"Right now, we're facing a man-made disaster of global scale," Attenborough said on Monday, just two months after a UN report underlined the need to keep global warming below 1.5C degrees.

"Our greatest threat in thousands of years: climate change. If we don't take action, the collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon."

Among those addressing the Summit is the Vatican's Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

There is a moral imperative to act, for we all bear the responsibility to protect and to value creation.

The international community also has a moral responsibility to address climate change, he noted.

"The scientific consensus is rather consistent and it is that, since the second half of the last century, warming of the climate system is unequivocal.

"The Holy See has often stressed that there is a moral imperative to act, for we all bear the responsibility to protect and to value creation for the good of this and future generations," he said.

Faith groups inspired by Laudato Si' including Caritas Internationalis, CIDSE, and the Global Catholic Climate Movement are urging the Summit to ensure the 2015 Paris Agreement is implemented.

Caritas Internationalis's delegation said the talks "will have to curb climate change for the coming decade and tackle its devastating effects on human life, ecosystems, food and water security.

"The cost of increased disasters and hazards is now unbearable for communities already facing poverty," a delegate said.

CIDSE, an umbrella organisation for Catholic development agencies from Europe and North America, said "Our partners on the ground are already threatened by global warming.

"We are one human family and we all have a moral responsibility to stop climate change as we are all contributing to it."

The Summit will run for two weeks until 15 December.

Source

• Crux Now
• Zenit
• The Tablet
• Live Science
• Image: jpratt27

Speaking on the BBC's Costing the Earth programme, Sir David was asked if he supported the right to die.

"I suppose I do really, but [only] if you could solve all the problems of dealing with the misuse of such a right," he said.

He added: "When you see poor people, poor in the sense of having some wretched disease, pleading for their lives to be brought to an end. . . It's difficult to think that they don't deserve to have that right."

Asked if he would consider ending his own life, he said: "I think if I was compos mentis and I was really having a wretched life."

His comments came two months after UK MPs overwhelmingly voted against changing the law to allow doctors to help terminally ill people end their lives.

Sir David acknowledged the complexity of the subject, saying: "These issues of how long people should live are very complicated and involves not only medical issues but philosophical issues."

The 89-year-old broadcaster also repeated his concern about rapid population growth, pointed out that the number of people on the planet had tripled since he started making TV programmes in the 1950s.

Asked what message he would deliver to world leaders due to gather at the upcoming climate summit in Paris, Sir David said: "I would say, ‘Please allow your population to choose whether they have bigger families or smaller families: to give the right to say how many children you will have to women.' If all the women in the world had that choice I'm fairly convinced that the birthrate would fall."

He said he would have no hesitation in delivering that message to the Pope.

Asked if the Catholic Church had got it wrong on contraception, Sir David said: "Yes I do. I think it is an extraordinary blind spot."

In 2013, Sir David said of Africa: "They are too many people for a too little piece of land. That's what it's about. And we are blinding ourselves."

Sources

• The Guardian
• The Telegraph
• Image: The Guardian