Sir David Attenborough joins three environmental experts to deliver a stark message about the threat of climate change.
In the last episode of BBC1’s A Perfect Planet on Sunday, biologist Dr Niall McCann warns humans pump so much carbon into the atmosphere that we are “acting like a super volcano”.
He adds that we are creating “climate refugees” – populations forced to flee now-uninhabitable areas.
Marine biologist Dr Asha De Vos agrees that by currently producing 100 times the carbon of all the world’s volcanos combined, humans are causing “a breakdown” in how currents and weather systems support life.
She adds: “Everything... is collapsing, this is the planet that we are handing over to future generations.”
And economist and environmentalist Jeremy Rifkin believes we face a “very quick mass extinction of life on Earth” if we don’t switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources.
Referencing the extinction of the dinosaurs, he adds: “The last time we had an extinction event of this magnitude was 65 million years ago.”
But presenter Sir David, 94, is keen to stress there is still hope.
He says: “My inspiration and hope for the future lies with the next generation. We have the capacity and knowledge to stop the damage that we are doing. What we don’t have, is time.”
Intelligent
And their stark words are tempered by stories of how some people are working to save the animal victims of the climate change we cause.
Producer Nick Jordan has filmed dozens of baby elephants left parentless by severe weather.
He said: “What struck me was just how intelligent these young creatures were and how similar they seemed to human babies in the level of emotional support they required day to day.”
After being rescued by Angela Sheldrick and her team, the orphans are slowly re-introduced into the wild in Tsavo National Park, Kenya where they can be protected from poachers.
Nick was also inspired by the story of hypothermic turtles that get lured up the north-east coast of the US, following the warm currents for summer feeding.
This is now taking them further north than ever before – and when cold autumn currents suddenly close in, the turtles go into a state of shock.
A conservation organisation called Mass Audubon uses an army of local volunteers to comb the beaches around Cape Cod after each high tide to save hundreds of turtles.
Some are badly injured while many are dehydrated and hypothermic.
Rescued turtles are taken to New England Aquarium to recover.
They are then flown to Florida for release into warmer waters.
Nick adds: “The fact that they have to fly hundreds of endangered animals by plane is a shocking indication of just how rapidly we are changing ocean systems and how marine life cannot keep up.”
*A Perfect Planet: Humans, Sunday, 9pm, BBC1
