suddenly, we realized, you know, we're there together, and we're alone. This is now our planet, run by humankind for humankind. The 'why' behind this, points to global warming. We eat 50 billion chickens a year and feed them with soy planted on deforested land. [over megaphone] Please stop killing the whales. And freshwater is equally at risk. [Attenborough on video] Climbing over the tightly-packed bodies is the only way across the crowd. It was shot in 39 countries. 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. When you think about it, were completing a journey. Immense grasslands. So, how do we recognize critical thresholds? This model outlines nine critical thresholds, or planetary boundaries, such as climate change, air pollution, land conversion, and biodiversity loss. Did you know that 1.8 trillion plastic fragments are currently drifting like a garbage site in the northern Pacific? The very thing that weve removed. Sir David,. 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. Mistakes. 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. A marked change in atmospheric carbon has always been incompatible with a stable earth. 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. ATTENBOROUGH: Yes. A story of global decline during a single lifetime. 1978 WORLD POPULATION: 4.3 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 335 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 55%. 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. Its a creature called an ammonite. And beyond that strip, there is nothing but regimented rows of oil palms. Coral reefs were turning white. For a long time, I and perhaps you have dreaded that future. Its entirely possible for us to apply both low-tech and hi-tech solutions to produce much more food from much less land. All rights reserved. And they are centers of biodiversity. You can see it. In the 30 years since the evacuation of Chernobyl, the wild has reclaimed the space. And a few years later, that idea became obvious to everyone. When they do, theyre able to gather the concentrated shoals with ease. Ice-free summers in the Arctic would also start. Without this training, they would not complete their role in dispersing seeds. Attenborough, David, 1926-2 Entertain (Firm) BBC Video (Firm) British Broadcasting Corporation; . And because we would be then dedicated to raising plants, we could increase the yield of this land substantially. The complete series [HD DVD] / a BBC/Discovery Channel/NHK co-production, in association with the CBC ; . This most pristine and distant of ecosystems is headed for disaster. Earth could be 4 degrees Celsius warmer, making farming in many areas impossible. Against the backdrop of the WWII battle known as Hitler's first defeat, a Norwegian soldier returns home and learns a shocking truth about his wife. Urban farming is an option on rooftops, abandoned buildings, and exterior walls of city buildings. 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. The orangutan. The good news is that electric cars are already here. The living world cant operate without a healthy ocean and neither can we. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet: Directed by Alastair Fothergill, Jonathan Hughes, Keith Scholey. For 10,000 years, the average temperature has not wavered up or down by more than one degree Celsius. In this trailer, he talks about his documentary A Life on Our Planet. 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. There was nothing left to restrict us. But what if Nimona is the monster he's sworn to kill? People had never seen pangolins before on television. In truth, I couldnt imagine living my life in any other way. It's estimated that three-quarters of our food crops could fail. Landslides and floods would occur, but worse still, this thawing would release 1,400 gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. It was a feature of all five mass extinctions. We also have to rewild mangroves, salt marshes, and kelp forests to restore biodiversity. Fewer trees and more carbon in the atmosphere would escalate global warming significantly. As Attenborough reflects on his life, he begins each chapter with three facts. [whales singing] Their mournful songs were the key to transforming peoples opinions about them. In 1971, I set out to find an uncontacted tribe in New Guinea. Many of the millions of species in the forest exist in small numbers. He has perpetually been on the road ever since. 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? The future generations of many tree species would be at risk. The ocean covers 70% of our planet's surface, and it's where all forms of life began. The number that can be sustained on the natural resources available. Haunted by an unsolved murder, brilliant but disgraced London police detective John Luther breaks out of prison to hunt down a sadistic serial killer. Some of the numbers are slightly out too. Back then, it seemed inconceivable that we, a single species, might one day have the power to threaten the very existence of the wilderness. This begs the question, 'What will the next 100 years look like if we dont change?'. These people were hunter-gatherers, as all humankind had been before farming. But within only a few years, the nets across the globe were coming in empty. As Attenborough cautions, the bleached coral is like canaries in a coal mine. They capture 3 trillion kilowatt-hours of solar energy every day. They had never seen the center of New Guinea before. Fossils. We now have the opportunity to create the perfect home for ourselves, and restore the rich, healthy, and wonderful world that we inherited. We are ultimately bound by and reliant upon the finite natural world about us. Vast forests. Environmental issues have historically had low news value. Pripyat tells us otherwise. However, this time it included humans in its design. Within 20 years, renewables are predicted to be the worlds main source of power. David Attenborough is a famous British naturalist. Furthermore, less ice means that the Arctic would be unable to cool the planet down. We humans cannot presume the same. One of the extraordinary things about it was that the world could actually watch it as it happened. "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. This too is happening as a result of bad planning and human error and it too will lead to what we see here. They are the best technology nature has for locking away carbon. But in certain places, there are hot spots where currents bring nutrients to the surface and trigger an explosion of life. That is my witness statement. It had everything a community would needfor a comfortable life. The Masai in Kenya engages in projects to reduce their cattle herds and develop wildlife. You say in this book, with us or without us ATTENBOROUGH: Oh, well, yes. But if you get in a helicopter, you see that that is a strip about half a mile wide.