David Attenborough Meets President Obama

Today is my 89th birthday, and, to my very considerable surprise,

I find myself in a place that I've never been to before

and which it is a great, great privilege to visit -

the White House.

In May 2015, Sir David Attenborough

met Barack Obama, President of the United States.

President Obama, the boy from Hawaii,

grew up watching David's films.

The blue whale!

The most powerful man in the Western world

has the issues of environment and climate change on his agenda.

I don't have much patience for anyone

who denies that this challenge is real.

We don't have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society!

APPLAUSE

Now he wants to meet the man he admires, who has filmed

the natural world for over 60 years and witnessed its many changes.

What is it that led to such a deep fascination

with how the natural world worked?

-Well, I've never met a child...

-Who's not fascinated?

..who's not interested in natural history.

Together they discuss the future of the planet...

What are the prospects for this... blue marble that we live on?

..their passion for nature...

..on a reef with this multitude of multicoloured organisms,

the like of which you've never seen before!

..and what can be done to protect it.

If we find ways of generating

and storing power from renewable resources,

we will make the problem

with oil and coal and other carbon problems disappear.

It's early afternoon in Washington, DC.

David Attenborough is in the US,

and he's flown in early for a very special meeting.

He's en route to the White House,

and he makes a quick call to the Royal Society in London

to check on the latest report on climate change.

Hello, Martin.

I'm in Washington, and although this may sound rather fanciful,

I'm just about to be interviewed

by the President of the United States.

About conservation.

I rang to ask whether, in fact, it was possible for me

to use material from the report.

Yeah. Very good, then, I will.

I just didn't want to do it without referring to you or to Richard.

Oh, really? You were, in the Vatican?

And what did the Pope say about world population?

Oh, really?

Oh, well, that's something.

Indeed.

This is David's first visit to the White House,

and although he's no stranger to politicians and royalty,

he's never met an American President before.

-How are you, sir?

-Mr President, it is a great honour.

It is my honour. It's wonderful to see you.

Thank you so much for taking the time. Come on.

It's not as big as I think everybody expects it to be,

-cos it used to be a horse stable, the whole West Wing...

-Really?

..and Theodore Roosevelt converted it,

so there's not that much space to grow,

but the windows are wonderful.

-Fantastic.

-Yeah.

-Marvellous lighting.

-It is.

And that ceiling, too.

-There you go. How have you been?

-I've been well, thank you.

-Thank you for agreeing to this.

I grew up on some of your programming.

-Really?

-Of course.

-DAVID LAUGHS

And, you know, since I grew up in Hawaii...

What a great place to grow up.

..you know, I had a natural affinity for the outdoors

-and an appreciation for...

-A lot of underwater swimming?

Oh, yes. You know, there's a place in Hawaii, Hanauma Bay,

which is now a natural preserve,

but it's a beautiful coral reef.

My mother, she always says that the reason I'm calm

is because when she was pregnant with me,

she used to go down to this bay and sit and listen to the water.

DAVID LAUGHS

President Obama is a huge admirer of David Attenborough and his films.

Today, he wants to sit down with him to discuss the future of the planet.

As one of the world's most respected wildlife film-makers,

David has spent the last 60 years travelling the globe,

gaining a unique insight into the changing natural world.

Here, there's virtually no water at all.

It's easy to see why the polar regions are so cold.

So it seems really very unfair that man should have chosen

the gorilla to symbolise all that is aggressive and violent,

when that's the one thing that the gorilla is not, and that we are.

David's fascination for nature began when he was a young boy,

collecting fossils in Charnwood Forest,

near his home in Leicestershire.

It was his first discoveries that sparked a curiosity that inspired

a lifelong search to uncover the secrets of the natural world.

The awe and wonder experienced by that seven-year-old

has only grown stronger.

THEY LAUGH

Sir David Attenborough, thank you so much for being here.

As I was telling you in our walk over,

I have been a huge admirer of your work for a very long time.

How did you get interested in nature and wanting to record it?

When you think back, after this storied career...

..what is it that led you to such a deep fascination

with how the natural world worked?

-Well, I've never met a child...

-Who's not fascinated?

..who's not interested in natural history.

So, I mean, just the simplest thing,

a five-year-old turning over a stone and seeing a slug,

you know, and says "What a treasure!

"How does it live? What are those things on the front?"

Kids love it!

Kids understand the natural world, and they're fascinated by it.

-You just never grew up?

-So the question is, how did you lose it?

-How did anyone lose the interest in nature?

-Yeah.

-And certainly, I never lost it.

-Yeah.

-But if you do lose it -

and I imagine there are lots of other attractions that can

divert your attention - you've lost a very, very great treasure.

At what point did you decide that you wanted to...

make it your life's work to help record it?

I don't think I ever dared say it was a life's work,

because, after all, when I started there wasn't any television,

and all I knew was I wanted to try

and understand the way the world works, the natural world works.

It's a great fascination.

And so I took zoology and natural sciences at university,

but then I had to go into the Navy - it was the end of the war

and I was conscripted into the Navy for a couple of years -

and then I got it when I came out,

I didn't think I was cut out to be a proper scientist...

But anyway, I went into television and managed to...

I was going to say "manipulate" television to allow me

to go and see these wonderful things,

which is what I've been doing ever since, pretty well.

When David first started in television in 1952,

it was a new frontier.

And the young television producer

soon found a way of mixing his passion with his work.

Within a few years of joining the BBC, he helped launch Zoo Quest,

one of the very first natural history series.

At first, he was rejected as presenter

because his bosses felt his teeth were too big.

But when their first choice fell ill,

the budding young producer stepped in at the last minute.

The birds of paradise, are, I think, the most romantic

and fantastic birds in the world.

Zoo Quest was ground-breaking,

filming animals in their natural habitat

and then bringing them back to the studio.

Now, could we see her?

-Well!

-Hello, Jane.

Hello! Oh, bless.

DAVID LAUGHS Well, now.

Well, now.

He went on to take a senior management role within the BBC,

where his vision would help change the landscape of television.

It was in this role that he had the idea for a series

that would tell the story of all the life on our planet.

A project of this breadth and scale had never been attempted before...

and in 1979, it became a reality.

'In fact, nobody knows exactly how many different kinds of animals

'there are here. Wherever you look, there's life.'

His Life On Earth series

was watched by over 500 million people worldwide.

For Barack Obama, growing up between the reefs of Hawaii

and rainforests of Indonesia,

those early Attenborough films captured his imagination.

Growing up in Hawaii,

it was one of the things that taught me...

not only to appreciate nature,

but also that you had to care for it.

And...you know, because we spent so much time outside.

And I think there was part of the native Hawaiian culture,

that is true of many native cultures,

the sense of needing to care for the environment that you're in...

that sometimes we lose when we live in big cities.

What was the most dangerous or scariest experience you had

in all your travels

as you were trying to record these amazing things?

Well, the truthful answer is that I've very seldom been in danger,

but the one time when you are in danger

is if you encounter a male Homo sapiens

who doesn't speak your language, who's had a bit too much to drink.

-They are dangerous creatures.

-They're dangerous creatures.

Yeah, absolutely. Especially when they're in packs!

That's right. Otherwise, I've never been seriously attacked,

but mainly that's because I'm a coward.

I mean, I don't want things to attack me, so I don't go that close.

You don't get too close to them!

When you think of your favourite trips

or your favourite discoveries

or places in the world that you wish you could take everybody to

so that they could really appreciate

what this marvellous gift we've gotten is, what comes to mind?

Well, I think you would agree with me

that the moment you first dive on a barrier...on a coral reef,

with tanks, so that you are weightless -

being weightless is enough to make a memorable event for you.

But when you can do it on a reef

with this multitude of multicoloured organisms,

the like of which you've never seen before,

and you can just, with a flick of your fin

you can go down or you can go up,

and then you can see these great sharks and things coming in

from the ocean, that surely has to be one of the great sensations.

It's a new world.

One of David's very first dives

was on the Great Barrier Reef in the early days of scuba.

'What a world this was.

'Beneath me lay an endless landscape of coral

'of every conceivable colour and shape.'

Now, almost 60 years later,

he returns to this underwater wonderland for a major new series

currently being made for the BBC that will air next year.

In this series, David will use cutting-edge submersibles

to reach areas of the reef that have never been seen before

and shed new light on this spectacular environment.

Nobody has ever dived as deep as this before on the Great Barrier Reef.

In more than half a century since his first visit,

David has seen our understanding of this marine paradise grow enormously

but he's also witnessed some devastating changes.

When I heard that you had gone down,

you had dove into the Great Barrier Reef again -

60 years after the first time you did it? -

-Yes.

-..that impressed me.

Ah, but I was in a sub.

I mean, I was in a very, very remarkable research sub,

-and we went down to over 300 metres.

-Oh, so you went way down in there.

And that was just mind-blowing, of course.

Tell me how the Great Barrier Reef looked to you today

compared to the first time that you went there.

And what story does that tell us

about how we're doing in conserving these incredible treasures?

Well, of course, the whole population of Australia

has increased a very great deal, so the population

up the east coast of Queensland has grown, and so has industry,

and wherever there are human beings and wherever there is industry,

there are consequences,

and the consequences on the coast are likely to be not too good

for the reef, which is quite true.

And the Australians are addressing that.

The real problem on the reef

is the global one, which is what is happening with

the increase in acidification and the rise in the ocean temperature.

And the Australians have done research on coral now

-and they know for sure it will kill coral...

-Right.

..it will kill the species of coral.

And what they're concerned about now is...

I mean, that seems almost inevitable. What it seems now is,

can they find the right species to maintain the reef's population?

Right. So, really, there's a mitigation strategy

that they're trying to come up with,

but what we're seeing is global trends

that...depend on the entire world working together.

-Yes.

-And, sadly, it seems as if

we haven't made as much progress as we need to on climate change.

Now, given the work that you've done, though, the good news

is that there are some areas where we HAVE made progress.

We've been able, here in the United States, for example,

with the Clean Air and the Clean Water Act,

to clean up areas that 20, 30, 40 years ago

seemed like they'd never recover,

and once we took some sensible steps,

turns out that nature was fairly resilient.

But it required us being fairly intentional

and really go after the problem in a serious way.

Certainly, the resilience of the natural world

gives you great hope, really.

Give nature half a chance, it really takes it and works with it.

But we are throwing huge problems at it.

The National Parks of the USA are a good example

of where land has been protected and nature has flourished.

Yet here there's a rodent that manages to find food

throughout the winter months,

and it does so with an extremely ingenious device.

It's in these parks that President Obama is continuing the tradition

of other presidents, preserving millions of acres of land and water.

-OBAMA:

-I can't think of a better way to spend Earth Day

than in one of our nation's greatest national treasures, the Everglades.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

But part of the reason we're here is because climate change

is threatening this treasure.

This is not a problem for another generation, not any more.

This is a problem now.

His recent initiatives have been aimed at motivating

the young people of America to see the great outdoors for themselves.

You know, one of my predecessors, Teddy Roosevelt,

-started the National Parks, and...

-Yeah, I mean...

-..what a legacy.

The United States was the model for the world -

I mean, Yosemite and so on

-and the founding of those great National Parks.

-Right.

Yes, indeed, have I travelled there,

and boy, what a wonderful time one has there.

-Yeah.

-And great lodges, and great treks, and...

And the space, still! It doesn't...

You know, all these visitors come

and yet you can still be alone up there.

It's one of the great, I think, secrets of the United States, is...

..how big it is, and there are big chunks of it

that are still undisturbed. And when you fly over the country,

you're reminded about what a blessing it is.

There aren't many places with such low density

where you can just walk for miles.

Well, to have in your own country the Okefenokee Swamp down there

and the glaciers of Alaska up there

-and Yosemite, and the Rockies over there... Oh, gosh!

-Yeah.

Well, that's part of the reason why what we've been doing

is trying to initiate ways to get more children and young people

to use the parks.

And as you said, so many of these kids are growing up cut off -

they're sitting on the couch, they're playing video games,

if they experience nature, it's through a television screen.

And just getting them out there

so that they're picking up that rock and finding that slug...

They're seeing that bird with colours

-that they've never seen before.

-And they're learning

a bit of self-reliance, too. I mean, it's very, very difficult,

if you've never been in the outside, to find yourself in a forest.

I mean, I've been humiliated enough in Amazon forests -

losing myself, I mean - and you really do feel an idiot.

And the local people, tribespeople, look at you,

thinking, "You're lost?! Where were you brought up?"

-The answer is "not in the forest".

-Yeah.

But kids can learn, and they love it when they do.

During David's lifetime,

the natural world has undergone enormous changes.

Since beginning his journeys around the world,

the ozone hole was discovered...

..global warming was detected...

..and extinctions have increased.

To this day, David continues to witness the impact first-hand.

What.... What are the prospects for this...

..blue marble that we live on in the middle of space?

Do you get a sense that we're going to be able

to get ahead of these problems? Do you think that, you know,

with the prospects of climate change, rising populations,

that it's realistic for us to be able to get a handle

on these issues and reverse some of the problems?

Or are you more pessimistic?

I believe that if we find ways of generating and storing power

from renewable resources, we will make the problem with oil and coal

and other carbon problems disappear,

-because economically, we will wish to use these other methods.

-Right.

And if we do that, a huge step will have been taken

towards solving the problems of the Earth.

Well, I think you're right about that there's got to be

an economic component to this.

Nowhere is such an economic conflict more apparent than in Africa,

where the natural world is clashing with the rapidly growing human one.

Nobody knows what the future has in store for this little calf...

CALF SQUEAKS

DAVID IMITATES IT

..or, indeed, how the changes that inevitably are going to

take place in Africa will affect the rest of the world,

and this little animal.

Throughout his many years of travel across this continent, David has

become familiar with the unique projects to protect its wildlife.

President Obama's connection to this continent is even more personal,

as Kenya is his paternal home.

His ancestral roots lie 300 miles west of Nairobi,

where his father was born and raised.

CHEERING

I am so proud to come back home and see all...

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE DROWN OUT SPEECH

Like David, he is passionate

about Africa's natural beauty and wildlife,

and has created initiatives to help protect it.

You know, my father was from Kenya,

and I still remember the first time I went to Maasai Mara

and the Serengeti and saw the great migration,

and, you know, it's like going back to the Garden of Eden

when you see the wildebeest and the zebras, and you're transported.

But I remember talking to the rangers out there, and, you know,

they're dealing with issues of poaching and other problems,

but the principal problem initially that they had

was that the populations around the parks

didn't feel any economic incentive to help preserve it.

And when the National Parks started to work WITH the local farmers

and saying to them, "There's ways for you to do well

"while still conserving this great treasure that we have,"

that's when you got co-operation,

and I think all too often we pose this

as an "economic development versus environment" problem

rather than recognising there's a way of marrying those two concerns.

That indeed is the case, but the trouble is that

as fast as you find solutions along those lines,

the problem grows bigger,

-because the increase in population in Kenya is...

-Serious.

..is very, very considerable.

And it's very difficult, if you're growing a family

and you want to grow your own food and so on,

and you can see all that space occupied by elephants or whatever.

-Right, right.

-So, "What about us?"

-Exactly, and that's why...

-Population growth is one of the huge problems.

-Yeah.

David was recently filming a series in China

as the world's population was crossing the seven billion mark.

This little boy's name is Xiao Bao.

It means "little treasure".

In David's lifetime, the world's population has more than tripled.

He and President Obama agree that population growth

is one of the major issues facing the planet today.

We're spending a lot of time, including working with my wife,

around issues of girls' education.

Turns out that when young women are getting proper schooling

and see opportunity,

they're less likely to have children early -

smaller families, population stabilises,

and so it actually ends up helping not only those young women succeed

and look after their children, but it also helps the...

-Certainly so.

-..you know, the environment.

So you have to have a literate, informed population

with medical understanding of what the problems are

and what's available, and then the population, the birth-rate falls.

It's not the end of the story,

but the birth-rates falling is a start.

In tackling these issues, both President Obama

and David embrace the latest developments in communication

to reach millions of people around the world.

CHEERING

Obama was the first to use social media

as a major campaign strategy to secure his presidency.

The audience is changing.

The audience is no longer sitting in front of armchairs

and the family and saying, "Look at the television."

You're doing it how you want to do it, WHERE you want to do it

and WHEN you want to do it.

The internet now connects billions of people all over the world,

and the potential is clear.

This is a huge and valuable weapon that has been put in our hands,

put in the hands of anybody and everybody

who cares about the future of this greatly imperilled world.

So perhaps it's no surprise that David Attenborough

and President Obama occupy the all-time top two spots of Reddit,

one of the largest social media sites in the world.

The internet's been a powerful tool, though, for this generation,

I think, to become aware of all the wonders of the world.

When you were starting off,

maybe you could get a programme on once every so often.

-Now on your telephone you can see...

-DAVID LAUGHS

..you know, glaciers and the Amazon and...

Well, it is an extraordinary paradox, isn't it,

that the United Nations tells us

that over 50% of the human population on the planet

are urbanised, which means that,

to some degree, they are cut off from the natural world -

and after all, some people are totally cut off,

they don't see a wild creature from dawn till dusk,

-unless it's a rat or a pigeon.

-Right.

And yet at the same time, mass media can get at and inform those people

as to what the natural world is.

If they don't understand about the workings of the natural world,

they won't take the trouble to protect it.

That's one of the roles that the media should have,

of maintaining a link between the population

and an understanding of what goes on in the natural world,

because why should they give up money on taxes, come to that,

to protect the natural world unless they actually care about it?

The interesting thing is, though, my daughters, I find,

Malia and Sasha, they're 16 and 13 now,

they're much more environmentally aware, this generation...

-I believe that.

-..more than previous generations.

They do not dispute, for example, the science around climate change.

-No.

-They think it's self-apparent that we've got a problem

and that we should be doing something about it.

Yeah. I absolutely agree. Certainly the letters I get,

they bring tears to the eyes, from kids of all ages.

And the young people, they care!

They know that this is the world they're going to grow up in,

that they're going to spend the rest of their lives in,

but I think it's more idealistic than that.

They actually believe that humanity,

human species has no right to destroy and despoil regardless.

-They actually feel that very powerfully.

-They do.

Like many,

David believes the world's natural resources are seriously at risk.

With just 18 months left in office,

President Obama hopes that one of his legacies

will be to have helped protect the environment.

The climate is changing faster than our efforts to address it.

He recently signed an agreement with China

for both nations to cap their emissions.

The United States has set a new goal of reducing

our net greenhouse gas emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels

by the year 2025.

President Obama had great hopes to tackle the energy crisis

facing our planet, but he knows there's still a lot to do.

What concerns me is that when we're sitting in Europe,

we see what you did by saying,

"We're going to put a man on the moon in ten years."

Supposing you said, "In ten years, the United States

"will organise the world and energise the world to find a solution,

"to find a way of producing energy with no problems" -

that is to say, exploiting sunshine, to a degree,

and finding ways of storing electricity.

Because if you did that, so much would be solved,

problems would be solved.

Well, that's what we're going to be shooting for.

I mean, we've made enormous investments,

we've doubled our investment

in clean energy here in the United States.

I just last year came back from China with

an agreement from the Chinese to work with us on reducing emissions.

But we're not moving as fast as we need to, and the...

Part of what I know from watching your programmes

and all the great work you've done

is that these, you know, these ecosystems are...

..are all interconnected,

and that if just one country is doing the right thing

but other countries are not, we're not going to solve the problem.

We're going to have to have a global solution to this.

And the solutions are global, have to be global,

and that has been the huge encouragement

over the past ten years, that the United States and indeed China -

two vast, important nations -

have actually agreed to take these steps.

That surely will go down in history as epoch-making,

-but the job is not yet done.

-No, we're far from it.

If you were to think about how we could raise awareness...

Because you've been a great educator as well as a great naturalist.

How do you think we can reach the public around these issues,

not only to make them aware of the dangers

of an issue like climate change,

but also to feel a sense of agency and capacity to change it?

Another way of asking this is maybe, what do you think

are some of the most stubborn misconceptions about nature

that lead us not always to get out in front of these problems?

I think only unfamiliarity.

And I don't see how you can hope to take somebody who has

spent the first 16 years of his life surrounded by bricks and mortar

and then suddenly put him in the middle of a rainforest

and expect him to find his way or to know how to live

or indeed how to survive and find food.

And I'm not sure that that is absolutely necessary, anyway.

I think what is required is an understanding and a gut feeling

that you understand that the natural world is part of your inheritance.

This is the planet on which we live,

it's the only one we've got, and we've got to protect it.

And people do feel that, deeply and instinctively,

and it is, after all...

The natural world is where you go in moments of celebration

and in moments of grief.

It is the greatest prop and stay to humanity's own...

feeling for himself, itself, herself, ourself.

Well, you know, if you think about...um...

in all the world's religions, you know, when you're seeking wisdom,

you're seeking to hear God,

you're in the desert or you go to great waters,

or you go up to great mountain peaks.

You know, the amazement of the natural world and its powers,

you know, that's what speaks to what's deepest in us,

and, you know, what's critically important

is making sure that we're passing that on to future generations.

You know, you and I, we've been blessed to be able to see it

and experience it and be moved by it,

and I want to make sure that my daughters and their children

are experiencing that same thing.

-Mr President, thank you very much.

-Well, I was a good pupil of yours.

-DAVID LAUGHS

-Thank you so much.

-Thank you very much indeed.

-Great to talk to you.

My experience is that everybody surrounding the great man

is very concerned about protocol, but the great man himself is not.

I've got an official birthday present from the President.

-I'm extremely grateful.

-All right? Thank you so much.

-It was a great honour to meet you.

-Thank you.

-I really enjoyed it.

He couldn't have been more direct, friendly or kind and generous

in what he said.

It was my 89th birthday, and...

so there were... Americans go in for birthday celebrations.

They love singing Happy Birthday, it seems,

and provide you with a cake at all opportunities.

-ALL:

-# Happy birthday to you... #

So I have run a gauntlet of cakes and Happy Birthdays today,

which is all very touching. I've never had a birthday like it.

But then, I've never had any other day like it, either.