Isn't it exciting Well, good afternoon everyone it's It's a absolute great pleasure to welcome you to this very special event as part of our 70th anniversary celebrations of the foundation of Kiel and It's a day that has marked the naming ceremony of our new suite of research and teaching laboratories within our Life Sciences Building And they are now called the David Attenborough laboratories and it's an absolute privilege and honor to welcome our guest of honor Sir David Attenborough As we know As we all know keel was formed in 1949 and it was formed to be a very special kind of university. It was a university model that tried to minimize Disciplinary boundaries to make sure that our graduates left here not only with a good understanding of major challenges in society But also with some of the skills to make an impact on them That ability to adapt to a changing and challenging Environment was core to the aims of the university and I would argue that it is just as important now as it was then in 1949 our three new research institutes in global health Social inclusion and sustainable futures are aimed at addressing some of the key challenges that face the world now and into the future Environmental sustainability has been an important institutional priority for this university and Through efforts right across the university and within and with a figurehead in Jonathan Porat who unfortunately can't be with us today We've made important strides in research. We did the research that we do and the impact that we have and the education that we provide our students and indeed the embeddedness of sustainability in all aspects of our operations Now before I go any further, I have a message from Jonathan Porat I'm just so delighted that sadaiva has been able to join my Kiel colleagues on such an important occasion and I'm feeling wretched that I myself am not able to be there in person So David has also always been such an inspirational leader Across the entire world and his recent contributions to the debate about accelerating climate change and our massively destructive Impact on the natural world have been extraordinarily Significant if people aren't too now aware of just how urgent these challenges are then they are simply not listening The transformation of our campus into an at scale demonstrator site and a genuine living laboratory for smart energy solutions Starting with a major project on increasing hydrogen content in gas supplies promises to make a major mark on the sustainability of energy supplies other research across the university including the social and political dimensions of the environment as well as scientific and technical investigations is Creating a real focus in this part of the world that is also freely feeding solidly into the regional economy and Will have a major national and international impact on tackling climate change our work on embedding environment sustainability right across our curriculum creates the knowledgeable and sustainability literate students that will be our future and our work to integrate a consideration of Sustainability into all aspects of our daily lives makes a difference and sets the examples for others This full appreciation of the importance and urgency of working hard on the developments that can contribute Towards a sustainable environment and future for humankind Has made it absolutely natural that we should join those Organizations that have declared a climate emergency and I'm able to report this afternoon that at our meeting yesterday Our University Council did indeed pass a motion Declaring a climate emergency with an ambition to be carbon neutral by 2030 So it's even more important in that context for us to have Sir David with us today He does of course need no introduction. But like most people who say that I am now going to give an introduction Having said that I very quickly realized that in deals do so doing If I'd gone through everything we would have been here till midnight. So with two apologies for oversimplifying sir. I'm going to say a scientist by original trained Explorer of remote regions of the world TV presenter and TV administrator who oversaw the introduction of major land knock technologies and programs Program maker who was inspired? informed amazed shocked generations of TV viewers Through his recording of the natural world life on earth started the so called life series that took us all through freezers plants birds mammals undergrowth Cold blood and land and indeed introduced the public to a world that many hadn't imagined Many many series and programmes were interspersed with these and more followed on During this time, Sir. David has received more than 30 honorary degrees but of course the most important one was the Doctor of Science awarded by keel University in 1986 In the last 20 years or so sir. David's programs have taken a more environmentalist stance including commentary on the impact of climate change Over that time and of course, this is where Sir David current energy is been exerted in no small part blue planet - highlighted the problems of plastics and our oceans and The documentary for the BBC just a couple of weeks ago on climate change the facts Alongside the new our planet that is reaching global audiences very quickly through its inclusion on Netflix These are all highlighting the speed of change of habitats and the impact that that has on the number of different animal and plant species at a time when the younger generations in particular are highlighting their great concerns about the climate and Actually making fully justified demands that something is done about it the impact of Sir David Xin interventions are truly dramatic and Absolutely critical to the point where the question has been asked whether he will actually be the person who saves our planet Although I'm sure his modesty will mean that he's about to deny that claim We are going to ask a few questions of Sir David in a moment But before that can I formally introduce Sir David Attenborough and thank him and ask him to say a few words Thank you all Thank you very much There have been external changes the time that I've been around and indeed the time I've been broadcasting Actually and I'm I'm about my career just about stanlon spans the life of this institution You were founded in 49. I Made my first programs about conservation in 1952 So We are at the same age And things have changed absolutely extraordinary in that time In the early fifties a group of actually big-game hunters Suddenly realized that the game they were after the big game the game with spectacular horns had Ceased to be as common as it was they couldn't break the record for the coup dude that had the biggest horns that had been established long earlier and The same applied to Eden's a number of other things and then the penny dropped That actually the reason they couldn't find them not because they weren't as good hunters as they had been in the 19th century But because the animals weren't there and if the penny dropped that for the first time people realized that they were exterminating species And they formed the first conservation Organization concerned with the world as a whole in the world And the fauna and fauna international is it's now name Let's skip on a few decades they started protecting people like their species like the the Arabian oryx for example, and They realized that actually they were they're extinct in the world and they could do something about it They could actually get the surviving species and surviving some zoos around the world and take them to Earth's desert just like they're owned but in Arizona in the United States and breed them up and then reintroduce into the world problem solved you think except that they now realize and son and naturalist began to realize that it wasn't just about Individual species whether it was the Arabian oryx or the giant panda But it was about ecosystems So we started Instituting national parks around the world in the tropics all around the world but even that was not big enough and now we realize that The problem is nothing be far bigger than the biggest National Park The problem now is global That realization Shocks a lot of people a lot of people perhaps still don't believe it to be true But it is a profoundly important realization and the world in the last 10 years Has at last begun to realize that They've at last become to realize That we are part of the natural world That if we damage the natural world we damage ourselves Because we are dependent upon the natural world For every mouthful of food we eat for every lung full of air we breathe and Some might say we're dependent upon it for our sheer sanity Damage the natural world and we damage ourselves and That realization Has only become widespread beyond the ranks of academics or Zoologists or data lists or conservationists. It's only become realized By the population as a whole and I'm talking now about West Europe in the last few few years suddenly suddenly People realize that we're facing a global crisis And things have been done about that global crisis. I used to say the history of mankind was a history about of wars of fighting one another of arguments and that was true for a great part of human history It was not about getting together about people of different faiths of different languages of different constitutions of different physicalities getting together and saying they think our differences and handle a problem that faces us or as inhabitants of planet Earth and that first recognition of that required Democratic support around the world was actually about Wales People began to realize that they were shooting out Wales. They were hunting whales so mercilessly That in another few seasons, they had the ability to exterminate worlds from the oceans of the world And they got together Nations different speakings from different parts of the world. They got together and they agreed They should do something about it that I think was the first international conservation agreement, which really worked And that is a turning point Today it is my profound belief That people such as yourselves Educated people young people around the world are realizing that we have come to a tipping point Something has to be done Who is to do that and how and what is to be done? The answer is that those people who have the luck or the interest? to concern themselves in a probing way With the realities of what has to be to save the environment are by and large educated people Who understand about the principles of ecology and biology and who can explain? to people who don't belong to those disciplines to politicians and To voters what it is that has to be done that is a huge huge advance and My view is that at last politicians I'll begin to realize That they have to take action What is that action? The key the key was the Paris agreement about climate There have been back sightings from that most noticeably in the United States, of course but by and large the world has woken up him and another advantage another Great sign of encouragement. Is that universities around the world? Our recognizing that they don't live in ivory towers the scientists who research there They don't live and just to talk to themselves They have a responsibility When they get the understanding of what's going on in the natural world to? tell people about it and to take action about it and That applies that knowledge that insight and that understanding Is centered very largely on university academic research and this university is outstanding in it understands about sustainability it Understands that human beings cannot go on Taking from the natural world without any care as to how that riches are being deployed and wasted so I actually having been Feeling that I was talking Into the wind that nobody was taking notice thirty years ago Even 20 years ago Today, I believe that we are on the turning point and I believe that universities like this one Which pays particular attention to sustainability is right at the cutting edge Young people people in universities people with understanding about conservation and the importance of the natural world are beginning to influence politicians What has happened in the last few weeks Showed that politicians in this country at any rate Have suddenly begun to realize they cannot ignore what is happening? And that is because of the loud cry from young people Because the world belongs to young people it doesn't belong to my generation anymore We had our chance we didn't do very well But I do believe that the generation that is coming today knowledgeable energetic and brave have a real chance of reducing the damage we are doing to our climate and are making the world fit not only from my grandchildren great-grandchildren but for the rest of the inhabitants of the natural world The world does not belong to man alone It isn't there a larder for them just to take what they wish The world belongs to the whole of the natural creatures of the world It's a we are its custodians. We have the power and we have the knowledge to care for that matter world and we have a moral obligation to Do just that and what this university is doing Is but making itself a leader in that particular struggle I'm proud that you should have given me an honorary degree. Thank you very much Thank you, so David we invited from people in the audience earlier in the week the submission of questions so we have a series of those largely from students but also from members of staff and and visitors and so we're going to I'm going to written sort of invite people to ask their questions as we go along and I'll try and intersperse Them with sort of summary questions of those that we haven't been able to to choose so Apologies to those that weren't weren't picked picked out, but hopefully we'll be able to cover the sort of areas that you like you requested inevitably we're going to move into the the climate agenda, but I think a little bit more broadly about your broadcasting career too to start with and Before I ask Bethany white one of our students to ask her first question Can I just we've talked a lot today about the inspiration that you give young people? who inspired you to to start and who inspires you now in terms of what the work you do the person who inspired me was The son of the great captain of the great polar explorer Captain Scott, his name was Peter Scott and 50 years ago. He was I think perhaps the most widely Famous naturalist in this country. He's also Martha's painter He painted wild fowl and they had a none particular understanding and affection for well fowl. But he was a marvelous broadcaster in radio and Subsequently in television, but he also had a very sensitive Social conscience and he became active in founding the World Wildlife Fund other people of course were involved as well, but he He was its mouthpiece. He provided Things were to say he provided lots of drawings for it to And I admire him unreservedly He Perhaps people don't know about him now they certainly if gathering like this 50 years ago everybody would have heard Peter Scott and Mamie and when in the long sight of history and other 2 or 3 generations they will see that Peter Scott was in fact the first World what world famous naturalist to call attention to what we were doing the damage. We were doing to another world fascinating Bethenny Weitz is one of our students. I think she's At the back. It's a pleasure to meet you My question is out of all the things you have seen in your time what has been the most difficult to witness and why? So of all the things that you've seen in your time what has been the most difficult to witness and why Well, of course is what's difficult to witness is when we ourselves cause damage and One of the most dreadful sites that I've seen Yes, I suppose forever or my career it's in the last few years When I have gone to coral reefs that I knew a few years earlier I'm sure there a lot of underwater swimmers here and Maybe there plenty of people here who have dived on a coral reef But a flourishing coral reef is one of the most breathtaking spectacle in natural world the mere business of putting on an Aqualung and Losing and the pull of gravity so that you can just move any way in three dimensions We're no longer just stuck by the pull of gravity You could just float about and you do that and below you there are a hundred animals species that you've never seen before All of which are extraordinarily beautiful and complex as many of it. You don't know how to classified. What is it? Is it account of jellyfish is it what is it? You just don't know schools of the most dual like fish floating all around you and taking note that notices were told and these amazing forests of corals that's one of the great sights in the natural world and I dived on a coral reef what I suppose four or five years ago. I knew well And it had breached The fish had gone all that was left were the white skeletons of the dead coral and That was an induced entirely because of the increase of temperature And the knowledge that I had everybody had was that we were responsible for that That was a horrifying. Sorry a Slightly different angle on the same question I guess is What's the most frightened you felt? the most frightened or the most the time when you felt most in danger as you've been doing your filming by and large Animals, don't go from who attack the young beings very few. Do unprovoked most of them It's not their advantage to tangle with you as you are they don't attack you they without warning Even the charging elephant you can charge you but will stop a few yards from you if you've got you've got the nerve and Put out its years and waggle and if you if you a silly It'll come at the California world. But if you've got this sense You were actually either get into the Land Rover. The Jews should have been in the first But justly retreat, that's very frightening but without question the most dangerous creature that I've ever come across And which I really was very frightened He's a human being who's drunk Who doesn't speak your language and has a gun that is danger Excellent next questions from le Sweetman again one five students In your life you've traveled the world and seen so many amazing things, is there anything And so you've seen so many amazing things in your life and traveled the world Is there anything less that you haven't experienced that you would like to? No human being can possibly See one millionth part of the wonders of this marvellous world that we inhabit This is the most I mean that I I'm keen on birds paradise. Yeah, I like bad fella There are two species of birds. Apparently I haven't seen And I would a door to see them I don't suppose I have a shout now because they live in a very remote part of New Guinea And I won't but you know, there are wonderful things in this country, too Two mice To give you just an example. We I live in on the outskirts of London. I live in Richmond and I am told And I live within 20 yards of a church the Victorian Church And I'm told that Peregrine's have moved in. I Get up every morning. I haven't seen them yet But I know that they're there and that is a marvelous example of how things are coming back Encouragement and so on So the thing I'd love to see most of all alone is a paragon when I look out on my window in the morning Around that church tower just there And now from Eleanor Milosevic again upon my students Good afternoon, sir, David, if you could only save one animal from extinction, which one would it be and why? I've no idea really The world will be I have to say rather better off if the one that disappeared as Homo sapiens, but Perhaps that's not the question. You are. So answer your CV I? Don't know you know, actually I was talking about the history of conservation which I telescoped a bit and the Realization that we were exterminating single species was a very important one but the thing that followed that in the conservation world Where people deliberately doing what they can to save things Was the realization that actually one single species Is not all that important what's important is the ecosystem it is the whole community that's what What is important for the health of the world and our understanding perhaps it's not understanding perhaps the complexity of ecosystems is such that it's very difficult to Predict which one? Can you can afford to lose and which one? You will lose At your peril and which one will cause the collapse of the whole system I mean for example in the 19th century Trappers on the northwest coast of America going up towards the Arctic Saw a marvelous species of otter That's famine in the sea and which spent all its time see as a consequence have one of the richest densest silkiest the most rinsable third and so of course has been human beings they shot him and They decided that they can make a lot of money by selling sea otter skins And then about fifty years later of the sea otters Beginning to show that they were disappearing But also the cod were disappearing Another edible fish And people thought well sea horses don't eat cod So there's no connection. It's just unfortunate that we're losing a sea otter over here, and we're losing Cod over there But actually our Raiding of the sea otter was a punch was the problem because sea otter lives on sea urchins sea urchins graze the The kelp beds on the and eat all the Of the young seedlings and the kelp bed. And what happened was that when this when the sea otters were no longer there The urchins suddenly began to proliferate in fast numbers and they were destroying the kelp beds But the kelp beds to the nursery is where the young sea with young Cod live So there was nowhere for the young fry of the cod to live. So the Cod were disappearing The world is full of connections Which we are not clever enough to understand them all and we can't predict them So when you say which one will we can afford to lose? I don't know I don't know what we can afford to lose We can't actually afford to lose anything we have to do our best to preserve all these Ecosystems because we are not clever enough to understand the full complexity of the matter world Thank you just flex think you've moved into the space of Peters question, but I'm out Peter piece of Fitzroy to ask this question What do you believe is the most important habitat and species and why most important habitat in species You've answered the species to some extent but the habitats in more broadly the most important habitats again, that's under threat Well, the it depends how you define habitat But but of course the greatest threat that's coming there at the moment is in the oceans And because we are doing terrible things to the oceans We are get we have to no longer afford Go on eating red meat and the way we have been doing for a whole Slew of reasons. So we are becoming or we have to become if we are to survive as a species We have to draw a lot of food from the Seas from fish But at the moment what we're doing to the Seas is is appalling We are have become more expert at ripping up the seabed more expert at harpooning fish more careless of the ways in which we do it and on top of all that We are causing a rise in the temperature of the ocean Two-thirds of the world this globe is covered by the sea. We've been raiding it without Any caution, whatever without any conditions and if you reserve for hundreds of years We are now in the Danger of losing that sea and all that food that it could provide us. So I think the marine Ecosystems are the most vulnerable at the moment and the ones that we can least afford to be destroyed Can I just go back to your broadcasting just for a second Because you you always very generously recognize the fact that it is not you taking the photographs and everything that that we see on the TV screen is are there any specific stories around the the extremes that your camera teams and things have gone to in order to achieve the the filming that you've That you've been the frontman for one they're not and the last series Blue Parrot - for example, I think we had 45 different cameramen working on it the world of broadcasting and of Natural History Broadcasting has changed beyond recognition in the 50 60 years that I've been working I mean There's a start with the programs I made with me and the cameraman when we pushed off to Borneo for three months and nobody heard of work and The Improv us for three months and we had a great time The programs were rubbish But in those days you see fifty years ago nobody had seen or ago Thailand trees I've never seen they'd never seen The Fairly blue bird that never seen an August pheasant They've never seen some of the most glorious things that there are the national world. So even badly filmed and fragmentary and Transitory it just showed that and people the glorious the natural world are such that people's jaws sagged from the oak on television in black and white, you know Blurry, but never mind that was a bird of paradise Fantastic, you can't get away with that Mound we wouldn't want to get away with that. Now now we have the most wonderful apparatus and It has made possible all sorts of things that were not possible for we can film in the dark We can film a high in the altitude. We can speed things up We can slow things down we can film at the bottom of the sea and the top of Mount Everest so we can go in anywhere and do anything and one of the wonderful thing I mean the shift into from Film which was a very clumsy Piece of apparatus. I mean, well, I you started off with black and white because television was a black and white But it worked by clockwork and you rounded up and it was a hundred-foot real and that lasted two minutes 40 seconds and after you shot two minutes for 40 seconds of Images then you had to take of the camera and put a new willing in but now you can film for hours on end Electronically and you can fill in all conditions the most wonderful thing. I mean you couldn't you can Arrange things so that you have a camera trap so there's a the animal itself takes the photograph you take skill in a way you're going to put the camera so you know that you want to have be able to predict almost exactly the posture of an animal for example a snow leopard scent-marking a tree or a stone Will stand in one particular position because it has to get the cinema just there so you can predict just where it will be and you can put the camera there for just just just the right position and That's what we did and that was after 10 years 15 years of tracking Snow leopards and failing to find them of me writing winter scripts every now and again Say shot at snow leopard approaches from the left of the camera Spread marks and moves to the right and the cameraman. So how much you get that awesome idea by us. You're But now you'll see you can put a camera there and if you if you brighten up it's not all that difficult to frame it in the right position And so you get a fantastic shot of a snow leopard never been seen on film before beautiful animal spray Marquis of rock and the audience says It's wonderful. Then you put it on again another six months of time. They say well we've seen that So we go on getting our problems we've got Still a lot of things to do but but our skills and the technology drones for example Jones gives us huge actor Brands drones allow us. I mean I've just been filming in in Iceland actually, but Doesn't matter where I was believed To be able to see to see put up a drone in any pursuit or quite high With a long-focus lens so you can get a close-up of an animal running at speed and travelling alongside it fantastic Beautiful stuff that you can get the pictures that you see on on No credit to me as I've explained, but they are Breathtaking and if I didn't have my Beth taken away Then I should get out of the business because when I had these teams come back with these fantastic shots I am astounded and unraveled by their beauty and their skill and the world will never Has never been shown in such detail with such craft and skill as cameraman's current can now do fantastic If you would just start University now, what subject would you do? Well you see I I mean I can say to answer the question. I were socially responsible question answered that question is of course conservation science and And that was what? Your conscience would tell you to do But if I was to indulge myself There are whole areas of the animal kingdom which nobody cares anything about nobody knows anything about But Nautilus Nautilus know but I've never made I've got shots of Nautilus and their Marvis things, you know they're Cephalopods this is an organization. You know, what cephalopods are Yeah, well, they're beautiful Nautilus the best social behavior of Norris's. I don't think anybody knows anything about at all It'd be fun but then there are there are Hundreds of examples of things like that that you if you just you're allow your interest not to go down the well-worn Corridors, but to go down into different areas of the zoological world you will find all sorts of areas that people not the faintest bit of notice talk before I mean, there was a An Australian wrote me an amateur boats me out of the blue. You would think that he knew a lot about the animals in Australia But he had been filming little spiders no bigger than my thumbnail which called peacock spiders and they inflate their abdomens and when they invade them they're ours just as richly patterned as that the the tails of peacocks and They display and in the but they're individually varied much more varied than than peacocks are Wonderful little creatures no bigger than that And he discovered them nobody he sent a Matar film to me and I said wonderful and as a consequence there now Again, one of these handed things though peacock spiders again. We are sparing them I've shown it about three or four times. I get quite bewitched by by peacock spiders I mean this extraordinary wonderfully beautiful creatures. We don't thing about So plenty to do plenty today I'm going to suggest that we take the next three questions As a group and that you once saw them all that after the third one So the first one is from Katherine Bailey Good afternoon, sir, as a new mother I would like to know what three things you would ask every parent to teach their children in Order to make the biggest difference for their future on planet earth Then I know that then the next one is Annabelle Roberts Thank you David for your talk. And so my question is this sustainability can be Individual ask large scale how important do you think veganism is in combating climate change and what do you think about the movement? And then the third one from Annabelle Machin, please no animals Not here. So I'm gonna ask Annabelle's question She said since graduating from Keele University. I have worked as a doctor in the NHS over this short period of time Continuing medical advancements have contributed to longer life expectancies in the developed world and an increasing global population Do we need to be having frank conversations about how many people our earth can sustain in the future? So three slightly different aspects of the same So the first one was advice to a new mother the second one specifically on veganism and then the third one on population Well, I think what I would say to to a mother particularly in the Western European situation is Think how many children you want Advising people on how many children they have is a very impersonal thing to do It's the great inalienable right of Homo sapiens to decide how many children they have and if they have 10 children But Human beings are Extraordinary in the amount of care that each child needs to be brought up But we can't I mean in the Victorian times, you know Medical conditions are such that women in this country could have twenty children in their lifetime of whom three quarters, perhaps would die Well that no longer happens Now medical science is such that we can Our children when they're born have got a very very very good chance of survival And I think we should think about carefully about how many you can have to replace the parents this country is full of human beings and The natural world has suffered as a consequence as the human beings Take what they want from the natural world that can't go on sustainability, which is one of the mottos one of the headlines of this university makes it perfectly clear that sustaining the science of our population is fine, but allowing it to increase at Some time to rate is it's not tolerable in this world in this small country, but each person has to make that decisions by themselves What was the last question? It was population mechanism because it was one Yes, well We can't afford give great stabs of the land to other mammals that we're going to eat and I Don't have any problems about The biological morality if that makes sense the biological morality of eating flesh Because as a biologist and men and you are many here We recognize that our dentition and another joseph's system are those of an omnivore? And we can we have Canasta we have teeth which are good for masticating and in flesh So if there is such a thing as a book as a biological morality, I think we're justified or eating but but We can't afford to go on eating flesh if in order to provide for that appetite We are taking up whole areas of the natural world, which the natural world is so we the amount of the Fertile land surface, which we devote to raising cattle and sheep Can no longer be sustained Because we need that ground in order to grow crops. So I I myself Have now given up largely eating fresh not for moral reasons I have to say but or not even because I It's just like somebody's rather. I don't know what to do with age. But but I don't eat much meat I don't want to eat much meat I don't think it is morally wrong to eat flesh every now and again, but I don't want to do so Okay. Thank you. Next question from one of our staff Emma Henderson Hello and good afternoon I was Wondering if you were able to introduce a new law today in the UK in order to tackle climate change. What would that be a New law people able to introduce a new law in this in the UK Well, you depends what the law is, of course But I'm sure that we the time has come when we should legislate For certain things and unless we can get it redone bound if we can get it done. I mean Persuasion is much better than the law. And we and we have a responsibility to persuade people that they can't afford to go on Doing certain things which are damaging the environment. We already take that we're all this recent law about car exhausts for example I mean that's that is damaging the environment that is also poisoning children point are those two pointing people live in cities Yes, we have to we have to put loads for those sort of things I'm Not a great legal, man. I don't I don't feel that we want to keep on posing more and more laws I want persuasion and much better than the law and we should persuade people that actually there'll be healthier. They stop poisoning the opposing the atmosphere and and I'm trying to think of what laws that anybody might propose That I would find intolerable But certainly the less laws the better and the more persuasion that we can of proper living You know, I I Feel that we are on the on the edge of a moral Change in in human society and that the one that is Overcoming in over at such a speed we almost may not recognize it But there was a time in the middle of the 19th century When civilized educated European people Thought it was perfectly acceptable to own another human being as a slave and To buy and sell them as slaves and in a period of about 25 years Suddenly it became intolerable for any educated civilized human being to Tolerate such a such an abomination How that happened, I don't know I mean you can name names William Wilberforce, they're politicians And so but it was not just politicians The world began to recognize that was intolerable. I have just a suspicion that We are on the verge of feeling just that sort of way about Intolerable, but it would be to maltreat the planet in with the way in which we have been now treating the planet. I Suspect that we're on the edge of a moral revolution Certainly in Western Europe, and I only pray that that's true Okay, and then a question from Joe Patel well Good afternoon, David considering that climate changes, perhaps the contemporary world's greatest threat, but also how entrenched in our ways as a society humans can be how optimistic are you that we will Realistically be able to take the necessary steps towards creating a sustainable society Before the irreversible effects of climate change take hold I Can't pretend I'm that optimistic I've been too appalled by seeing some of the dreadful things that we're doing And But I do know as I've just said that I I have the feeling that we are on on the verge of a profound change in attitude certainly in Western Europe and I have else around the world and What chance of ever happening I Think we are doomed for the natural world to be damaged to some further degree whatever happens But I think there is just a chance that Realization of this an education and the spreading of the realization though, that will be such That we may be able to avoid its worst excesses and as we know We're at that cutting point now, that's not it's not just oh yes in the next 150 years If we don't deal with climate change in the next 20 years solid academic scientific assessment is that there will be major major climatic this option which will have devastating effect on our cities devastating effect on the political situations and many of the continents of the world and desertification of a great areas that were once fertile And and and and cities out of Florida will be underwater That could happen. I'm not saying it will But it could and that's sweet Unless the movement which I detect Actually proved to be a powerful movement and spreads quickly So I think we have a chance But that's it. It's your future and You will Everybody in this room will be involved in Coping with what the rest of the world does Have you? Thank you say but that's that's the end of the questions before I give the formal vote of. Thanks I'd like to invite a couple of our students Vincey and Katherine I think just to come up with a couple of gifts for you from Q University coming from Thank you very much thank you very much indeed Stand between you okay? Ladies and gentlemen We certainly haven't been disappointed I'd like to remind you that of the people who watched BBC's blue planet blue planet - 88 percent of them said that they had changed their personal habits with respect to plastics. I think that shows the power of the gentlemen that we have in the room with us today and I'm not going to say any any more other than just to give my Great. Thanks to all of those who have gone to help organize today We we really have put Sir David through his paces We are very very appreciative and we do acknowledge and he does talk about his his age He has a birthday next week So we're very grateful that he's taking the time to come and see us this week and worked so hard for us today but it's taken an awful lot of people to actually organize today and I'm It's gone like clockwork. It has been fantastic So thank you to all of you who are either in the room or watching potentially on the video screen Including at least one who's in the Canary Islands at the moment Who's my PA? Let's see. So david has been dealing with over the last two or three or two three weeks So it just remains to say a huge thank you or to all of you that have come here today We've heard about some very important aspects of our lives of the life of our our planet But of course most importantly I'd like you to join me in thanking Sir, David Attenborough for honoring us with his presence today Thank you very much
