Quote of the day by David Attenborough: "The nature of human beings is that they'd far..."

People often respond more urgently to problems they can see unfolding immediately than to threats that may take years or decades to fully emerge. In a 2015 interview with The Independent, broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough reflected on this tendency while discussing climate change and the different ways society responds to immediate and long-term dangers. He said: “The nature of human beings is that they'd far rather face the disaster that is happening tonight than the one that is happening tomorrow.” Attenborough was contrasting the immediate public reaction to terrorism with the slower-moving threat of climate change, which he described as a major challenge facing humanity.Quote of the day by David Attenborough“The nature of human beings is that they'd far rather face the disaster that is happening tonight than the one that is happening tomorrow.”Attenborough's warning centres on how people respond to immediate threatsAttenborough's observation points to a basic feature of human behaviour: immediate dangers tend to command more attention than problems whose consequences remain distant. When a crisis is unfolding in front of people, the need to respond can feel obvious ...