SIR David Attenborough has been given a second knighthood, being appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list ‘for services to TV and conservation’ to add to his standard one.
This is perhaps surprising in view of his talent for frightening the living daylights out of small children; indeed, the Duke of Cambridge has revealed that he had to switch off Sir David’s latest documentary about the extinction of species because it made seven-year-old Prince George ‘so sad’.
It is also baffling, given his services to population control, particularly in the developing world – for many years he has been closely involved in curbing their numbers. He is a patron of the charity Population Matters, which states: ‘Choosing to have few or no children is the single biggest thing you can do to reduce your impact on the environment.’
‘Sir Sir’ David considers human beings a ‘plague’ on Planet Earth so it is only by ignoring his self-avowed misanthropy and ladling on a hefty dollop of sycophancy that such a bizarre decision could have been recommended to Her Majesty.
Nothing, it seems, can take the shine off his halo – the only surprise is that he has not yet been declared a living saint.
It seems that having left behind our outdated Judeo-Christian worldview, with its image of an old man in the sky who must be worshipped, we have embraced a religion of the Planet in which we sacrifice our right to have children, overlooked at all times by an old man in the sky, jetting around the world telling the poor to reduce their carbon footprint.
