I’m Sorry David Attenborough
As I write this on the 10th of August 2021, Sir David Attenborough is 95 years old. If you aren’t aware of who he is, know that this is a man who has spent the majority of his career educating people about the natural world around us. He is the soothing, British voice you may think of when imagining a narrator for a nature documentary. And while he is not the first nor the only person doing this kind of work, he is one of the most prominent.
In America, we have deemed the age of retirement to be 65. This is the supposed ballpark age when people can finally rest from the work of their full-time career and begin to really live for themselves. Some people may travel while others may simply want to spend more time in their backyard garden. Our legend himself is 30 years past that age now and has shown no sign of wanting to stop.
And it’s true, David Attenborough loves this planet. He loves the plants and animals scattered across the globe with all his heart. And I’m sure he makes these documentaries in the hopes of spreading this love that he has to other people. But there’s a secondary reason for getting people to also love this planet: the Earth is fucking dying.
On August 9, 2021, a new climate change report was released by the United Nations and the results are, not great to say the least. With 195 countries agreeing on these conclusions, there is no doubt that climate change is a real, legitimate event, it is happening right now, and it is CAUSED BY GODDAMN HUMANS (MORE TO COME ON THIS PART SINCE IT’S MORE NUANCED THAN HOW I MADE IT).
The report reveals that since the Industrial Revolution, our planet has gotten warmer by 1.1 degrees Celcius. And to many, that number sounds so small. “It’s just one degree, how bad can it be?”. Well, in the past few years alone, we’ve seen some catastrophic events. Each summer for the past four years has been hotter than the previous one, with record temperatures in 2021 AGAIN. The West Coast just dies every summer with the sky literally being red-orange in 2020. Australia had 45 million acres of land burned by wildfires in early 2020, meaning that koalas are a decent amount closer to extinction. Our polar ice caps are melting, our coral reefs are dying, leaving behind only a graveyard and memory of what once was. So to answer the earlier question, IT CAN BE PRETTY BAD. If I can get rights to any images of those events, I’ll put them here.
I wish it was a bad dream. Australia 2020 fires.
Looks nice but that’s all it’s good for now. White coral due to ocean acidification.
I mentioned earlier about this being humanity’s fault. And while it isn’t a wrong statement, it doesn’t capture the essence of what went wrong. For a while now the push is for each individual to make a change. Each one of us can reduce red meat consumption or buy a Hydroflask to reduce plastic bottle waste. And don’t get me wrong, that’s good! I’m glad we can make those changes. But when it comes down to it, we have to realize that it is these major corporations that are the main cause of what’s happening. We wouldn’t have a plastic issue if companies just stopped even making plastic bottles or straws. We wouldn’t be talking about how too many cows are causing a methane issue if the meat industry didn't pour millions of big ones to get their product to our stomachs. But that’s not what makes money. The way things work now is cheap for companies to help them make more money than they need. But that shouldn’t be the goal. The goal shouldn’t be to become a mass cash company, it should be to genuinely serve and help the people. But that idea feels so lost in corporate America today it feels hopeless.
I don’t have the answers, but I know that it has to involve the corporations I have a love-hate relationship with. Yes as consumers if enough of us shout we will eventually be heard. But even then, we may just be ignored. We need those in charge to start caring and to see how detrimental their choices are. It isn’t just a money issue anymore, it’s actually a life and death type thing.
This isn’t a theory or abstract idea anymore (not that it ever really was). There is tangible proof of our earth dying that only becomes more prominent each and every year. But I understand the backfire effect is real and it hits hard. I know that people who read this with an already opposing view probably won’t be swayed by my words. You may already be ready to write a response to me about how Earth naturally heats up and cools down and we’re just in the phase of it heating up. And that’s fine. You have the right to believe that. But know that it’s the people like you that make me wanna say:
I’m sorry David Attenborough.
Sources I used
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/08/latest-ipcc-report-catastrophe/619698/
