A Life on Our Planet

The above are David Attenborough’s introductory remarks in his latest book, A Life on Our Planet, which has also been made into a movie adaptation (Netflix). Perhaps you can hear his distinctive voice and lively narrative style in your head, or remember one of the many nature programs he has hosted throughout his 94-year colorful life, including most notably, Life on Earth (1979), The Blue Planet (2006) and Our Planet (2019). I grew up with David’s nature programs and have always been captivated by his infectious curiosity and love of nature.

“A Life on Our Planet” provides an overall snapshot of the global loss of nature during the life of a single human being. At the same time, it brings a strong message of hope to future generations as David gives his vision and bids for solutions that can help save our planet from disaster.

Both the book and the film have stored a solid, loving and energetic impression in my system and after reading and watching them, I feel I am not the same in the world afterwards.

I understand where we stand, I’m not scared, I know I can do something about it, and I feel strengthened. Hence these lines.

Masterfully, David takes us by the hand and documents how we humans in the pursuit of growth and goods, have tamed wild nature, cleared forests, depleted the land, overfished the oceans and polluted to such an extent that we are now on the brink of collapse. We have run the Earth over end, and replaced the wild with the tame. He serves this complete overview based on facts with no drama, disgrace or judgmental stories. He speaks to you and me directly so that we become aware of our own role in the decay of the Earth. After that, it is difficult to continue ignorantly. The facts are clear: We face the extinction of the human race as a species if we do not change the course and live in harmony with nature.

We start in the city of Pripyat in Ukraine. Here are empty apartment blocks, school rooms and homes that were abandoned in a hurry in 1986 when a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded. It was a human error that caused one of the greatest environmental disasters in modern time. Since then, the city has not been inhabited by humans, but now thirty-five years later, there is plenty of life: Trees, shrubs and wildlife have taken over the city, however, no humans. Nature can easily survive human mistakes.

David inspires us to think as a whole and to interact with nature. We are not separated, it isn’t the Earth and then us. No, we are part of nature together, we are part of a balanced ecosystem. We just “pretended” we were superior. The wild nature in self-regulating habitats, i.e. rainforests, coral reefs or large savannas, are shrinking too rapidly, and our populations are growing more and more , and polluting more and more.

Here’s another fact: Out of the total bird population on the planet, 70% today are domestic animals. The majority are chickens and hens. We eat 50 billion of them a year and many of them are fed soy-based foods, which is grown in areas cleared by deforestation. 96% of all mammals are made up of us humans and the animals we eat. Cows, pigs and sheep are 60%. All wildlife from mice to whales only make up 4%.

This is how we make the world wild again: Revolution Rewild Nature

David’s concrete action plan is to make the world wild again, and thereby correct the eco-balances and biodiversity. Here is an excerpt of the important cases:

From growth to well-being

In a society measured on economic growth as a criterion for success, it is obvious that new thinking is needed, even a new outlook on life. It is about well-being in our biosystems. i.e. change of economic governance systems from Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to “Happy Planet Index”, which is a bid to combine a country’s ecological footprint with human wellbeing, such as life expectancy, happiness level and equality in society.

A shift to clean energy

Fossil fuels pump CO2 into the atmosphere. We have less than a decade to switch to clean energy sources, i.e. solar, wind, water and geothermal.

David proposes a carbon tax for CO2 emissions, to stimulate scientists to breakthrough and create inventions of new technology to reduce emissions quicker.

Make the sea wild again

It is useless to eat the last fish and then expect more to come. Therefore, catch-free zones are created to recover the stock. State-sponsored predatory fishing is stopped and international waters are turned into catch-free zones. This has succeeded in Mexico, where a 7,000 hectare coastal area in 1995 was made a catch-free zone. After ten years, the sharks came back. After fifteen years, the amount of life had increased by 400%, and there were plenty of fish shoals, and therefore plenty of fish to catch.

To take up less space

Modern cultivation of the soil, where we fertilize, spray with pesticides and fertilizers, is not in balance with the soil. If we look at regenerative farming, it is a cheap and effective way to make depleted lands alive again by rotating the crops in the fields. Add to this urban agriculture, growing plants in water, vertical farms of for example leafy greens, which are illuminated by LED lights powered by renewable energy sources.

Minimizing transport of our food is one of the great environmental savings that is worth investing in. It does not make environmental sense that all year round we have become accustomed to having fresh strawberries and bananas, which are transported from the other end of the globe. We should eat locally produced seasonal fruits and vegetables as much as possible.

Plant-based diets will in the future occupy a larger spot on the menu. Raising animals for meat is an environmentally costly affair. Alternative proteins from grains, legumes, nuts, insects or cultured proteins are rapidly entering the market.

We can then feed ourselves on far fewer land areas and therefore reduce our consumption of energy and water.

Rewilding of the globe

It is quite clear that it is crucial to stop all deforestation immediately. The Earth’s last small and large forests, rainforests, wetlands and steppes are truly priceless.

Several places have succeeded in making the forests grow again. i.e. in Costa Rica, where half the area was forest a hundred years ago. During the 1980s, unrestrained deforestation had reduced the forest area to a quarter. The state stepped in and supported replanting and in just twenty-five years the forest has grown and covers half again.

Another good example of increasing biodiversity is the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park in 1995. The wolves chased the large deer herds, which changed their behavior, they moved around more and did not get stuck in certain places. This caused trees and shrubs to grow, thus creating shade and space for more living organisms, more species came into being.

The population

We are becoming more and more people on our beautiful planet, which causes greater demands for us to live in harmony with nature. The fact is that we consume 1.7 times more than the Earth can regenerate in a single year. Of course this does not work. Simply speaking, we deform the Earth’s load capacity by eating our way through the capital of the resources. Therefore, it will help if we level out the population growth. When everyone gets a fair and decent standard of living with education and hygiene and the sense of well-being increases, the population will be regulated by itself, people will simply have fewer children. A world in balance, where we have clean energy, more plant-based foods, sustainable production of trees, fish, meat, yes all food, less waste, repair of appliances instead of buying and throwing away, much more recycling, then it will be a cleaner and more fauna-rich world to live in. With less pollution, the number of illness is also reduced.

A new harmonious life on our planet requires a global effort, and we have good examples that we have the tools to do it and that they work effectively. In 1986, the world’s whalers agreed to stop the slaughter of all whales. Not without a fight, but the fact is that there were established fifty million square kilometers of whale sanctuary in the South Seas in 1994, the whale population has since steadily increased. Likewise with the protection of mountain gorillas in Central Africa, where in the 1970s there were only three hundred left, now the population grows to several thousand thanks to a joint effort.