I love David Attenborough

[urbpan]

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0524-24.htm



Published on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 by the Independent/UK
Climate Change is the Major Problem Facing the World
by David Attenborough

I was sceptical about climate change. I was cautious about crying wolf. I am always cautious about crying wolf. I think conservationists have to be careful in saying things are catastrophic when, in fact, they are less than catastrophic.

I have seen my job at the BBC as a presenter to produce programmes about natural history, just as the Natural History Museum would be interested in showing a range of birds of paradise - that's the sort of thing I've been doing. And in almost every big series I've made, the most recent one being Planet Earth, I've ended up by talking about the future, and possible dangers. But, with climate change, I was sceptical. That is true.

Also, I'm not a chemist or a climatologist or a meteorologist; it isn't for me to suddenly stand up and say I have decided the climate is changing. That's not my expertise. The television gives you an unfair and unjustified prominence but just because your face is on the telly doesn't mean you're an expert on meteorology.

But I'm no longer sceptical. Now I do not have any doubt at all. I think climate change is the major challenge facing the world. I have waited until the proof was conclusive that it was humanity changing the climate. The thing that really convinced me was the graphs connecting the increase of carbon dioxide in the environment and the rise in temperature, with the growth of human population and industrialisation. The coincidence of the curves made it perfectly clear we have left the period of natural climatic oscillation behind and have begun on a steep curve, in terms of temperature rise, beyond anything in terms of increases that we have seen over many thousands of years.

People say, everything will be all right in the end. But it's not the case. We may be facing major disasters on a global scale.

I have seen the ice melting. I have been to parts of Patagonia and heard people say: "That's where the glacier was 10 years ago - and that's where it is today." The most dramatic evidence I have seen was New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina. Was that climate-change induced, out of the ordinary? Certainly so. Everyone who does any cooking knows that if you want to increase a chemical reaction, you put it on the stove and heat it up. If you increase the temperature of the oceans, above which there are swirling currents of air, you will increase the energy in the air currents. It's not a mystery.

So it's true to say these programmes about climate change are different, in that previously I have made programmes about natural history, and now you could say I have an engaged stance. The first is about the fact that there is climate change and that it is human-induced. I'm well aware that people say it's all a fuss about nothing, and even if it is getting warmer, it's nothing to do with us. So I'm glad that the BBC wanted some clear statement of the evidence as to why these two things are the case.

The second programme says, these are some of the changes that are now almost inevitable, these are the sorts of things that the nations of the world have to do, to forestall the worst. Will they do it? Who knows? And many people feel helpless.

Yet the fact of the matter is, I was brought up as boy during the war and, during the war, we actually regarded it as immoral, wrong, to leave food on your plate, you needed to eat what was on your plate because we didn't have enough. I feel in the same way that it is wrong to waste energy now, and if that sort of sea change in moral attitude were to spread amongst the world's population, it would make a difference.

During the past 50 years, I have been lucky enough to spend my time travelling around the world looking at its wonders and its splendours. I have seen many changes, some good many bad.

But it's only in the past decade that I have come to think about the question of whether or not what I, or anybody else, has been doing, could have contributed to the change in the climate of the planet that is undoubtedly taking place. When I was a boy in the 1930s, the carbon dioxide level was still below 300 parts per million. This year, it reached 382, the highest figure for hundreds of thousands of years.

I'm 80 now. It's not that I think, like any old man, that change is wrong. I recognise that the world has always changed. I know that. But the point is, it's changing more extremely and swiftly than at any time in the past several million years. And one of the things I don't want to do is to look at my grandchildren and hear them say: "Grandfather, you knew it was happening - and you did nothing."

Comments

[maybethecat.livejournal.com]

he is a good man
what will the Earth be like when we turn 80???

[cordelia-sue.livejournal.com]

I love him too, so very much. I think of him often, and am so grateful for the perspective he's helped me reach on the world around me. I'm similarly grateful for the things that you share here. Thank you for this article, and all the wonderful images and information you present.

[artemii.livejournal.com]

And one of the things I don't want to do is to look at my grandchildren and hear them say: "Grandfather, you knew it was happening - and you did nothing."

would that everyone felt that way...

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

"Grandchildren, nothin'! I'm goin' to heaven come the rapture!"

[indefinitetheca.livejournal.com]

my parents are counting the days...

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! And thank you for the kind words.

I realized the other day that he was a huge influence on me. I'm certainly nowhere near as authoritative as him, but I can aspire to be like him.

[punkydolly.livejournal.com]

As a child, I wanted to be David Attenborough. As a teen, I wanted to marry him; now trying to act upon the things he helped me learn to love is good enough for me. This man fed my biophilia at a time when the environment and those of us who populate it were not such a hot topic - it meant so much to me that there were at least some adults who noticed and cared about the same things as I did. And it still does. I saw the first part of this programme recently and it choked me up, not just because of the terrible message, but because it was my childhood hero saying it. I love David Attenborough too. Thank you for posting.

[cordelia-sue.livejournal.com]

I think the inspiration you derive from him comes through. You have a similar respect for the world around you as he does, and it's one of the things I've always found the most moving about his presentations and viewpoint. He's a good man, and has taught me some ways of thinking that make me a better woman. The things you share have a similar effect. So again, thank you.

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

Michael Schermer who writes a Skeptic column for Scientific American recently did the same thing - wrote a column entirely about how he used to be skeptical about environmental change but now the evidence is more than enough even for him, and he's "converting" to confirmed environmentalist.