Sitting on the edge of the Sahara, and cabled directly into southern Europe, Morocco could be an exporter of solar energy by 2050. Nature will take any chance to reclaim some space. Billions of individuals, and millions of kinds of plants and animals [birds chirping] dazzling in their variety and richness. A mass extinction has happened five times in lifes four-billion-year history. The only way to keep them alive was for rangers to be with them every day. We must immediately halt deforestation everywhere and grow crops like oil palm and soya only on land that was deforested long ago. 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. An imaginative young squirrel leads a musical revolution to save his parents from a tyrannical leader. 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. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Then watch the video and do the exercises. Based on the comic book series by Mark Millar and Peter Gross. For the first time, Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garca Mrquez's masterwork comes to the screen. But it was noticeable that some of these animals were becoming harder to find. This truth defined the life we led in our pre-history, the time before farming and civilization. The good news is that electric cars are already here. Imagine if we committed to a similar approach across the world. The Masai in Kenya engages in projects to reduce their cattle herds and develop wildlife. Um, so, the world is not as wild as it was. Jonnie Hughes served as director and producer, as he has on Attenborough's documentaries since 2000. Sparkling coastal seas. Our intelligence changed the way in which we evolved. The pace of change was getting faster and faster. Vast forests. Let's briefly go back in time. on October 24, 2021. 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. ATTENBOROUGH: Well, I think it changed everybody's view. In the 30 years since the evacuation of Chernobyl, the wild has reclaimed the space. The most remote habitat of all exists at the extreme north and south of the planet. As carbon release accelerates, the ocean will continue to absorb its share of this. If we travel back to modern-day Pripyat, David Attenborough tells us that nature is once again asserting itself. The more diverse it is, the better it does that job. Pollinating insects disappear. If we all had a largely plant-based diet, we would need only half the land we use at the moment. Air transport will be hugely problematic to solve, although electric and hydrogen planes are in the process of being developed. You say 75% of the Amazon rainforest could be gone. In his more recent travels, Attenborough noticed fishers using mosquito nets in the hope of catching something to eat. The living world cant operate without a healthy ocean and neither can we. Those forests and plains and seas were already emptying. You put crops on the land and get another reward. There is no international law at the moment to stop it. Its decision to do so has resulted in the human species pushing our planet towards a tipping point. We are ultimately bound by and reliant upon the finite natural world about us. I don't think anybody has actually said that they were prepared for it, either. The Amazon rainforest could suffer from "forest dieback" and be starved of moisture, becoming an open savannah and destroying its biodiversity. Levies and carbon taxes will go somewhere to shift this. 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. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural history documentary series that form the Life collection, which form a comprehensive survey of animal and plant life on Earth. Giving people a greater opportunity of life is what we would want to do anyway. Well, weve destroyed it. The film's grand achievement is that it positions its subject as a mediator between humans and the natural world. Governments need to offer financial incentives to create wilderness areas or involve local communities that can benefit from rewilding. 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. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. Nothing to stop us. This is a series of one-way doors bringing irreversible change. David Attenborough is a famous British naturalist. Amazingly the plants on Earth, together with their ocean counterparts of algae and phytoplankton, know all about solar power. Sir David. Thank you so much for being with us. Planet Earth. In one person's lifetime, we have demolished our land and sea wilderness. At some point in the future, the human population will peak for the very first time. The tragedy is that despite powerful stories such as this, including Dian Fossey's work with gorilla populations, and the creation of tiger reserves in India, wildlife habitats are increasingly endangered. Overnight, Pripyat transformed from a pleasant, bustling town to a nightmarish disaster zone. I've seen it with my own eyes. 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. SIMON: So what gives you hope? All sorts of things that you had no idea had ever existed, all in a multitude of colors, all unbelievably beautiful. "No fishing" zones cover less than 7% of the ocean. A century ago, more than three quarters of Costa Rica was covered with forest. A powerful shared conscience had suddenly appeared. With this in mind, David Attenborough has dedicated his life to educating us about our planet, and making discourses visible, through his captivating storytelling. Wherever I went, there was wilderness. Sample Page; ; But Ive had unbelievable luck and good fortune. And in that one shot, there was the whole of humanity with nothing else except the person that was in the spacecraft taking that picture. The longer they have to wait for the ice to return, the more they use up their fat supplies. 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. Filmmaker Sir David Attenborough has been documenting the natural world since the 1950s. We have arrived at locations expecting to find expanses of sea ice and found none. Required fields are marked *. In addition to this, we have an increased life expectancy. SIMON: Sir David Attenborough - his book, along with his co-author Jonnie Hughes, is "A Life On Our Planet." The history of all human civilization followed. Starring: David Attenborough. We found humpbacks off Hawaii only by listening out for their calls. Chris Rock makes comedy history with this global livestreaming event. Even in places where theres no land at all. And we're on the danger of doing that. There was nothing left to restrict us. [groaning] Those beneath can get crushed to death. [Attenborough] We are facing nothing less than the collapse of the living world. Insects, our small hunters, and pollinators have reduced by one quarter. Even one as vast as the ocean. 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. Working with their traditional technology, they were living sustainably, a lifestyle that could continue effectively forever. We were transforming what a species could achieve. A Life on Our Planet is a masterpiece that explores the life and legacy of natural historian and national treasure David Attenborough. 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 point for me was simple: the wild is far from unlimited. In truth, I couldnt imagine living my life in any other way. A further 60% are the animals we raise to eat. Yet, we're nowhere near the stage where our population has stopped growing. 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]. Tonight, weve got a rather different program for you. The future generations of many tree species would be at risk. 2020 | Maturity Rating: PG | 1h 23m | Documentary Films. Why wouldnt we want to do these things? "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. If we push beyond even one of them, we destabilize the balance of our planet. So, what do we do? 1978 WORLD POPULATION: 4.3 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 335 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 55%. Fishing is worlds greatest wild harvest. [whales singing] Their mournful songs were the key to transforming peoples opinions about them. So, Dutch farmers have become expert at getting the most out of every hectare. And we understand that it's going to cost something if you put it right and that the Western and developed countries had more than their fair share. After all, theres plenty of it. The 'why' behind this, points to global warming. Ive traveled to every part of the globe. But on the 26th of April, 1986, it suddenly became uninhabitable. And that's because of the oceanic commons, as they say, the areas of the ocean in which anybody can do what they like. The Second World War was over, technology was making our lives easier. Huge herds on the plains have kept the grasslands rich and productive by fertilizing the soils. They had never seen the center of New Guinea before. If we take care of nature, nature will take care of us. We all need to change our mindset, and we need to implement a new order right now. One of the significant findings was that we pay attention to the environment when it affects us. The scale of the problem is so overwhelming . You could fly for hours over the untouched wilderness. When I was a boy, I spent all my spare time searching through rocks in places like this for buried treasure. But whether it will survive in the form that will include us in it is just another question. More than half of the species on land live here. Farms take up a combined space the size of North America, South America, and Australia combined, with devastating greenhouse gas emissions. And I believe we can do our best. As much as 60% of farmland is devoted to beef production. 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. And who knows what effect that will have on the world. Morocco generates 40% from renewable power plants and exports solar energy. Back then, it seemed inconceivable that we, a single species, might one day have the power to threaten the very existence of the wilderness. So let's go back to the beginning of this summary. None of us can afford for it to happen. And it relies on its biodiversity to run smoothly. In this trailer, he talks about his documentary . But during his lifetime, Attenborough has also seen first-hand the monumental scale of humanity's impact on nature. Environmental economists are trying to address this. Due to a planned power outage on Friday, 1/14, between 8am-1pm PST, some services may be impacted. But to continue, we require more than intelligence. The very thing that gave birth to our civilization. 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. The cod fishery, I mean, we exterminated that from the Atlantic. Right now, were facing a manmade disaster of global scale. Synopsis. It seems utterly impossible that after such a devastating environmental disaster, there would be any kind of happy ending. If we fast-forward to 2020, a mere 83 years later, the statistics are disheartening. David Attenborough, A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future 33 likes Like "We live our comfortable lives in the shadow of a disaster of our own making. In just 25 years, the forest has returned to cover half of Costa Rica once again. The best time of our lives. I mean, we have completely well, destroyed that world. The living world is essentially solar-powered. Let me just ask you about the 2030s. Without predators, nutrients are lost for centuries to the depths and the hot spots start to diminish. As a result, female polar bears are giving birth to smaller cubs, and these underweight cubs are less likely to survive. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. Our planet, vulnerable and isolated. So, how do we recognize critical thresholds? In Asia, the winds would create the monsoon on cue. [Attenborough] They lived in small numbers and didnt take too much. Sir David Attenborough is 94 years old and has some stark, startling sentences in the first few pages of his new book. These people were hunter-gatherers, as all humankind had been before farming. By 1975, the average was two. According to David Attenborough, we have 'overrun the Earth.' A sixth mass extinction event is well underway. We need to rediscover how to be sustainable. Starring: David Attenborough Watch all you want. When fish stocks began to reduce, the Palauans responded by restricting fishing practices and banning fishing entirely from many areas. The cycle of destruction continues as the sea life is trapped by or ingests this waste. Ocean life was also unravelling in the shallows. In 1937, at age 11, he would cycle from his home in Leicester into the countryside to study fossils in the rocks.