David Attenborough Closes Books On Nature Documentaries, Finds Earth's Prospects "Deeply Depressing"

[hatrack]

EDIT

"The plain, simple, overwhelming fact of the matter is that since I started making programs, there are three times as many people on the Earth," he said. "It is inevitable that you are going to make huge inroads into what was wild nature and that process is going on. It's going to get worse before it gets better."

Attenborough, younger brother of film director Richard, agreed with some scientists' prediction that it was too late to reverse the impact of climate change. "Whatever we do now the world is going to change. The question is can we slow down those changes or reduce them? One clutches at straws to try and find something in this bleak picture which is not deeply depressing."

Among those straws are the fact that governments are taking the issue seriously and popular awareness of the dangers climate change poses to the environment has spread.

"People recognize that the only conceivable way in which you'll save the life in the sea and the climate in the air is by international agreement," he explained. "It's damned difficult."

EDIT

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL1815767820080418?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

[MountainLaurel]

1. I adore his work

You can see by watching his programs just how much he loves what he does, as well as the fascination and respect he has for how this planet works.

[GliderGuider]

2. That's pretty sobering.

When I heard David Suzuki last year he was saying "Lead, follow or get out of the way! Never give up!" While I agree with that approach, I have more in common with Attenborough's reaction. You can only watch things come apart for so long before thoughts like, "What's the fucking use?" begin to infiltrate.

I hope he takes a break and reorients himself so he can find some joy in his remaining years. Life is too short to stay depressed, even over the end of the world.

[NickB79]

3. Man, that must be a depressing career

Imagine, filming a coral reef and all it's amazing inhabitants, and coming back a few years later to find it bleached and dead. Or seeing the polar bears you filmed slowly starving to death as their pack ice habitat melts out from under them.

It's one thing for us posting here to read about the chaos that is beginning to set in, but actually seeing it in person has got to be horrific.

[tom_paine]

4. Can you blame him? n/t

[pscot]

5. What collosal fuck-ups we are

Through our collective folly, we have reduced ouselves to a cosmic joke. Let's have a Darwin award for the imbecile human race.