We are doing our part – are you? David Attenborough imparts invaluable knowledge to earth’s survival

Netflix’s ‘David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet’ Is The Most Important Documentary Of The Year

Attenborough is now 94, and throughout his long life, has watched the natural world wither before his eyes. He seems tired of keeping quiet about it.

The scale of the problem is so overwhelming, so gargantuan, that it can be difficult to absorb and to communicate through a single documentary. But by framing environmental destruction through Attenborough’s eyes and unique career, A Life on Our Planet manages to humanize an issue that can often seem distant, and somewhat abstract.

As the film moves through the decades, marking each stage of Attenborough’s career with the ever-declining state of the natural world, the percentage of remaining wildlife takes a dramatic plunge in the last thirty years, as the cumulative damage begins to snowball.

Thankfully, the documentary soon takes a more optimistic turn, as major environmental victories are highlighted, and the film begins to focus not on a scorched, apocalyptic future, but a world restored.

The world’s jungles and rainforests, packed with an almost unimaginable abundance of life, should be viewed as sacred, simply by their very existence, but the fact that they capture carbon so effectively makes them absolutely vital to our future.

The “problem” with trees, however, is that they aren’t profitable unless they are being harvested. And here’s where Attenborough holds back – the incessant, unquenchable greed and manufactured demands of capitalism are barely mentioned, nor are the obscene excesses of the wealthy.

An analysis by Oxfam recently found that the world’s richest 1% are responsible for double the emissions of the poorest 50%, while a mere 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global carbon emissions.

There’s a light on the horizon; it might look like a forest fire, but hopefully, it’s the dawn of a new era of environmental consciousness.

We are doing our part – are you?

Things we can do as homeowners and business owners to significantly reduce our carbon footprint and negative impact on our planet.

Go Solar

By going solar, you can reduce demand for fossil fuels, limit greenhouse gas emissions, and shrink your carbon footprint. Choosing a clean source of electricity like solar panels can eliminate the same amount of carbon emissions that would result from burning over 5,000 pounds of coal each year.

PV Panels

Residential solar PV systems are capable of meeting a household’s electricity consumption entirely and result in 80% lower carbon emissions than fossil fuels.

A typical solar PV system on a house can save half a tonne of CO2 pollution every year.

What exactly is your carbon footprint? Simply put, the term ‘carbon footprint’ is used to describe the total amount of greenhouse gases that are produced and released into the atmosphere to support your individual lifestyle. This is measured over a set period, usually one year.

Thanks to how modern society functions, most of us are seeing our carbon footprints increase significantly. This is contributing to the greenhouse effect, which is in turn leading to rising temperatures and causing global climate change.

Sources:
Netflix
The Guardian
Oxfam
Forbes