David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet

Question 1

What happened to the 50,000 population of people in one of Ukraine’s city on April 26, 1986?

Answer 1

The nuclear power station of Chernobyl exploded.

This was due to bad planning and human error

Question 2

How many times have Mass Extinction happen within Earth’s history?

Answer 2

Mass extinction has happened five times in life’s four billion year history

Question 3

What was the latest Mass Extinction?

Answer 3

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

Question 4

What is the Holocene?

Answer 4

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”

Question 5

What changed the way we evolved?

Answer 5

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

Question 6

What was discovered for the fundamental truth when the Mission “Apollo” was commenced and the astronauts saw the earth within space?

Answer 6

Earth was not limitless

Question 7

How did Humans’ live a different life on earth compared to other living species?

Answer 7

Predators are eliminated
Diseases were under control
Worked out how to produced food to order
There was nothing to stop humans except ourselves

Question 8

What is a key aspect to rainforests?

Answer 8

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

Question 9

How many trees do humans cut down?

Answer 9

3 trillion trees

Half of the Earth’s rainforest had been cleared

Question 10

If humans keep taking aspects within an ecosystem forever, what would happen?

Answer 10

It results into it being unsustainable, having the whole ecosystem collapse

No ecosystem, no matter how big, is secure

Question 11

How many fishes did the fishing fleets remove from the seas?

Answer 11

90%

Without predators, the cycle of bringing up the plankton or nutrients gets lost in the depths and the oceans starts to die

Question 12

In the 90s, the cause of Earth’s global air temp becoming unstable was only shown then because…

Answer 12

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

Question 13

How much did the summer sea ice in the Arctic been reduced within 40 years?

Answer 13

40%

Question 14

What are the causes of Humans have done upon the Earth’s ecosystems?

Answer 14

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

Question 15

What is the estimated populations of mammal population of Earth?

Answer 15

Humans are 1/3rd of the population
60% are animals raised to eat
4% are the rest of the wild mammals

Question 16

What are the predictions science has showcased of what would happen if humans continue to reap and destroy the ecosystem of Earth?

Answer 16

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

Question 17

How can we restore stability to our planet?

Answer 17

We must restore its biodiversity.
We must re-wild the world

Question 18

What are David’s explanations of how we can make earth a wild environment again?

Answer 18

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

Question 19

Why is it important to care about the environment for us humans?

Answer 19

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