Evolution, the Fragility of Nature, and How We Can All Make a Difference - Chris Packham

The Director of the Milner Centre for Evolution, Professor Turi King, talks to Chris Packham, the naturalist, nature photographer, television presenter and author, whose best known for presenting Springwatch, Autumnwatch, Winterwatch, programmes about nature, neurodiversity, dinosaurs, cats, dogs and honeybees.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Hello and welcome. You are listening to a podcast by the Miller Centre for Evolution at
the University of Bath. I'm Professor Turi King, your host and today I'm talking to Chris Packham,
famous naturalist, nature photographer, television presenter and author. He's
known for presenting Springwatch, Autumnwatch, Winterwatch, shows about nature,
about neurodiversity, dinosaurs, cats, dogs and honeybees, among others.

(00:29):
Chris, you've had such a varied career. Is there any one of those
that really means more to you than the others?I don't think so. I'm a forward-looking person,
so the things that I'm always most excited about is what's coming next. I'm not a nostalgic in
any way, shape or form, I’m not a guy that gets old photographs out. And I certainly
don't sort of pore over old programmes either.So, I'm always excited by learning new things.

(00:54):
And, you know, part of the process that I'm lucky to enjoy when it comes to making these programmes
is that I get to learn on the job, now I'm firmly involved in the university of life. And it's
centred around natural sciences, which interests me, of course, but that's the greatest joy.
So, at the moment, we're just wrapping up a couple of series, and then I had a
conversation this week with people who commission new programmes at the BBC, and we've been talking

(01:16):
about what we're doing next. And I have to say, that's currently more exciting.
Because I've been hearing rumours about this, you are doing a television series about evolution,
aren't you? Which, of course, we at the Milner Centre are very excited about. Tell me about it?
So, we made a series a couple of years ago about the history of Earth, which is,
of course, a very large topic that stretches back a very long time. So, from that point of view,

(01:38):
it's quite incomprehensible, quite intangible for many people to get to grips with.
When you talk about tens of years, we can just about cope with it. Hundreds, we struggle,
thousands, let alone millions and billions is quite beyond us. But we wanted to tell this
story in a different way. We wanted to obviously implement as much of the new science as possible.
So that's another reason why we make these docs is, you know, we’re firmly try to get our finger

(02:00):
on the pulse of the latest published research, that we can integrate that into the story,
which is sometimes a revision of a story that people think they know. But in fact,
subsequently, it's been found out to be slightly different. Our mission, therefore,
was to make that, you know, comprehensible.But also, one of the reasons why we made the
programme is that many of the events that have happened to our planet, certainly the living

(02:22):
part of our planet, are pertinent to this point in the planet's history. And it was
a pretty thinly veiled look, certainly, the last couple of programmes about the impact of
climate breakdown, and biodiversity loss.We've had catastrophic biodiversity loss
in the past. We've had what would be from our perspective, changes in the climate,
but they've had a profound impact on the history of the planet. Sometimes negative,

(02:45):
sometimes positive, of course.So as a series idea, it worked. So,
we were thinking, what are the other big topics that sometimes people, you know,
grapple to understand? And evolution was a case in point. And I think simply because the way that
we're classically taught or we perceive evolution is something that started a very long time ago,

(03:05):
and it's happened very slowly over again, millions of years. And to some extent, you know,
we are the be all and end all of it, you know, because this is the point where we understand it,
therefore it seems to have miraculously stopped. And of course, none of those things are true.
So, we wanted to take a fresh look at evolution, integrating that new science. So, what we did

(03:27):
was rather than, you know, start at the origin of life and bring it chronologically forward to this
point. We chose topics which we felt would be accessible to people. So, we've got a programme
about the evolution of feeding, and we've got a programme about the evolution of locomotion,
and the evolution of thinking. And of course, they do stretch back through time. And we look at the

(03:48):
origins and how these capacities have increased over time and how they've changed over time,
and also some of the dead ends, the things that didn't work that we found out about.
So, we've got one more day to shoot, actually, with myself, my poodles Sid and Nancy. Don't ask
how we're integrating two black miniature poodles into a series about evolution.
It’s actually to do with locomotion. So, we're looking at the fact that dogs are

(04:09):
standing on their toes and their gait, as it were.And then we'll go through the computer-generated
phase of integrating all of that material. The narrative's all there, so we know what we need.
But that's quite slow to produce. So, it won't be finished until the latter part of this year,
2025. And it will go out next year at some point.And I think that's exactly right. I mean,
one of the things I find out when I'm talking to people about evolution, they very much think

(04:33):
dinosaurs, millions of years, not realizing it's happening right under our very noses right now.
It’s happening in their back garden.Exactly.
You know, since 1970, the Great Tits, which were a common garden bird on people's feeders,
if they feed them, their beaks have grown longer than they have in the Netherlands,
where this study was conducted. And that's because they're on our feeders and they've

(04:57):
grown their beaks a fraction of a millimetre longer because they spend more time, you know,
stretching inside those feeders to remove food.Our Black Caps, which are now a species which
are overwintering in people's gardens. When I was a kid, when I first got into birds,
they were migrants. They went to Iberia, northern Africa, now they're not migrating.
Our birds invariably are leaving, but we get birds from Germany that come here because

(05:19):
our climate is now sufficiently warm and as a consequence of that, they're not flying as far,
their wings have got shorter. And this is actually happening very quickly because those German birds
that come here for the winter, obviously get back to Germany in the spring more quickly than
they would if they were traveling from Africa or Iberia, therefore, they get the best territories.

(05:40):
So again, those genes are prospering, and we're seeing a change not just in the physiology of the
animal, shortening of the wings, but it's behaviour, it’s coming to the UK. Rather
than heading to Spain for its winter holiday.And again, I think stuff that we try to talk about
at the Milner Centre is that our understanding of evolution allows us to, a) understand what's kind

(06:01):
of happening, but how can we use that in terms of conservation. So, for example, if we know about
biodiversity amongst elephants, for example, in different groups, are there bottlenecks
happening where the genetic diversity is not as big as it could be. Can we create corridors. So,
it's that understanding of evolutionary processes that allow us to sort of answer
some of the global questions that there are.I think there's implicitly important. I mean,

(06:25):
I'm a sucker for what we used to call blue sky science. I like knowing things because I
like to know things, and therefore I would always excuse scientists who devote their
lives to understanding something which you might, at that point argue doesn't have a
practical aspect in contemporary society.But at the same time, we are in a crisis,
and we are losing many species, and we're endangered ourselves. So,

(06:48):
I think that applying natural sciences and what we understand from them to help us at this critical
point is something which we need to advocate for. And we do, and certainly understanding,
as you say, understanding evolution, bottlenecks, genetics, how species originate, which species are
more robust or more resilient, and where does that resilience come from? Is it simply at the

(07:09):
behavioural level, or is it at the genetic level?And we know that some species are more resistant
to diseases, that it could quite clearly be a genetic reason for that. So,
we live in that humanscape where we need to manage that environment and
fully understanding the needs or the fragility of species is something which we have to have at

(07:32):
our disposal to be able to do that properly.It so comes across talking to you about how
passionate you are about this. And I was lucky enough to read one of your books about your
childhood and how you came to be interested in nature. So, you talk about this really
beautiful moment, actually, where you are looking at fox cubs in a fox family, and it was a really

(07:58):
magical thing to read, actually. But is there a particular moment in your childhood that you go,
that's where my love of nature started?Well, my parents said I was fascinated
before I could speak. My memories stretch back to about four and a half. I mean, obviously I've
got quite a good memory from starting school, which at that point was five years old in the UK,
by then I was already hooked, you know, it was dinosaurs and bats at that point.

(08:21):
The first thing I did when I on my first day at school was make a modelling clay T-Rex,
you know. So, we had a very small garden in suburban Southampton. I would crawl around
picking up everyday creatures, slugs and snails and ladybirds, and I remember standing by the
gate, our neighbour had a particular type of bush. I don't know which plant species it was,
but it was always festooned with ladybirds. And I would catch them and put them into a matchbox

(08:45):
that my parents would give me, and I remember them climbing on my hands, and I remember them
taking off, and me being astonished by the, you know, their little red elytra cracking open and
their orange wings unfolding and they’d sort of drift or waft up into the sky.
There was a magic about nature, and I think what attracted me to it in the first place
was it's just simple beauty. Everything I found didn't matter whether it was a worm or ladybird

(09:09):
or a tadpole or a newt was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. You know, from a child's point of view,
we can forgive that superficiality. Soon, it got to the point where I wanted to understand
them and what that meant was, unfortunately, for me it became about capturing them and enclosing
them. So, it was tadpoles in jam jars, and it was lizards in tanks and all of those sorts of things.

(09:30):
And I would put them in whatever receptacle I deemed appropriate,
and I'd sit there and stare at them and study them. I'd try to learn as much about them,
and I'd read all about them, obviously. But it wasn't until I got to my early teens, my father
bought me a pair of binoculars that I almost instantaneously learned that I could, you know,
figure out a lot more about behaviour and ecology and everything else by watching the animals in

(09:52):
their environment, not incarcerating them in mine.And so, from that point onwards, getting close
to them in the wild, being able to witness, you know, behaviours that I don't understand,
that I can ask questions about is still the thing that brings me enormous joy.
And you've had decades of being a wildlife presenter. So, have you got a kind of most

(10:14):
awe-inspiring kind of wildlife moment when you've been doing these television programmes?
Well, there have been so many, I mean, I grew up in a three up, three down. I used
to get hand-me-down National Geographics, so I never dared dream that I would travel to those
parts of the world and see those species. I still now, I'm 64 years old and I still take
the trouble and the care to pinch myself, to make sure that I'm fully aware of the

(10:39):
enormous privilege that I sometimes have to be somewhere with something or with someone.
Because I mentioned, you know, one of the greatest joys of my job is being able to
learn on that job. And very often in TV, we are thrust before a scientist who is
disposed to tell us everything they know about something that I'm intrinsically fascinated by.

(11:02):
So sometime, everyone thinks, oh, it must be great you get up close to these animals. And yes,
of course it is great sometimes to be able to do that. But you know, the reason I'm there is
because I want to understand them as well as just appreciate them. So, if there's someone
there who knows a lot more about them than I do, and they're telling me everything they know,
what a combo. You've got the creature and you've got, you know, that source

(11:23):
of not only learning but also inspiration. I find it very inspirational to be, you know,
amongst academics who are able to creatively and imaginatively unravel how life works. And that's a
great and very stimulating environment to be in.So, is there an animal that you haven't
been able to study yet that you want to?Well, there's a few things I haven't seen,

(11:45):
but they're mostly sort of, you know, quite self-indulgent. You know, birds that I quite
like to see. But, do you know, it doesn't have to be big and glamorous. Sometimes it's the story
that counts, you know, and there can be tiny creatures that you've overlooked in your own
backyard. And then someone says, do you know about the such and such hyperparasite? And you say, no.
And then they tell you and it's in a woods around the corner, and its life history and

(12:09):
its life cycle can be absolutely astonishing. And that's as uplifting to learn about as it is
to travel to some far flung environment, which may have the allure of novelty and the exotic,
but may not manifest quite the same excitement on account of the animal might be a bit dull

(12:29):
compared to that fly that copulates through the female's head, you know, which is something that
I learned about last week, you know.I was going to ask you about that,
actually, because reading your books, it's about storytelling as a way of bringing people into
nature. Are you consciously thinking about that? Because it really comes across and it's a lovely

(12:53):
introduction, I think, to the natural world.The first thing is that very often my challenge is
to take something which is intrinsically complex and make it, in far shorter form unfortunately,
comprehensible to an audience. Now that is not dumbing down and I will never dumb down. And
sometimes I am asked by the people that I work with not to use a certain word, at which point I

(13:16):
might petulantly say, well, there are dictionaries you know. But then what I will do, actually,
once I've got over the minor irritation of that request, is that I will use the word, but I'll
explain what it means. I will never dumb down.And I learned that a long time ago when I first
started making television as a presenter, it was a children's programme called The Really Wild Show,

(13:38):
way back in the 1980s. And as I was on the train traveling there to start the first one,
I'd had, you know, plenty of time playing around with animals. I'd kept animals,
I'd spent time with animals that were kept in captivity, zoos and safari parks,
etc. but I'd spent no time with children. I had a younger sister by four years, but not as an adult,

(13:58):
spending any time with children between about the ages of eight and 12. And I was thinking like,
how am I going to communicate with these people?And I sort of thought back to when I was eight and
12 and, you know, I begged the adult library tickets off of my dad so that I could get the
biology books essentially out of the adult part of the library. I recognized and remembered that
I knew the names, which were scientific names, of all of the dinosaurs of note at that time,

(14:23):
by the time I was five years old, there is no need to oversimplify things for children.
And when I hear people saying mini beasts, I cringe because we don't have to make beasts
mini for children. Children are capable of understanding what an invertebrate is
if you explain it to them. So, by the time I got off the train in Bristol,

(14:44):
I had reconciled that I was going to make little or no effort to change my language. I would change
the way I used the language to communicate to younger people, but I was going to speak
to them intrinsically, as if they were adults. And I think that that's implicitly important.
And I think that in order to communicate effectively, you have to engender trust.

(15:08):
You have to make sure that people believe what you're saying. I think that you have to draw
them in and make them part of a conversation. I think that if you're lecturing to people,
then they may turn off. And then I think the key thing is to ask a question which
you think they might want to know the answer to. And generally, that's predictable because they've

(15:29):
turned on, and they're watching that programme.And then what you do is you uncover all of the
information they require to answer that question, and you feed it to them in a way which is logical,
and they can pick it up and they can put it together in whatever jigsaw it is. And the most
important characteristic is that you let them answer that question for themselves before you

(15:51):
tell them. Because if you tell them first, you're just a smart ass, and that's not the objective.
You're trying to make them smart. You're trying to tell them a story, so they learn and are enthused
by their capacity to learn and learn by the story.And then when you actually tell them the answer
to the question, it's a reassuring thing for them. They've been involved in the narrative.

(16:13):
They figured it out for themselves. They're empowered by the fact that they are clearly as
smart as you are. So, there is an art to that sort of storytelling. And I think ultimately
it comes down to the art of being generous.You've got to give something of yourself away,
your passion and your enthusiasm and your commitment to that. And then you have to develop

(16:34):
the skill to make sure that whatever you're saying is comprehensible, even if it's quite complex. But
ultimately, it's not about you, it's about them. It's not the big I am. It's not the know it all,
as I say. It's about giving people something that they can make something of themselves.
And I like that, you know, we all like that when we watch movies. We're being given something.

(16:56):
We're being given a story by actors who are giving their skills, and the directors and screenwriters
have all given their skills. They're giving something quite precious to us. And through
that generosity, we're able to be excited or rewarded or surprised. And I try to bring
that to my sort of broadcasting basically.It's lovely because you're giving them a

(17:16):
path and tools for discovery themselves.Yes. And that's a bigger thing than the
tools. Allowing people to sort of exercise their mind so they can uncover solutions is
more important than the fabric of those solutions in that moment, and there might be other things
coming in the future. But yes, that's exactly it. And I think that if you can, you know,
expand that empowerment. So, it's not just about that story, it's about changing the way people

(17:42):
think about something and how they approach, you know, that subject, then that's good.
I mean, and ultimately, you know, I have a very strong vocational interest in making natural
science programmes because I want people to love life. I want them to have the same affinity for
it that I have because it's in trouble. And off screen I'm going to be effectively and
metaphorically banging on their door and asking for their help to look after it. Well, they're

(18:05):
not going to be motivated unless they love it. And so, you know, sowing the seeds of romance for the
natural world is probably my principal job.And you've been doing this for decades,
has it changed over time? Do you think people are becoming more interested? Are they starting
to understand kind of the urgency, do you think?I think people have a broader understanding of the

(18:29):
environment, you know. That form of education has been refined and has been in the public
domain longer. Education in schools has got better in some ways in terms of the content,
maybe not the delivery, and the regularity of good delivery, but nevertheless, you know,
teachers are working really hard to make sure that young people are equipped with the knowledge they

(18:50):
need to address these sorts of issues. Hats off to them on that account. And therefore,
young people have a far broader understanding.But there are some things where we've failed,
and I would argue that from my perspective, it's ecology. It's the joined-upness of things. So,
we can quite easily put a species on a pedestal, and we can explain something brilliant about it,

(19:12):
and it will sparkle, it will shine, and people will go, wow, but that's not the greatest beauty,
because on a pedestal that organisms in isolation. The greatest beauty is when
it's in that complex of life whichis dynamic but resilient and
harmonious, that's the greater beauty.And where I think I, and we have failed,

(19:35):
is getting people to understand that, because if they did, they would understand the fragility of
those environments more than they do. And simple things about the fact that sometimes we have to
manage wildlife populations, because there's an absence of predators or there's the risk of
disease. I mean, it could be all sorts of things.And in many ways, I think what might have happened
in the past is that we've over sanctified life. If you cut a tree down, it's invariably seen as more

(20:01):
than likely a bad thing. But it could be the wrong tree in the wrong place and cutting it down could
actually be doing nature a favour. You know, I arrived at a house that I bought a few years ago,
and the entire garden was overgrown with Rhododendron, and my mother used to love
Rhododendrons. Luxurious, she would call them, but I always thought they were a little bit

(20:21):
over the top, the blooms and the waxy leaves, the simplicity of those very bright colours
against that monotonous, waxy background was not something that appealed to me, but of course they're
a non-native species and they're not helpful.So, I went in and just took the lot out,
and I've replanted with native species. My neighbour was absolutely horrified because

(20:42):
we hadn't got to that point where he could see that that was a progressive thing to be
doing. It was a positive thing to be actually cutting something down but obviously replacing
it with something more appropriate. And there I don't think we've achieved that
yet. That's something we've got to work hard on.I think you're right, because I think people do
kind of concentrate on sort of single species, not necessarily realizing the interconnectedness

(21:06):
of everything. I mean, you're obviously working on getting that message across,
but it's how we get that message across where we're not just concentrating on single individual
species that are often cute.Yeah.
Which we have to be a bit careful about, but just that actually, there is a huge network,
a web of life that's happening here.Yeah. I think survival of the cutest

(21:28):
was very definitely an inhibitor, going back to the sort of late 60s and early 70s and single
species conservation was the thing then. You know, we took a flagship species, and we threw effort to
understand it and then effort to conserve it. We still use flagship species as a means of
generating interest, but I think we have to hope that behind the scenes, we're not just focusing

(21:48):
on those, we're focusing on looking after their entire ecosystem rather than just that one animal.
I mean, I love life, I love absolutely everything. And, you know, if a horsefly bites me, I gently
peel it off and tell it to go and bite someone else. If a mosquito comes near me, I, you know,
sort of brush it off gently. I don't kill those sorts of things. I never see any life as
a nuisance, you know. Other than the fact that I just like life and I can just about imagine being

(22:15):
a mosquito and wanting to be alive, you know, and just needing some blood to produce my eggs. It's
just what I need, a little bit of blood, you know?But the key thing is that nothing is a nuisance.
Everything's got a job to do. And if it's there, it's because that job needs doing. We can't pick
and choose the things that we like and dislike. We have to move on from that. And that's why I rail

(22:38):
against the sort of stereotyping of, I don't use the p word. The p word is the one with
the est after the p, because that's entirely a human construct. You know what we're looking at,
invariably, when we talk about those P's is animals which are successful at our expense. And
it's almost like we're resentful of it, you know.And of course, some of those P's need managing,

(23:00):
I'm not arguing that, but I would always argue that with the first line of management should be
passive. If you've got rats in your kitchen, that's clearly not a good idea, right. So,
you could say, well, I've got a trap and kill all of these rats, or you could say, how can I stop
these rats from coming into my kitchen? Shall we just block it up so they can't get in, you know.

(23:20):
Okay, we've got rats in the garden. Do they represent a health hazard in that context? If
they do, how do we discourage them from coming to the garden? Let's face it, the rats are only there
because there's something there for them. What is it? Is it food? Is it shelter? Is it protection
from predators? Is it access to mates? There's going to be a reason they're there. And if we
can't outthink a rat and they're pretty smart animals, actually, but if we can't outthink

(23:43):
a rat without killing it, then frankly, we've got some more evolution to be doing.
We've just been talking about hero species. Is there a particular animal or organism that you
feel is really misunderstood by the public?It's us. It's humanity. I think if there's
one thing that we really do need to get a better understanding of, it's ourselves. I
don't think we're managing ourselves properly at this point in time, and we're allowing ourselves,

(24:07):
in some context, to be mismanaged. And as a consequence of that, that's the most
frightening thing of all, you know, and I think that's one of my real weaknesses,
and I've always known that. But now I'm really focusing on trying to address it more than ever.
So, for instance, I've never been able to understand why anyone would kill another animal

(24:30):
for pleasure. I'm not saying kill another animal. I've killed other animals. I would seek not to do
so unless I really have to. But whatever, doing it for pleasure is different. You know, I think
one of the things that's handicapped me when I've tried to push back against the unnecessary killing
for pleasure is that I don't understand why people do it, because I can't get my mind in that space.
I can't get my mind in space where I’d want to, if we're using a gun, want to pull a trigger to

(24:54):
shoot an elephant. I'm never going to be able to understand that. And that has to be a handicap.
So, it's not that I'm focusing an enormous amount of effort trying to get into the mind
of elephant hunters at this point in time, but I am spending a lot more time thinking about how
we perceive other species of animal, and how that basically defines the way we treat them.
And one of the things that strikes me, and it's so fundamental, and it certainly goes

(25:16):
back to my youth, and it needs addressing for contemporary youth, is that when we're kids,
we're given, I think, three sorts of books about animals. We're given a book and it's about pets,
companion animals. So, it's dogs and cats and rabbits, and we love those ones, and we bring
them into our lives, we form relationships with them, and we feed them, and we nurture them,

(25:37):
and we care for them. And those relationships are enormously rewarding, hopefully for both
species. But certainly, from a human point of view, that's our pets are companion animals.
Then we're given another book and it's about zoo animals. And this is exotic animals, and these are
animals which we don't live with, and they come from other parts of the world. We perceive them
as being bigger celebrities, more exciting, and we either keep them in captivity, or we do everything

(26:01):
we can to conserve them or a bit of both.And then lastly, we are given a book and it's
about farm animals and farm animals are just there to be farmed so that we can eat them.
And that's such a fundamentally flawed construct, and it starts at the child's book stage. Because,
frankly, pigs are smarter than most dogs, but because they're presented to us as farm animals,

(26:27):
we can't therefore, in later life, ever get over that. It abhors us, if we see people eating dogs,
but we don't seem to care when people are eating pigs and it's completely bonkers.
It doesn't make sense really.It doesn’t make sense.
Yeah. So how would you solve that? What would you do?
Well, I think that we do start at the education stage. I think we do go back and make sure that

(26:50):
there's just one book of animals, if you like. And we have far greater equality and
understanding of the value of their lives and the way that we should interact with
those animals to the benefit of both them and us.But of course, we're dealing with a crisis at the
moment, and we know that, for instance, if we just focus on the farm animal aspect of that,
we need to eat less meat. So we need to communicate to people that essentially,

(27:12):
you know, pigs have rights too, and they certainly, you know, have a right not to
live indoors all of their lives in overcrowded and appallingly inhumane conditions simply to be,
you know, inhumanely slaughtered and turned into, you know, food, which isn't good for us on
supermarket shelves. So, we have to work at that.And I think that people do have an intrinsic,

(27:34):
you know, affinity for and empathy for animals in the main. I think a lot of people wouldn't take
that meat off the supermarket shelves if they knew the conditions those animals have been kept in. So
awareness, I think is really important.People say I can't bear to look, well you didn't
ought to not bear to look if you're going to eat it, you know, and I think that disconnect

(27:55):
for us between ourselves and nature is no greater than when it comes to our food,
because that's the one thing that does connect us to nature every single day. You know, if we're
fortunate to be able to eat every day, and we're fortunate to be able to choose what we eat every
day, then that's what connects us to nature.And it's not just the pig; it's the impact that
the pigs had on the environment. All of the, you know, food that it's eaten that’s been grown in a,

(28:19):
what was rainforest and shipped all over the world. And the fact that the
pigs been medicated and the food's been sprayed by insecticides, and it all adds
up to a terrible, you know, environmental cost.I think if people were more aware of that, they'd
be moving more rapidly to, a plant-based diet. I'm not saying that's the one step to ethical eating.

(28:41):
You can eat plant based and still be consuming lots of processed food, lots of heavily packaged
food, lots of food full of palm oil, which you know, is very damaging to the environment.
But I think it's part of a journey we all need to start moving on, because we've got
to look for opportunities to be better, not be scared of problems that are making things bad.

(29:02):
So, what's bringing you hope these days?Well, the fact that we understand all of
these things, and the fact that every day people get up and try and understand in more detail,
with more clarity, these things, it's not that we don't have a toolkit at our disposal
to implement all of the things that we need to do to get started when it comes to addressing
these problems, we have a voluminous toolkit.We've got, you know, lots of understanding,

(29:25):
lots of technology which we can roll out and we could be making a difference, but unfortunately,
we're not doing that broadly enough and rapidly enough. And we haven't been doing it in that way
for so long now that we've reached a crisis. It's not that we didn't know this, you know, I mean,
obviously we knew about climate breakdown in the in the sort of 60s, at least, if not before,
and certainly when it comes to fossil fuels.When it comes to overharvesting the seas,

(29:47):
I mean, I remember traveling to fishing ports with my father in the 70s, and it was a topic
of conversation, but we've not dealt with it. And now we've reached the crisis point,
so it's deal with it or bust. And as a consequence of that, unfortunately, we've
made it difficult for ourselves, which is a sad indictment, because when you think of humanity,
you know, we are the most adaptable, resourceful, imaginative, creative, inventive species. We

(30:13):
can fix things. Why is it we always have to break them first? That's the annoying thing.
So, it feels like we're slowly moving in the right direction, it's not fast enough.
It's not fast enough and I fear what will happen, you know, in the interim before we wake
up and really get moving, because typically we are triggered by something aren’t we. We’re triggered
by something which puts our species under stress. And, you know, my partner always says, you know,

(30:40):
she doesn't like sci fi films, she absolutely loathes them actually. But I think I forced
her to sit through Independence Day once. And if you're not familiar with it, basically a massive
spaceship arrives from somewhere and it hovers over the planet and threatens all of humanity with
extermination. And within the space of a few days, the Americans are talking to the Chinese who are
talking to the Russians, and we all come together and guess what? We beat the aliens, you know.

(31:01):
Well, that's happening. It's not a massive spaceship that's come from some other part of
the galaxy. It's climate breakdown. That's what's hovering over our planet. And at this point,
we're not talking to the Chinese and we're not working with the Russians. We are still
fighting one another, which is insane when we're at war with our own world,
basically through our processes. And so, you know, when you think about it, it takes the spaceship

(31:25):
to arrive and the spaceship has arrived a few times recently, it arrived in, you know, 2019,
2020 with Covid and we saw a global response to something that threatened our species.
And we didn't know how bad it was going to be. But within a space of a few months,
we'd come up with a vaccine that saved millions of lives. Tragically,

(31:46):
millions of lives were lost because we didn't heed the warnings to prepare in the first place.
And then going back into the last century, another period when our species was under
significant stress would have been the Second World War. It was a global war,
and we have hideous wars taking place at the moment, but not on the scale of that
horrid conflict. But that put our species globally under an enormous amount of stress.

(32:08):
And when you think about, you know, the things that we achieved, even scientific
advancements that we made in that period, in a rapid period of, what, 5 or 6 years?
It was astonishing. So, we can do it. It's a shame that we have to come to a
global conflict or a pandemic to kick us up the backside to do it. I'd much rather, you know,

(32:29):
more prudent and using the precautionary principle and implementing those measures now. Why trip over
and feel pain. Why not just fix the paving stone?So, what would you say to somebody who feels like
they are insignificant, they're just one person and they can't make a difference?
I think when we have these sorts of conversations, people can easily feel overwhelmed, that the

(32:50):
problems are beyond their personal scope in terms of having any form of impact or positive
outcome. And I think we've got to overcome that.The first things that we need to do to get on
the road to recovery is to realize that we are important. It's easy to think you know, we're
just a drop in an ocean, but what is an ocean but a multitude of drops, is what I always say. So,
if we do something, we can make a difference.And that sort of self-empowerment, that's the

(33:15):
first step to a broader empowerment. And that's something that we need to realize. You know,
we live in the semblance of democracy here. We should be able to charge those that we've
elected to represent us to do the right thing on our behalf. And it's up to us to make sure that
they do that. But to summon the bravery to stand up and ask our politicians to do the right thing,

(33:36):
you've got to start doing things for yourself. So, what can you do?
What are the meaningful things that you can do?Well, people always think that it's like, well,
I'm recycling, and I car share and I travel by bike. But to some extent you've been duped
because we're only recycling, because they are producing an enormous amount of stuff which we
have to recycle. The responsibility has been foisted onto our shoulders to do that. If we

(34:00):
didn't produce that stuff in the first place, then the responsibility wouldn't be ours.
So, I think we've got to recognize that we've got to go back to them, whoever they are, and say,
listen, you're the ones that are doing the wrong here. You're the ones that are still drilling
and exploring for fossil fuels. You know, you're the ones that are therefore telling us that we've
got to cut down our journeys and car share and all that sort of stuff. If you weren't
drilling this stuff and we were driving through a more rapid transition to renewable energies,

(34:26):
we wouldn't have to do that. We're being conned so let's push back.
And there are two things that we can do very easily, and they're very powerful things that
make an enormous difference. One that we've already touched upon is to think about what
you eat. We all, as I say, very fortunate maybe in this country to eat every day and many of us are
able to choose what we eat. Choose more wisely. Do cut down on the amount of meat that you eat.

(34:49):
That will have enormous ramifications if you cut back on your meat and dairy,
on animal welfare and environment, not just at a local level, but on a global scale.
And then the second thing, and this is where you can really make a difference very easily,
is choose where you keep your money more carefully. Now, you might think, I haven't

(35:10):
got a lot of money in the grand scheme of things. You know, it's a tiny amount. But if we all change
where we keep our money, you know, how many of us would have to get together, you know, until
we were talking billions? When you think the size of some of our cities, that's making a difference.
So, if you bank ethically and you insure yourself ethically, and if you have pensions that you
choose those ethically with companies that are not investing in fossil fuels or weapons or

(35:35):
biodiversity loss, then they will get the message.And they have got that message, because some of
these very large institutions are already moving in that direction.
They're already divesting because they know that those are sunset industries,
and they know that they will have to change. These are smart people. They're making a lot
of money out of our money. Well, let's make our money work for us and secure us a better future.

(36:00):
So, in the space of just a few minutes, you can download an app, and you can change your bank
on your phone. It's not a terrifying prospect. Everything gets switched over instantaneously.
When it comes to insurance, you know, look at who you're insuring with. Look at who they're
investing in. Now all of that information is available, there's a great website called
Mother Tree that you can look at when it comes to making these sorts of ethical investments.

(36:21):
And that's the way that you can personally, most radically impact your environmental footprint, is
where you keep your money. Doesn't matter whether it's £50, 500 pounds, 50,000 pounds or 5 million.
Stick it in the right place. Send those people a message that we've got to change.
Chris, thank you so much for talking with me. This was a podcast by the Milner Centre for

(36:47):
Evolution at the University of Bath. I'm Turi King and thank you for listening. If you have
any thoughts or comments on this or any other episodes, please contact us through social media.
For more information about the Milner Centre for Evolution, you can visit our website.