I loaded up Netflix earlier. I’d come across a reference to a Star Trek DS9 episode yesterday which I wanted to check out. There, I came across something even more interesting: a documentary called A Life on Our Planet, presented by Sir David Attenborough. Believe it or not, I don’t think I had ever come across it before, but I thought I would give it a watch after breakfast this morning. When it comes to Attenborough, I sort of tend to stick to the stuff he does with the BBC: the two kind of feel like they go hand in hand, so that any program produced by any other company which they get the great man to present feels a bit like poaching.

Nonetheless, today I thought I’d give Netflix the benefit of the doubt. A Life on Our Planet was apparently released in 2020, so zark knows why I hadn’t come across it. Broadly speaking, it is a recounting of Attenborough’s seventy years as a natural history television presenter. There is a lot about his past programs on the BBC. Yet, unlike his usual terrestrial output, this Netflix show is a lot more openly persuasive: Attenborough details, at some length, how human activity is affecting our planet, and how things like industrial agriculture is eating up natural environments. This felt overtly political in a way which I don’t think would have been permitted on the Beeb. The final segment of the show was about how we can prevent the cataclysm, and what we humans can do to reverse the damage we are doing to nature.

All of which is, I think, entirely necessary. The notion that human activity is adversely affecting nature is now totally beyond debate; the evidence is growing constantly. Having someone as widely respected as Attenborough outline that evidence, laying it before us for all to see, is a great idea. We’re pumping Carbon into our atmosphere at a rate which simply cannot be sustained. Mind you, it is slightly unfortunate that such an overtly persuasive program is only available to Netflix: this problem is becoming so important, co critical, so imminent, that surely things like this need to be broadcasted as widely as possible. Sadly though, Attenborough seems to temper such content on his terrestrial programs, the BBC no doubt fearing a backlash from right wing viewers who don’t like such truths being spoken.

All that aside, this only adds to my conviction that David Attenborough is the greatest broadcaster ever. I think I have written this here a couple of times now, but as far as I’m concerned, Attenborough has no peer in terms of broadcasting. Has anyone else, from any other country across the world, had a career which could even come close? Series like Life On Earth and Blue Planet are milestones in British Cultural history; jewels in the crown of the BBC. He deserves our respect, and for him to turn his attention to man-made climate change like this means it is an issue which cannot be ignored.