David Attenborough Quotes - Page 2

Everyone likes birds. What wild creature is more accessible to our eyes and ears, as close to us and everyone in the world, as universal as a bird?

The nature of human beings is that they'd far rather face the disaster that is happening tonight than the one that is happening tomorrow.

I suppose happiness is something one enjoys, but I suspect that happiness is not a state but rather a transition.

I'm no longer sceptical. I no longer have any doubt at all. I think climate change is the major challenge facing the world.

Anyone who thinks that you can have infinite growth on a planet with finite resources is either a madman or an economist.

People are not going to care about animal conservation unless they think that animals are worthwhile.

There is no question that climate change is happening; the only arguable point is what part humans are playing in it.

I have no doubt that the fundamental problem the planet faces is the enormous increase in the human population

All life is related. And it enables us to construct with confidence the complex tree that represents the history of life

[W]hen we look at the graphs of rising ocean temperatures, rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and so on, we know that they are climbing far more steeply than can be accounted for by the natural oscillation of the weather ... What people (must) do is to change their behavior and their attitudes ... If we do care about our grandchildren then we have to do something, and we have to demand that our governments do something.

Children start off reading in books about lions and giraffes and so on, but they also-if theyre lucky enough and have reasonable privileges of any human being-are able to go into a garden and turn over stone and see a worm and see a slug and see an ant.

I think we're lucky to be living when we are, because things are going to get worse.

Until humanity manages to sort itself out and get a co-ordinated view about the planet, it's going to get worse and worse.

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.

We really need to kick the carbon habit and stop making our energy from burning things. Climate change is also really important. You can wreck one rainforest then move, drain one area of resources and move onto another, but climate change is global.

Birds are the most popular group in the animal kingdom. We feed them and tame them and think we know them. And yet they inhabit a world which is really rather mysterious.

Birds were flying from continent to continent long before we were. They reached the coldest place on Earth, Antarctica, long before we did. They can survive in the hottest of deserts. Some can remain on the wing for years at a time. They can girdle the globe. Now, we have taken over the earth and the sea and the sky, but with skill and care and knowledge, we can ensure that there is still a place on Earth for birds in all their beauty and variety - if we want to... And surely, we should.

It never really occurred to me to believe in God.

If I can bicycle, I bicycle.

If you watch animals objectively for any length of time, you're driven to the conclusion that their main aim in life is to pass on their genes to the next generation.

‎Using his burgeoning intelligence, this most successful of all mammals has exploited the environment to produce food for an ever increasing population. Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps it's time we controlled the population to allow the survival of the environment.

Clearly we could devastate the world... as far as we know, the Earth is the only place in the universe where there is life. Its continued survival now rests in our hands

It's extraordinary how self-obsessed human beings are. The things that people always go on about is, 'tell us about us', 'tell us about the first human being'. We are so self-obsessed with our own history. There is so much more out there than what connects to us.

The correct scientific response to something that is not understood must always be to look harder for the explanation, not give up and assume a supernatural cause.

Life is not all high emotion. Some of the most interesting things are when its not highly emotional: little details of relationships and body language.