I advocate that there should be zones, parts of the ocean where they should be absolutely sacrosanct, where, in fact, populations of fish can build up and actually from that, colonize the rest of the seas that we've stripped. This model outlines nine critical thresholds, or planetary boundaries, such as climate change, air pollution, land conversion, and biodiversity loss. Its happened in my lifetime. There's some good news though. Its covered with small family-run farms with no room for expansion. We were transforming what a species could achieve. And if we do it right, it can continue because theres a win-win at play. [whales singing] [whales continue singing]. How did that change our view of the world? All this was absolutely clear, it was only just stopped being a working quarry. Skeletons of dead creatures. In 1998, a Blue Planet film crew discovered that the beautiful colors of the coral reefs were turning to skeletal chalky white. From Pripyat, a deserted area after the nuclear disaster, Attenborough gives an overview of his life. A monoculture of oil palm. Huge herds on the plains have kept the grasslands rich and productive by fertilizing the soils. 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. [wildebeest snorting] For every single predator on the Serengeti, there are more than 100 prey animals. And as the natural environment fails, pandemics are likely to increase. [exclaiming in surprise] And Im still learning. Ive always had a passion to explore, to have adventures, to learn about the wilds beyond. We cant cut down rainforests forever, and anything that we cant do forever is by definition unsustainable. Our planet, vulnerable and isolated. The wilder and more diverse forests are, the more effective they are at absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. People had never seen pangolins before on television. They are the best technology nature has for locking away carbon. The problem is that our fishing fleets are just as good at finding those hot spots as are the fish. A speed of change that exceeds any in the last 10,000 years. As healthcare and education improved, peoples expectations and opportunities grew, and the birth rate fell. 2020 WORLD POPULATION: 7.8 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 415 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 35%, Science predicts that were I born today, I would be witness to the following. Every one has a critical role to play. A Life on Our Planet. David Attenborough A Life On Our Planet 2020 An important documentary that everyone should watch. The living world will endure. In his latest book and film, "A Life on Our Planet," he offers a grave and alarming assessment about . There are something like 4,000 million of us today, and weve reached this position with meteoric speed. Its been staring us in the face all along. The orangutan. 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. [protester in English] Hello, Boctok. And they are centers of biodiversity. As Attenborough cautions, the bleached coral is like canaries in a coal mine. We are ultimately bound by and reliant upon the finite natural world about us. It had everything a community would need for a comfortable life. A sixth mass extinction event is well underway. The very thing that weve removed. 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? For 10,000 years, the average temperature has not wavered up or down by more than one degree Celsius. 2030s. They were virtually impossible to find. In the 30 years since the evacuation of Chernobyl, the wild has reclaimed the space. In the 1960s, families often had five children, but today the average is 2.5. Without large fish and other marine predators, the oceanic nutrient cycle stutters. Imagine if we phase out fossil fuels and run our world on the eternal energies of nature too. The white color is caused by corals expelling algae that lives symbiotically within their body. The pace of change was getting faster and faster. We need to shift to plant-based diets. We've adopted a fatalistic attitude that it's "too little too late." Filmmaker Sir David Attenborough has been documenting the natural world since the 1950s. This film is my witness statement and my vision for the future, the story of how we came to make this our greatest mistake, and how, if we act now, we can yet put it right. on October 24, 2021. The future was going to be exciting. 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. [NASA technician] Five, four, three, two one, zero. And that's because of the oceanic commons, as they say, the areas of the ocean in which anybody can do what they like. Starring: David Attenborough. Today, it generates 40% of its needs at home from a network of renewable power plants, including the worlds largest solar farm. [thunder rumbling] [lowing] On the tropical plains, the dry and rainy seasons would switch every year like clockwork. 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. Mangroves and coral reefs along thousands of miles of coast have harbored nurseries of fish species that, when mature, then range into open waters. SIMON: I feel the need to take up some of the very practical points that you raise in this book. In 1971, I set out to find an uncontacted tribe in New Guinea. If the ice disappears, so does the algae that grow underneath. It's estimated that three-quarters of our food crops could fail. 1960 WORLD POPULATION: 3.0 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 315 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 62%. We had very little understanding of how the living world actually worked. Since the Second World War, what's known as the "Great Acceleration" has brought us many progressive things, as our GDPs indicate. The last time it happened was the event that brought the end of the age of the dinosaurs. The best time of our lives. And the quickest and most effective way to do that is for us to change our diet. Environmental issues have historically had low news value. In my time, Ive experienced the warming of Arctic summers. 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. 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. At some point in the future, the human population will peak for the very first time. And the speed of global warming increases. 2020 | Maturity Rating: 7+ | 1h 23m | Science & Nature Docs. I noticed that in this transcript the years of the population, carbon & wilderness miss: 1937 & 1954 & repeat the year 1997 twice the last should be 2020. 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. We must rewild the world. Thank you so much for being with us. Let's briefly go back in time. 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. To move from being apart from nature to becoming a part of nature once again. Copyright 2020 NPR. With all these things, there is one overriding principle. 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. If herds of animals couldn't travel to new grazing, they, along with predators, would starve. But, there are ways to change direction and alter the doom and gloom we've created. A determined detective continues his search for the truth behind Asia's largest drug organization and its elusive boss he has unfinished business with. Pripyat tells us otherwise. Fossils. The rest, from mice to whales, make up just 4%. One of the extraordinary things about it was that the world could actually watch it as it happened. The resources they used naturally renewed themselves. We are Canadian. They discovered that the Serengeti herds required an enormous area of healthy grassland to function. One of the significant findings was that we pay attention to the environment when it affects us. Um, and I certainly would feel very guilty if I saw what the problems are and decided to ignore them. However, as it does this, carbon dioxide changes into carbonic acid. Earth could be 4 degrees Celsius warmer, making farming in many areas impossible. Coral reefs were turning white. Just listen to this. The nearby nuclear power station of Chernobyl exploded. But if you get in a helicopter, you see that that is a strip about half a mile wide. Iceland, Albania, and Paraguay generate their electricity without fossil fuels. As a child, Attenborough enjoyed studying fossils. And then you clear that furthermore for cattle. And freshwater is equally at risk. When you first see it, you think perhaps that its beautiful, and suddenly you realize its tragic. Urban farming is an option on rooftops, abandoned buildings, and exterior walls of city buildings. Farms take up a combined space the size of North America, South America, and Australia combined, with devastating greenhouse gas emissions. And of course, if we increase our wilderness areas, we have a natural way of capturing carbon. If we do things that are unsustainable, the damage accumulates ultimately to a point where the whole system collapses. If this is the case, surely it's up to us to treat our planet with kindness and respect. I've seen it with my own eyes. Fish populations crash. "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. Nature will take any chance to reclaim some space. This unique feature documentary is his witness statement. As Attenborough says: 'We regard the Earth as our planet, run by mankind for mankind.' Chris Rock makes comedy history with this global livestreaming event. A renewable future will be full of benefits. 1954 WORLD POPULATION: 2.7 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 310 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 64%. Amazingly the plants on Earth, together with their ocean counterparts of algae and phytoplankton, know all about solar power. There are no reviews yet. ATTENBOROUGH: Well, I'm not sure if you can take an overall view like that. SIMON: I - forgive me, but I feel the need to quote a movie in which your brother starred (laughter), "Jurassic Park," where the scientist says, nature finds a way. But Ive had unbelievable luck and good fortune. Billions of individuals, and millions of kinds of plants and animals [birds chirping] dazzling in their variety and richness. We invented farming. And it relies on its biodiversity to run smoothly. Then watch the video and do the exercises. [Attenborough] By the time Life on Earth aired in 1979, I had entered my 50s. We filmed 650 species, and we traveled one and a half million miles. We must immediately halt deforestation everywhere and grow crops like oil palm and soya only on land that was deforested long ago. Were certainly the most numerous large animal. 1997 WORLD POPULATION: 5.9 BILLION CARBON IN ATMOSPHERE: 360 PARTS PER MILLION REMAINING WILDERNESS: 46%. SIMON: So what gives you hope? This is not about saving our planet its about saving ourselves. Palau is a Pacific Island nation reliant on its coral reefs for fish and tourism. What we see happening today is just the latest chapter in a global process spanning millennia. But what if Nimona is the monster he's sworn to kill? And powerful evidence that however grave our mistakes, nature will ultimately overcome them. A world that demanded more every day. Jonnie Hughes served as director and producer, as he has on Attenborough's documentaries since 2000. Right now, were facing a manmade disaster of global scale. Within the span of the next lifetime, the security and stability of the Holocene, our Garden of Eden will be lost. No one has lived here since. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. No ecosystem, no matter how big, is secure. 2020 | Maturity Rating: PG | 1h 23m | Documentary Films. He researched how the Earth had experienced massive eruptions at specific points, destroying many species. However, here's a curveball. It was a great place to come to as a boy, because this is, um, ironstone workings, but it was disused. Weve come this far because we are the smartest creatures that have ever lived. 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. Rewilding the world is simpler than you might think. The film's grand achievement is that it positions its subject as a mediator between humans and the natural world. Journalist Jenny Eliscu and filmmaker Erin Lee Carr investigate Britney Spears fight for freedom by way of exclusive interviews and confidential evidence. Based on a children's book by Paul McCartney. In 1937, at age 11, he would cycle from his home in Leicester into the countryside to study fossils in the rocks. Do the preparation task first. Back then, it seemed inconceivable that we, a single species, might one day have the power to threaten the very existence of the wilderness. The good news is that electric cars are already here. Starring: David Attenborough. There is little left for the rest of the living world. 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. ATTENBOROUGH: Yes. A century ago, more than three quarters of Costa Rica was covered with forest. And we've exterminated the great fisheries. 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. SIMON: You advocate what you call no-fish zones. Our cities will be cleaner and quieter. 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. Those forests and plains and seas were already emptying. Estimates suggest that no fish zones over a third of our coastal seas would be sufficient to provide us with all the fish we will ever need. 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. 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. Renewable energy, such as solar, wind, and water, could supply power. Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. [protester over megaphone] We are men and women, and we speak for children, and were all saying, Please stop killing the whales.. The wealthiest 16% in the world are responsible for almost 50% of the environmental impact. No plowing and no fertilizers are used. Accuracy and availability may vary. We rely entirely on this finely tuned life-support machine. And there, only a few yards away, we spotted a great furry red form swaying in the trees. The ocean bears the brunt of this because it absorbs the excess heat of global warming. The longer they have to wait for the ice to return, the more they use up their fat supplies. David Attenborough has seen more of the natural world than any other. When her husband dies, Sole decides that the best way to take care of her son is to become a crime boss even if that means being her father's enemy. Immense grasslands. Due to a planned power outage on Friday, 1/14, between 8am-1pm PST, some services may be impacted. The thing we rely upon for every element of the lives we lead. In the process, they also provide us with simple solutions to saving our planet before it is too late. Sunlight, wind, water and geothermal. In 2014, a plane with 239 people aboard vanishes from all radar. We can start to produce food in new spaces. By the time Frozen Planet aired in 2011, the reasons for these changes was well established. Regenerative and urban farming are two options. 2020 | Maturity rating: 7+ | 1h 23m | Nature & Ecology Documentaries. This too is happening as a result of bad planning and human error and it too will lead to what we see here. Der Emmy-gekrnte Naturforscher David Attenborough (Unser Planet", Planet Erde II") hat einen Plan fr die Zukunft. Fishing is worlds greatest wild harvest. 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. They had never seen the center of New Guinea before. So, how do we recognize critical thresholds? How do we reclaim farmland but also increase the food supply for a growing population? Um, so, the world is not as wild as it was. The scale of the problem is so overwhelming . [Attenborough] Ive been lucky enough to spend my life exploring the wild places of our planet. None of us can afford for it to happen. Plankton would also be destroyed by the acid, affecting the entire food chain. Its quite straightforward. We cut down over 15 billion trees each year. Planet Earth. With David Attenborough, Max Hughes. Half of the fertile land on earth is now farmland. It will survive. The Holocene has been one of the most stable periods in our planets great history. Environmental economists are trying to address this. 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.' No one wants this to happen. 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. Let's rewind to 1937 and some of the statistics of that time. The natural world is fading. Imagine if we committed to a similar approach across the world. A century from now, our planet could be a wild place again. One Hundred Years of Solitude. Many experts wrote off Pripyat, and many of us are apathetic about the future of the planet. Pripyat is situated in Ukraine, and was built by the Soviet Union in the 1970s. By damming, polluting, and over-extracting rivers and lakes, weve reduced the size of freshwater populations by over 80%. And the idea could be passed from one generation to the next. Within 20 years, renewables are predicted to be the worlds main source of power. The living world cant operate without a healthy ocean and neither can we. Insects, our small hunters, and pollinators have reduced by one quarter. We account for over one-third of the weight of mammals on earth. on the Internet. This docuseries delves into one of our greatest modern mysteries: Flight MH370. 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. At first, they caught plenty of fish in their nets. attenborough a life on our planet transcript life on earth the greatest story ever told david . If we all had a largely plant-based diet, we would need only half the land we use at the moment. We have arrived at locations expecting to find expanses of sea ice and found none. 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. Fast forward to 2021, and a far greater catastrophe looms. The Masai in Kenya engages in projects to reduce their cattle herds and develop wildlife. as they were made aware of the natural world. Once a species became our target, there was now nowhere on earth that it could hide. Download Worksheet Language level It had everything a community would needfor a comfortable life. But its possible to slow, even to stop population growth well before it reaches that point. You put crops on the land and get another reward. Downloads only available on ad-free plans. Fishers survived on food vouchers but kept the faith, and today, marine life in that area has increased by more than 400%. Executive-produced by his sons, Rodrigo and Gonzalo. This unique feature documentary is his witness statement. 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. Our planet becomes four degrees Celsius warmer. There was nothing left to restrict us. But for us, an idea could do that. We now have the opportunity to create the perfect home for ourselves, and restore the rich, healthy, and wonderful world that we inherited. Every other species on Earth reaches a maximum population after a time. They charted them as they moved across rivers, through woodlands, and over national borders. David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet - Transcript October 14, 2020 David Attenborough has seen more of the natural world than any other. David Attenborough is a famous British naturalist. A moment ago, we made this recording with an underwater microphone here in the Pacific near Hawaii. A knight framed for a crime he didn't commit turns to a shape-shifting teen to prove his innocence. This begs the question, 'What will the next 100 years look like if we dont 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. And we were responsible. 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. The healthier the marine habitat, the more fish there will be, and the more there will be to eat. Videos David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. I don't think anybody has actually said that they were prepared for it, either. The natural world is, fading, he writes. The sooner it happens, the easier it makes everything else we have to do. This video guide includes 5 instructional resources for use with the Netflix video "Our Planet: Jungles".28 Question Worksheet w/ Answer Key43 Word Word Jumble w/ Answer Key43 Word Word Search w/ Answer Key43 Word Word ListWord-for-Word Transcript of the Entire EpisodeCheck out my "Our Planet: One Earth" set of resources for free.The questions are answered about every 2-3 minutes. A boundary that marks a profound, rapid, global change. 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. If we take care of nature, nature will take care of us. Landslides and floods would occur, but worse still, this thawing would release 1,400 gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. [Attenborough] We are facing nothing less than the collapse of the living world. [Attenborough] By the end of the century, Borneos rainforest had been reduced by half. The herrings have disappeared from the North Sea. Prehistoric Planet will be back for a second season. Sir David, thanks so much for being with us. Furthermore, less ice means that the Arctic would be unable to cool the planet down. In truth, I couldnt imagine living my life in any other way. When it comes to the land, we must radically reduce the area we use to farm, so that we can make space for returning wilderness.