Sir David Attenborough Reflects on Earth Day

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And I just wonder what you think of kind of being inside unable to go outside and celebrate Earth Day, and all the changes that our planet’s seen, certainly since you were born.

DAVID ATTENBOROUGH, BROADCASTER AND NATURALIST: Yes, indeed. I mean, the world has been transformed. And I’ve been extraordinarily lucky and that I’ve been filming (INAUDIBLE) since 1950s. And so, I’ve got enough video documentation of how it looked to me when I was in my early 30s and it was a different world altogether. I could see things that nobody else had filmed before, certainly. I could travel into places where hardly anybody had ever been before. It was a marvelous, pristine world and it was rich. And yet, of course, it was still being depreciated. Had I been there 50 years before that, I would have seen even a greater thing. But now what I realize, of course, looking back now, is how the world has become poisoned and depleted and is wrecked really from many points of view and other dangers on the horizon.

AMANPOUR: Let me ask you before I go back because you’re right. You know, in your life span, I mean, you’re 93 years old. That’s a well-known fact. I’m not being discrete. And, as you say, you have seen the massive transformations. But I led into this and surely you, obviously, have been on top of it, as well, by talking about the incredible blue skies, the lack of carbon and pollution in our air, the cleaner waters right now, we have seen animals roaming around as if it was still a natural world in highways and streets of urban centers. Do you — I mean, do you think, wow, look at what could happen if we put our mind to it?

ATTENBOROUGH: Yes, very much so and this glorious weather. Of course, I’m locked in, as we say. So, I don’t get out even though I’m close to one of the loveliest parts in Great London, in Richmond Park, I can’t go there. I’m supposed to stay at home, which is what I’m doing. But the skies are so blue. The bird song is so loud and I can hear it over because there are no airplanes. I mean, I live quite close to London airport. And normally I wouldn’t be able to talk for longer than 90 seconds or so before a drone of an airplane came by. Now, it’s an event to see an airplane in the sky and I hear the bird song. So, it’s — and — but also, the air is purer. And when you hear reports of fish coming back into Venice canals and so on, you realize the world is actually changing. And being that changed, being forced upon us, the question is, are we going to be strong enough to keep these changes and do what’s needed to retain these improvements in the years to come when we have got over this particular hump and problem.