David Attenborough: Our planet is overcrowded

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David Attenborough: Our planet is overcrowded

 

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http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227081.000-david-attenborough-our-planet\

-is-overcrowded.html

 

15 May 2009 by Alison George Magazine issue 2708. Subscribe and get 4 free

issues. For similar stories, visit the Interviews Topic Guide

 

 

 

Veteran TV naturalist David Attenborough loves humans as much as other wildlife.

But not when global populations are out of control, he tells Alison George

More: #AskAttenborough: Your questions answered

 

" I'M NOT doing anything exciting right now, like wrestling with gorillas. I'm

working on radio scripts, " says David Attenborough, a bit apologetically. Yet

while his home in the leafy London suburb of Richmond is no longer full of the

woolly monkeys, bushbabies or other exotic creatures his autobiography had

living there, it's still a rich habitat. His collection of tribal art dominates

the walls, a tribute to human inventiveness.

 

He has stopped keeping pets since his wife died, more than 10 years ago. " You

can't, when you go away filming for weeks, " he says. But his home is not

entirely devoid of animal life. " I have great crested newts in the pond, and a

darling robin that comes in the kitchen. "

 

The latest venture for this veteran of wildlife documentaries is as

controversial as anything he has done in his long career. He has become a patron

of the Optimum Population Trust, a think tank on population growth and

environment with a scary website showing the global population as it grows. " For

the past 20 years I've never had any doubt that the source of the Earth's ills

is overpopulation. I can't go on saying this sort of thing and then fail to put

my head above the parapet. "

 

There are nearly three times as many people on the planet as when Attenborough

started making television programmes in the 1950s - a fact that has convinced

him that if we don't find a solution to our population problems, nature will.

" Other horrible factors will come along and fix it, like mass starvation. "

 

Trying to pin him down about the specifics of what to do, however, proves

tricky. He says it involves persuading people that their lives and the lives of

their children would be better if they didn't exceed a certain number of births

per family. And that dramatic drop in birth rate rests on providing universal

suffrage, education - particularly for women - and decent standards of living

for all. It's a daunting task, but the first step, he argues, is to acknowledge

that population is a problem.

 

But isn't the problem solving itself, as people have fewer children and

population growth rates slow? Yes, he says, if you discount immigration, the

UK's population is more or less static, but it is not so elsewhere. This

troubles Attenborough: sounding off about high population and fertility rates in

other countries can sound patronising - or worse.

The world at the start of Attenborough's career half a century ago was clearly a

very different place. His passion about population seems to connect to a feeling

that part of the joy of living rests in the natural world - a world without too

many people, where seeking out wildlife means hard days canoeing rather than

watching tourist boats arrive twice daily.

As a species, he says, we need to learn modesty, that we can't overrun

everything. " If I had more intellectual athleticism I would tackle the problem

of why I think other creatures have a right to live. I do think that, but can't

justify it in a very convincing way. "

 

For all his love of wild animals and places, Attenborough does not want to be

immersed in them full-time. That's why he has chosen to live in London for more

than 50 years. " I would go mad if I lived in the rainforest, " he laughs. " I like

what human beings do, I'm fascinated by them, and if you want to know any of

those things, a big city is the place. " He would miss libraries, concerts,

theatre - and the chance to wander into the British Museum " just to have a look

at something " .

 

Talking exactly as he does on TV - breathily, enthusiastically, gesticulating to

emphasise certain words - Attenborough is old-school charming. He seems at pains

to be even-handed, to see both sides, an attitude he attributes to his early

years at the BBC. In those days, it was a public-service monopoly and its

broadcasters thought they knew best - a mindset he kicked against.

 

 

 

 

It's having things to do that have grit in them - that's what work is

This even-handedness also allows him to be sanguine about the re-editing of one

of his programmes by Dutch creationists, who changed the original narration that

the dinosaurs disappeared " 65 million years ago " to " a very long time ago " . " I

don't think I can object to that, " he says. " If they imposed a positive

creationist message and said 'God killed the dinosaurs', then I would object. "

 

While Attenborough has no truck with those who attribute the wonders of nature

to a creator (see #AskAttenborough: Your questions answered), he is reluctant to

call himself an atheist. " I'm not, because, with due respect to Richard Dawkins

who is a friend and who I admire, that doesn't seem to me a scientific

statement. Often when I open a termite's nest and see thousands of blind

organisms working away that lack the sense mechanism to see me, I can't help

thinking maybe there's a sense mechanism I'm missing, that there's someone

around who created this. We cannot discount that. But I don't know. "

 

Though he alludes wistfully to his younger days, he also seems to be enjoying

the chance to relax more. " When you get to your 80s, the lust to stir your

stumps isn't as great as it was. I think, 'Great, I don't have to do anything

today'. " Even so, later this year he will be off to the Antarctic and the Arctic

to film his next epic for the BBC, The Frozen Planet.

As for retirement: " No, I will go on. It's having things to do that have grit in

them, and unpleasantness - and people who want you to do them because they want

to see the results. That's what work is. The thought of not having anything to

do like that is awful. "

 

See his answers: #AskAttenborough: Your questions answered