- 2 days ago
Humans are changing the planet so rapidly, it's affecting Earth's life support systems: the weather, the oceans, and the living world.....
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AnimalsTranscript
00:26A perfect planet
00:33Life flourishes on planet Earth
00:44Thanks to powerful natural forces
00:53The weather gives us predictable patterns of rainfall
01:01Sunlight delivers energy to all parts of planet Earth's surface
01:09Ocean currents carry nutrients around the globe
01:17Volcanoes create and fertilize the land
01:22Together these forces have helped shape our living planet
01:31But it's a fragile system
01:40This baby elephant is dying of thirst
01:48The latest casualty of our changing world
01:56Luckily rescuers have found him
01:59So he has a chance
02:08This young animal is likely a victim of a new force
02:14One so powerful it threatens the future of life on Earth
02:35For over 60 years I've been privileged to witness the natural world in all its wonder
02:43But the planet I saw as a young man has changed beyond recognition
02:50Human activity is now so dominant
02:53It's disrupting the forces of nature
02:56And the vital habitats that life needs to survive on Earth
03:01This is the most important story of our time
03:04So I've asked three world authorities from the front line
03:08To join me in telling it
03:12Humans used to be a species just like any other on Earth
03:16But we've now become so populous and so destructive
03:20That we are the single most influential creature on Earth
03:25Everything around us is collapsing
03:27This is the planet that we're handing over to future generations
03:30And the worst part, I'll tell you the worst part to me
03:34Is that they're going to turn around and be like
03:36Why did you not do something when you had the chance?
03:39We are likely to lose over half the species of life on Earth
03:44Over the next eight decades
03:46The last time we had an extinction event of this magnitude
03:49Was 65 million years ago
03:52We are asleep
03:54We are not taking a look at the enormity of this event
03:59If you want evidence of how life is struggling
04:02To cope in our rapidly changing world
04:06You need to look no further than here in Africa
04:14As we warm the planet
04:16We create more extreme droughts and floods
04:19Making it increasingly difficult for many animals to survive
04:25One of our planet's most magnificent creatures is no exception
04:38Adult elephants drink around 200 litres of water a day
04:48When rains fail, as they did recently here in Kenya
04:53Watering holes quickly run dry
04:56Killing hundreds of them
05:07Killing hundreds of them
05:08You can see the scale of the problem
05:12By the dozens of orphaned baby elephants left behind
05:21These are the lucky survivors
05:27They owe their lives to Angela Sheldrick and her team
05:31Who rescue these young orphans
05:34Come on
05:35Come on, little boy
05:36The orphans when we find them tend to be in a pretty sorry state
05:48They are not only physically damaged
05:51But psychologically too
05:52Hey, come down
05:54Come down
05:55Come down
05:56They have suffered such a loss losing their elephant family
06:00Their mothers
06:05Angela's team do their best to soothe that loss
06:09providence�sof
06:20The keepers
06:22replace a lost elephant family
06:38they provide the tender loving care and the nurturing that is so important for them to heal
06:46the keepers are there 24 7
06:56it is a very very special relationship that actually does last a lifetime
07:02despite the elephants becoming wild they do never forget that love and kindness
07:12the orphans have to be bottle fed eight times a day
07:19we raise these orphaned elephants to ultimately go back to their birthright
07:25a wild and happy life
07:28you're such a clown
07:49come on
07:51angela's organization has released more than 150 orphaned elephants back into the wild
07:59but to survive they now need to live in managed reserves where people top up water supplies when
08:07droughts return
08:11over the years we've seen an enormous change in the weather patterns
08:17greater unpredictability the drier seasons are drier and longer it is the 11th hour now
08:26we have just one home and we as the dominant species should take care of it must take care of
08:34it it is our responsibility
08:39what i need to say to people is this is not going to get better
08:43we are on a curve that's moving us with a series of events that's taking us into a new geological
08:50era in history
08:55to understand how humans are destabilizing our perfect planet we need to look into the deep past
09:04in earth's long history it's been through at least five mass extinction events
09:13most were caused by cataclysmic volcanic eruptions
09:22it's not the lava or ash that wiped out life
09:29but an invisible gas released by volcanoes called carbon dioxide co2
09:39the single greatest extinction event on the planet so far was caused by the superheating of the world
09:48masses of volcanic activity pumped huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere massively raised the global temperature
09:55and saw the destruction of around 90 percent of all life on earth
10:01humanity is now acting like a super volcano
10:07we're releasing carbon dioxide at an even greater rate than the prehistoric mega eruptions that extinguished life in the past
10:24here's the problem over the last two centuries we dug up the burial grounds of a previous geological era in
10:32history
10:34the carboniferous era and we took those dead remains in the form of oil gas and coal
10:41and we made the entire industrial civilization based on these fossil fuels
10:53almost every part of modern life depends on energy generated by burning these fossil fuels
11:01and that produces co2 in huge amounts
11:07globally we now release 100 times more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all earth's volcanoes combined
11:17and by burning more fossil fuels releasing more carbon dioxide heating up the world around us
11:23we have become one of the most powerful destructive forces on the planet
11:29carbon dioxide acts like a blanket trapping the sun's heat this raises the temperature and so destabilizes
11:39one of the most important forces on earth the weather
11:49many animals rely on predictable patterns of rainfall
11:59but as our world warms our weather is changing
12:08for every one degree that the temperature goes up on this planet because of co2 emissions
12:16the atmosphere is sucking up seven percent more water
12:23so we're getting more concentrated precipitation in the clouds
12:28in more radical extreme unpredictable out of control weather events
12:37millions are bracing for a hurricane the likes of which we've never seen
12:41we're getting hurricanes that are devastating our ecosystems and killing human beings
12:45every year
12:49they're now over and over and over and over again every season
12:54this planet is more powerful than we thought
13:03more fires more droughts more floods
13:06and so this perfect planet of ours has now been thrown into a system of flux
13:21so this is not just affecting wildlife
13:22these extreme conditions are making it increasingly difficult for animals to survive
13:33and that is not just affecting wildlife
13:40new research suggests that for every one degree rise in global temperatures
13:46a billion people will be pushed into near unlivable extremes
13:52and this could trigger one of the greatest human migrations in history
14:00we're about to have climate refugees forced out of uninhabitable areas of the world pushed up into europe
14:11we are on the cusp of the biggest migratory pattern in human history
14:18we're going to see millions tens of millions and unfortunately hundreds of millions of people migrating
14:24from areas that are no longer livable in the next 20 30 40 50 and 60 years
14:32and people are frightened because this is outside of our frame of reference
14:42but there is hope
14:47in africa the sahara desert is advancing southwards
14:52but a remarkable project is aiming to stop it in its tracks
15:03the ambitious goal is to plant over one billion drought resistant trees like acacias
15:12known as the great green wall once complete a band of trees will stretch nearly 5 000 miles
15:19right across africa one of the largest living structures on the planet
15:28these trees stop topsoil blowing away and their roots penetrate the ground creating a network of
15:36channels that store water whenever rain falls
15:4310 year old corker is one of the first children to benefit
15:5912 million trees have already been planted here in senegal and with dramatic results
16:10wells wells are filling again allowing crops to grow
16:40so far only
16:4415 percent of the green wall is complete but it's already breathing life back into the land
16:50stemming the exodus of people and keeping communities together
16:59and the trees do something else for our children's future
17:07as they grow
17:09they remove carbon dioxide from the air
17:17carbon is the very foundation of life
17:22every plant absorbs it from the air
17:27using it to grow
17:31when animals eat these plants some of this carbon is locked away in the fabric of their bodies
17:43together these wild places and the animals that allow them to thrive take up over a third of the carbon
17:50dioxide we release
17:54all of these systems all of these systems and the life within it are so important to protect us from
18:02a warming planet
18:07some of the earth's most important carbon stores are those rich in plant and animal species
18:16the tropical jungles
18:20forests are sponges they absorb enormous amounts of co2 from the atmosphere and they trap that inside
18:30forests are about much more than just trees in order to thrive a jungle needs bustling animal communities
18:37it needs insects to pollinate it needs mammals to spread the seeds from one part of the forest to another
18:44it needs this massive tangled web of species interactions
18:50a jungle rich in animals stores so much more carbon than a forest with little life
19:00but many of the world's tropical jungles are under threat
19:04and none more so than the greatest of them all the amazon rainforest
19:14it's essential for the health of our planet storing as much carbon as 25 years worth of current
19:21emissions from all the cars in the world the amazon rainforest is one of the keystones of our climate
19:28and if we lose enough of the amazon that it stops to function like that
19:34then it's going to be an absolute disaster for civilization it really will
19:57it's not beyond the realms of possibility that we could deforest a rainforest like the amazon so that
20:04trees cannot grow there and it turns into a savannah
20:12every minute an area the size of about two football pitches is destroyed by humans
20:19these amazing ecosystems around us the oceans the jungles the forests the mangroves
20:24these are our greatest hope and our greatest buffers against the warming planet
20:34on the front line in the heart of the amazon stands the city of monaos
20:40here urban expansion is eating into the jungle
20:46zabal semaines
20:47climate
20:50faculties
20:51and
20:59selena pinasher works for ipam the amazonas environmental protection unit
21:07their mission is to save animals trapped in the city and to return them to the wild
21:37Today, Selina is rescuing a sloth, it's the world's slowest mammal.
21:43Many become trapped as trees are cut down to make way for houses.
22:13And the importance of it is not extinguished.
22:50When ever possible, Selina releases animals back into the protected areas of jungle.
23:13The animals are losing their habitat.
23:18Where are these animals going?
23:25We don't just want to protect animals because they're interesting and they're beautiful.
23:29They're an integral part of a functioning planet and we need to keep them around.
23:37So, how do we protect our remaining forests?
23:42Calculating their true environmental value could hold the key.
23:47And a new cutting edge technology is beginning to do just that.
23:54It's led by a team from the Global Airborne Observatory.
23:59They've developed a way to quantify exactly how much carbon the forest stores.
24:09By firing high-powered lasers across the canopy, they can map the amount of carbon within each tree.
24:22The trees showing up as red and yellow are the most carbon rich.
24:30These maps allow countries to see how valuable their forests are.
24:39I truly hope that we aren't too far away from realising the intrinsic value of wildlife, of forests.
24:46But we're not there yet, and for the time being, governments need to be financially incentivised
24:51to keep forests standing and to not cut them down.
24:58But what about areas of forest that have already been destroyed?
25:05In the Amazon, a revolutionary project is underway.
25:12The aim is to plant a new jungle of 73 million trees.
25:24But regrowing a species-rich forest has always proved difficult.
25:32So, the project has turned to the indigenous peoples of the Amazon.
25:37And young women, like Milena Alvish.
25:42In each seed, there is a tree of the future.
25:49That will give you fruits, oxygen, and a healthier temperature.
25:54That will give you fruits.
26:00Milena's community has a unique knowledge of seeds.
26:09It's enabled them to collect over 200 of the most important tree species from across the Amazon.
26:27The most memorable in all these years that I was part of the forest forest
26:32was the day I participated in the first plant.
26:37I helped to mix these seeds.
26:40The seeds that my mother had collected, my father had collected, my friends.
26:49By mixing the seeds together, it allows them to create a super recipe known as a muvuka.
26:58In this mixture, there is enough tree variety to jump-start a new jungle.
27:06Every year, around 20 tons of seeds are scattered over acres of burnt and degraded land.
27:15After six years, they will have restored an area of forest the size of 30,000 football fields.
27:24The largest tropical restoration project in the world.
27:34The best thing we can possibly do to mitigate the effects of a warming planet
27:37is to plant more trees and protect those trees that we have.
27:41We can do this.
27:42If we put them back, we are creating that stable climate that we need to survive.
27:47And it's such an easy thing to do.
27:49Planting trees and saving wildlife is a vital solution on land.
27:54But it's only part of the story.
27:56The carbon dioxide we produce is damaging another crucial part of our planet.
28:01The oceans.
28:08Life cannot survive without them.
28:17The reason we can walk out and live and breathe oxygen is because it's generated in the oceans.
28:27The oceans that produce up to 70% of the oxygen we breathe and feed over 3 billion people.
28:40Just like our forests, the plants and animals here absorb vast amounts of carbon from the atmosphere.
28:49And when they die, it sinks down to the ocean floor.
28:56The ocean is what we call a carbon sink.
28:59Basically, it's a giant sponge that has forever been absorbing all the excess carbon from the atmosphere,
29:07taking it down to the depths and keeping it there.
29:10The most vital life forms that allow the ocean to do this are some of the tiniest, microscopic plant-like
29:19organisms, phytoplankton.
29:23Now, we don't pay much attention to the little teeny plankton.
29:26The plankton are the most important organisms for taking carbon dioxide and transforming it into oxygen for the planet.
29:36Phytoplankton are the base of the food chain, on top of which everything else survives.
29:41The krill eats the phytoplankton, whales eat the krill, sharks eat the fish, and so on and so forth.
29:48We need phytoplankton for everything else in the oceans to survive, to trap that carbon and keep our climate cool.
29:55But some of these crucial phytoplankton are under attack.
30:05Since the start of the industrial revolution, the oceans have absorbed almost half of all our CO2 emissions.
30:14But that has come at a cost.
30:22When water absorbs carbon dioxide, it becomes more acidic.
30:30But the problem when you have this acidification is that shells are made of calcium carbonate.
30:36And as you have this increased acidity in the oceans, it starts to dissolve these structures.
30:42That threatens anything with a shell.
30:45Our increasingly warm acidic waters are not only destroying coral reefs, but decimating some phytoplankton.
30:54The amount of which has fallen by as much as 40% in recent years.
31:02250 million years ago, the ocean also warmed and became more acidic, contributing to the mass extinction of around 96
31:11% of all marine life.
31:14If we have less phytoplankton, the base of every food web, you lose so much more of everything else.
31:22It is serious.
31:24If we have less phytoplankton, we have less oxygen, which is what we need to survive.
31:35And the oceans are being damaged in another way.
31:39Research suggests that overfishing has removed as much as 90% of all large predatory fish.
31:48And fewer fish means a marine system that stores less carbon.
31:54The ocean species are dying at a rate that's so fast that if we were human beings, we would absolutely
32:00be terrified.
32:07But there is hope here too.
32:12When areas of ocean are protected, marine life can recover.
32:21Here off the coast of Gabon, they've created one of Earth's most ambitious networks of marine protected areas.
32:32It's a hotspot for breeding whales and dolphins.
32:39And one of the most important of all marine predators.
32:44Sharks.
32:47Sharks prevent the species they feed on from becoming overabundant.
32:52An essential factor in maintaining our oceans rich diversity.
32:57When people think about poaching in Africa, they think about elephants and rhinos and hippos and these great majestic creatures
33:06on land.
33:07But there is poaching that's taking place at sea.
33:11The reason that I call these fishermen poachers is that they are taking wildlife without license.
33:18Captain Peter Hammerstedt, who works for the conservation group Sea Shepherd, is patrolling the 20,000 square mile marine park.
33:28Prepare boats for launch, prepare boats for launch, thank you.
33:32They've spotted a commercial fishing boat on the edge of the park, which needs investigating.
33:40The Gabonese government has joined forces with Peter's team to carry out boat inspections.
33:47F5, move rudder, course 205.
33:49The vessel may have a license to fish here, but it could be taking more than its quota and catching
33:56protected species like dolphins and sharks.
33:59Three pistas, 85 toneladas, gratum congelado.
34:07When fighting a war to stop illegal fishing, the odds can seem insurmountable.
34:36This boat's fishing nets have pulled up threatened silky and blue sharks.
34:46Catching and keeping these creatures is illegal, so the fishermen must throw them back.
34:52But many are already so badly injured they will not survive the ordeal.
34:59It saddens me greatly to see these incredible creatures being brutally manhandled as they're dragged across the deck.
35:07Their fingers in their gills as they pull them.
35:15Globally, each year, millions of sharks and over 300,000 whales and dolphins are accidentally killed by fishing nets,
35:25seriously injuring the health of the oceans.
35:28It's the efficiency of these vessels that shocks me to the core.
35:33This sheer killing power of them.
35:37And you can really see why the oceans are being sucked dry of life.
35:57But the patrols are working.
36:00In the past three years, they have arrested 50 vessels and inspected hundreds more.
36:08Last year, we assisted the Coast Guard to arrest a vessel that was poaching sharks.
36:13And by arresting this one single ship, we were able to save the lives of 250,000 sharks.
36:22Marine life here now has a chance.
36:28Currently, around 5% of the oceans are protected.
36:32But there's a global campaign to raise that to 30%.
36:38If we can do that, many of the planet's most vulnerable species could recover.
36:44And a healthier ocean has the power to absorb more CO2.
36:52We've thought the ocean is this infinite space that is full of infinite resources.
37:00And this infinite capacity to withstand and tolerate everything that we throw at it.
37:08And I think we do need to stop and reconsider our strategies if we want to move forward.
37:20Humans aren't just damaging life in the sea.
37:24We're also disturbing one of its most important forces.
37:34Ocean currents.
37:40These transport essential nutrients to almost all marine creatures.
37:46We're dependent on these large circulation patterns that go on in our oceans.
37:51There's this continuous movement.
37:54Beautiful cold water coming from the depths.
37:57It's chock full of nutrients. It's chock full of productivity.
38:01These currents begin at the poles.
38:06Here, cold salty water, which is more dense, sinks to the depths.
38:12And flows towards the tropics and beyond.
38:19In the hotter parts of the Earth, warmer water rises and flows back towards the poles.
38:26This creates a global conveyor belt that circulates nutrients, oxygen and heat around our planet,
38:34regulating Earth's climate and weather.
38:38But it's now feared that our warming planet is destabilizing the system.
38:46As you have an increase in ocean temperatures, it has impacts on everything.
38:50We have glaciers across the world.
38:52And as they melt, you have more of this fresh water just pushing into the oceans.
38:56And this fresh water is less saline. It's less salty.
39:01And that tends to float at the surface.
39:04And it's not moving. You don't have this circulation.
39:08It's causing a breakdown.
39:11Many animals depend on reliable ocean currents.
39:15So as they change, the effect can be disastrous.
39:21This can be witnessed off the northeast coast of the United States,
39:26where it's thought to be triggering mass casualties of a critically endangered species.
39:33The fact that they're even here just stuns so many people.
39:37Bob Prescott heads up the emergency response team.
39:47We have about 250 people that walk beaches.
39:50They're looking for turtles in trouble.
39:54This week's frigid conditions have stunned sea turtles and left them stranded on beaches throughout the northeast.
40:01If you spot one, move the turtle above the high tide line until a trained responder arrives.
40:07Timing is everything.
40:09If we can get to them within an hour of them washing up onto the beach,
40:13then we're going to be able to save 90 to 95 percent of them.
40:18Here, off the coast of Boston, waters are warming faster than almost anywhere on Earth.
40:25It's thought to be causing turtles from the tropics to swim further north than ever before for summer feeding.
40:34But when the cold autumn waters suddenly close in, the turtles go into shock.
40:42These are very young turtles.
40:43They're anywhere from one and a half to six years old.
40:48When we find them, they're hypothermic.
40:50Their heart is beating at one to five beats a minute.
40:53The blood is barely circulating.
40:56For all intents and purposes, look dead.
40:59The critically ill animals are rushed to the New England Aquarium near Boston.
41:04It has a state-of-the-art ER unit for turtles.
41:11We don't want to stress them any further, so we now treat the whole episode as sort of entering an
41:16ICU unit of a hospital.
41:19This is critical care for some turtles.
41:22He's pretty stiff, so I'm sorry. I can't get his mouth open much more.
41:26See, it's right there.
41:27Oh, there we go. There we go.
41:30Do you see that on your own?
41:31When the turtle arrives, its condition is rapidly assessed.
41:35How you doing?
41:36The animals are given stabilizing drugs and fluids.
41:39Their lungs are cleared of water and sand washed out of their scratched eyes.
41:47Got emergency men.
41:48The veterinary team must ventilate turtles that are close to death to help them breathe.
41:55No response at all.
41:56But it's worth it for an animal that might live another 50 years.
42:03You want to save as many as you can.
42:06And it is depressing at times, because a lot of them don't make it.
42:13You know, last year at Thanksgiving, we had 200 dead turtles.
42:21When you're looking into its eyes, it's looking back at you.
42:24There is a connection there.
42:27And it gets stronger and stronger as they start to recover.
42:33It can take months for the turtles to recuperate.
42:37But once they do, they'll make the first plane flight of their lives.
42:42We have a big transport this morning.
42:4544 Ridleys and one loggerhead.
42:47So we're going to start in 15B.
42:49All right, let's get to work.
42:53They are part of the planet.
42:55They're part of our very delicate web of life, if you will.
43:0038, 41, 44.
43:03The bottom line for all of these turtles is to get them back out into the water.
43:10We're doing great on timing, everybody.
43:16Very exciting day, because it just brings that turtle one step closer to being released back into the wild.
43:24These mass casualties of our changing oceans are to be flown south to Florida and beyond.
43:31The future of this species depends on these young turtles.
43:35Ready. All right.
43:37Which will be released into the warmer water currents that they need to survive.
43:45It's a very emotional day for everybody.
43:48These are turtles that staff and volunteers at the aquarium worked so hard to get them to that point.
44:06It's a very emotional day.
44:08It's a very emotional day.
44:09It's a very emotional day.
44:13Changes in the ocean currents won't just harm turtles.
44:17With heat, oxygen, and nutrients moving more slowly around the globe, the impact on all life could be dramatic.
44:25I mean, we live in a world where just one domino in a large game of dominoes.
44:29So you flick one piece and you know what happens.
44:32Everything starts to collapse.
44:33And that's exactly what we start to see over time as this conveyor belt slow down.
44:42Human activity is destroying the balance of our perfect planet.
44:49Disturbing our oceans and disrupting our weather.
44:54But can we prevent the damage we are doing?
44:58Now the human population is at seven billion.
45:01It's moving to nine billion.
45:02And the problem is we're already using the equivalent of one and a half Earths.
45:09It's not sustainable.
45:14Around 80% of the energy we use still comes from burning fossil fuels.
45:21It's what makes us so dangerous.
45:25We can reduce CO2 emissions by consuming less or reusing some of our resources.
45:33But the biggest saving we could make would be to stop using fossil fuels for our energy.
45:40And there are many people who think that we could exploit the natural forces of the planet to enable us
45:48to do that.
45:53The sun has not sent us a bill.
45:56The wind has not invoiced us.
46:02Coal, oil, gas, uranium, they're expensive.
46:06The sun and the wind is free.
46:13We live in a planet that's incredibly dynamic.
46:21We all live in environments where there is some source of energy that we can tap into.
46:26There's energy, there's power all around us.
46:34And we need to start looking at these natural sources of energy that don't have that negative impact.
46:48We have more energy than we'll ever know what to do with.
46:51We can power the whole world with just a fraction of the solar and wind that we get every year.
46:57A fraction of it.
47:05We're not going to start needing less power any time soon.
47:08We'll just have to shift how we generate that power from non-renewables to renewables.
47:21Volcanic heat.
47:22So far, we've only tapped some 7% of its global potential.
47:30Or the wind in our skies.
47:35That could provide 30% of our energy by 2050.
47:42And the power of the sun, which is virtually unlimited.
47:50In areas where most life struggles to survive,
47:55there is plenty of space to gather the maximum solar energy.
48:02The Northern Sahara, home to the world's largest concentrated solar power plant.
48:13Here, innovative technology is using mirrors to superheat a special liquid to around 400 degrees Celsius.
48:23This heat is then stored in molten salt, allowing something not possible before.
48:29The ability to power steam turbines with the sun's energy during the night.
48:36It creates green electricity 24 hours a day, feeding Morocco's growing energy needs.
48:45And it has plans to supply Europe.
48:49We need to make enormous shifts in our society.
48:52This is starting, but it's happening just in small places.
48:56It needs to happen everywhere, and it needs to happen much, much faster.
48:59There's really no excuse.
49:02The Earth has all of the power we need.
49:06Our mission is not growth, growth, growth, but sustainability.
49:10And that our responsibility is to steward this planet.
49:15That's the mission at hand.
49:18But is this transition to a low-carbon society happening fast enough?
49:29In 2015, 195 of the world's nations pledged to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions.
49:40To avoid planetary disaster, the goal was to limit the warming of the Earth to well below 2 degrees.
49:50Together, citizens of the world, we will work to save our planet from ourselves.
49:59Today is a historic day in the fight to protect our planet.
50:03You will either be lauded by future generations or vilified by them.
50:12To get an accurate reading of CO2 levels in the Earth's atmosphere, you must be far away from the pollution
50:19of the cities.
50:21So, in the heart of the Amazon, they built a 325-meter tower to do just that.
50:29It's one of a number of towers around the planet, collecting vital data.
50:34And the news is not good.
50:37This year, CO2 levels in the atmosphere went up yet again, hitting another record high.
50:49I think we are in a crisis. I'm not going to mince my words. We are in a crisis right
50:53now.
50:54We are pushing the equilibrium that the planet used to be in, in a way that may be unrecoverable.
51:03And what the scientists are telling us is we will face a runaway cascade of environmental events feeding off each
51:10other,
51:11taking us into an unknown abyss that could lead to a very quick mass extinction of much of life on
51:17this Earth in a very, very short period of time.
51:22Species are becoming extinct around 100 times faster than the normal rate.
51:29So rapid is the loss that zoos around the world are taking drastic action.
51:35They are collecting DNA from endangered species to build a genetic store of life before they go extinct.
51:45At Edinburgh Zoo, a health check on a Diana monkey presents a valuable opportunity to collect a sample for the
51:53European network of biobanks.
52:00We really feel the pressure to bank as many species as we can as fast as we can before it's
52:08too late.
52:10Marlies Houck at San Diego Zoo receives DNA samples from all over the world.
52:18She's taking them to a secure vault.
52:24It's known as the frozen zoo.
52:28It's hard to imagine, but there's probably more vertebrate life in that room than anywhere else on the planet.
52:39We get samples every day.
52:41It might be a tiger, it might be a bear, it might be a rare reptile.
52:47Right now, we have over 10,000 individuals represented.
52:57The living cells of our world's rarest animals are being stored here at minus 200 degrees Celsius.
53:06Keeping their DNA viable indefinitely, just in case the worst happens.
53:15There are multiple frozen zoos like this around the world.
53:19And with extinction rates so high, they might be needed sooner than we thought.
53:28I hope that we never have to see extinction of some of these amazing species.
53:37But if we do, the samples in the frozen zoo might be the hope for bringing them back so that
53:44our children and grandchildren could once again see the actual animals.
53:52Not knowing what the planet will be like when I am an adult, not knowing whether it will be capable
53:58of sustaining life, that is a terrifying thing to face.
54:06I think the planet I've been born into is the most beautiful place that I could ever imagine.
54:10It's full of amazing wildlife and us. Humans are incredible.
54:19But we seem to forget that the place that we live in is finite and very vulnerable.
54:25And it seems to be dying before our eyes.
54:34Since the age of 10, I've been hearing about our warming world, but nothing was really done at that time.
54:39All I observed at that time was sort of mass apathy.
54:45But what is positive is that the youth are standing up and are taking leadership.
54:50Save our planet! Save our planet! Save our planet!
54:56We need more people to care.
54:57We need more people to look at the facts and say, I will do something about this.
55:04Who's future? Our future!
55:06Who's planet? Our planet!
55:09So we need to think about how we interact with the natural world.
55:13We need to view it not as a commodity, but as a system that we are a part of.
55:28Because we are inextricably linked to the natural world, and whatever happens to the oceans, whatever happens to the forests,
55:36whatever happens to the deserts, that will come back and it will happen to us.
55:55Right now, we have the capacity and knowledge to stop the damage we are doing.
56:03But what we don't have is time.
56:09My inspiration and hope for the future lies with the next generation.
56:15But we all have a responsibility to reduce our carbon footprints, harness the forces of nature for our energy, and
56:23protect the natural world.
56:25The survival of humanity and our fellow creatures on Earth depends upon it.
56:32Do you want to be the last generation that signed the death certificate of humanity?
56:37Do you want to be the generation that sees the last elephant killed?
56:41Do you want to be the generation that sees the last fish fished out of the sea?
56:44Or do you want to be the generation and the individuals that turned it around?
56:48This is the single most serious moment in the 200,000 years that our species has been on this Earth.
56:56I see reason to hope.
56:59And I think we can.
57:01I think we, humans, we are incredibly intelligent animals.
57:05And we can.
57:07And we will.
57:08If we set our minds to it.
57:14The Open University has produced a free poster exploring our perfect planet.
57:20To order, please call 0300 303 0901 or go to bbc.co.uk slash perfect planet and follow the links
57:31to the Open University.
57:38Learn more about our world in all its complex beauty with the Sir David Attenborough Collection.
57:44From Zoo Quest to a perfect planet.
57:4725 extraordinary series streaming now in the Science and Nature section of BBC iPlayer.
57:54Next tonight, The Serpent continues.
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