Environment

Sir David Attenborough is still looking to future generations

The 93-year-old is the cover star of our first-ever subscriber-specific edition of The Big Issue

Attenborough Credit BBC

This week The Big Issue is taking a bold step into an uncertain future with the first-ever subscriber-specific edition of the magazine. And who better to have on the cover than celebrated filmmaker and naturalist Sir David Attenborough?

Remember when another crisis beginning with a ‘c’ was at the top of the news agenda? Attenborough does. He has done more than most to unite us as one to save the environment, almost single-handedly changing attitudes and mindsets overnight with his eye-opening Planet Earth documentaries.

The coronavirus may have bumped the climate crisis out of the headlines temporarily. But this week Attenborough tells The Big Issue that once we have conquered the short-term crisis facing us all, eyes must again look to the long-term as the battle for survival moves from virus to the environment once again.

“If there was a risk of you getting coronavirus tomorrow – which there is – and someone next door had got it, you would find you were in quarantine quite quickly,” Attenborough says, speaking to The Big Issue before the current quarantine guidelines were put in place. “But somebody next door to you who was doing something that could cause a terrible thing in five years’ time? People will say, ‘Well, that’s five years’ time, meanwhile I’ve got to deal with coronavirus, or something’.”

For more from Attenborough, subscribe to The Big Issue today. While vendors are temporarily unable to sell the magazine on the streets, you can support them by:

David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet has been produced by Silverback Films and WWF. The film will be available to watch in cinemas and globally via Netflix later this year. For more information and to register for updates, see attenborough.film #AttenboroughFilm

Image: BBC

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