Sir David Attenborough joins Instagram to encourage climate action
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25.09.2020

Sir David Attenborough joins Instagram to encourage climate action

Words by Kate Streader

David Attenborough broke the world record by gaining one million followers within four hours of making his first Instagram post.

David Attenborough has joined Instagram to save the planet, with plans to use the social media platform to share environmental messages and encourage climate action.

Having spent the past 60 years on television and radio, the 94-year-old broadcaster and natural historian plans to bring his fight against the climate crisis to Instagram, describing saving the planet as “a communications challenge” in his first post.

The post also explains that filmmakers Colin Butfield and Jonnie Hughes, who have worked with Attenborough on A Life On Our Planet, will run the account. The pair will post videos he has recorded for his followers, covering a range of environmental issues and the actions that need to be taken to prevent irreparable damage.

“I’m making this move and exploring this new way of communication, to me, because as we all know, the world is in trouble,” says Attenborough in his first Instagram post.

“Over the next few weeks, I’ll be recording messages to explain what the problems are and how we can deal with them. Join me, or as we used to say in those early days of radio, stay tuned.”

Attenborough has broken the world record, previously held by Jennifer Aniston, by amassing 200,000 followers within an hour of his first Instagram post and hitting one million followers within just four hours.

At the time of writing, Sir David Attenborough has 2.5 million followers on Instagram.

View this post on Instagram

David Attenborough has spent a lifetime travelling, exploring the wild places of our planet and documenting the living world in all its variety and wonder. He’s also witnessed the damaged caused. Saving our planet is now a communications challenge. We know what to do, we just need the will. That’s why we want to share this message on Instagram. Because there is hope and together, we can inspire change. Social media isn’t David’s usual habitat so while he’s recorded messages solely for Instagram, like the one in this post, we're helping to run this account. In case you’re wondering, ‘we’ are Jonnie and Colin and we worked with David on A Life On Our Planet. So, as well as sharing the messages he’s recorded especially for this account we’ll also post some exclusive clips and behind the scenes content. Stay tuned.

A post shared by A Life On Our Planet (@davidattenborough) on

This article originally appeared on Beat.