More than 50 years after his TV debut, David Attenborough remains Britain's best-loved broadcaster. Here, on the eve of his new series, the great naturalist answers a host of questions from our readers and from public figures, including Bill Oddie, Ray Mears and Jilly Cooper

David Attenborough: 'I have been in a vehicle that was charged by a rhinoceros, and that was tiresome'

If one were in any doubt about the stature of David Attenborough (and one isn't) the volume of emails from readers in response to our invitation to interview him would have made the point loud and clear and devotedly. Impossible to fillet, with any certainty, such a dossier, but the questions below are a stab at the survival of the fittest. The majority of readers chose the big themes – climate change, the future for animals, the survival of the planet – and took their cue from the great man himself, their questions informed by respectful curiosity. There was no hostile approach but there were several invitations to dinner and one proposal of marriage (these I, pusillanimously, failed to pass on). There were also one or two readers who seemed to hope Attenborough might supply them with a jump-start or dashing conclusion to their theses. These, too, I put to one side. What was clear before I had even launched the interrogatory list was that Attenborough is heartily sick of one question – about which animal he would choose to be himself. He vetoed this in advance (though he once answered it on radio, proposing himself charmingly, if unconvincingly, as a sloth).

It is revealing that he would rather not play this game at all. He is properly uneasy about anthropomorphism and a stranger to sentimentality. I'd say he is cautious about imagination too (more than one questioner wanted to know why he does not read fiction). His is a questing, tireless scientific intelligence. And learning about animals is distinct from learning from them. Attenborough does not believe we learn from animals nor vice versa. He absolves them of any responsibility to teach us. Nor does he tolerate being asked to choose between animals and humans: "Why should I prefer one or the other?"

The occasion for the interview is his latest two-part series David Attenborough's First Life and it is extraordinary. It is a new departure for Attenborough because it is about a world we cannot plan to visit. It inspects animals we cannot hope (or fear) to meet in the flesh. Thanks to ground-breaking collaborative work between computer graphic artists and scientists, the programme makes a super-informed guess at what the earth was like millions of years ago. It tells the story of the origins of life by examining modern descendants of primitive species and ancient fossils (for fossil-fanciers, these programmes will be a revelation).

Undaunted and, at 84, as interesting and interested as ever, Attenborough takes us with him to consider a planet which includes a forbidding ice age and much volcanic frenzy, a place minus men but stocked with inchoate predators, many of whom – as Attenborough wittily remarks – look as though they have been thrown together in haste, a random assembly of body parts. The opposite turns out to be true – and we get the most lucid account of why each creature is as it is. Scientists have been consulted about every detail behind the accompanying visuals to ensure the prehistoric wildlife is as plausible as it can possibly be. But Attenborough is baffled when I suggest that the earth, as revealed in these programmes, seems a desolate, lonely, frightening place – with no people and so many unrecognisable creatures. What does he think of this brave old world? "It is so diverting – it is riveting," he says, with fire in his eyes. And of course, with Attenborough as our guide, that is undeniable too.

What the broadcasters, naturalists and celebrities asked Attenborough

I am always being asked my views on the continued growth of the human population. It is a bit of a minefield. What are your views? Jane Goodall primatologist

David Attenborough The world's population has grown three times bigger since I started making television programmes, and the notion that you could have that vast increase in one species without having some kind of deleterious effect is obvious nonsense. If there are three times as many people, they have all got to have houses. They all want to have food. They all want to have cars. They all want to travel by air. And where does all that space come from? The only place it can come from is the natural world. And it is absolutely evident that this can't go on for ever. So what is going to stop it? Either the natural world will stop it – and the natural world is already stopping it in Africa with great disasters. Or else we do something ourselves. Now, of course, it is a minefield. But nonetheless you have got to tread into it. The one hope is this: wherever women are given the vote, are allowed to be literate, are allowed to have control over their own lives and have the medical facilities that enable them to do so, whenever that happens, the birth rate falls.

I have often found myself being drawn to, or dreaming about, certain animals at different periods in my life. In Native American culture it is said that animals come to teach you specific wisdom or lessons. Do you have a spirit animal? Natasha Khan (aka Bat for Lashes) musician

No. Easy… [laughs].

When dogs walk round and round their basket before sitting down, are they instinctively checking for snakes? Or are they making their beds more comfortable? Jilly Cooper novelist

Anybody's guess. But what dogs do in the wild is they flatten grass around themselves to make a nice little place to sleep. There are plenty of areas where there aren't any snakes so I think it has to be that they are making a bed for themselves.

Given that we live in an age of extinctions, how successful has wildlife documentary been in terms of conservation? And if you were beginning your career again today, what direction would you take? Would it be the same? Ray Mears explorer/broadcaster

I started in the 50s when conservation was hardly known about by the general public. Peter Scott, who was a great television natural historian, had just started the World Wildlife Fund, so the conservation movement was in its infancy. Back then there was hardly anybody else doing natural history programmes. Now a lot of people do it, there are programmes all over the place, and there has been increasing concern about conservation. If you compared the amount of money that the public gave to conservation charities then with what they give now, you'd see it has grown absolutely fantastically. So is there a correlation between the rise in wildlife documentaries and public interest in conservation? I would like to think that there is.

If I were beginning my career today, I don't think I would take the same direction. Television is at a crossroads at the moment. And although I am not up to date technologically, I suspect that somewhere out there people are conveying things about natural history by means other than television, and I think if I were beginning today, I'd be there.

Do animals believe in God? Simon Armitage poet

We have no evidence one way or the other.

What do you consider the greatest conservation success of our time? Steve Backshall adventurer/broadcaster

Well, I don't believe there would be mountain gorillas now if it hadn't been for [US zoologist] Dian Fossey. And I believe that unless the Ecuadorian government had taken a firm line about the Galapagos Islands there wouldn't be much left there either. But, by and large, we are not doing very well on successes.

How much are you involved in the scriptwriting process? And do you have any say in the music? Bill Oddie naturalist/broadcaster

It depends. With some programmes I start from scratch and write it all myself. In others there are talented directors as well who will be moulding the programme with some words in mind.

With First Life I would say I wrote about 80% of the words. There are programmes which I just narrate but this isn't one of them. I would like to think that I was the author of these programmes. But I don't have much to do with music.

What three things would you suggest need to happen to galvanise the public to take responsibility for the future of our planet? Michael Dixon director of the Natural History Museum

What really makes things happen, of course, are disasters. And who would want that? But even disasters don't seem to shake us. There have been plenty of disasters recently, and then you forget about them. You forget about New Orleans… [But in terms of initiatives] I don't know the answer…

Who is the most inspirational person you have met? Michaela Strachan broadcaster

Nelson Mandela.

What our readers asked Attenborough...

I'm a huge fan and want to be just like you when I grow up. How did you become a documentary film-maker, and what advice would you have for a young naturalist wishing to follow in your footsteps? Lukas Hotes, aged eight, from Heuchelheim, Germany

Try and make your own film. It is very easy now. It wasn't in my time but these days home video is not all that expensive and you could start with home video and try and make a story about a sparrow or an earthworm or a hedgehog or a blue tit, and you will then discover how you put shots and pictures together in order to tell a story, and whether you have got any skill at doing so, and whether you want to spend your time sitting in a tent waiting for a bird to do something. And, having done that, you will end up with something that you can then show to somebody who has got money and wants a programme – and you can say: 'There you are, this is what I can do on no money at all… why don't you help me do something more ambitious?'

What is your favourite bird? Ali Sakkout, aged six, from Cairo

Bird of paradise.

What is the one item that you take everywhere when you are travelling? Tamla Thornton, student, Torquay

My key to my front door.

Of all the currently threatened species (or groups of species – ie frogs), which ones in your opinion should demand the most attention to save? Toren Atkinson, singer, Vancouver, Canada:

There is no hierarchy. There should be enough people around to care for everything.

What was the scariest moment and/or the scariest animal that you have ever filmed? Alex Combeer, aged nine, from France

It is the job of a natural history film-maker not to get into those situations. If you are going to be in a dangerous situation, the likelihood is there is somebody standing around with a gun to shoot something.. So I am not very keen on danger.

I have been in a Land Rover that was charged by a rhinoceros, and that was tiresome. But if you are making natural history films, what you are trying to do is show the animal as it normally lives, and animals don't normally spend their time attacking human beings.

What is your earliest memory? Lizzy Dening, journalist, Cambridge

Sitting halfway up a staircase by a window, in Isleworth, where I was born. I would have been three.

How do you feel about the carbon footprint of programmes such as Planet Earth, which travel across the globe to highlight the effects of global warming on our planet? And what do you personally do in the way of recycling, being energy efficient and supporting sustainable/renewable energy sources?

Imogen Marx, customer service professional, Brighton

Dealing with global warming doesn't mean we have all got to suddenly stop breathing. Dealing with global warming means that we have to stop waste, and if you travel for no reason whatsoever, that is a waste. If you travel in a vehicle that absorbs many times more fuel than is necessary, that's a waste. And I am against waste. I would like to think that if I go on a journey, I go on a journey for a reason. I mean, the reason could be seeing my grandchildren, which I think is perfectly OK, thank you very much [laughs]. Or it could be because I am going to make a programme, which I also hope is OK.

I am an ardent recycler. I would like to think that it works. I don't know whether it does or not. I put in all these bulbs that mean I can't see anything for more than 30 seconds. I don't put an electric fire on if I don't need it. I do put on a sweater. I am installing solar panels in my house at the moment. It is all a tremendous fiddle and you just hope it is going to contribute.

What plays on your mind when you are trying to get to sleep? Sam Atherton, junior doctor, Manchester

What I have been trying to write, or a problem I have been dealing with in the evening or, indeed, something I may have read that is very challenging that keeps the mind spinning.

What do you hate most about life in the 21st century? Liz Cunliffe, music teacher, Paris

Crowds, I suppose.

Where would you most like to visit that you haven't been? James Walford, software developer, Copenhagen

In a ruminative way, as I sit in my slippers by the fire, I wish I had been to the Gobi desert. I haven't, for the very good reason that there are not a lot of animals there. So if you have got to bring your employers back a rich series of programmes, they are going to cost you a lot of money if you make them in the Gobi desert. So I have never done it and I suppose I never shall.

Is there any animal you have not seen that you would like to? Yasmin Wooldridge, poet, Saskatchewan, Canada, and Adam Campbell, client services, Sydney

I'd like to see the giant squid. Nobody has ever seen one. I could tell you people who have spent thousands and thousands of pounds trying to see giant squid. I mean, we know they exist because we have seen dead ones. But I have never seen a living one. Nor has anybody else.

As you get older – this is a rather impertinent question, I'm afraid – do you examine the changes in yourself as a curious naturalist? And is it fascinating or horrifying? Ian Andrews, teacher, Mayenne, France

[Laughs] It is not particularly fascinating. I certainly observe them, but I am not particularly fascinated. I am rather dismayed.

Is there an animal that you think has a sense of humour? Dave Kempton, retired police officer, Highnam, Gloucestershire

I am pretty sure that chimps do.

In cases where a plant is impersonating an insect visually for purposes of pollination, how has the plant "seen" what the insect looks like? Tony Moon, film-maker/university lecturer, Brighton

The answer is that the plant hasn't seen what the insect looks like. The insect has seen what the plant looks like, and the closer it comes to the female that it is impersonating, the better and more effective it is so that it is the insect which is carrying out natural selection not the plant.

What are your views on vegetarianism? Michael Steer, student, Barnsley, South Yorkshire

I think that if there is such a thing as biological morality, you might say that we evolved as omnivores. We don't have long guts like a cow to digest nothing but vegetation. We have molars, which are there to grind up, but we also have canine teeth, which are good for eating meat. So I think that, biologically, we evolved as omnivores and not as vegetarians. However, as I get older, I get more and more distressed about what I discover about the way that animals are killed [for meat]. There are other reasons for being vegetarian as the world starves – you can get much more sustenance from vegetation than from feeding that vegetation to animals and eating the meat. But I am not a vegetarian myself.

By the time your grandchildren are your age, what sort of world – if any – do you expect them to face? Andrew Molloy, teacher, San Sebastian, Spain

They have 50 years to go. A much more crowded one and a warmer one overall.

I remember sitting behind you as an undergraduate in crowded classes given by the eminent anthropologist Raymond Firth at the LSE in 1963. I have often wondered since if you were seriously considering at that time in your career changing your focus of interest from the natural world towards human cultures? Charles Hunt, retired curator, Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire

The answer is yes. I had made animal programmes for over a decade, and I was very interested in some of the people with whom I had been living in that process. And I decided to resign from the BBC and take a degree in social anthropology, and it was while I was doing that the BBC asked me to come back and become controller of BBC2, which was the best job in broadcasting. I wasn't as interested in broadcasting as I was in anthropology but I wasn't being offered the most interesting job in the world in anthropology, so I took the broadcasting one.

I work in a secondary school. What one thing would you most like us to impress upon young people's minds? Sylvia Greaves, learning mentor in a secondary school, Huddersfield

That we are part of the animal world. We are part of the natural world.

Please could you explain how a young cuckoo learns to speak cuckoo rather than inherit the language of its foster parents, and is that why we hear fewer cuckoos each year because they're all now speaking Dunnock? Rona McKendrick, TV production manager, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire

[Laughs] Well, the answer to the second half is no – it is because there are fewer cuckoos. As to the first half, bird songs have two components in them. They have a built-in component so that if you take certain songbirds and rear them in circumstances where they don't hear anything at all, or any other birdsong, they will sing a very simplified version of their song. When they are in normal circumstances and listen, and can hear their own kind singing songs, they refine that basic song. But cuckoo is a very simple call… it could be that one of the reasons why it is such a simple call is precisely because of the phenomenon they describe.

What do you think about genetically modified species like the "super salmon"? Liz Brindley, teacher, Galicia, north-west Spain

I don't know enough about the super salmon, and that worries me. With genetically modified plants, of course, if you said that there weren't to be any now, you'd be condemning large sections of mankind to starvation.

Why don't you read fiction? Is it that you don't see any intrinsic value in things that are not real? Raphael Vassallo, journalist, Malta, and Penny Turner, environmentalist, Greece

No, it is just that I don't have time. I am involved in scientific things and there is an awful lot of science and natural history to read before you can even think about getting on to fiction. I was aware of this gap in my knowledge when I was in my late teens and I compiled a list of all the important books – fiction books – that I thought I should have read in order to keep up with other people. And it was quite a long list and I sat down and read 'em. What was the last piece of fiction I read? Birdsong – and I thought it was terrific.

David Attenborough's First Life begins on BBC2 on Friday. Phil Hogan reviews Attenborough's Journey, page 33