We need IMMEDIATE action to stop extinction crisis, David Attenborough - BBC

Over the course of my life I've encountered some of the world's most remarkable species of animals. Only now do I realise just how lucky I've been. Many of these wonders seem set to disappear forever. The UN panel of experts has found that one million animal and plant species face extinction. It is worse than expected. This is happening much faster than we've ever seen before. Today we are the asteroid that's causing many many species to go extinct simultaneously. The evidence is that unless immediate action is taken this crisis has grave impacts for us all. We're not just losing nice things to look at, we're losing critical parts of Earth's system. And it's threatening our food, our water, our climate. We are encroaching further and further every day into wildlife habitat and that drives emerging diseases. If we carry on like this we will see more epidemics as bad as this and some of them could even be worse. It's never been more critical for us to understand what is driving this crisis. Scientists have identified the key ways in which we humans are destroying the ecosystems on which we depend. There are many ways to remove pieces of the puzzle. The most obvious way is to kill something and we do a lot of that. We're talking about millions of animals being snatched from the wild from thousands of species. We have massive and widespread overfishing. We're completely destroying the natural balance of fish in the world's oceans. When I was a kid in the 1960s there were three billion people in the world and I'm now probably going to see it actually reach you know nine billion in my lifetime which is pretty startling. Population growth is much much higher in the developing world than in the developed. But it's problematic to just talk about population because there are two things which are going on. It's population but it's also consumption. And in terms of impact on the planet what's much more important is the growth in consumption levels and these are far higher in the developed economies. While in a country like the United Kingdom where some very strong laws on how to reduce pollution we do have to realize we're no longer a major industrial country. Most of the things that we actually use are produced abroad in countries where the laws can be non-existent. So we're simply moving our footprint on destroying nature to another country. Many people imagine there's this untouched wilderness because they see it on their TV screens but the reality is there's really not a lot of wild left out there. We've converted 75% of the land that is not covered by ice. Three quarters of the terrestrial surface has been changed. A lot of it just to feed one species. All of the calculations show we're on track for a three to four degree world and the more the earth warms the worse the problem is. There are lots of ways that climate change will impact on species. These are no longer predictions we're seeing it happen. For those of us who care about the future of our planet you know we have to look at our lifestyles and we can't look away from our own behaviors. 40 years ago people consumed a good deal less in the United Kingdom but there is no evidence that we were unhappier then than we are now. We can be more diligent about thinking about what we're consuming and when. It's really digging down saying what's going on here, where does that come from. We need to think about meat and dairy consumption. That's not to say that none of us should ever eat meat or should cut all dairy out of our diets but we have to demand that they are produced sustainably. We also need to start producing affordable food without expanding any further into the forest. This is indeed quite possible. One of the biggest problems is incredible we actually waste about 40% of the food that is produced. If we could reduce that food waste it would go a long long way to making a more sustainable agricultural system. It's not just about our current lifestyle but about the education of our children on the way nature works. If we don't act now the youth of today and the youth of tomorrow are going to look back on this generation with absolute horror. What were you thinking? We have a moment when we can change our world and make it better. This is that moment. I do truly believe that together we can create a better future. I might not be here to see it but if we make the right decisions at this critical moment we can safeguard our planet's ecosystems, its extraordinary biodiversity and all its inhabitants. What happens next is up to every one of us.