Climate change: David Attenborough joins Instagram, beats Jennifer Aniston to a million followers

David Attenborough has now racked up two million followers on Instagram. Photo / Getty Images

Famed naturalist David Attenborough has released another impassioned plea to save the world, and in the process shattered a record set by star actor Jennifer Aniston.

Attenborough, 94, has been warning about the dangers posed by climate change in the final years of his life and while it's likely he won't be around to see the full extent of its eventual impacts he's sure they'll be catastrophic for the Earth and its inhabitants.

He's one of the most recognisable faces for the environment after a long and successful career as a documentary maker, but in a bid to spread his message to more people he's joined Instagram, where he's already racked up more than two million followers.

View this post on Instagram

And now we’re Instagram FRIENDS too. HI INSTAGRAM 👋🏻

A post shared by Jennifer Aniston (@jenniferaniston) on Oct 15, 2019 at 6:03am PDT

When Aniston joined Instagram in October last year she announced her presence on the platform with a photo of the Friends cast hanging out together, and hit one million followers in five hours and 16 minutes, according to Guinness World Records.

It might have helped that the photo went spectacularly viral after eagle-eyed audiences spotted what they thought might have been some recreational drug use on camera (but likely wasn't).

Attenborough's first post was uploaded a little over four hours before he passed the one million follower mark.

He appears in the one minute and 13 second IGTV video, but is not personally running the account.

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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 Sep 24, 2020 at 2:00am PDT

He wanted to use the video to again urge action on climate change, as does the subject of his upcoming film in cinemas next week.

"I am making this move … because, as we all know, the world is in trouble," Attenborough said.

"Continents are on fire. Glaciers are melting. Coral reefs are dying … The list goes on and on," he added.

He said he was "tackling this new way of communication" because "we know what to do about" climate change "we just need the will".