New David Attenborough series shows sick planet

As living saints go it would be hard to trump naturalist and broadcaster David Attenborough.

He has been an evangelist for our misused and battered natural world for nearly 80 years. He has been an articulate and relentless canary in the mine for generations but like all saints, the simplicity of his message does not mean we embrace it in a way that makes any real or long-term difference.

Attenborough’s nature films are among the most enthralling and challenging documents of our time. They show great beauty but they also show relentless, self-destructive degradation driven by man — by the lifestyles every one of us has come to regard as an entitlement, as normal.

His forthcoming sequel to The Blue Planet will focus on ocean life and threats to it. He will explain why plastic pollution, climate collapse, and overpopulation are problems too urgent to be left to voices on the fringes of power.

As usual, we will watch with a mixture of awe and fear and, as usual, we will do little or nothing to try to avert the catastrophe Attenborough predicts. Homo sapiens indeed.