Attenborough warning - The human plague

Few public figures in the English-speaking world are as respected as TV naturalist David Attenborough. For more than half a century he has shown us the beauty — and nature red in tooth and claw — all around us.

He has raised consciousness about the world’s really big issues and defining challenges so his opinions carry great weight. He is neither patronising nor hysterical. His record confers him with a degree of authority and integrity that we would be foolish to ignore.

So when he warns that human beings have become a “plague on the Earth” we should listen.

He has warned that the negative effects of climate change and population growth will be seen in the next 50 years. “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.”

Some ideas, some warnings are so counter intuitive, so against the grain, that we struggle to take them on board. This time we can’t afford to do that.