{"text":[[{"start":6,"text":"The 100th birthday on Friday of Sir David Attenborough has triggered a deserved torrent of tributes for his role as the world’s most authoritative voice on nature and the environment. He is not only the pre-eminent “national treasure” in his native UK but admired globally for the way he has deepened popular appreciation for life on Earth, while warning of its vulnerability to human activity and climate change."}],[{"start":31.1,"text":"The ingredients that enabled Attenborough to achieve so much over 70 years of broadcasting are so personal that we cannot expect any single individual to match his impact in future. Besides a warm yet authoritative presence and an infectious sense of curiosity in front of the camera, his earlier parallel career as a pioneering executive with BBC television gave him a strong feeling for how to engage audiences."}],[{"start":57.2,"text":"Although Attenborough did not work as a scientist after his undergraduate course in natural sciences at Cambridge university, his wildlife programmes have a scientific rigour that commands respect among professional zoologists and biologists. There has been plenty of emotion in his filmmaking, exemplified by the famous encounter with a family of mountain gorillas in Rwanda in 1979, but he takes care not to let feelings override ecological facts."}],[{"start":83.85,"text":"Blessed with an extraordinarily long and healthy life, Attenborough had time first to build trust by communicating without an overtly political message, and then to deliver increasingly urgent warnings in his more recent series about the need to protect biodiversity from global warming and activities such as industrial-scale fishing. Others established global reputations as science communicators during the second half of the 20th century, such as the French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau and US cosmologist Carl Sagan, but none lived long enough to match him. "}],[{"start":116.64999999999999,"text":"On the whole, Attenborough’s huge achievements in raising awareness of the glories of the natural world and the growing threats it faces have not had much demonstrable effect on policymakers. Although his programmes on the oceans may have catalysed action against plastic pollution and bottom trawling, biodiversity loss and climate change continue to accelerate. We should not see this as a personal failure as no single individual can reverse the global forces causing ecological decline. On the contrary, things might have been even worse without Attenborough."}],[{"start":148.54999999999998,"text":"Media observers sometimes speculate about who might become the “next David Attenborough”. Names mentioned in the UK include the biologist Alice Roberts and physicist Brian Cox. In reality it is impossible to imagine anyone emerging in today’s increasingly fragmented media landscape to match Attenborough, who rose to fame when there were few television channels and no internet."}],[{"start":171.99999999999997,"text":"Rather than looking for an individual successor, we should replicate Attenborough’s strengths in the growing numbers of science communicators who are active across the media landscape, from legacy broadcasters to platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. A new army of scientific influencers is forming, determined to counter the rising tide of misinformation and pseudoscience washing through social media, particularly on health, environment and climate. It will be in the interest of traditional scientific institutions to support these digital natives, who can often communicate better with young people."}],[{"start":206.79999999999995,"text":"At the same time big media organisations — and not just the BBC and Netflix which commissioned Attenborough’s programmes — should be encouraged to invest in new nature and science series, which are a proven draw for viewers. The legacy of David Attenborough will not just be his own magnificent body of work but a legion of trusted successors, communicating the wonders of our world to its inhabitants."}],[{"start":237.34999999999997,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1778319286_2427.mp3"}