Seemingly ages ago — though in truth it was no more than 20 years — David Attenborough told the US news program 60 Minutes that no one sitting at home wanted to be told that the world is going to hell and it’s all their fault. In his older age — Attenborough was born in the same year as Queen Elizabeth II — he has changed his tune somewhat. His most recent programs, from Our Planet to A Life on Our Planet, have marked a pronounced shift toward environmentalism and the existential issues of humankind’s impact on the natural world, from climate change and habitat loss to overpopulation, dwindling biodiversity, species loss, overconsumption, and the looming Sixth Mass Extinction. Over a broadcasting career that spans half a century, he has witnessed the decline of the living world.
“I would much prefer not to be a placard-carrying conservationist,” he has said. “My life is the natural world. But I can’t not carry a placard if I see what’s happening.” He is now an activist, ardent and committed, the voice of conscience for a Westernized society driven by profit and the need to consume more and more with each passing tick of the doomsday clock. Attenborough: “Immensely powerful though we are today, it’s equally clear that we’re going to be even more powerful tomorrow. And what’s more, there will be greater compulsion upon us to use our power as the number of human beings on Earth increases still further. Clearly, we could devastate the world. As far as we know, the Earth is the only place in the universe where there is life. Its continued survival now rests in our hands.” #truth
