“Suddenly, saving our planet is within reach.”
— David Attenborough
We have just watched the brand new David Attenborough “witness statement” documentary on Netflix—his review and analysis of a life spent observing nature over 70+ years. We are greatly moved by his conclusions and recommendations, which add so much to our understanding of how we should be doing food.
I have written elsewhere about the writers who have inspired us: Michael Pollan and Mark Bittman in particular. The new documentary, David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet, not only explains how we managed to get in so much trouble, but more importantly, shows that we are already taking the first steps toward putting things right to avoid the next cataclysm.
One takeaway was learning that the global disaster that ended the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was only the most recent of five such events—each wiping out 75% of all species alive at the time. This shows that as special as we humans think we are, we may be just passengers on an ecological express train to oblivion. But there is reason for hope.
A second discovery was that little bitty Netherlands (a tad larger than Maryland and almost as many people as New York) is the second largest food exporter in the world through advanced resource management. Let that sink in. More in a separate post.
At its end, the film asks, “Who else should see this film”? Count yourself informed.