Dawn Elliott Obituary, Articles D

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. Remember you can read the transcript at any time. After all, theres plenty of it. This trajectory is unsustainable, and the Great Acceleration will inevitably result in a "Great Decline.". And renewable energy will never run out. The truth is, with or without us, the natural world will rebuild. Phytoplankton at the oceans surface and immense forests straddling the north have helped to balance the atmosphere by locking away carbon. We rely entirely on this finely tuned life-support machine. And if there's a profit in it, we do that - worse than that, even when there's not a profit in it, when governments actually see fit to subsidize it. And we don't learn the lessons. Ways to fish our seas that enable them to come quickly back to life. 'David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet' Review: Ruin and Regrowth Fossil fuels increase the greenhouse effect, releasing gases such as carbon dioxide. And a few years later, that idea became obvious to everyone. The predators help to keep nutrients in the oceans sunlit waters, recycling them so that they can be used again and again by plankton. Small creatures called polyps, create reefs by building walls of calcium carbonate to protect their tiny forms, while the fantastic colors of a coral reef come from the algae in their tissues. Global food production enters a crisis as soils become exhausted by overuse. Ive traveled to every part of the globe. Palau is a Pacific Island nation reliant on its coral reefs for fish and tourism. Interspersed with footage of his career and of a wide variety of ecosystems, he narrates key moments in his career and indicators of how the planet has changed since he was born in 1926. And the extent of the polar ice has been critical, reflecting sunlight back off its white surface, cooling the whole earth. And freshwater is equally at risk. Starring: David Attenborough. But that rainforest is one of the key elements in the whole of the weather patterns of the world. The earths plants capture three trillion kilowatt-hours of solar energy each day. In Asia, the winds would create the monsoon on cue. Extract | A Life on Our Planet by David Attenborough But whether it will survive in the form that will include us in it is just another question. A Life on Our Planet by David Attenborough Summary - Briefer Go behind the scenes of Netflix TV shows and movies, see what's coming soon and watch bonus videos on, Trailer: David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet. [Attenborough] If we can change the way we live on Earth, an alternative future comes into view. Within the span of the next lifetime, the security and stability of the Holocene, our Garden of Eden will be lost. Its been staring us in the face all along. Sitting on the edge of the Sahara, and cabled directly into southern Europe, Morocco could be an exporter of solar energy by 2050. Large parts of the earth are uninhabitable.