A Life on Our Planet, by David Attenborough
Moving from the 1930s to today, Attenborough, now 94, takes the vital signs of the planet, showing what has happened as the human population has grown from 2.3 to 7.8 billion, the atmosphere’s carbon load has gone from 280 to 415 ppm, and the percentage of wild land has plummeted from 66 to 35. Including both the wonders he’s seen and filmed—from fossils to rainforests to whale songs—and the radical changes in the planet’s stability that have caused biodiversity to plummet, rainforests to turn into savannahs, and the white poles to turn blue, this “witness statement” is heartbreaking. But just when it seems we have doomed all life on Earth, ,Attenborough presents “A Vision for the Future,” one that looks at technical and social innovations around the world and finds a real basis for hope. By listening to nature and imitating it rather than trying to control it, and especially by restoring biodiversity, he shows that the land and oceans will regain their balance, provide enough food for both humans and animals, and make life sustainable for generations to come. But nature can’t help us unless we change our fundamental relationship to it—and time is short.
