I recently posted on Sir David Attenborough, touting ability to educate us regarding nature. You might have thought, "Well, anyone could give a lively talk on the blue whale, the largest creature to ever live on Earth." Maybe so. But how many people have ever produced a spellbinding video on fungi? Attenborough and his team are often at their best when presenting species that seem mundane.
Not everyone has earned the right to burn oodles of carbon-based fuel in order to travel to both the North Pole and the South Pole. Sir David Attenborough has earned that right, based upon his exquisite, inspiring, nature documentaries. Yes, he's visiting the poles as part of an effort to produce yet another documentary, this one called "Frozen Planet." Here's the report from the U.K. times:
In more than half a century of bringing the world into our living rooms, Sir David Attenborough has travelled to pretty much every far-flung spot you can think of. But one inhospitable place, short on wildlife and good excuses for stopping by, remained unexplored by the veteran broadcaster. Now he has finally realised his boyhood ambition to stand on the top of the world.If you don't know Sir David Attenborough by name, you'll like know his face and his upbeat warm-hearted scientifically precise commentary. Here's one of my favorite clips, where he describes the anatomy of the blue whale:
If you like paper airplanes, you like the way the Alsomitra vine disperses its seeds. Commentary by Sir David Attenborough.
In this six minute Youtube video, David Attenborough illustrates this deep truth: All Life is Related. This is an especially elegant story these days, where so many people are looking for so many ways to divide humans from the other animals, and to divide many groups of human animals from other groups of human animals. BTW, for anyone who hasn't yet viewed any of David Attenborough's nature DVD's they are all thought-provoking and beautifully filmed. They aren't just spectacular videos of animals in the wild; they also contain Attenborough's elegant descriptions and explanations of what you are viewing. One of Attenborough's more recent efforts is Planet Earth (a STEAL for $36). I have just ordered, but have not yet viewed his most recent series, Nature's Most Amazing Events.