David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet Flashcards
What happened to the 50,000 population of people in one of Ukraine’s city on April 26, 1986?
The nuclear power station of Chernobyl exploded.
This was due to bad planning and human error
How many times have Mass Extinction happen within Earth’s history?
Mass extinction has happened five times in life’s four billion year history
What was the latest Mass Extinction?
The latest mass extinction was the age of the dinosaurs, having 75% of life be wiped out.
Life had no other choice but to rebuild
It’s been reconstructing life for 65 million years, reaching the present known as the Holocene
What is the Holocene?
The most stable period in the planet’s history
It provided a biodiversity that gave stability
It brought seasons
“Holocene is our Garden of Eden”
What changed the way we evolved?
Human intelligence
Animals had to develop a physical ability to change their lives
Human ideas can change our lives
An idea can be passed down through generations
What was discovered for the fundamental truth when the Mission “Apollo” was commenced and the astronauts saw the earth within space?
Earth was not limitless
How did Humans’ live a different life on earth compared to other living species?
Predators are eliminated
Diseases were under control
Worked out how to produced food to order
There was nothing to stop humans except ourselves
What is a key aspect to rainforests?
Tree diversity
Without animals to help spread seeds upon the forest’s floors, there wouldn’t be any tree diversity.
Many tree species would be at risk
Humans took that away through deforestation and instead created a monoculture of oil palms
How many trees do humans cut down?
3 trillion trees
Half of the Earth’s rainforest had been cleared
If humans keep taking aspects within an ecosystem forever, what would happen?
It results into it being unsustainable, having the whole ecosystem collapse
No ecosystem, no matter how big, is secure
How many fishes did the fishing fleets remove from the seas?
90%
Without predators, the cycle of bringing up the plankton or nutrients gets lost in the depths and the oceans starts to die
In the 90s, the cause of Earth’s global air temp becoming unstable was only shown then because…
The ocean was absorbing much of the excess heat, masking the impact and warming its waters
It has now made the earth 1 degree Celsius warmer than when David Attenborough was born
How much did the summer sea ice in the Arctic been reduced within 40 years?
40%
What are the causes of Humans have done upon the Earth’s ecosystems?
Overfished 30% of fish stocks to critical levels
Cut down 15 billion trees each year
Damming, polluting, and over-extracting rivers and lakes that then reduced sizes of freshwater populations by over 80%
Half of the fertile earth is now farmland
70% mass of birds are domestic birds, the most being chickens
What is the estimated populations of mammal population of Earth?
Humans are 1/3rd of the population
60% are animals raised to eat
4% are the rest of the wild mammals
What are the predictions science has showcased of what would happen if humans continue to reap and destroy the ecosystem of Earth?
2030s
The Amazon rainforest becomes a Savannah which brings catastrophic species loss and a change in the global water cycle
The Arctic becomes ice free in the summer, having no white ice caps to reflect the suns energy back to space
2040s
Frozen soils thaw out and release methane in the north, accelerating climate change
2050s
The ocean becomes more hot and acidic, having fish populations to crash and coral reefs to die
2080s
Global food production enters a crisis as soils become exhausted by overuse.
Pollinating insects disappear
Weather becomes unpredictable
2100s
Earth becomes 4 degrees C warmer
Large parts of the earth are uninhabitable
Millions of people become homeless
A 6th mass extinction event is well on its ways
How can we restore stability to our planet?
We must restore its biodiversity.
We must re-wild the world
What are David’s explanations of how we can make earth a wild environment again?
A key component is allowing human population to peak
- The sooner that happens, the sooner it’ll make easier for what we have to do to help the earth’s ecosystems
Raise the standard of living on our world without increasing impact on that world
Use earth’s natural resources to help provide energy
- Sunlight, wind, water and geothermal (not fossil fuel)
Create no fish zones
- Estimates suggest a “no fish zones” upon 1/3rd of our coastal seas would be sufficient to provide us with all the fish we will ever need
- By doing so, it’ll help us combat the world’s climate change
- EX: Palau restricted fishing practices and banning fishing entirely from many areas; with Palau’s protected fish populations soon became so healthy, they spilt over into the areas open to fishing.
- In result, the no fish zones help increase the catch of fishes and also allowed the reefs to recover
We must radically decrease the area we need to farm in order to provide the wilderness to grow and populate the areas once again.
- If Humans started eating more plant based foods, we would only need to use half the land we currently have
- Its possible for humans to use more low tech and high tech solutions to produce much more food from much less land
We must immediately halt deforestation everywhere
Humans must do what nature has always done
- A species can only thrive if everything around it also thrives too
- If we take care of nature, nature can take care of us
Humans must stop trying to grow and instead find a balance with nature
Why is it important to care about the environment for us humans?
Because saving the planet would also save ourselves.
The natural world would rebuild with or without us proven throughout the years
However grave mistakes humans make, nature would overcome them as it always have
