David Attenborough's war stories

Natural history film-maker and TV producer David Attenborough says we need a 'moral change' to combat climate change. He claims we need a 'general moral view that wasting energy is wrong'.

Giving evidence to the House of Commons select committee on the environment, the 80-year old Attenborough told them young 'uns what it was like in his day: 'I grew up during the war and during the war it was a common view that wasting anything was wrong. It wasn't that we thought we were going to defeat Hitler by eating a lot of gristle in our meat but it was actually wrong not to eat our food.'

He's obviously been listening to former environment minister and green maverick Michael Meacher. (Meacher's website is subtitled 'Labour's Future' - it's not clear whether he thinks that refers to him.) He told GMTV in November, 'This is the one over-riding overall political issue which challenges the future of the human species on this planet. We are very good in this country at getting behind a collective cause which we all know has to be absolutely hugely overridingly important, as we did in 1939. I think we are at war over climate change and I think we can lead the country.'

Even if global warming turns out to be the problem that Attenborough and Meacher claim it is, the solution will not be found in turning your TV or lights off, or turning down the boiler by one degree. But a little bit of 'moral change' might be just the ticket for a society which is relatively well-off but devoid of any sense of direction. However, it's hardly a rosy vision of the future if you have to hark back to the 'good old days' when we were living through the bloodiest conflict in human history - a comparison which actually puts the problems that might be caused by a gradually warming planet into some serious perspective.

Attenborough urges 'moral change', BBC News, 13 December 2006

Britain 'at war' on climate change, Ananova