Seven years ago, on this day, December 3rd, 2018,
“The collapse of civilisation and the natural world is on the horizon, Sir David Attenborough has told the UN climate change summit in Poland.
“The naturalist was chosen to represent the world’s people in addressing delegates of almost 200 nations who are in Katowice to negotiate how to turn pledges made in the 2015 Paris climate deal into reality.
“As part of the UN’s people’s seat initiative, messages were gathered from all over the world to inform Attenborough’s address on Monday. “Right now we are facing a manmade disaster of global scale, our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change,” he said. “If we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilisations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon.”
3 Dec 2018 Guardian
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was 409ppm. As of 2025, when this post was published, it is 430ppm. This matters because the more carbon dioxide in the air, the more heat gets trapped. The more heat, the more extreme weather events. You can make it more complicated than that if you want, but really, it’s not. Fwiw, I have a tattoo of the Keeling Curve on my left forearm.
The broader context was that Attenborough had been slow to acknowledge the carbon dioxide problem (see 2006 piece by George Monbiot).
The specific context was that with the IPCC’s 1.5 degree report, and the Thunberg school strikes, and XR’s “declaration of rebellion”, it was all systems go for climate doom.
What I think we can learn from this – “words words words” as Hamlet would have it.
What happened next – Attenborough kept making documentaries. The emissions, at a global level, kept climbing. So did atmospheric concentrations and temperature. We are fubarred.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
December 3, 1968 – UN General Assembly says yes to a conference about environment. CO2 mentioned.
December 3, 1970 – Olof Palme looks to the future…
December 3, 1972 – #climate scientists write “gizza grant” letter to President Nixon
