Sir David Attenborough on humans

Humans are a 'plague on Earth': Sir David Attenborough warns that negative effects of population growth will come home to roost

the independent,

22 January, 2013

TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough has warned that human beings have become a “plague on the Earth”.

The 86-year-old broadcaster said the negative effects of climate change and population growth would be seen in the next 50 years.

He told the Radio Times: "It's coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so.

"It's not just climate change. It's sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde.

"Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.

"We keep putting on programmes about famine in Ethiopia - that's what's happening. Too many people there. They can't support themselves - and it's not an inhuman thing to say. It's the case.

"Until humanity manages to sort itself out and get a co-ordinated view about the planet, it's going to get worse and worse."

Sir David, whose landmark series are being repeated on BBC2, also said that his style of presenting would soon be extinct.

He told the magazine: "I'm not sure there's any need for a new Attenborough. The more you go on, the less you need people standing between you and the animal and the camera waving their arms about.

"It's much cheaper to get someone in front of a camera describing animal behaviour than actually showing you (the behaviour). That takes a much longer time.

"But the kind of carefully tailored programmes in which you really work at the commentary, you really match pictures to words, is a bit out of fashion now... regarded as old hat."

and to illustrate the nonsense spouted by the denialists, here is one response to Sir David's comments

David Attenborough is wrong – the human race has never been so successful or healthy

By Harry Mount 

Doom and gloom merchant (Photo: PA)

the Telegraph,
22 January, 2013


He's claimed in an interview that the human race is a plague on the Earth. We must limit population growth or the natural world will do it for us - and the natural world is doing it for us right now, he says.



Erm, except it's not. Attenborough points to famines in Ethiopia and, he's right, things aren't too pleasant there. But, then again, he's cherry-picking his locations. Throughout most of the rest of the world, the human population is soaring because it's in such good shape. People are living longer, healthier lives than they've ever lived before, and there are more of us than ever before, too.



In time, Ethiopia should go through the life cycle of most human civilisations: it will grow more technologically sophisticated, get richer, and produce smaller families and longer-lived, healthier humans.



Would Attenborough really prefer us to go back to the Middle Ages, when the average Briton didn't make it to 40, dropping dead of diseases that have now been largely eradicated - like the plague, in fact.



If Attenborough visited a gorilla colony in Rwanda and saw the population growing, he'd be rightly delighted – and rightly conclude that they're doing much better than if that population was declining. But he makes an exception for the human race – when we're really not that different from gorillas.



Attenborough seems to have a Malthusian dislike of the human race. Oh, we are so awful, we must be doomed, is the logic. It's true, we may not behave too well; we have the power to be more destructive than any other animal, and we use that unpleasant power from time to time. But, from a purely selfish point of view, we are the kings of the planet and we're in rude health.