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For their first episode, the filmmakers behind Netflix’s Our Planet series travelled to Greenland to capture the terrifying power of a collapsing glacier. With their dramatic footage of a calving event – as it is known in scientific parlance – they managed to document an event that is becoming increasingly common as our planet continues to warm.

“Glaciers have always released ice into the ocean, but now this is happening nearly twice as fast as it did ten years ago,” narrates David Attenborough, explaining that the influx of freshwater from melting ice is rising sea levels, changing salinity and disrupting ocean currents around the world. On screen in dramatic whites and blues, the calving is bewitchingly beautiful, but the devastating impact of rising sea levels elsewhere in the world is nowhere to be seen. Neither does Attenborough explain why glacier calving is happening more frequently in the first place.


Climate change is lurking in the background of many wildlife documentaries. But are they really getting the message across about how our world is being irreversibly changed?

Visualising climate change is no simple task says Laura Thomas-Walters, a researcher at the University of Kent. In a study published in the journal People and Nature, the conservation scientist and her colleagues from Bangor University, Newcastle University and the University of Oxford coded the scripts from the four most recent David Attenborough narrated nature documentaries – Netflix’s Our Planet (2019) and the BBC’s Dynasties (2018), Blue Planet II (2017) and Planet Earth II (2016) to find out how much time each series dedicated to exploring threats against nature.

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Climate change is often visualised in the same way, says Thomas-Walters, with the image of a polar bear on melting ice being a classic example. “Having things which show the impact on humans tend to be more effective.” This could include the depiction of severe weather events such as hurricanes and floods as they affect both humans and wildlife.

The team’s analysis revealed that Our Planet dedicated 15 per cent of the script to environmental threats and conservation. The only other series coming close to this figure was the BBC’s Blue Planet II, but mostly left these issues to be discussed in a dedicated final episode rather than mentioning them throughout the series.


Of the threats mentioned in Our Planet, climate change came only third after hunting and habitat loss. “I would guess hunting is more engaging for a lot of western audiences,” says Thomas-Walters. “It’s also one that we can feel less guilty about.” It is easier for viewers to learn about animals being hunted in African or Asian countries rather than right at their doorstep. Watching footage illustrating the causes and effects of climate change – which is caused by increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that are linked to human activities such as burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and agriculture – may, for some viewers, be too close to home.

The research team behind Climate Visuals previously suggested images and videos should show the causes of climate change at scale to better communicate “problematic” behaviours as people do not necessarily understand the links between climate change and their daily lives. So an aerial image of a congested highway, for instance, could convey a more powerful message than one of a single driver.

Although Our Planet mentioned the threats to nature more often throughout the series, the researchers noted how visually similar it was to the other series they analysed. “To raise awareness, they not only need to talk about the threats but actually show them,” says Niki Rust, a research associate at Newcastle University, who was also involved in the research. Visual depictions of the threats to nature remained scarce in Our Planet. The natural world was generally shown as pristine and separate from humans – something nature documentaries have previously been criticised for.

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Rust clarifies that nature documentaries shouldn’t be all about environmental gloom and doom. They should show the devastation and inspire hope and action at the same time. “If we don't show the true extent of biodiversity loss in a natural history film, that could almost be seen as hiding part of the truth,” she says.


Nature documentaries have the potential to encourage behavioural change. The BBC’s Blue Planet II series has been highly praised for putting plastic pollution at the forefront of people’s minds and on the political agenda. A recent survey commissioned by Waitrose suggested that nine in ten respondents had reduced their use of single-use plastics after watching the series’ final episode. Julian Hector, head of the BBC Studios Natural History Unit says: “If you were to ask anyone which recent Sir David Attenborough programme has done most to raise awareness for environmental issues and conservation, the answer on most people's lips would be Blue Planet II.”

Rust says it is still not well understood to what extent nature documentaries elicit behavioural change – and what visuals, narratives and framing may be most effective in doing so. “There’s no consensus on what change we want. We need researchers to work with nature documentary producers to answer these questions,” she says.

While the Attenborough-voiced documentaries may not be completely representative of the current state of our natural world, Thomas-Walters remains positive about their potential in supporting conservation and advises against focusing purely on negative messaging as viewers could feel attacked and lose hope. “You need to couple it with constructive information on what people can do if they want to make a change,” she says. Both Netflix and the BBC made some information available on their website once their documentaries were aired, but the question is how many viewers made the effort to go online once they switched off their TVs.

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