1. Sharing Planet Earth
The opening programme, presented by David Attenborough and featuring footage from many of his earlier series and some of the BBC's most successful natural history productions, takes a global view of the threats facing wildlife. Attenborough ponders the question of whether there is enough space and resources to accommodate the rapidly growing human population and all of the other species on our planet, and poses that we will need to change our wasteful ways if we are not to lose a significant number of species to extinction.
"All the animals we’ll see over the course of the series are disappearing because of one species: humans. We know that we are using more than our fair share of the planet and its resources and we must now redress this imbalance. Any effort to do so – no matter how big or small – is valuable, if we wish to ensure a future that is healthy for all life on planet Earth."
— David Attenborough’s closing words
Read more about this topic: Saving Planet Earth, Episodes
Famous quotes containing the words sharing, planet and/or earth:
“... probably all of the women in this book are working to make part of the same quilt to keep us from freezing to death in a world that grows harsher and bleaker—where male is the norm and the ideal human being is hard, violent and cold: a macho rock. Every woman who makes of her living something strong and good is sharing bread with us.”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)
“What I like, or one of the things I like, about motoring is the sense it gives one of lighting accidentally, like a voyager who touches another planet with the tip of his toe, upon scenes which would have gone on, have always gone on, will go on, unrecorded, save for this chance glimpse. Then it seems to me I am allowed to see the heart of the world uncovered for a moment.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,
The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky,
Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard;
Enough that he heard it once; we shall hear it by and by.”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)