Here are a few of the remarks that Sir David Attenborough made at the Edinburgh International Television Festival yesterday.
“I spend a lot of time wringing my hands and saying how dreadful it is that this forest has been obliterated and that sea has been polluted and whatever. But there are signs of hope.”
“I have the sense that worldwide, certainly in Europe, certainly in China – which we never thought before was concerned – and even perhaps if I may say so there are people in America – pace Mr Trump – who don’t accept that human beings can do no wrong.”
“I think the Paris agreement represents another big advance. I would like to think the reason that political figures can adopt that sort of policy, which they know will be at a cost to their national economies, is that they are beginning to realise that people worldwide wish for that happen because they wish to protect their natural world.”
“The effect that human beings are having on the natural world is profound. We are having a great damaging effect. Because we are out of touch with the natural world in a way that we weren’t 200 years ago [because of urbanisation] that means most of us don’t see the effect we are having. What is more, we don’t understand the processes of the natural world, which makes this [natural history broadcasting] of crucial importance to the future of humanity.”
“There has been a worldwide shift, I think, among people in general about the concern there should be for the natural world. I am encouraged more than I have been for some time.”
DAVID’S OBSERVATION OF US BEING OUT OF TOUCH WITH THE NATURAL WORLD RESONATE WITH AN IMPRESSIVE ARTICLE IN THIS WEEK’S TIMES ED’ BY KEVIN ROONEY “SOCIAL MOBILITY IS NOT THE POINT OF EDUCATION”
He argues that education should be about the cultivation of intellectual curiosity and the transmission of knowledge. My job, he states, is to “teach his children well and to instill in them a sense of wonder and curiosity about the world” and not just of preparing them for the jobs market!