Sir David Attenborough and President Obama: The Full Interview

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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.

πŸ‘οΈŽ︎ 4 πŸ‘€οΈŽ︎ u/Bekabam πŸ“…οΈŽ︎ Dec 31 2015 πŸ—«︎ replies

Powerful

πŸ‘οΈŽ︎ 2 πŸ‘€οΈŽ︎ u/whydontyouwork πŸ“…οΈŽ︎ Dec 31 2015 πŸ—«︎ replies

Can't imagine how detailed a picture David Attenborough must have of nature and the Earth after all these years.

πŸ‘οΈŽ︎ 5 πŸ‘€οΈŽ︎ u/MinisTreeofStupidity πŸ“…οΈŽ︎ Dec 31 2015 πŸ—«︎ replies

It must be a huge honor to be interviewed by the president.

πŸ‘οΈŽ︎ 5 πŸ‘€οΈŽ︎ u/BlackEyeRed πŸ“…οΈŽ︎ Dec 31 2015 πŸ—«︎ replies

Outstanding conversation, The world could learn a lot from these 2 people.ο»Ώ

πŸ‘οΈŽ︎ 5 πŸ‘€οΈŽ︎ u/Steve6almasy πŸ“…οΈŽ︎ Dec 31 2015 πŸ—«︎ replies

Watching this is like seeing a diplomatic meeting between representatives of two great opposing forces. The difference they could make together is mind boggling.

πŸ‘οΈŽ︎ 1 πŸ‘€οΈŽ︎ u/friday14th πŸ“…οΈŽ︎ Dec 31 2015 πŸ—«︎ replies
Captions
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.
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Channel: The Obama White House
Views: 794,526
Rating: 4.9091353 out of 5
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Id: NZtJ2ZGyvBI
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Length: 21min 29sec (1289 seconds)
Published: Fri Jul 10 2015
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