You can only get really unpopular decisions through if the electorate is convinced of the value of the environment. That's what natural history programmes should be for.
Interpretation
Decisions that may be unpopular can only be supported if the public understands and values the environment.
In this quote, David Attenborough emphasizes the importance of public support for environmental decisions that may not be immediately popular. He suggests that natural history programs play a crucial role in educating the electorate about the significance of environmental issues, thus enabling them to appreciate the long-term benefits even when such decisions may seem challenging or unappealing in the short term.
In practice
In a speech about climate change policies, one might reference this quote to highlight the need for public education.
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.
A land ethic...reflects the existence of an ecological conscience, and this in _x000D_ turn reflects a conviction of individual responsibility for the health of the land. _x000D_ Health is the capacity of the land for self-renewal. Conservation is our effort _x000D_ to understand and preserve this capacity.
I describe myself as an environmentalist not because I'm marching in the street with placards but because I like to be in the woods by myself.
When you have an intense contact of love with nature or another human being, like a spark, then you understand that there is no time and that everything is eternal.
I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain when with never a stain The pavilion of Heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again.
Love is a powerful tool, and maybe, just maybe, before the last little town is corrupted and the last of the unroaded and undeveloped wildness is given over to dreams of profit, maybe it will be love, finally, love for the land for its own sake and for what it holds of beauty and joy and spiritual redemption that will make [wilderness] not a battlefield but a revelation.
As evening approached, I came down from the heights of the island, and I liked then to go and sit on the shingle in some secluded spot by the lake; there the noise of the waves and the movement of the water, taking hold of my senses and driving all other agitation from my soul, would plunge me into delicious reverie in which night often stole upon me unawares.
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