Celebrated broadcasting veteran David Attenborough was earlier On hosted on the BBC Newsnight ahead of his upcoming five-season nature series-Dynasties. During the hour-long interview. The 92-year-old veteran talked about the future of our planet, weighing on the touchy issues of plastic pollution, vegetarianism, population growth, and the Paris agreement.

His previous project, Blue planet II helped create awareness on our growing appetite for plastic and its effect on oceans and marine life. In the wake of heavy taxes and bans imposed by governments on plastic bags, he weighed on the use of single-use plastic bags.

"We should do our best to avoid the use of plastic" but added, "one mustn't maximize the effect of not using a plastic bag."

"I think it's quite important in a democracy that people actually have something to do to express their concern and maybe plastic bags aren't the most important element in the whole plastic problem but it is something that people can do," said Attenborough. 

"As well as the fundamentally important thing of course, which is to put in the politicians who actually recognize what the danger is and will do something that is difficult."
Attenborough had some great thoughts on vegetarianism too although he admitted not being much of a meat person.

“Biologically speaking, to steer clear of meat because we evolved to be omnivores. But that "[w]e have got to a stage in our own social evolution in which that's no longer practical because we simply can't destroy the natural forests and plains of the world to feed ourselves... We can't afford to do that so, therefore, we have to modify our diet."
There is a lot that we (humans) have to rethink about, but nothing is graver than the looming explosion of the human population.

"In the long run, population growth has to come to an end," said Attenborough, who thinks we have to slow down the alarming rate of population growth and do it soon. He further explains that while there is an argument that population growth will level out on its own, he argues that it may be too late and by then, the global population will be too high to be sustainable.

Sharing his thoughts on the United States leaving the Paris agreement, he told Davis (the host) that he is not worried about it since the attitude around the world towards environmental conservation has changed to the better and the US leaving it won’t change anything.

"There's a groundswell internationally of recognizing what we are doing to the planet and the disaster that awaits unless we do something," he said. 

 "To what extent the United States is going to withdraw from it, we'll see. My suspicion is that people will realize that, actually, the United States' attitude is outdated, it doesn't apply anymore, and I think that will be overcome."   


Source: iflscience