Our Planet: The official companion to the ground-breaking Netflix original Attenborough series with a special foreword by David Attenborough

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You will be among the next characters who can, if they wish, tell the most extraordinary story of all – how human beings in the twenty-first century came to their senses and started to protect Planet Earth’ Sir David Attenborough He takes us on little journeys through rural England. We learn of his early fascination with fossils and thus learn some details about ammonites, their significance for natural history. We also learn of humanity's evolution, the different environmental circumstances which our ancestors had to survive and what has changed until now (this, the Holocene, is the gentlest era thus far). He also talks of mass extinctions. With a foreword by Sir David Attenborough, this is the striking photographic companion to the Emmy–winning NETFLIX original documentary series,presenting never-before-seen visuals of nature’s most intriguing animals in action and the environmental change that has to be seen to be believed. There were times when I felt the science became dense, but I imagined the sound of the author’s distinctive voice. This reset my concentration and allowed the text to flow and become clearer. It is all relevant. We often talk of saving the planet, but the truth is that we must do these things to save ourselves. With or without us, the wild will return.”

In those years, the world population went from 4.3 billion to 7.8 billion, the carbon in the atmosphere went from 335 parts per million to 415 parts per million and the remaining wilderness went from 55% to a mere 35%. Na druhou stranu není celá publikace jenom výčtem katastrof, v každé kapitole se autor věnuje i vyzdvižení toho, co se nám daří zase napravit, jak se snažíme obnovovat půdu a vytváříme chráněné rezervace, díky kterým se opětovně navyšuje populace ohrožených druhů zvířat. We all know about the ongoing climate debate and, like the author, some of us are willing to accept the indisputable evidence that climate change is seriously affecting our planet. Like him, some of us have witnessed the changes. This beautifully written and informative book for children has an uplifting message of hope that will strike a chord with all the family. The perfect gift for families the world over to treasure forever. French: Une vie sur notre planète. Translated by Philippe Giraudon. Paris: Flammarion. 2021. ISBN 9782080249616.In the first part of the book he takes us on a journey to revisit some important moments of his life, starting in 1937 when as a young boy he developed a fascination with fossils. We then see how he joined the BBC and as a naturalist and broadcaster traveled the world to bring animal and plant life on Earth into people’s living rooms. He also talks about other significant events like the Apollo 8 mission or the Chernobyl disaster. All these stories are always connected to the topic of the book and the reader learns about the importance of biodiversity and how with the Holocene the living world settled into a gentle, reliable annual rhythm. Before we disrupted it. of the mass of all the mammals on Earth is made up of our own bodies and those of the animals that we raise to eat...The remainder - all the wild mammals, from mice to elephants and whales - account for just 4%. This beautiful book is a companion to the Netflix series. Stunning photos and illustrations show the great diversity of life in some of the remotest parts of our planet. The difficulties are not ‘sugar coated’ as things that can be easily fixed. We are cautioned that some reversal strategies will be difficult to implement, but reminded that it is the sum of all the parts that count. This is a global call for action.

Unpopular opinion time: I really do not like David Attenborough and the cognitive dissonance he displays in this book The book opens in Pripyat, an area deserted after the Chernobyl disaster. Its first part, My Witness Statement, details key moments in Attenborough's career and the parallel decline of wildlife and rise in carbon emissions. Each chapter begins with three statistics about the period which it covers: world population, atmospheric carbon dioxide and remaining wilderness. What Lies Ahead, the second part, is about the global warming and species extinction which will continue and accelerate if human behaviour continues unchanged into the future. A Vision for the Future: How to Rewild the World, the third and final section, details measures which can be taken to avoid catastrophe and live sustainably.

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The last part of the book gives an outlook on what lies ahead in the decades from 2030 to 2100 (if we do nothing or if we do certain things). Here, Sir Attenborough talks about how to rewild the world (the land and the seas), how to live more balanced lives, e.g. not destroy as much of nature and more. The only way out, then, is to try to “re-wild” the world. Attenborough has some concrete suggestions for this. We can prevent over-fishing by only permitting the practice in certain parts of the ocean, leaving others undisturbed to recover their populatioins. We can vastly reduce our need for farmland by switching to a mostly plant-based diet, and adopting better farming practices, thus leaving more space available for wildlife. We can stem human population growth by promoting economic development throughout the world, which leads to demographic transition. And we can, of course, stop emitting carbon into the atmosphere by switching to renewable energy like solar or wind. This way, the biodiversity that helped to stabilize the climate can return. This is what the second part of the book is about. The things that are expected to happen until the year 2100, another blink of an eye, if we don’t change our ways. I have come to rely on Attenborough for his insights into nature and his identification of factors that are critical to our planet’s health and diversity. This book is his “sum up” or “witness statement” of all that he has experienced and learned over his 90+ years.

Now let me tell you why: he does not do enough. Most people will read such a statement and get a little bit angry with me and not quite understand the position from which I write, considering his life and work, so I will do my best to explain myself as best as I can. David Attenborough is optimistic, however. He believes that not only can we fix it but that we are willing to change to achieve it. He is hopeful that people can adjust the expectations of comfort and wealth growth and countries adjust to not focusing on GDP growth as the all-important metric, and that we will see the big picture and put things right. And he is very good at explaining his point so convisely and accessibly, and with such hope that even the cynics among us start wondering that maybe, just maybe, we have a chance after all. This book is Sir David Attenborough’s witness statement of anthropogenic climate change and biodiversity loss that has happened during his lifetime. In the blink of an eye, from a geological viewpoint, the world has changed drastically.He has all the facts, and my dislike comes down to one strong and clear point: David Attenborough is not a vegan.

The natural world is fading. The evidence is all around. It has happened during my lifetime. I have seen it with my own eyes. It will lead to our destruction. We are all people of Pripyat now. We live our comfortable lives in the shadow of a disaster of our own making. That disaster is being brought about by the very things that allow us to live our comfortable lives. And it is quite natural to carry on in this way until there is a convincing reason not to do so and a very good plan for an alternative. That is why I have written this book.The next two sections talk about what lies ahead of us if we continue living as we do in the present and his vision for the future with proper and sustainable efforts to rewild the world. Biodiversity is what keeps Earth stable and balanced, with its resources constantly renewable to sustain life on the planet. However, the demands of the human race have far outstripped Earth's capacity to renew. As depressing as it may all appear to be, it is heartening to note that there have been progress made in certain sectors or countries, with notable impact in the targeted areas. I've seen both ends of the spectrum when it comes to awareness of what is happening and the impact of our choices in our daily lives on the planet that we live in. What truly infuriates is when some seem to be deliberately ignorant or obtuse about environmental or climate issues, and I've definitely come across such behaviour from personal experience. Greek: Η ζωή στον πλανήτη μας: Η μαρτυρία μου και ένα όραμα για το μέλλον, romanized: I zoí ston planíti mas: I martyría mou kai éna órama gia to méllon. Translated by Myrto Kalofolias. Athens: Patakis. 2021. ISBN 9789601693545.