Ephemeris of the Mind (Book Review) A Life on Our Planet: My Witness Statement and a Vision for the Future
Time to read: 2 min read
Book Cover
We have replaced the wild with the tame. We regard the Earth as our planet, run by humankind for humankind. There is little left the rest of the living world. The truly wild world-that non-human world-has gone. We have overrun the Earth.
Review
David Attenborough pioneered the art of nature documentaries and in his memoir, he starts by detailing his experiences working with BBC and in particular making nature documentaries. The bulk of the book, though, is about his views on the current state of the world and what he foresees happening in the future.
The book is very well researched and it almost feels like reading an academic paper due to the plethora of references to different reports and papers. Attenborough in particular references academic and policy models such as Doughtnut economics and the planetary boundaries model. While I mostly agree with Attenborough’s devastating assessment of humanity’s role in affecting the Earth’s climate and biodiversity, I find that his overly orthodox interpretation of what happened and what the solutions are is limiting. For one, Attenborough extols the initiatives of the UN and the WWF; while these organizations have undoubtedly done some good, they are largely political organizations and should be viewed through a nuanced lens at best.
Attenborough also argues that in order to preserve nature, humanity must stop growing as a species. To a certain extent, Attenborough’s analysis on how a country’s development shapes the population growth is valid; developed nations see their birth rate drop, while developing nations have more rapidly growing populations. I do agree that by speeding up the development of developing countries, particularly in areas of education and female empowerment, will see that said countries’ populations will plateau earlier naturally and thus will (in theory) require less resources. I disagree, however, with his assessment on artificially restricting humanity’s growth. I believe that to be human is to grow. There are two variables in the formula: growth and resources. To restrict the growth side of the equation ignores human desires and instead one should focus on how to grow the resources side of the equation. The universe is vast and largely unexplored. Humanity must move beyond the scope of Earth for their survival.
Conclusion
A stern warning from one of the most respected figures in conservationism.