Isn't it exciting
Well, good afternoon everyone it's
It's a absolute great pleasure to welcome you to this very special event
as part of our 70th anniversary celebrations of the foundation of Kiel and
It's a day that has marked the naming ceremony of our new suite of research and teaching laboratories
within our Life Sciences Building
And they are now called the David Attenborough laboratories and it's an absolute privilege and honor to welcome our guest of honor Sir
David Attenborough
As we know
As we all know keel was formed in
1949 and it was formed to be a very special kind of university. It was a university model that tried to minimize
Disciplinary boundaries to make sure that our graduates left here not only with a good understanding of major challenges in society
But also with some of the skills to make an impact on them
That ability to adapt to a changing and challenging
Environment was core to the aims of the university and I would argue that it is just as important now as it was then in
1949
our three new research institutes in global health
Social inclusion and sustainable futures are aimed at addressing some of the key challenges that face the world now and into the future
Environmental sustainability has been an important institutional priority for this university and
Through efforts right across the university and within and with a figurehead in Jonathan Porat who unfortunately can't be with us today
We've made important strides in research. We did the research that we do and the impact that we have and the
education that we provide our students and indeed the embeddedness of
sustainability in all aspects of our operations
Now before I go any further, I have a message from Jonathan Porat
I'm just so delighted that sadaiva has been able to join my Kiel colleagues on such an important occasion and
I'm feeling wretched that I myself am not able to be there in person
So David has also always been such an inspirational leader
Across the entire world and his recent contributions to the debate about accelerating climate change and our massively destructive
Impact on the natural world have been extraordinarily
Significant if people aren't too now aware of just how urgent these challenges are then they are simply not listening
The transformation of our campus into an at scale demonstrator site and a genuine living laboratory for smart energy solutions
Starting with a major project on increasing hydrogen content in gas supplies
promises to make a major mark on the sustainability of energy supplies
other research across the university including the social and political dimensions of the environment as well as scientific and technical investigations is
Creating a real focus in this part of the world
that is also freely feeding solidly into the regional economy and
Will have a major national and international impact on tackling climate change
our work on embedding environment sustainability right across our curriculum creates the knowledgeable and
sustainability literate students that will be our future and our work to integrate a consideration of
Sustainability into all aspects of our daily lives makes a difference and sets the examples for others
This full appreciation of the importance and urgency of working hard on the developments that can contribute
Towards a sustainable environment and future for humankind
Has made it absolutely natural that we should join those
Organizations that have declared a climate emergency and I'm able to report this afternoon that at our meeting yesterday
Our University Council did indeed pass a motion
Declaring a climate emergency with an ambition to be carbon neutral by 2030
So it's even more important in that context for us to have Sir David with us today
He does of course need no introduction. But like most people who say that I am now going to give an introduction
Having said that I very quickly realized that in deals do so doing
If I'd gone through everything we would have been here till midnight. So with two apologies for oversimplifying sir. I'm going to say a
scientist by original trained
Explorer of remote regions of the world
TV presenter and TV administrator who oversaw the introduction of major land knock technologies and programs
Program maker who was inspired?
informed amazed shocked
generations of TV viewers
Through his recording of the natural world
life on earth started the so called life series that took us all through freezers plants birds mammals undergrowth
Cold blood and land and indeed introduced the public to a world that many hadn't imagined
Many many series and programmes were interspersed with these and more followed on
During this time, Sir. David has received more than 30 honorary degrees
but of course the most important one was the Doctor of Science awarded by keel University in
1986
In the last 20 years or so sir. David's programs have taken a more environmentalist stance including commentary on the impact of climate change
Over that time and of course, this is where Sir David current energy is been exerted in no small part
blue planet - highlighted the problems of plastics and our oceans and
The documentary for the BBC just a couple of weeks ago on climate change the facts
Alongside the new our planet that is reaching global audiences very quickly through its inclusion on Netflix
These are all highlighting the speed of change of habitats and the impact that that has on the number of different animal and plant species
at a time when the younger generations in particular are highlighting their great concerns about the climate and
Actually making fully justified demands that something is done about it
the impact of Sir David Xin
interventions are truly dramatic and
Absolutely critical to the point where the question has been asked whether he will actually be the person who saves our planet
Although I'm sure his modesty will mean that he's about to deny that claim
We are going to ask a few questions of Sir David in a moment
But before that can I formally introduce Sir David Attenborough and thank him and ask him to say a few words
Thank you all
Thank you very much
There have been external changes the time that I've been around and indeed the time I've been broadcasting
Actually and I'm I'm about my career just about stanlon spans the life of this institution
You were founded in 49. I
Made my first programs about conservation in 1952
So
We are at the same age
And things have changed absolutely extraordinary in that time
In the early fifties a group of actually big-game hunters
Suddenly realized that
the game they were after the big game the game with
spectacular horns
had
Ceased to be as common as it was
they couldn't break the record for the coup dude that had the biggest horns that had been established long earlier and
The same applied to Eden's a number of other things and then the penny dropped
That actually the reason they couldn't find them not because they weren't as good hunters as they had been in the 19th century
But because the animals weren't there
and if the penny dropped
that for the first time people realized that they were
exterminating species
And they formed the first conservation
Organization concerned with the world as a whole in the world
And the fauna and fauna international is it's now name
Let's skip on a few decades
they
started protecting people like their species like the the Arabian oryx for example, and
They realized that actually they were they're extinct in the world and they could do something about it
They could actually get the surviving species and surviving
some zoos around the world and take them to Earth's desert just like they're owned but in Arizona in the United
States and breed them up and then reintroduce into the world problem solved you think
except that they now realize and son and
naturalist began to realize that it wasn't just about
Individual species whether it was the Arabian oryx or the giant panda
But it was about ecosystems
So we started
Instituting national parks around the world in the tropics all around the world
but even that was not big enough and now we realize that
The problem is nothing be far bigger than the biggest National Park
The problem now is global
That realization
Shocks a lot of people a lot of people perhaps still don't believe it to be true
But it is a profoundly important
realization and
the world in the last
10 years
Has at last begun to realize that
They've at last become to realize
That we are part of the natural world
That if we damage the natural world we damage ourselves
Because we are dependent upon the natural world
For every mouthful of food we eat
for every lung full of air
we breathe and
Some might say we're dependent upon it for our sheer sanity
Damage the natural world and
we damage ourselves and
That realization
Has only become widespread beyond the ranks of
academics or
Zoologists or data lists or conservationists. It's only become realized
By the population as a whole and I'm talking now about West Europe
in the last few few years
suddenly
suddenly
People realize that we're facing a global crisis
And things have been done about that global crisis. I
used to say
the history of mankind
was a history about of wars of fighting one another of arguments and that was true for a great part of
human history
It was not about getting together about people of different faiths of different languages of different
constitutions of different physicalities getting together and saying they think our differences and
handle a problem that faces us or as inhabitants of planet Earth and that
first
recognition of that required
Democratic support around the world was actually about Wales
People began to realize that they were shooting out Wales. They were hunting whales so
mercilessly
That in another few seasons, they had the ability to exterminate worlds from the oceans of the world
And they got together
Nations different speakings from different parts of the world. They got together and they agreed
They should do something about it that I think
was the first
international conservation
agreement, which really worked
And that is a turning point
Today it is my profound belief
That people such as yourselves
Educated people young people around the world are realizing that we have come to a tipping point
Something has to be done
Who is to do that and how and what is to be done?
The answer is that those people who have the luck or the interest?
to concern themselves in a probing way
With the realities of what has to be to save the environment
are by and large
educated people
Who understand about the principles of ecology and biology and who can explain?
to people who don't belong to those disciplines to politicians and
To voters what it is that has to be done
that is a huge huge advance and
My view
is that
at last
politicians I'll begin to realize
That they have to take action
What is that action?
The key the key was the Paris agreement
about climate
There have been back sightings from that most noticeably in the United States, of course
but by and large the world has woken up him and
another advantage another
Great sign of encouragement. Is that universities around the world?
Our recognizing that they don't live in ivory towers the scientists who research there
They don't live and just to talk to themselves
They have a responsibility
When they get the understanding of what's going on in the natural world to?
tell people about it and to take action about it and
That applies that knowledge that insight and that understanding
Is centered very largely on
university academic
research and this university is
outstanding in it
understands about
sustainability
it
Understands that human beings cannot go on
Taking from the natural world without any care as to how that riches are being deployed and wasted
so I actually
having been
Feeling that I was talking
Into the wind that nobody was taking notice thirty years ago
Even 20 years ago
Today, I believe that we are on the turning point and I believe that universities like this one
Which pays particular attention to sustainability is right at the cutting edge
Young people
people in universities people with understanding about conservation and the importance of the natural world are
beginning to influence
politicians
What has happened in the last few weeks
Showed that politicians in this country at any rate
Have suddenly begun to realize they cannot ignore what is happening?
And that is because of the loud cry from young people
Because the world belongs to young people it doesn't belong to my generation anymore
We had our chance we didn't do very well
But I do believe that the generation that is coming today
knowledgeable energetic and brave
have a real chance of
reducing the damage we are doing to our climate and
are making the world fit not only from my
grandchildren great-grandchildren
but for the rest of the inhabitants of the natural world
The world does not belong to man alone
It isn't there a larder for them just to take what they wish
The world belongs to the whole of the natural creatures of the world
It's a we are its custodians. We have the power and we have the knowledge
to care for that matter world
and we have a moral obligation to
Do just that and what this university is doing
Is but making itself a leader in that particular struggle
I'm proud that you should have given me an honorary degree. Thank you very much
Thank you, so David
we invited from
people in the audience earlier in the week
the submission of questions so we have a series of those largely from students but also from members of staff and and
visitors and so we're going to
I'm going to written sort of invite people to ask their questions as we go along and I'll try and intersperse
Them with sort of summary questions of those that we haven't been able to to choose so
Apologies to those that weren't weren't picked picked out, but hopefully we'll be able to cover the sort of areas that you like you requested
inevitably we're going to move into the the climate agenda, but I think a little bit more broadly about your
broadcasting career too to start with
and
Before I ask Bethany white one of our students to ask her first question
Can I just we've talked a lot today about the inspiration that you give young people?
who inspired you to to start and who inspires you now in terms of what the work you do the
person who inspired me was
The son of the great captain of the great polar explorer Captain Scott, his name was Peter Scott and
50 years ago. He was I think perhaps the most widely
Famous naturalist in this country. He's also Martha's painter
He painted wild fowl and they had a none particular understanding and affection for well fowl. But he was a marvelous
broadcaster in radio and
Subsequently in television, but he also had a very sensitive
Social conscience and he became active in founding the World Wildlife Fund
other people of course were involved as well, but he
He was its mouthpiece. He provided
Things were to say
he provided lots of drawings for it to
And I admire him unreservedly
He
Perhaps people don't know about him now
they certainly if
gathering like this
50 years ago
everybody would have heard Peter Scott and Mamie and when in the long sight of history and other 2 or 3 generations
they will see that Peter Scott was in fact the first
World what world famous naturalist to call attention to what we were doing the damage. We were doing to another world
fascinating
Bethenny Weitz is one of our students. I think she's
At the back. It's a pleasure to meet you
My question is out of all the things you have seen in your time what has been the most difficult to witness and why?
So of all the things that you've seen in your time what has been the most difficult to witness and why
Well, of course is what's difficult to witness is when we ourselves cause damage and
One of the most dreadful sites that I've seen
Yes, I suppose forever or my career it's in the last few years
When I have gone to coral reefs that I knew a few years earlier
I'm sure there a lot of underwater swimmers here and
Maybe there plenty of people here who have dived on a coral reef
But a flourishing coral reef is one of the most breathtaking spectacle in natural world
the mere business of putting on an Aqualung and
Losing and the pull of gravity so that you can just move any way in three dimensions
We're no longer just stuck by the pull of gravity
You could just float about and you do that and below you there are a hundred
animals species that you've never seen before
All of which are extraordinarily beautiful and complex as many of it. You don't know how to classified. What is it?
Is it account of jellyfish is it what is it? You just don't know
schools of the most dual like fish
floating all around you and taking note that notices were told and
these amazing
forests of corals
that's one of the great sights in the natural world and
I dived on a coral reef what I suppose four or five years ago. I knew well
And it had breached
The fish had gone all that was left
were the white skeletons of the dead coral and
That was an induced entirely
because of the increase of temperature
And the knowledge that I had everybody had was that we were responsible for that
That was a horrifying. Sorry a
Slightly different angle on the same question I guess is
What's the most frightened you felt?
the most frightened or the most the time when you felt most in danger as you've been doing your filming
by and large
Animals, don't go from who attack the young beings very few. Do unprovoked
most of them
It's not their advantage to tangle with you as you are they don't attack you they without warning
Even the charging elephant
you can charge you but will stop a
few yards from you if you've got you've got the nerve and
Put out its years and waggle and
if you if you a silly
It'll come at the California world. But if you've got this sense
You were actually either get into the Land Rover. The Jews should have been in the first
But justly retreat, that's very frightening
but without question
the most dangerous creature that I've ever come across
And which I really was very frightened
He's a human being who's drunk
Who doesn't speak your language and has a gun that is danger
Excellent next questions from le Sweetman again one five students
In your life you've traveled the world and seen so many amazing things, is there anything
And so you've seen so many amazing things in your life and traveled the world
Is there anything less that you haven't experienced that you would like to?
No human being can possibly
See one millionth part of the wonders of this marvellous world that we inhabit
This is the most I mean that I I'm keen on birds paradise. Yeah, I like bad fella
There are two species of birds. Apparently I haven't seen
And I would a door to see them
I don't suppose I have a shout now because they live in a very remote part of New Guinea
And I won't but you know, there are wonderful things in this country, too
Two mice
To give you just an example. We I live in on the outskirts of London. I live in Richmond and I am told
And I live within
20 yards of a church the Victorian Church
And I'm told that Peregrine's have moved in. I
Get up every morning. I haven't seen them yet
But I know that they're there and that is a marvelous example of how things are coming back
Encouragement and so on
So the thing I'd love to see most of all alone is a paragon when I look out on my window in the morning
Around that church tower just there
And now from Eleanor Milosevic again upon my students
Good afternoon, sir, David, if you could only save one animal from extinction, which one would it be and why?
I've no idea really
The world will be I have to say rather better off if the one that disappeared as Homo sapiens, but
Perhaps that's not the question. You are. So answer your CV I?
Don't know
you know, actually I was talking about the history of conservation which I
telescoped a bit and
the
Realization that we were exterminating single species was a very important one
but the thing that followed that
in the conservation world
Where people deliberately doing what they can to save things
Was the realization that actually one single species
Is not all that important what's important is the ecosystem it is the whole community that's what
What is important for the health of the world and our understanding
perhaps it's not understanding perhaps the complexity of
ecosystems is such that it's very difficult to
Predict which one? Can you can afford to lose and which one?
You will
lose
At your peril and which one will cause the collapse of the whole system I mean for example
in the 19th century
Trappers on the northwest coast of America going up towards the Arctic
Saw a marvelous species of otter
That's famine in the sea and which spent all its time see as a consequence have one of the richest
densest silkiest the most rinsable third and so of course has been human beings they shot him and
They decided that they can make a lot of money by selling
sea otter skins
And then about fifty years later of the sea otters
Beginning to show that they were disappearing
But also the cod were disappearing
Another edible fish
And people thought well sea horses don't eat cod
So there's no connection. It's just unfortunate that we're losing a sea otter over here, and we're losing Cod over there
But actually our
Raiding of the sea otter was a punch was the problem because sea otter lives on sea urchins
sea urchins graze the
The kelp beds on the
and eat all the
Of the young seedlings and the kelp bed. And what happened was that when this when the sea otters were no longer there
The urchins suddenly began to proliferate in fast numbers and they were destroying the kelp beds
But the kelp beds to the nursery is where the young sea with young Cod live
So there was nowhere for the young fry of the cod to live. So the Cod were disappearing
The world is full of connections
Which we are not clever enough to understand them all and we can't predict them
So when you say which one will we can afford to lose? I don't know
I don't know what we can afford to lose
We can't actually afford to lose anything we have to do our best to preserve all these
Ecosystems because we are not clever enough to understand the full complexity of the matter world
Thank you just flex think you've moved into the space of Peters question, but I'm out Peter piece of Fitzroy to ask this question
What do you believe is the most important habitat and species and why most important habitat in species
You've answered the species to some extent but the habitats in more broadly the most important habitats again, that's under threat
Well, the it depends how you define
habitat
But but of course the greatest threat that's coming there at the moment is in the oceans
And because we are doing terrible things to the oceans
We are get we have to no longer afford
Go on eating red meat and the way we have been doing for a whole
Slew of reasons. So we are becoming or we have to become if we are to survive as a species
We have to draw a lot of food from the Seas from fish
But at the moment what we're doing to the Seas is is appalling
We are have become more expert at ripping up the seabed
more expert at harpooning fish
more careless of the ways in which we do it and on top of all that
We are causing a rise in the temperature of the ocean
Two-thirds of the world this globe is covered by the sea. We've been raiding it without
Any caution, whatever without any conditions and if you reserve for hundreds of years
We are now in the
Danger of losing that sea and all that food that it could provide us. So I think the marine
Ecosystems are the most vulnerable at the moment and the ones that we can least afford to be destroyed
Can I just go back to your broadcasting just for a second
Because you you always very generously recognize the fact that it is not you taking the photographs and everything
that that we see on the TV screen is are there any specific stories around the
the extremes that your camera teams and things have gone to in order to achieve the the filming that you've
That you've been the frontman for
one they're not and
the last series
Blue Parrot - for example, I think we had
45 different cameramen working on it the world of broadcasting and of Natural History
Broadcasting has changed beyond recognition in the 50 60 years that I've been working
I mean
There's a start with the programs I made with me and the cameraman when we pushed off to
Borneo for three months and nobody heard of work and The Improv us for three months and we had a great time
The programs were rubbish
But in those days you see fifty years ago nobody had seen or ago Thailand trees
I've never seen they'd never seen The Fairly blue bird that never seen an August pheasant
They've never seen some of the most glorious things that there are the national world. So even badly filmed and
fragmentary and
Transitory it just showed that and people the glorious the natural world are such that people's jaws sagged from the oak on television in
black and white, you know
Blurry, but never mind that was a bird of paradise
Fantastic, you can't get away with that Mound we wouldn't want to get away with that. Now now we have the most wonderful apparatus and
It has made possible all sorts of things that were not possible for we can film in the dark
We can film a high in the altitude. We can speed things up
We can slow things down we can film at the bottom of the sea and the top of Mount Everest
so we can go in anywhere and do anything and
one of the wonderful thing I mean the shift into from
Film which was a very clumsy
Piece of apparatus. I mean, well, I you started off with black and white because television was a black and white
But it worked by clockwork and you rounded up and it was a hundred-foot real and that lasted two minutes
40 seconds and after you shot two minutes for 40 seconds of
Images then you had to take of the camera and put a new willing in but now you can film for hours on end
Electronically and you can fill in all conditions the most wonderful thing. I mean you couldn't you can
Arrange things so that you have a camera trap
so there's a the animal itself takes the photograph you take skill in a way you're going to put the camera so
you know that you want to have be able to predict almost exactly the posture of an animal for example a
snow leopard
scent-marking a tree or a stone
Will stand in one particular position because it has to get the cinema just there so you can predict
just where it will be and you can put the camera there for just just just the right position and
That's what we did and that was after
10 years 15 years of tracking
Snow leopards and failing to find them of me writing winter scripts every now and again
Say shot at snow leopard approaches from the left of the camera
Spread marks and moves to the right and the cameraman. So how much you get that awesome idea by us. You're
But now you'll see you can put a camera there and if you if you brighten up it's not all that
difficult to frame it in the right position
And so you get a fantastic shot of a snow leopard never been seen on film before
beautiful animal spray Marquis of rock and the audience says
It's wonderful. Then you put it on again another six months of time. They say well we've seen that
So we go on getting our problems we've got
Still a lot of things to do but but our skills and the technology drones for example
Jones gives us huge actor
Brands drones allow us. I mean I've just been filming in
in Iceland actually, but
Doesn't matter where I was believed
To be able to see to see put up a drone in any pursuit or quite high
With a long-focus lens so you can get a close-up of an animal running at speed and travelling alongside it
fantastic
Beautiful stuff that you can get the pictures that you see on on
No credit to me as I've explained, but they are
Breathtaking and if I didn't have my Beth taken away
Then I should get out of the business because when I had these teams come back with these fantastic shots
I am astounded and unraveled by their beauty and their skill
and the world will never
Has never been shown
in such detail with such craft and skill as cameraman's current can now do
fantastic
If you would just start University now, what subject would you do?
Well you see I
I mean I can say to answer the question. I were socially responsible question answered that question is of course conservation science and
And that was what?
Your conscience would tell you to do
But if I was to indulge myself
There are whole areas of the animal kingdom which nobody cares anything about nobody knows anything about
But Nautilus
Nautilus know but I've never made I've got shots of Nautilus and their Marvis things, you know
they're
Cephalopods this is an organization. You know, what cephalopods are
Yeah, well, they're beautiful Nautilus the best social behavior of Norris's. I don't think anybody knows anything about at all
It'd be fun but then there are there are
Hundreds of examples of things like that that you if you just you're allow your interest not to go down the well-worn
Corridors, but to go down into different areas of the zoological world
you will find all sorts of areas that people not the faintest bit of notice talk before I mean, there was a
An Australian wrote me an amateur boats me out of the blue. You would think that he knew a lot about the animals in Australia
But he had been filming little spiders no bigger than my thumbnail
which called peacock spiders and they
inflate their abdomens and when they invade them they're ours just as richly patterned as that the
the tails of peacocks and
They display and in the but they're individually varied much more varied than than peacocks are
Wonderful little creatures no bigger than that
And he discovered them nobody he sent a Matar film to me and I said wonderful and as a consequence there now
Again, one of these handed things though peacock spiders again. We are sparing them
I've shown it about three or four times. I get quite bewitched by by peacock spiders
I mean this extraordinary wonderfully beautiful creatures. We don't thing about
So plenty to do plenty
today
I'm going to suggest that we take the next three questions
As a group and that you once saw them all that after the third one
So the first one is from Katherine Bailey
Good afternoon, sir, as a new mother
I would like to know what three things you would ask every parent to teach their children in
Order to make the biggest difference for their future on planet earth
Then I know that then the next one is Annabelle Roberts
Thank you David for your talk. And so my question is this sustainability can be
Individual ask large scale how important do you think veganism is in combating climate change and what do you think about the movement?
And then the third one from Annabelle Machin, please no animals
Not here. So I'm gonna ask Annabelle's question
She said since graduating from Keele University. I have worked as a doctor in the NHS over this short period of time
Continuing medical advancements have contributed to longer life expectancies in the developed world and an increasing global population
Do we need to be having frank conversations about how many people our earth can sustain in the future?
So three slightly different aspects of the same
So the first one was advice to a new mother the second one specifically on veganism and then the third one on population
Well, I think what I would say to to a mother particularly in
the Western European situation
is
Think how many children you want
Advising people on how many children they have is a very impersonal thing to do
It's the great inalienable right of Homo sapiens
to decide how many children they have and if they have 10 children
But
Human beings are
Extraordinary in the amount of care that each child needs to be brought up
But we can't I mean in the Victorian times, you know
Medical conditions are such that women in this country could have twenty children in their lifetime of whom
three quarters, perhaps would die
Well that no longer happens
Now medical science is such
that we can
Our children when they're born have got a very very very good chance of survival
And I think we should think about carefully about how many you can have to replace the parents
this country
is
full of human beings and
The natural world has suffered as a consequence as the human beings
Take what they want from the natural world that can't go on
sustainability, which is one of the
mottos one of the headlines of this university
makes it perfectly clear that sustaining the science of our population is fine, but allowing it to increase at
Some time to rate is it's not tolerable in this world in this small country, but each person has to make that decisions by themselves
What was the last question?
It was population mechanism because it was one
Yes, well
We can't afford give great stabs of the land to other mammals that we're going to eat
and I
Don't have any problems about
The biological morality if that makes sense the biological morality of
eating
flesh
Because as a biologist and men and you are many here
We recognize that our dentition and another joseph's system are those of an omnivore?
And we can we have Canasta we have teeth which are good for masticating and in flesh
So if there is such a thing as a book as a biological
morality, I think we're justified or eating but
but
We can't afford to go on eating flesh if in order to provide for that appetite
We are taking up whole areas of the natural world, which the natural world is
so we the amount of
the
Fertile land surface, which we devote to raising cattle and sheep
Can no longer be sustained
Because we need that ground in order to grow crops. So I
I myself
Have now
given up
largely eating fresh not for moral reasons I have to say but
or not even because I
It's just like somebody's rather. I don't know what to do with age. But but I don't eat much meat
I don't want to eat much meat
I don't think it is morally wrong to eat flesh every now and again, but I don't want to do so
Okay. Thank you. Next question from one of our staff Emma Henderson
Hello and good afternoon I was
Wondering if you were able to introduce a new law today in the UK in order to tackle climate change. What would that be a
New law people able to introduce a new law in this in the UK
Well, you depends what the law is, of course
But I'm sure that we the time has come when we should legislate
For certain things and unless we can get it redone bound if we can get it done. I mean
Persuasion is much better than the law. And we and we have a responsibility to persuade people that they can't afford to go on
Doing certain things which are damaging the environment. We already take that we're all this recent law about
car exhausts for example
I mean that's that is damaging the environment that is also poisoning children point are those two pointing people live in cities
Yes, we have to we have to put loads for those sort of things
I'm
Not a great legal, man. I don't I don't feel that we want to keep on posing more and more laws
I want persuasion and much better than the law and we should persuade people that actually there'll be healthier. They stop
poisoning the opposing the atmosphere and and
I'm trying to think of what laws that anybody might propose
That I would find intolerable
But certainly the less laws the better and the more persuasion that we can of proper living
You know, I
I
Feel that we are on the on the edge of a moral
Change in in human society and that the one that is
Overcoming in over at such a speed we almost may not recognize it
But there was a time in the middle of the 19th century
When civilized educated
European people
Thought it was perfectly acceptable to own another human being
as a slave and
To buy and sell them as slaves
and
in a period of about
25 years
Suddenly it became intolerable for any educated civilized human being to
Tolerate such a such an abomination
How that happened, I don't know I mean you can name names William Wilberforce, they're politicians
And so but it was not just politicians
The world began to recognize that was intolerable. I
have just a suspicion that
We are on the verge of feeling just that sort of way about
Intolerable, but it would be to maltreat the planet in with the way in which we have been now treating the planet. I
Suspect that we're on the edge of a moral revolution
Certainly in Western Europe, and I only pray that that's true
Okay, and then a question from Joe Patel well
Good afternoon, David
considering that climate changes, perhaps the contemporary world's greatest threat, but also how
entrenched in our ways as a society humans can be how optimistic are you that we will
Realistically be able to take the necessary steps towards creating a sustainable society
Before the irreversible effects of climate change take hold
I
Can't pretend I'm that optimistic
I've been too appalled by seeing some of the dreadful things that we're doing
And
But I do know as I've just said
that I I have the feeling that we are on on the verge of
a profound change in attitude
certainly in Western Europe
and I have else around the world and
What chance of ever happening I
Think we are doomed for the natural world to be damaged to
some further degree
whatever happens
But I think there is just a chance
that
Realization of this an education and the spreading of the realization though, that will be such
That we may be able to avoid its worst excesses and as we know
We're at that cutting point now, that's not it's not just oh yes in the next 150 years
If we don't deal with climate change in the next 20 years
solid
academic scientific assessment is
that there will be major major climatic this option which will have
devastating effect on our cities
devastating effect on the political situations and many of the continents of the world and
desertification of a great areas that were once fertile
And and and and cities out of Florida will be underwater
That could happen. I'm not saying it will
But it could and that's sweet
Unless the movement which I detect
Actually proved to be a powerful movement and spreads quickly
So I think we have a chance
But that's it. It's your future and
You will
Everybody in this room will be involved in
Coping with what the rest of the world does
Have you?
Thank you say but that's that's the end of the questions before I give the formal vote of. Thanks
I'd like to invite a couple of our students Vincey and Katherine
I think just to come up with a couple of gifts for you from Q University
coming from
Thank you very much thank you very much indeed
Stand between you okay?
Ladies and gentlemen
We certainly haven't been disappointed
I'd like to remind you that of the people who
watched BBC's blue planet blue planet -
88 percent of them said that they had changed their personal habits with respect to plastics. I
think that shows the power of the gentlemen that we have in the room with us today and
I'm not going to say any any more other than just to give my
Great. Thanks to all of those who have gone to help organize today
We we really have put Sir David through his paces
We are very very appreciative and we do acknowledge and he does talk about his his age
He has a birthday next week
So we're very grateful that he's taking the time to come and see us this week and worked so hard for us today
but it's taken an awful lot of people to actually organize today and
I'm
It's gone like clockwork. It has been fantastic
So thank you to all of you who are either in the room or watching potentially on the video screen
Including at least one who's in the Canary Islands at the moment
Who's my PA? Let's see. So david has been dealing with over the last two or three or two three weeks
So it just remains to say a huge thank you or to all of you that have come here today
We've heard about some very important
aspects of our lives of the life of our our planet
But of course most importantly I'd like you to join me in thanking Sir, David Attenborough for honoring us with his presence today
Thank you very much
