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David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

bbc.com

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Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#31

Post by tinfoilhatter »

snorremd wrote: post #5

The sad thing is Attenborough has lived to see the destruction of nature he loved so much. His constant warnings have gone mostly unheard. In some ways I think excellent nature programming like his own Nature is doing a disservice by making it seem like there's lots of wild nature left. I wish humans would come together to re-wild more of the earth. Restoring wild nature and cutting emissions is the only way to reall…

57 companies are responsible for 80% of greenhouse gas emissions. I'm very tired of people trying to tell others that not eating meat or driving a vehicle with an internal combustion engine is the key to solving the problem, because it's not and never has been.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/04/just-57-...

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#32

Post by tinfoilhatter »

anonu wrote: post #29
snorremd wrote: post #5

The sad thing is Attenborough has lived to see the destruction of nature he loved so much. His constant warnings have gone mostly unheard. In some ways I think excellent nature programming like his own Nature is doing a disservice by making it seem like there's lots of wild nature left. I wish humans would come together to re-wild more of the earth. Restoring wild nature and cutting emissions is the only way to reall…

Ultimately, it speaks to people's lifestyle choices. In the US people are used to a particular standard of living: driving big cars and eating big steaks. If you tell people you can't have those things, they will have a visceral reaction. Politicians caught wind of this and turned it into a divisive left vs right debate. Im oversimplifying, but at the core its an incentives problem: Why should I tighten my belt today…

It's more like - why should I tighten my belt today when the celebrities, politicians and corporations making a big fuss about climate change are still flying around in private jets, buying up coastal property, eating steaks and are responsible for the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions?

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#33

Post by vr46 »

Top man, lives up on Richmond Hill and absolutely loves it - when asked about his travels and adventures and where he would choose to live, he replied, "I already live there"

Fairly well-known locally is that my favourite bookshop, The Open Book in Richmond, stocks signed copies of all his books. They used to be signed directly on the page, but since he got to the mid-to-late nineties in age, tons of hardbacks are too much, so Helena wanders up there to get a load of bookplates signed these days.

Apart from that, I order all my books from them when I'm in London and a subsequent chat with Madeleine usually lasts ten times as long as the book shopping.

Anyway, I digress, yes, Sir David, amazing body of works and the books are wonderful.

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#34

Post by quickthrowman »

tinfoilhatter wrote: post #31
snorremd wrote: post #5

The sad thing is Attenborough has lived to see the destruction of nature he loved so much. His constant warnings have gone mostly unheard. In some ways I think excellent nature programming like his own Nature is doing a disservice by making it seem like there's lots of wild nature left. I wish humans would come together to re-wild more of the earth. Restoring wild nature and cutting emissions is the only way to reall…

57 companies are responsible for 80% of greenhouse gas emissions. I'm very tired of people trying to tell others that not eating meat or driving a vehicle with an internal combustion engine is the key to solving the problem, because it's not and never has been. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/04/just-57-...

This is extremely reductive. Noting that oil, gas, and cement companies are responsible for pollution is ignoring that oil, gas, and cement are inputs to everything we consume and the infrastructure used to transport goods. Exxon Mobil isn’t extracting oil and burning it for no reason, it gets refined into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, plastics, pharmaceuticals, etc. Cement is used in concrete which is what infrastructure is made of, along with steel. Everyone uses infrastructure, either directly or indirectly. Everything you buy was transported on a truck, and possibly a plane or a ship. The supply chains for the components of products you consume, and so on. It’s impossible to avoid if you want to maintain the current global population. We could stop using oil and cement, but there would be mass starvation and our current infrastructure would degrade and crumble over time.

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#35

Post by tinfoilhatter »

quickthrowman wrote: post #34
tinfoilhatter wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

57 companies are responsible for 80% of greenhouse gas emissions. I'm very tired of people trying to tell others that not eating meat or driving a vehicle with an internal combustion engine is the key to solving the problem, because it's not and never has been. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/04/just-57-...

This is extremely reductive. Noting that oil, gas, and cement companies are responsible for pollution is ignoring that oil, gas, and cement are inputs to everything we consume and the infrastructure used to transport goods. Exxon Mobil isn’t extracting oil and burning it for no reason, it gets refined into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, plastics, pharmaceuticals, etc. Cement is used in concrete which is what infrastruct…

Right - so how is me not eating meat or not driving an ICE vehicle going to help change the situation? The people with the capital to actually change things seem to be more interested in mongering fear while continuing to profit off of their ecosystem-destroying industries, than trying to come up with effective solutions to the problem.

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#36

Post by boston_clone »

belorn wrote: post #23
vjerancrnjak wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

David Attenborough saw more clearly than most what was being lost. But even he stopped short of fully applying that logic to animals themselves. Rewilding at scale, deep emissions cuts, and a serious move away from animal agriculture are the same project.

Modern agriculture, both animal and non-animal versions, are bad for the environment. Artificial fertilizers, replacing forests with farm land, and drainage of wet lands are all heavily contributing to emissions and water pollution, destroying local ecosystems as well as warming the planet. Artificial fertilizers is particular bad since its production uses fossil fuels, has large amount of accidental green house emis…

The most impactful elements of modern agriculture are entirely animal-based. Full-stop.

You in fact rightfully but incompletely recognize : artificial fertilizers (for giant mono-crop fields of soybeans to feed to cows and pigs [0]), replacing forests (to clear room for soybean fields and pasture for cows and pigs [1][2]), and runoff of these fertilizers and manure into waterways. The parent comment is right - if we want to fix these problems, we must stop killing and eating animals at such an industrial and horrendous scale.

0. https://www.ucs.org/about/news/extent-emissions-created-mass...

1. https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation

2. https://gfw.global/39qbPdC

3. https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#37

Post by mytailorisrich »

snorremd wrote: post #5

The sad thing is Attenborough has lived to see the destruction of nature he loved so much. His constant warnings have gone mostly unheard. In some ways I think excellent nature programming like his own Nature is doing a disservice by making it seem like there's lots of wild nature left. I wish humans would come together to re-wild more of the earth. Restoring wild nature and cutting emissions is the only way to reall…

Population 1926: ~2 billion

Population 2026: ~8.3 billion

Can't escape this and its consequences on the environment.

Re: David Attenborough's 100th Birthday

#40

Post by IncreasePosts »

nephihaha wrote: post #4

He outlasted his brother by quite a while. Managed to travel more miles than nearly anyone else apart from popes and political leaders.

Well, one brother lived til 90, which is still above average, and iirc he only died because of complications of a fall and would have lived longer without that bad luck. And one other brother who lived to 84 and was taken out by a rare neurological disease.

So it's probably just that he has genetics for longevity in his family. And they were all wealthy which helps

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