David Attenborough is pessimistic about the future of wildlife on earth.

David Attenborough, the voice of Our Planet: 

“Things are going to get worse”

The voice of some of the most stunning nature documentaries ever made is pessimistic about the future of wildlife on earth.

By Brian Resnick

Apr 22, 2019

“Unless we act within the next 10 years, we are in real trouble.” 

David Attenborough 

Shannon Finney/Getty Images

David Attenborough is the most famous nature storyteller on television. 

The 92-year-old producer, narrator, and documentarian essentially invented the genre of television nature documentaries in his decades-long career at the BBC. 

Programs like Life on Earth, Blue Planet, and Planet Earth have focused on the wonderful grandness and diversity of life on earth, conjuring up images of a world that is seemingly untouched by humans. 

But these also, at times, skirted around the ecological crises threatening life on the planet — which are caused by humans.

Now, Attenborough is coming into a slightly different role: 

advocate for fleeting biodiversity and ecosystems.

His latest venture is narrating the Netflix documentary Our Planet, which injects wildlife conservation advocacy into every episode much more deliberately than previous series. 

The producers hope to reach a billion people with the series and its accompanying website, with the goal of educating people about the natural world. 

And they’ve sent Attenborough on a press tour that includes advocating on behalf of disappearing wildlife and ecosystems at institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. 

Attenborough has also recently lent his voice to a BBC documentary called 
Climate Change: The Facts, which explains the science and grim statistics fueling the climate change threat.

“I find it hard to exaggerate the peril,” Attenborough said at the IMF earlier in April, according to the Guardian. 

“This is the new extinction and we are half way through it." 

"We are in terrible, terrible trouble and the longer we wait to do something about it the worse it is going to get.”

"Things are going to get worse. The question is how much worse, and how quickly is it going to get worse. The speed is accelerating." 

"Whatever we do now, it’s going to get worse. And unless we act within the next 10 years, I mean, we are in real trouble." 

Link: https://www.vox.com/2019/4/12/18306566/david-attenborough-our-planet-netflix-advocacy