- Hello, my name is Margaret Atwood.
And it's my very great pleasure to be talking today
to the one and only, Jane Goodall.
Hello, Jane.
- Well, hello, Margaret. I'm Jane.
And you are the one and only Margaret as well.
So we're both talking to one and only.
(Both laughs)
(orchestral music)
- So when I'm writing a novel,
I always decide what year the person is born.
And then I know what was happening to them
when they were 10 and what was happening in the world,
and when they were 20, and when they were 30.
So you were born in 1934.
And that means in The Depression.
And then, when you were six or five-
- Five.
- along came World War II.
Where were you living then?
- Just before the war, like six months before,
my father took a house in Le Touquet in France
'cause he wanted and my sister to grow up speaking French.
For some odd reason, he didn't speak French.
I was there with my sister, mom, and her friend,
and two kids.
And then learning French, haha, we'd been there three months
and war broke out and we had to leave.
So we went to my father's mother's farm for three months
and then came where I'm speaking from now,
my grandmother's house, which is now a family house.
Well, I was born apparently,
loving to watch anything that crept, crawled, flew, ran.
We had a dog, we had a cat.
And then as soon as we got here to Barmouth,
I spent all my time watching animals in the garden
on the cliffs above the sea.
Before we go on with me, it's your turn now.
You were born in what-
- Yes. I was born in '39.
So two months after war broke out.
So in fact my whole early childhood was spent
in that period.
And my childhood was similar to yours
in the animal watching department.
Although possibly more so
because we are in the Quebec, North Woods.
And did a lot of frog watching
and turning over of logs in case there might be a neut
or a snake.
And my dad was a forest entomologist.
So in an early conservation,
it's like very early,
the period when people thought you were kind of lunatic
if you were interested in those things.
So I sort of grew up that way.
But I don't imagine that your family was saying,
"Jane we want you to grow up and go off
and study temperatures.
- No, no, no. Not (indistinct).
My childhood, you know,
the other thing apart from being outside with nature,
books, books, books, no television.
Must have been the same for you, really?
It was. Yes.
- So books, books, books.
And I was only about 10 when my grandmother...
You know, in those days, if you saved up coupons,
I think this was from packets of cereal.
- You will get something free.
Now you save it up and you get half price off,
but you still have to pay.
But in those days you didn't have to pay.
And she got me this book, The Miracle of Life,
which is just being reprinted.
It's not for children at all.
It goes right through evolution and Darwin
and ends up with the human anatomy and medicine.
But I spent...
I mean, it was one of my most favorite, favorite books
along, of course, with a fiction,
which was Tarzan Dr. Dolittle spec.
(Margaret laughs)
- So I was 10 when I fell in love with Tarzan.
Was very jealous 'cause he married the wrong Jane.
Well, he did.
I'm quite sure he did.
Anyway, I knew there wasn't a Tarzan,
but that was when my dream began.
Go to Africa, live with wild of animals
and write books about them
- Which brings us to the next thing
that people always ask about about.
I bet they ask you too.
And that's the hope word.
- The hope word.
- The hope word. Where do you get hope?
- I think you should start that one off.
- Well, okay.
So my answer usually is why not.
(both laughs)
So if you're not hopeful,
things are going to get less hopeful.
And if you are hopeful, that may generate more hope,
and actually inspire people to take action.
Because if you don't have any hope,
then there's no use doing anything.
- I quite agree.
- So people who say we're doomed,
I'm just not interested in that.
It doesn't generate any sort of positive activity.
- I see.
Hope is something tied into action.
And so I see like we're in a very dark tunnel right now.
There's no question.
We've got climate change, we've got loss of biodiversity,
we've got the pandemic, we've got racial discrimination,
you know, we've got all these problems.
And so that's the dark tunnel.
And right at the end is a little spec of light.
And we don't just sit at the end of the tunnel
and hope that light will come.
- I think this is gonna be not possible to answer
but I'm gonna give it a crack.
Where have you found the most meaning in your life?
- Well, the most rewarding has been to see the effect
that I can have as a gift given of communication
on audiences.
It's very rewarding when 5,000 or 10,000 people
jump to their feet and applaud. And you know,
I miss that a lot being grounded in the pandemic.
And so I'm having to give virtual lectures.
So I'm looking at this little green spec
on top of the laptop and you know,
you don't get any feedback.
You say something funny, nobody laughs,
you say something sad, nobody has hands up to their eyes.
And yet if I don't put the same energy and emotion
and enthusiasm into those talks,
there's no point doing them.
It was incredibly rewarding
when the chimpanzees lost their fear of me
after four months.
A lot of things with animals, you know
when you overcome the fear of an animal.
I mean, I have lunch every day under my favorite beach tree
and a little robin comes along and he'll now sit on my hand.
- My turn. Well, I can't...
I find it a very difficult question to answer
because a lot of things have been rewarding,
but I don't think that's why you do them.
I don't think you do them necessarily,
so you will get rewarded.
I think you do them
because you think that that's what you should do.
And I'm sure it's the same for you.
(indistinct)
And some of the things that we have done
have been not rewarding
because people did not at first receive them well,
but we did them anyway.
The conversations around feminism,
if we accept it as the basic premise
that women are human beings and not to have equal rights,
that is an ongoing effort, but it has changed a lot.
- Oh, so much.
'40s actually, women were very active,
but it's the usual thing with revolutions and wars,
you know.
Women are very instrumental, very helpful,
and then they're told, that's enough of you.
We're finished with that, you know.
Back to the bungalow
and there's a washing machine to make you feel happier.
Were you told you couldn't do things
because you were female?
- Yeah, I was, of course.
When I wanted to go and live with wild animals,
everybody laughed at me.
But you see, I had this amazing mother.
- Oh yeah. So did I have one.
- Yeah. She said, "If you really want to do this,
you're going to have to work very hard
and take advantage of every opportunity.
And if you don't give up, maybe you find a way."
'Cause for me, it wasn't just being a girl,
it was 'cause we didn't have money.
- Right.
- The war was raging when I thought,
Africa was still the dark continent.
We didn't know much about it.
It was full of danger.
But you know, having this supportive mother
and a wonderful family.
And you know, so I wasn't in the midst of it,
I was stuck away in Gambia and not thinking about feminism.
I just missed it all together.
And it didn't impinge on me.
The scientists were kind of scornful at first
of the findings of this young girl.
And though I only got credit because the geographic came in
and they only came in with money because I had nice legs.
And if that was said now, you know, it would be shocking.
- Very shocking.
But back then, I thought,
well, if geographic came in because of my legs,
then thank you legs.
I mean, you know, I don't care.
I just want to study the tombs.
And I didn't really care what people said.
I mean, it's true.
- Yes. Well, the main thing about your legs
is that they made it able for you to walk around a lot.
- Yeah. Up and down the hills. Yep.
And you know, I've watched...
Did you see that film, Jane, that the geographic just made?
- No, I haven't seen that, but I will.
- If you see it, you'll see my legs and they're not bad.
(both laughs)
- So you've been very interested in how great a Tombaugh
and that movement.
Extinction, rebellion, but also your roots and shoots.
And that has been a huge success.
- We have 65 countries and growing.
- Yeah. It's wonderful.
- Even during the pandemic,
we've had new Jane Goodall institutes,
but, of course, Roots and Shoots is part of all of them,
all 24.
One new one in India,
with Roots and Shoots rushing across India,
and the other one in Turkey.
- Wow. Turkey? - Turkey.
- And how is that going?
- Super well.
- Wow.
- And we're all over China.
We've got about 2,000 groups in China still.
- And the government hasn't shut it down.
- No. They love it.
And they keep asking me for stories to go on.
It's their equivalent of Facebook.
- Yes.
And they're very keen on environment within China now.
Really.
- Well, that would be huge if they could turn around
and cut their emissions.
- Yep.
So you probably know
about an online thing called Project Drawdown.
Which tells you...
It has these statistics, it's got the cost,
it's got the benefits for all of the things
that we are doing now.
But if we did them more,
would cause a net drawdown of carbon
from the atmosphere by 2050.
So I'm very keen on them as well.
- Margaret, I understand
that your new book, Burning Questions,
is coming out next month.
Well, what is it about?
- Oh, it's a collection of essays from 2004 to roughly now.
Let's say 2021.
And it's the third such collection.
There are two earlier ones.
So it's the third in the set.
And it's just stuff that I was writing during those years
which were pretty tumultuous years.
We had the big financial meltdown.
It was right after 9/11, big financial meltdown.
It was when I was publishing the Mad Adam Series,
which is on topic for what we've just been talking about.
And then it goes on
through the election of the person
whose name shall not be mentioned,
and other kinds of social changes
and uproars continuing on to about now.
But of course,
environmental questions were front and center for me
during those years.
'Cause we went through a big pile of paper
to get these essays out and decide which ones to put in,
I noticed myself making quite a few speeches about this
and telling people that if they kill the oceans,
they'll stop breathing.
That's my short form of why they should do something.
- Yeah.
- Because people usually, in general,
are slow to action until it's impacting them.
- Well, that's it.
That's why I kept saying, you know,
awful though it is the fact that the hurricanes
and the flooding
and the fires are hitting the US and Europe, you know.
Suddenly, it's not just them over there.
It's not Bangladesh and India, it's hurting us too
Also I give people the benefit of the doubt.
Sometimes what they're doing is literally through ignorance.
They don't know.
They haven't had the right education
or nobody's pointed it out to them in a positive way.
And it's amazing how people do change.
- We are told that we live in an age of, you know, bubbles.
And that people in this bubble will never listen to people
in that bubble.
So part of your mission, I take it,
is to who open up communications between the bubbles.
- Yeah.
Oh, it is.
They're now calling them silos for some reason.
- Are they calling them silos?
(both laughs)
Guess they don't know what goes on in a real silo.
- No, I think not.
- Don't fall into one.
- No, you don't want to fall into one.
- What was the compelling,
convincing thing you have said to someone
who is indifferent to or skeptical of your mission?
- The first thing I try to do is to find some little thing
that links us.
Like maybe you both love dogs.
Maybe, I don't know, something if it's possible.
And so make that connection.
Take time to listen.
My mother taught me that.
She said, "If somebody you disagree with confronts you,
listen to what they say because maybe they've got some ideas
that never occurred to you."
- And I think that has to happen.
People have to find a common ground.
- Yeah.
And it's very hard because there are huge vested interests
that don't want that to happen.
- Yep.
However, you know,
the sci-fi writers would be on this like a shot.
So the very rich person gets an island
and they put in almond cons,
and they're gonna isolate there.
And while everybody else goes down the shoot...
But you have to have people to run these things.
So you're gonna have to have a staff.
And at the point at which the contents of your freezer
is more interesting to those people than you are -
(both laughs)
- Yeah. Right.
- that'll be the end of that.
- Yeah.
And I think some people who were thinking
in terms of being a billionaire on an island,
that has already occurred to them
that if they don't actually do something about the planet,
they're just as doomed as everybody else.
- Well, of course.
And besides,
unless the island is frightfully rich and fertile, you know,
where is their food going to come from?
- Exactly. Where is it going to come from?
And as for shooting yourself off to Mars,
good luck with that.
(both laughs)
So what are you gonna do next?
What's your next big thing?
- What do you mean? Other than dying?
- You know, I say that to people.
I say, "This is gonna be your problem
'cause I'm gonna be dead."
And they say, "No, you're not."
And I say, "Yes, I am."
They say, "No, you're not."
I say, "Yes I am."
I was a seed investor
in a new method of disposing of your corpse.
It's very green Jane.
- Okay.
- So we know about green burial,
but this one is called recompose.
And you get turned into compost quite rapidly.
Started in Seattle.
They called it originally the Seattle Death Project.
But I think that was a name
that was somewhat off putting to people.
- To be regeneration.
- They floraled it up a lot.
It's now very floral.
And it is not...
It's hardly impactful at all on the carbon balance.
Plus, so good for your rose bushes.
(both laughs)
So this is something we have to think about.
One of my fans wrote me a letter quite some time ago
and said, "I'd like to make you a gift.
And my gift to you is going to be a pink,
organic, handcrafted, silk shroud."
And I said, "Maybe not just yet."
So maybe not just yet, Jane.
So what are you gonna do meantime?
- Well, I'm carrying on with what I'm doing
and when I can, I'll...
I mean, I miss my friends. Really, I do.
And they miss me.
I haven't seen my grandchildren
who are in Tanzania for two years.
Never been back to Gambia to see the staff there.
- Oh dear.
- You know, I need to visit the JGI centers.
And I know it means going on an airplane
but airplanes will fly.
I would never have a private jet,
but, you know, if there's a commercial airline flying there.
Haven't talked about the rights of animals.
These ain't human beings, we need to ban factory farming.
We need to ban unsustainable commercial fishing.
There's an awful lot we need to change.
- Yes. I think we need more marine parks.
- Yep.
- A lot more marine parks because they really work.
- Yeah, you're into marine parks and I'm into forests.
They're the two lungs of the world.
- Yeah. Well, I'm into forest too
and you're into marine parks too.
- Yeah. Of course.
- We're both into both.
- Both into both.
- Oh, that's very true.
And organic soil, of course.
A huge carbon sink.
- We're killing soil with pesticides and herbicides
and artificial.
I mean, it's terrible.
We literally are losing our soil.
And then we-
- So that's the real reason for buying organic.
It's not that it's going to kill you not to,
it's that we need to regenerate the organic soil
because it holds carbon and dead soil doesn't.
- Regenerative farming is the way to go and permaculture.
- I'm with you, Jane.
- Yep.
Let us just talk about
when we think the pandemic is gonna be over.
- Oh, we can't. Can we?
We don't know what Omicron's going to do.
- Well, let us pretend that Darwin would say
that viruses being what they are,
and evolution being what it is,
it's gonna take the path that is most favorable to itself.
- Yeah.
And that would be spreading faster but being less lethal.
- Right.
- So that seems to be what it's doing.
And there are some people
that think that the 1919 influenza epidemic turned
into the flu we have now,
which is not nearly as lethal.
- Right.
Yeah. So maybe it will become something like that.
And we'll just get an annual shot.
What do you think?
- I don't know.
(chuckles)
Continually talking to my virus experts about it
and they don't know either.
- They don't know?
Nobody quotes No.
So this is gonna be a guess rather than a No.
- Well, I mean, there's so many problems.
Like you get you get the very mild dose of COVID-19,
say Delta,
and you're not very sick and you don't go to hospital,
but you are very prone to long COVID.
And one of the side effects of that
is irreversible brain damage, which is why-
- Really? - Yes.
- Well that's horrible.
- Yes, it is horrible.
That's why I'm being extra careful
because I do need my brain
- Silly old you.
(both laughs)
- I need mine, you need yours, our teams need theirs.
- Yeah they do.
- But anyway, I think we should end
on a very nice positive note.
So in your work with discrimination,
I mean, with gender equality,
there's a tribe in one of the Latin American countries.
And I was talking to the chief,
and he said,
"Our tribe is like an eagle,
and one wing is male, the other wing is female.
And only when the wings are equal, will our tribe fly high.
- That is a wonderful thought.
I will tell that too Equality Now,
which works around the world
on laws having to do with gender.
- Yeah.
- So they will be happy to hear that.
- Yeah. It's a lovely one.
- And it's a good saying. Wonderful.
- Well, it's been great meeting you and talking to you
and I look forward to seeing your latest book.
- I'm gonna go look up your legs right away.
(both laughs)