Sir David Attenborough:
Today is my 89th birthday, and to my very considerable
surprise I find myself in the place that I've never
been to before and which it is a great, great
privilege to visit. The White House, with the
President of the United States. The Oval Office is surely
one of the most famous rooms in the whole world, where
history has been enacted. The home of arguably the
most powerful man in the world. So to go to it is a huge
privilege, and perhaps a rather daunting one at that. All I can say here was that
it was not made to seem daunting, and the President
of the United States spoke to me in as friendly a tone
as I could possibly imagine. Friendly and
hospitable and genuine. It was an extraordinary
experience which I shall never forget. The President: Well, Sir
David Attenborough, thank you so much for being here. As I was telling you on our
walk over, I had been a huge admirer of your work
for a very long time. I have to say, though, that
when I heard that you had gone down, you had dove into
the Great Barrier Reef again -- 60 years after the
first time you did it? Sir David Attenborough: Yes. The President:
That impressed me. Sir David Attenborough: But
I was in the -- in a sub. I mean, I was in a very,
very remarkable research sub. And we went down
to over 300 meters. The President: Oh, so
you were (inaudible). Sir David Attenborough: And
that was just mind-blowing, of course. The President: Absolutely. I -- tell me how the Great
Barrier Reef looked to you today compared to the first
time that you went there, and what's your -- what
story does that tell us about how we're doing in
conserving these incredible treasures? Sir David Attenborough:
Well, of course, the whole population of Australia has
increased a very great deal. So the population up the
east coast of Queensland has grown, and so has industry. And wherever there are human
beings, wherever there's industry, there
are consequences. And the consequences on the
coast are likely to be not too good for the reef,
though -- which is quite true. And the Australians
are addressing that. The real problem on the Reef
is the global one, which is what is happening with the
increase in acidification and the rise in the
ocean temperature. And the Australians have
done research on coral now, and they know for sure that
if they go up beyond a degree or a degree and a
half, and so on, it will kill coral, will kill
the species of coral. And what they're concerned
about now is -- I mean, that seems almost inevitable --
what it seems now is, can they -- can they find the
right species to maintain the Reef's population? The President: Right. So really there's a
mitigation strategy that they're trying
to come up with. But what we're seeing is
global trends that depend on the entire world
working together. Sir David Attenborough: Yes. The President: And, sadly,
it seems as if we haven't made as much progress as we
need to on climate change now. Given the work that you've
done, though, the good news is that there are some areas
where we have made progress. We've been able to -- here
in the United States, for example, with the Clean Air,
Clean Water Act to clean up areas that 20, 30, 40 years
ago seemed like they'd never recover. And once we took some
sensible steps, it turns out that nature was
fairly resilient. But it required us being
fairly intentional and really go after the
problem in a serious way. Sir David Attenborough: It
certainly -- the resilience of the natural world is
-- gives you great hope, really. If you give nature half a
chance, it really takes it and works with it. But we are throwing
huge problems at it. The President: Right. Sir David Attenborough: And
the rising in temperature, in global temperature is a
very, very serious worry indeed, it seems to me. And what concerns me is,
when we're sitting in Europe, we see what you did
by saying, "We're going to put a man on the
moon in 10 years." Supposing you said, "In 10
years, the United States will organize -- and the
world -- and energize the world to find a solution,
to find a way of producing energy with no problems." That is to say, exploiting
the sunshine to a degree, and finding ways of storing
electricity, because if you did that, so much --
problems would be solved. The President: Well, that's
what we're -- that's what we're going to
be shooting for. I mean, we've made
enormous investments. We doubled our investment
in clean energy here in the United States; I just last
year came back from China with an agreement from the
Chinese to work with us on reducing emissions. But we're not moving
as fast as we need to. And the -- part of what I
know from watching your programs and all the great
work you've done is that, you know, these ecosystems
are all interconnected, and that if just one country is
doing the right thing but other countries are not,
then we're not going to solve the problem. We're going to have to have
a global solution to this. Sir David Attenborough: And
the -- and the solutions are global; have to be global. And that has been the huge
encouragement over the past 10 years, that the United
States and indeed China -- two vast, important nations
-- have actually agreed to take these steps. That's surely what will
go down in history as EPOL-making. But it's -- but the
job is not yet done. The President: No,
we're far from it. Not -- but let me -- let
me backtrack for a second. How did you get interested
in nature and wanting to record it? When you think back after
the story of your career, what is it that led to such
a deep fascination with how the natural world works? Sir David Attenborough:
Well, I've never met a child -- The President: Who's
not fascinated? Sir David Attenborough: --
who's not interested in natural history. So the -- I mean, the --
just the simplest thing; a five-year-old turning over a
stone and seeing a slug and says, "What a treasure! How does it live? What are those
things on the front?" Kids love it, kids
understand the natural world, and they're
fascinated by it. The President: So
you (inaudible). Sir David Attenborough: So
the question is, how did you lose it? How did anyone lose
the fascination? The President:
(laughs) yeah. Sir David Attenborough: And
certainly I never lost it -- The President: Yeah. Sir David Attenborough: --
but if you do lose it, and I imagine there are lots of
other attractions that can -- may divert your
attention, you've lost a very, very great treasure. The President: They -- at
what point did you decide that you wanted to make it
your life's work to record it? Sir David Attenborough: I
don't think I ever dared say it was a night's work,
because when I -- when I started, there wasn't
any television. And all I knew is, I wanted
to try and understand the way the world works, the
natural world works; it was a great fascination. And so I took Zoology
and Natural Sciences at university. But then I had to go into
the navy; it was the end of the war and I was
conscripted into the navy for a couple of years. And then I got -- when I
came out, I didn't think I was cut out to be
a proper scientist. (laughs) but anyway, I went
into television managed to -- I was going to say,
manipulate television to allow me to go and see these
wonderful things, which is what I've been doing
ever since, pretty well. The President: When you
think of your favorite trips or your favorite
discoveries, or places in the world that you wish you
could take everybody to so that they could really
appreciate what this marvelous gift we've got
is, what comes to mind? Sir David Attenborough:
Well, I think you would agree with me that the
moment you first dive on a -- on a coral reef, with
tanks so that you are weightless, that being
weightless is enough to make a memorable event for you. But when you can do it on a
reef, with this multitude of multicolored organisms, the
like of which you've never seen before, and you can
just -- with a flick of your fin, you can go down or you
can go up, and then you can see these great sharks and
things coming in from the ocean -- that, surely, has
to be one of the great sensations. It's a new world. The President: Well, the --
you know, going up in Hawaii -- it was one of the things
that taught me not only to appreciate nature but also
that you had to care for it. And because we spend so much
time outside -- and I think there was part of the native
Hawaiian culture that is true of many native cultures
-- this sense of needing to care for the environment
that you're in, that sometimes we lose when
we live in big cities. The interesting thing is,
though, my daughters -- I find Malia and Sasha, whose
-- they're 16 and 13 now. They're much more
environmentally aware this generation than I think
some previous generation. They do not dispute, for
example, the science around climate change. They think it's
self-apparent that we've got a problem and that we should
be doing something about it. Sir David
Attenborough: Yeah. Yeah. I absolutely agree. Some of the letters I get --
they bring tears to the eyes --from kids of all ages. And the young people -- they
care, they know that this is the world that they're going
to grow up in, they're going to spend the rest
of their lives in. But I think it's -- I think
it's more idealistic than that. They actually believe that
humanity -- human species -- has no right to destroy
and despoil, regardless. The President: Right. Sir David Attenborough: They
actually feel that very powerfully. The President: They do. Yeah. What -- when you think about
four years from now, what are the - what are the
prospects for this blue marble that we live on
in the middle of space. Do you get that we're going
to be able to get ahead of these problems? Do you think that -- you
know, with the prospects of climate change, rising
populations -- that it's realistic for us to be able
to get a handle on these issues and reverse
some of the problems? Or are you more pessimistic? Sir David Attenborough: I
believe that, if we find ways of generating and
storing power from renewable resources, we will make the
problem with oil and coal and other carbon
problems disappear. Because, economically, we
will (inaudible) to use these other methods. And if we do that, a huge
step will have been taken towards solving the
problems of the earth. The President: Well, I think
you're right about that, that there's got to be an
economic component to this. I -- you know, my
father was from Kenya. And I still remember the
first time I went to Masai Mara, and the Serengeti and
saw the Great Migration. And it's like going back
into the Garden of Eden when you see the wildebeest
and zebras, and you're transported. But I remember talking to
the rangers out there and, you know, they're dealing
with issues of poaching and other problems. But the principle problem,
initially, that they had was that the populations around
the parks didn't feel any economic incentive
to help preserve it. And when the National Parks
started to work with the local farmers and saying to
them, "There's ways for you to do well while still
conserving this great treasure that we have,"
that's when you got cooperation. And I think, all too often,
we pose this as an economic development versus
environment problem rather than recognizing that
there's a way of marrying those two concerns. Sir David Attenborough: That
indeed is the case, but the trouble is that, as fast as
you find solutions along those lines, the
problem grows bigger -- The President: Yeah. Sir David Attenborough: --
because of the increasing population in Kenya. It is very, very
considerable. And it's very difficult if
you're growing a family and you want to grow your own
food and so on, and you can see all that space occupied
by elephants or whatever. Say, "What about us?" The President: Right. Exactly. And that's -- Sir David Attenborough: And
population's growth is one of the huge problems. The President: Yeah. Well, the -- which is why
we're spending a lot of time, including working with
my wife around the issues of girls' education. Turns out that when young
women are getting proper schooling and see
opportunity, they're less likely to have
children early. Smaller families, population
stabilizes, and so it actually ends up helping not
only those young women to succeed and look after their
children, but it also helps the -- Sir David Attenborough:
(inaudible) The President: Yeah, yeah,
the environment (inaudible). Sir David Attenborough: So
this -- so you have to have a literate, informed
population with medical understanding of what the
problems are and what's available. And then the population
-- the birth rate falls. It's not the end of the
story, but its falling is a start for this solution. The President: Right. The internet's been a
powerful tool, though, for this generation, I think,
to become aware of all the wonders of the world. You know, when you were
starting off, maybe you'd get a program on,
once every so often. Now on your telephone you
can see, you know, glaciers and the Amazon and -- Sir David Attenborough:
Well, it is an extraordinary paradox, isn't it? That the United Nations
tells us that over 50 percent of the human
population on the planet are urbanized, which means that,
to some degree, they are cut off from the natural world. The President: Right. Sir David Attenborough: And
are, for some people, are totally cut off. They don't see a wild
creature from dawn until dusk, unless it's
a rat or a pigeon. The President: Right. Sir David Attenborough: And
yet at the same time mass media can get -- inform
those people what the natural world is, and if --
unless they don't understand -- if they don't understand
about the workings of the natural world, they won't
take the trouble to protect it. That's one of the roles that
the media should have of maintaining a link between
the population and the -- and understanding what goes
on in the natural world. Because why should they give
up money on taxes, come to that, to protect the natural
world, unless they actually care about it? The President: Right. The -- have you had a chance
to travel much in the -- through our National Parks
in the United States? You know, one of my
predecessors, Teddy Roosevelt, started the
National Parks and what a legacy that's been. Sir David
Attenborough: Yeah. I mean -- United States was
the model for the world, in Yosemite and so on, and the
founding of those great National Parks. Yes indeed have I traveled
there, and boy, what a wonderful time
one has there. And great lodges and great
tracks, and the space! Still, it doesn't matter how
-- all these visitors come and yet you can still be
alone up there in the Yukon or wherever. The President: It's one of
the great, I think, secrets of the United States; it is
how big it is, and there are big chunks of it that
are still undisturbed. And when you fly over the
country, you're reminded about what a blessing it is. There aren't many places
with such low density, where you can just walk for miles. Sir David Attenborough:
Well, to have in your own country the Okefenokee Swamp
down there and the Glasses of Alaska up there, and the
Yosemite and the Rockies over there -- oh, gosh. The President: Yeah, well,
that's part of the reason why what we've been doing is
trying to initiate ways to get more children and young
people to use the parks. And, as you said, so many of
these kids are growing up cut off. They're sitting on the
couch, they're playing video games. If they experience nature,
it's through a television screen. And just getting them out
there so that they're picking up that rock
and finding that slug. They're seeing that bird
with colors that -- Sir David Attenborough:
And they all need a bit of self-reliance. I mean, it's very, very
difficult, if you've never been outside, to find
yourself in a forest. I mean, I've been humiliated
enough in the Amazon forest and losing myself in that. I mean, and you really
do feel an idiot. The local people, tribes
people, look at you, and you think, "You're lost! Where were you brought up?" (laughs) the answer's
not in the forest. The President: Yeah. Sir David Attenborough: But
kids can learn, and they love it when they do. The President: And if you
were to think about how we could raise awareness,
because you've been a great educator as well as a great
naturalist, how do you -- how do you think we can
reach the public around these issues? Not only to make them aware
of the dangers of an issue like climate change, but
also to feel a sense of agency and capacity
to change it? Another way of asking this
is, maybe, what do you think are some of the most
stubborn misconceptions about nature that lead us
not always to get out in front of these problems? Sir David Attenborough: I
think only unfamiliarity. And I don't see how you can
hope to take somebody else to spend the first 16 years
of his life surrounded by bricks and mortar, and then
suddenly put him in the middle of the rainforest and
expect him to find his way or know how to live, or
indeed how to survive and find food. So I'm not sure that that is
absolutely necessary anyway. I think what is required is
an understanding and a gut feeling that you understand
that the natural world is part of your inheritance. It is -- this is the planet
on which we live; it's the only one we've got. And we've got to protect it. And people do feel that
deeply and instinctively, and it is after all -- the
natural world is where you go in moments of celebration
and moments of grief. It is the greatest prop
and stay to humanity's own feeling for himself,
itself, herself, ourselves. The President: Well, you
know, if you think about, you know -- in all the
world's religions, you know, when you're seeking wisdom,
you're seeking to hear God, you're in the desert or you
go to great waters or you go up to great mountain peaks. You know, recapturing that
sense of wonder and the amazement of the natural
world and its powers. You know, that's what speaks
to what's deepest in us. And, you know, the -- what's
critically important to making sure that we're
passing that onto future generations -- you and I,
we've been blessed to be able to see it and
experience it and be moved by it. And I want to make sure
that my daughters and their children are experiencing
that same thing.
The sound quality on Obama is terrible, what's with that? Obviously they had a huge production team work on this video, seems like an amateur mistake.
Powerful
Can't imagine how detailed a picture David Attenborough must have of nature and the Earth after all these years.
It must be a huge honor to be interviewed by the president.
Outstanding conversation, The world could learn a lot from these 2 people.ο»Ώ
Watching this is like seeing a diplomatic meeting between representatives of two great opposing forces. The difference they could make together is mind boggling.