David Attenborough has been a part of my life since I first started watching nature programmes when I was a very little boy (I was born 1968)
In nearly 70 years of film making he has pretty much visited every place possible on the planet and travelled millions (literally) of miles to do so.
He has never failed to awe and wow us with the wonders of the planet.
So when SIr David, at the age of 94, makes a new, one off film with the strapline "My witness statement", you have to sit up and take notice.
I decided to see this on it's release date in the cinema, to really immerse myself in the wonders of the world on a big screen.
The film opens with Sir David in the ruins of Chernobyl where he shows the results of ONE stupid, mammoth mistake and then leads into the state of the world today.
SIr David takes you on a journey through his life, showing population levels, CO2 levels and %age of the planet still classed as WILD each time. He presents the facts in his warm caring style but showing a picture of how bad things have got.
STATISTIC : Of all the animal biomass on earth, 60% is estimated to be human livestock, 36% humans and a mere 4% for everything else.
The narration pauses with about 30s of silence and the look on his face says everthing - no acting just a man looking back over the years - brought a lump to my throat.
But after all the doom and gloom he says "This is my witness statement. But it doesn't end there, we can fix this and I'll tell you how"
Fo the second part he talks about all the ways we can, as a world and a species, start to fix things and put them right. But these are not just pie-in-the-sky methods, he talks and shows about how positive change is ALREADY happening. Watch for the examples from the Netherlands & Costa Rica.
He talks about the human population peaking and how we can make this happen sooner by actually IMPROVING people's lives - no draconian fertility laws, just the course of nature.
SO he ends on a positive note - he really believes we can fix this and based on the fact Costa Rica DOUBLED its jungle and forest cover after mass deforestation in just 25 years and when you see how nature has reclaimed Chernobyl it will hearten you too.
The fixes don't require us to deny ourselves but to manage things BETTER and in fact if we do things BETTER we will have even more.
Now we just have to get our politicians, especially the deniers, to wake up and DO SOMETHING.
I honestly believe that anyone who gives this show a negative or neutral review or rating (under 6) either has completely missed the point OR is a denier and there is no hope for them at the moment.
Final thought - Many scientists have said that the lost of biodiversity on the planet at the moment is so great and so rapid that it has to be classed at the 6th Great Extinction Event the planet has suffered in the 4.5 billion year history. Whatever happens, life WILL flourish again, but the question will be, "Will humans be part of it or will we go the way of the dinosaurs?"
In nearly 70 years of film making he has pretty much visited every place possible on the planet and travelled millions (literally) of miles to do so.
He has never failed to awe and wow us with the wonders of the planet.
So when SIr David, at the age of 94, makes a new, one off film with the strapline "My witness statement", you have to sit up and take notice.
I decided to see this on it's release date in the cinema, to really immerse myself in the wonders of the world on a big screen.
The film opens with Sir David in the ruins of Chernobyl where he shows the results of ONE stupid, mammoth mistake and then leads into the state of the world today.
SIr David takes you on a journey through his life, showing population levels, CO2 levels and %age of the planet still classed as WILD each time. He presents the facts in his warm caring style but showing a picture of how bad things have got.
STATISTIC : Of all the animal biomass on earth, 60% is estimated to be human livestock, 36% humans and a mere 4% for everything else.
The narration pauses with about 30s of silence and the look on his face says everthing - no acting just a man looking back over the years - brought a lump to my throat.
But after all the doom and gloom he says "This is my witness statement. But it doesn't end there, we can fix this and I'll tell you how"
Fo the second part he talks about all the ways we can, as a world and a species, start to fix things and put them right. But these are not just pie-in-the-sky methods, he talks and shows about how positive change is ALREADY happening. Watch for the examples from the Netherlands & Costa Rica.
He talks about the human population peaking and how we can make this happen sooner by actually IMPROVING people's lives - no draconian fertility laws, just the course of nature.
SO he ends on a positive note - he really believes we can fix this and based on the fact Costa Rica DOUBLED its jungle and forest cover after mass deforestation in just 25 years and when you see how nature has reclaimed Chernobyl it will hearten you too.
The fixes don't require us to deny ourselves but to manage things BETTER and in fact if we do things BETTER we will have even more.
Now we just have to get our politicians, especially the deniers, to wake up and DO SOMETHING.
I honestly believe that anyone who gives this show a negative or neutral review or rating (under 6) either has completely missed the point OR is a denier and there is no hope for them at the moment.
Final thought - Many scientists have said that the lost of biodiversity on the planet at the moment is so great and so rapid that it has to be classed at the 6th Great Extinction Event the planet has suffered in the 4.5 billion year history. Whatever happens, life WILL flourish again, but the question will be, "Will humans be part of it or will we go the way of the dinosaurs?"