People talk about doom-laden scenarios happening in the future: they are happening in Africa now. You can see it perfectly clearly. Periodic famines are due to too many people living on land that can't sustain them.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the urgent environmental and humanitarian crises occurring in Africa as a result of overpopulation and unsustainable land use.
David Attenborough emphasizes the dire situation faced by many in Africa, where the impacts of climate change and overpopulation are leading to significant challenges such as famine. He urges a recognition of these existing crises rather than a distant, hypothetical future, pointing out that the problems we fear may arise are already present and affecting lives today.
In practice
In a speech addressing climate change, one could use this quote to highlight the urgency of the situation in Africa.
I don't think we are going to become extinct. We're very clever and extremely resourceful - and we will find ways of preserving ourselves, of that I'm sure. But whether our lives will be as rich as they are now is another question.
I'm against this huge globalisation on the basis of economic advantage.
I would be absolutely astounded if population growth and industrialisation and all the stuff we are pumping into the atmosphere hadn't changed the climatic balance. Of course it has. There is no valid argument for denial.
There's a small worm called Loa Loa Filariasis. This parasite can survive in one environment exclusively- namely, underneath the skin and inside the eyes of human beings. Children and the elderly in tropical regions (usually the poorest) are the most widely affected. A painful, slow death is virtually certain. The worm can actually live in the host for 17 years before the host finally dies.
The fundamental issue is the moral issue.
It is vital that there is a narrator figure whom people believe. That's why I never do commercials. If I started saying that margarine was the same as motherhood, people would think I was a liar.
I love being immersed in nature, going to places in the world that are pristine and untouched by man. It's almost a religious experience when you go to a place like the Amazon, and there's no civilisation for thousands of miles.
The World is Large - Its beauty indescrible.
Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call. Wanted to sail upon your waters, since I was three feet tall. You've seen it all, you've seen it all. Watched the men who rode you, switch from sails to steam. In your belly, you hold the treasure that few have ever seen, most of them dreams, most of them dreams.
Only when there is a wilderness can man harmonize his inner being with the wavelengths of the earth. When the earth, its products, its creatures, become his concern, man is caught up in a cause greater than his own life and more meaningful. Only when man loses himself in an endeavor of that magnitude does he walk and live with humanity and reverence.
Trees have a curious relationship to the subject of the present moment. There are many created things in the universe that outlive us, that outlive the sun, even, but I can't think about them. I live with trees.
Beetles and butterflies are sometimes restricted to small areas. Each mountain in a range, and even the different zones of a mountain, may have its own peculiar species. But the house-fly seems to be everywhere. I wonder if any island in mid-ocean is flyless.
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