First published 2020
David Attenborough has traveled every continent for nearly a century, camera in hand, convinced he was capturing a thriving natural world. He was mistaken. The forests, reefs, and grasslands he filmed were already contracting, the losses too slow and gradual to register year by year. This book is his reckoning with that fact. Attenborough lays out the arc of environmental decline he watched unfold across his own lifetime, then connects it to the forces driving it: human population growth, agricultural expansion, fossil fuel consumption, and the collapse of biodiversity. He does not treat the situation as a closed case. The second half of the book is a practical argument for recovery, covering rewilding, changes to food systems, and a shift to renewable energy. His position is direct: the knowledge and tools needed to reverse course already exist. What remains is the decision to act. Written from the perspective of a witness who has seen more of the natural world than almost anyone alive, the book offers both a clear account of how we arrived here and a credible map of where we could go.
Genres: environment, non-fiction, biography-memoir, current-affairs, activism, science-nature
Vibes: contemplative, evidence-based, hopeful, thought-provoking, urgent
Tropes: call-to-action, problem-and-solution, witness-testimony
Setting: Planet Earth
Period: 20th century, 21st century
266 pages · Paperback · Prh Uk
Content warnings: death