3 December 2020 David Attenborough Television of course actually started in Britain in 1936, and it was a monopoly, and there was only one broadcaster and it operated on a license which is not the same as a government grant.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough Steve Irwin did wonderful conservation work but I was uncomfortable about some of his stunts. Even if animals aren’t aware that you are not treating them with respect, the viewers are.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough People talk about doom-laden scenarios happening in the future: they are happening in Africa now. You can see it perfectly clearly. Periodic famines are due to too many people living on land that can’t sustain them.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough I can mention many moments that were unforgettable and revelatory. But the most single revelatory three minutes was the first time I put on scuba gear and dived on a coral reef. It’s just the unbelievable fact that you can move in three dimensions.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough Many individuals are doing what they can. But real success can only come if there is a change in our societies and in our economics and in our politics.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough All we can hope for is that the thing is going to slowly and imperceptibly shift. All I can say is that 50 years ago there were no such thing as environmental policies.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough Dealing with global warming doesn’t mean we have all got to suddenly stop breathing. Dealing with global warming means that we have to stop waste, and if you travel for no reason whatsoever, that is a waste.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough I don’t run a car, have never run a car. I could say that this is because I have this extremely tender environmentalist conscience, but the fact is I hate driving.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough In the old days… it was a basic, cardinal fact that producers didn’t have opinions. When I was producing natural history programmes, I didn’t use them as vehicles for my own opinion. They were factual programmes.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough You can cry about death and very properly so, your own as well as anybody else’s. But it’s inevitable, so you’d better grapple with it and cope and be aware that not only is it inevitable, but it has always been inevitable, if you see what I mean.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough The process of making natural history films is to try to prevent the animal knowing you are there, so you get glimpses of a non-human world, and that is a transporting thing.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough I think a major element of jetlag is psychological. Nobody ever tells me what time it is at home.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough The climate, the economic situation, rising birth rates none of these things give me a lot of hope or reason to be optimistic.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough Nature isn’t positive in that way. It doesn’t aim itself at you. It’s not being unkind to you.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough The whole of science, and one is tempted to think the whole of the life of any thinking man, is trying to come to terms with the relationship between yourself and the natural world. Why are you here, and how do you fit in, and what’s it all about.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough I like animals. I like natural history. The travel bit is not the important bit. The travel bit is what you have to do in order to go and look at animals.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough There is no question that climate change is happening the only arguable point is what part humans are playing in it.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough I often get letters, quite frequently, from people who say how they like the programmes a lot, but I never give credit to the almighty power that created nature.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough Cameramen are among the most extraordinarily able and competent people I know. They have to have an insight into natural history that gives them a sixth sense of what the creature is going to do, so they can be ready to follow.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement the greatest source of visual beauty the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much in life that makes life worth living.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough You can only get really unpopular decisions through if the electorate is convinced of the value of the environment. That’s what natural history programmes should be for.
3 December 2020 David Attenborough People must feel that the natural world is important and valuable and beautiful and wonderful and an amazement and a pleasure.
