41–50 of 172 posts
He outlasted his brother by quite a while. Managed to travel more miles than nearly anyone else apart from popes and political leaders.
Desperate not to let anyone else have a go at his job.
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…
I would strongly push back on that. In most developed countries, natural wilderness is at its highest rate in hundreds of years. China's turning around the world with solar panels, all that. I wouldn't call the current state of things backsliding at all.
They may be able to distribute all solar panels and wind turbines worldwide; in the end that is just tiny-potatoes good because those markets are not that big. But when it comes to getting to energy independence they are using an "all of the above" strategy to get there. Planetary catastrophy can take a back seat to socio-economic unrest due to less/no money and opportunities for people.
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…
Sadly I don't think the outlook is very positive on that. I saw an article from McKinsey about the Himalayan country of Bhutan which has famously put restrictions in place to keep the country heavily forested. Good for nature, good for preserving culture, not so great for capitalism. The article I saw basically outlined in more detail what I said above and then followed it with: "....but what if that forest could be…
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…
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…
Most of the growth will be in Africa, not exactly the most lawful place in the world so it looks kind of bleak for the environment and animals there.
Those 2 billion will all want a nice home and a smartphone, computer, TV, car etc…
Earth Overshoot Day https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Overshoot_Day
It's not looking great, not even if we got nuclear fusion reactors figured out tomorrow.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I wish humans would come together to re-wild more of the earth. Restoring wild nature and cutting emissions is the only way to really restore natural ecosystems. We're nowhere close to doing that. A big issue is cost and economic opportunity. For example, a lot of land in the SF Bay Area cannot be developed. This is great for the environment, but not so great for housing costs. Long term, it’s likely worth it to sa…
They’re not necessarily at odds. Manhattan has something like 75x the population density per mile. You could rewild 4/5 of the the SF Bay Area while also building 10x the housing stock under that development pattern. Single family homes are just an extremely expensive and ecologically destructive way to live. They require a ton of infrastructure per person. Unfortunately, I think that housing unaffordability is just…
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…
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?