Extinction: The Facts

One of the last two white rhinos in the world.

I watched the latest documentary by David Attenborough on BBC1 called Exctinction: The Facts and it was important viewing but predictably depressing.

Basically that humans are awfully destructive and our over-consumption is wreaking havoc on the biodiversity of the planet. The main culprits are the consumption of beef, palm oil and soya. I don’t eat beef, try to avoid palm oil in ingredients but use soya milk in my tea and cereal so I’m motivated to find alternatives to my dairy alternative! The soya produced in Brazil is the most harmful the the world and Brazilian soya’s main markets are China and then the UK, mostly used for chicken feed.

Plastic pollution was also touched upon and the devastation it can cause once these banned plastics enter landfill and eventually decompose into global waterways. A pod of killer whales off the coast of Scotland haven’t produced a baby for over thirty years and a female killer whale who died from a fishing net injury was found to be infertile. Double horror really.

Other forms of life do not need our permission to exist but sadly Earth’s animals and plants find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time - trying to co-exist with greedy humans.

You can catch the programme on BBC iPlayer.