David Attenborough's new book and Netflix film tackles climate crisis with a 'vision for the future'
Sir David Attenborough has been busy of late, teaching online geography lessons to kids at home, and having serious talks with Greta Thunberg about climate activism.
In a move to further cement his (admittedly already very well-established) title of national treasure, the 94-year-old legendary documentary maker is set to release a new book containing his "witness statement" for the Earth amid the global climate emergency.
Titled A Life on our Planet: My Witness Statement and Vision for the Future, the book will be published by Penguin Random House in Oct. 2020, coinciding with the release of a new Netflix documentary of the same name.
"The Earth's life-support machine, the thing we humans rely upon for everything we need, runs on its biodiversity," said Attenborough in a press statement sent to Mashable. "Yet the way we live on Earth now is sending it into a decline. I have been a witness to this decline.
"This book contains my witness statement, and my vision for the future — the story of how we came to make this, our greatest mistake, and how, if we act now, we can yet put it right."
Attenborough has worked with the BBC for close to 70 years. His rumbling voice has pretty much become synonymous with beautifully-shot nature documentaries — Our Planet, Planet Earth II and Blue Planet II are just a few recent examples — many of which deal with the impact humankind is having on the planet.
From the sounds of it, this new book will contain a similar mixture of darkness and light.
"The book records some of the dreadful damage mankind has already wrought upon the natural world and the real and imminent danger that things could get much, much worse if we do not act now," Attenborough said. "But it is also a hopeful book: it offers a different future.
"It describes some of the ways in which we can begin to turn things around if only we all have the will to do so."
'A Life on our Planet: My Witness Statement and Vision for the Future' is out in October 2020 through Penguin Random House UK and Netflix.
