Sir David Attenborough is well-known to fans of the BBC in the United Kingdom for his interesting explorations on various topics, especially ones relating to natural history. In this book, he further dives into natural history about how the world has changed during his lifetime. His picture is quite bleak, with much of our wilderness becoming subsumed by humanity’s growth. Still, he manages to propose several hopeful strategies out of this crisis if we begin immediately to act.
Attenborough has the reputation of being able to make journalistic explorations supremely interesting, and this book is no exception. He voyages down the decades of his life, beginning before World War II. He charts how natural biodiversity has been steadily lost and how humans have begun to manage the balance of the planet. To no one’s surprise, human management (started in the 1950s) has not gone well. Oceans have been depleted of fish, and the fraction of uninhibited wilderness has greatly decreased.
As depressing as the early stages of this work are, the end offers specific remedies for our position. He leaves us not with just a dystopia. He identifies strategic ways to increase fish stores while restoring economies of fishing. He shows us how we all can adjust our meat-heavy diets to soy-based and plant-based foods. In particular, we can cut down the percentage of beef in our diets because a pound of beef takes more agriculture to develop than other forms of meat. Energy must be transitioned from fossil fuels to other forms of energy.
Human survival must become our common currency even more than making money. Many of these solutions are cost-neutral – they cost about as much as our current solutions – but they are green-positive by helping to reduce costs to the environment. Some economists are theorizing how to create a financial cost to offset the environmental impacts of harmful technologies. Unfortunately, reliance on old ways of classical economics will lead to destructive outcomes to humanity.
The general public needs to hear this argument. It’s perhaps the most eloquent piece about contemporary climate change that I’ve read to date. Unfortunately, many (in America, at least) will reject even listening to this jeremiad because they revel in ignorance. Once again, contemporary social problems limit scientific progress in humans. Will the recurring modern story repeat itself? We know where we need to get to and how we need to get there; we just lack the collective determination to see the course. Or will Attenborough’s eloquent plea, amongst others’ informative pleas, light our way?
A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future
By David Attenborough
Read by David Attenborough
Copyright (c) 2020
Hachette Book Group
ASIN B08KJQG6B5
Audiobook
Genre: Natural History, Climate Change
www.amazon.com