Popular British naturalist David Attenborough has warned that devastating events that include a mass extinction event and another pandemic outbreak could hit the earth before 2100 unless human beings do something to save the planet. Comparing the current state of planet earth to Pripyat, the Ukraine city, which was abandoned due to the Chernobyl disaster, Attenborough revealed that catastrophic events will be triggered silently before anyone could realize it.
Silence before the storm
Attenborough believes that the upcoming mass extinction event that could hit the earth could be more disastrous than the Chernobyl tragedy.
"It didn't begin with a single explosion. It started silently before anyone realized it. We are all people of Pripyat now. We live our comfortable lives in the shadow of a disaster of our own making," wrote David Attenborough in a column for Daily Mail.
According to Attenborough, planet earth has witnessed five mass extinction events in history, and each of these events had left only a few survivors. The naturalist made it clear that the sixth extinction event that could hit the earth will be more dangerous than floods, hurricanes, and summer wildfires.
Human acts responsible for the upcoming tragedy
Attenborough revealed that humans are pushing nature's boundaries which is in turn destabilizing planet earth. The British naturalist believes that Earth's life-support machine will be destabilized if humans continue doing irresponsible acts against the law of nature. He also added that humans have already breached the first four of the nine thresholds in nature comprised of climate change, fertilizer use, land conversion, biodiversity loss, air pollution, ozone-layer depletion, ocean acidification, chemical pollution, and freshwater withdrawals.
Attenborough also warned about the illegal deforestation happening in Amazon forests, which is considered the lungs of the earth. He forecast that reduction of Amazon forests could negatively affect the stability of the planet, as this rain forests will fail to produce enough moisture to feed the raincloud.
"After decades of aggressive deforestation and illegal burning in the Amazon basin, to secure more land for agriculture, the Amazon rainforest is on course to be reduced to 75 percent of its original extent by the 2030s. This may prove to be a tipping point when the forest becomes suddenly unable to produce enough moisture to feed the rainclouds, and parts of the Amazon degrade into a seasonal dry forest, then an open savannah," added Attenborough.
