David Attenborough Calls Humans a ?Plague on the Earth.? Isn?t He Sort of Right?by Will Oremus, Jan 23, 2013Every now & then, Britain?s best-loved naturalist takes a break from spying on the bedroom behavior of birds of paradise to sound off about humans? impact on the environment. When he does, it almost always makes headlines?not only because he?s Sir David Attenborough, but because he calls it as he sees it.In October, he took Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, & America at large to task for their failure to face up to climate change. That sentiment may have ruffled a few feathers stateside but is relatively uncontroversial in his home country. This time, in an interview with the UK TV-listings magazine Radio Times, he stepped in it a little deeper.?We are a plague on the Earth,? Attenborough said of humanity as a whole, in a quote promptly picked up by London?s Times & Telegraph & plastered on the Drudge Report. ?It?s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so.? The full interview is available only in print, but the Independent cribbed from it liberally enough to give you the gist. ?It?s not just climate change,? Attenborough went on. ?It?s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, & the natural world is doing it for us right now.?Now, insulting the entire human race isn?t generally the best way to win friends & influence people. And Atten-borough?s remarks drew a predictable gnashing of teeth from online commenters & cranks like the National Review?s Wesley J. Smith, a senior fellow at something called the Center on Human Exceptionalism. Smith accused Attenborough of ?demonstrating my thesis that environmentalism is growing progressively anti-human.?But Smith is exactly wrong. If anything, environmentalism has grown progressively pro-human since the 60s & 70s, when books like Paul Ehrlich?s The Population Bomb spooked a generation of activists into advocating various...

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Aug 06, 2021 Last reply: 4 years ago 26 Replies

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JNugent 4 years ago

He has led a privileged life (I am not attacking him for that, BTW).

If it is true that he has "never learned to drive", that doesn't mean that he hasn't tried. Some people simply never learn all of the necessary skills and either give up or undertake legendarily large numbers of driving test fails before passing.

What it's probably safe to say is that his failure to learn to drive as a young man - during WW2 and the immediate post-war period - was nothing to do with the environment, global warming (whatever that is now called), etc. Either he couldn't master it or he didn't need to because others were prepared to drive him around.

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charles 4 years ago

actually. I've looked at his wiki entry. He lived in London and worked in London, so he probably didn't need to drive. His National Service was in the RN, so driving probably wasn't relevant there either.

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JNugent 4 years ago

I have nevertheless heard that a few people do learn to drive and take their driving tests in London.

As a matter of fact, I took my own test at Wood Green and passed first time (despite being assured by local friends that no-one ever passed first time at that centre).

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#Paul 4 years ago

There is a notion of dynamic balance, which might broadly be regarded as being like being "balanced" whilst walking. This is usually remarkably stable; except when, for example, you happen trip over some rubbish you carelessly discarded.

#Paul

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Tim Streater 4 years ago

Oh indeed. But the ignorant (read: the media) assume that any deviation from the exact average represents interference by evil humans, and that, but removing these humans, exact and permanent balance will be restored.

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Spike 4 years ago

Seeing as how the planet swings between ice-ball and fire-ball every

100,000 years or so, in the ratio of 80% ice to 20% fire, do they explain how this 'balance' is to be struck?

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Tim Streater 4 years ago

No, because they are unaware of anything except the moment.

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