The future of life on Earth is in our hands
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CHRIS PACKHAM : 7.7 BILLION PEOPLE AND COUNTING BBC2, 9pm
IF Chris Packham’s fears are to be believed, then we are quite alarmingly, living in what would be the early scenes of a disaster movie. “Our very tenure on the planet is perilous,” he says, looking out over farmland that used to be a forest. “This is a portent of doom.”
They are big scary words, but naturalist Chris wants to express just how serious our situation on Earth really is.
And with the UN predicting that by 2050 the human population could reach 10 billion, the devastating impact on the planet – already taking its toll – really would be a catastrophe.
“Someone’s got to talk about this issue while there’s still some chance that we can solve the problem,” he says.
In this troubling documentary, Chris travels around the world in search of answers to difficult and sometimes controversial questions.
He wants to know why our population is growing so fast, what impact it’s having and whether anything can be done.
There are worrying discoveries. In Sao Paulo, Brazil, the megacity is on the verge of running out of water. Within 25 years, London could be next.
In Nigeria, Chris visits a community surviving against the odds and a school that might hold the answer to a fall in the birth rate. But, as he stands on a mountain of rubbish, it’s clear there’s a huge problem with waste.
And in Britain, Chris interviews Sir David Attenborough who, like Chris, is a patron of the charity Population Matters.
This looks set to spark debate about our future on Earth.