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FORA.tv SERIES: The Burden of Six Billion

Jane Goodall: Blessing the Animals

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Alan Jones: Watching and listening over the years of which where you have been both as a scientist and in this sort of more - I would say generous humanism in the broader sense in terms of all of us being on this family and in this and not just the human family, but the family of the planet is you also help at least me in that and and we are fighting and arguing about a split between science and religion. And it seems to me you have such an integrated vision, a sort of undermines that nonsense that somehow religious sensibility and and tough science can't some how flourish with one another. Have you had any kind of people ask you those kind of questions in terms because you have four reasons for hope have a deep kind of spiritual content to them?

Jane Goodall: I was brought up to see no disconnect between science and religion, what an amazing mother you must know that because I am always talking about her and I remember being quite young and she said you know, you have been born into a Christian family and we worship God. But she said you could have been born into a Muslim family and worship Allah or you could have born into a Jewish family or you could have been born you know Buddhist. But she said, I can't believe that there isn't just one entity and it doesn't matter what name that entity has and then going on into you know spiritual matters, as far as I am concerned the more science unravels about the mysteries of the universe, the more in awe I am and the more the more it seems absolutely inevitable that there is a great spiritual power that is above us and just looking at my life, look where it has led me. I didn't plan it, it happened I - nobody would plan to travel 300 plus days a year, would they? I mean it doesn't make sense

Alan Jones: No, no that we wouldn't plan that.

Jane Goodall: Especially now with after 9/11 when you have to strip the airport and they treat you like a criminal and take away all your nail scissors - I just looking and thinking, oh bother.

Alan Jones: Well, they say they say look at this Jane Goodall.

Jane Goodall: Oh they they do do you know do you know, I travel around with Mary Lewis, we get S S S S on our boarding card which means special search suspect I can't remember what the other S is. We have to be pulled away and have air blown at us and all these dreadful things going through and then and then the funny thing is that more or less searching through my my suitcase, and fingering my underwear, they say, I have watched every show you have did. Will you sign an autograph for me?

Alan Jones: I see, well I feel safer. I am that's another key, isn't it, I mean a sense of humor because if we didn't we would be crying so much. One of the one of the tough balance is because of the and you see it in in politics and so on is how far governments themselves by regulation and law can bring about sustainability and how far the pressure should be on lets say corporate responsibility? I mean that that political balance do you get questioned on the politics of it and the - I am thinking of you know, social responsibility of the corporations.

Jane Goodall: Well, yes indeed and fortunately we are seeing a change you know, there is more social responsibility, most companies are doing something for the environment or the people but you know and and the same with the politicians but it it really comes back to us because if there is a corporation and it's making things which are harm - in a way that's harmful to the environment or bad for people, we don't have to buy them. And it's the same with politicians you know, they have a job and if they don't have about 50 percent of their constituents behind them and when they make a tough decision, they are not going to make it because they want to be reelected so it comes back again and again and again to us, to our involvement and the thing here is that some people can't afford to make those choices when it comes to buying different products. They have to go with the cheapest. So the more those who can afford to make the correct ethical choices, then the price comes down and then you know increasingly poor people can make the same choices.

Alan Jones: The one of our first guest in the forum this season was Robert Reich the former labor secretary whose book "Super Capitalism" argues that we are pushed the fact that we are consumers, that's the - the primary model for what it to be human being consumers investors and really undermined the notion of what it is to be citizens and one of the things I think you do in your work is really eliciting, calling us all to be citizens of of this world community and roots and shoots I think does that for children and you are realizing the connection between the the chimps being preserved and and allowed to flourish and also the poor people around needing to needing to eat and is that kind of citizenship, would you agree with that? That you are calling people to a kind of - yes you you make a difference

Jane Goodall: Every individual

Alan Jones: Every individual

Jane Goodall: Every individual matters and has a role to play and we may not know it and you know I was in Nepal and there was a group of roots and shoots there - young people about 18 to 25 and they risk their lives going in to an area that's being under Maoists control, why because there are children there illegally forced to work in the coal mines destroying themselves with the dust and they are the untouchable caste. The only hope they have of getting out of this horrible situation is if they get educated, but they can't, so the roots and shoots group is being risking its life going in, teaching them reading and writing and you know so I am I am incredibly inspired, roots and shoots - and it goes right through university, it starts a preschool, go through university, it's jumped into prisons, senior citizen, residences or whatever you call them, it's jumped into the staff of big corporations starting roots and shoots, so it's the whole thing. You make a difference with your life I make a difference with mine every body in this room, every one has - you know you can't live through a day without making an impact if you think about it.

Alan Jones: While we are on that, if you could tell because it's this is live on the internet too it's what what's the website or where have do people get in touch with roots and shoots?

Jane Goodall: "rootsandsshoots.org"

Alan Jones: All one word? "rootsandshoots.org"

Jane Goodall: All one word, yes. Yes and if they forget that, "janegoodal.org" jumps into it, they cant forget that.

Alan Jones: Alright alright that's good.

Jane Goodall: And we have got we we are moving into being able to sell products so that the profit goes back to the research, to the people, to the farmers, to the chimps but we got to seal - a seal of approval, we are not using it yet but it says Jane Goodal at the top, in the middle is me looking at you as if to say, listen and at the bottom it says "Good For All".

Alan Jones: Good that's right.

Jane Goodall: Isn't it fun?

Alan Jones: Yeah it is good. It isn't?

Jane Goodall: You see my name was destined

Alan Jones: There it is, "good for all" good good one. I noticed - I mean back to the government - government regulation that Japan's solar power project seems to be an enormous effort to make a difference do you know much about that? I mean I I think the president Jimmy Carter, way back in 79 unveiled a $28,000 solar cell system that capture the suns energy to provide hot water for the white house, that was in 1979 and it didn't you know he launched a campaign to make a difference and it didn't happen and then - and then it was removed for some leak of it was never put back, I mean so there were people sort of beginning to - now Japan is working to provide 23 percent the worlds electric power by 2025 I mean it's an enormous - an amazing kind of effort

Jane Goodall: Well there was a company, I forgot its name, but very very unfortunately the president doesn't speak any English, president of the company but all the way through the time when people were kind of saying of solar energy to live on, never have enough you know wouldn't be powerful enough, this company went on working at solar so I am sure that company because its very well known as behind this effort and when you these dogs - they are hard to ignore I think - they are not happy - any way you know the thing is that going to some of these conferences and listening to the modern technology don't you have a feeling that when we humans have our backs to the wall, we really can do our best and I think people around the world are beginning to feel backs to the wall with this climate change?

Alan Jones: Well that comes actually in terms of your four reasons for hope, one of them is human ingenuity - the human brain and its resourcefulness in its own. The other of course is is the determination of young people.

Jane Goodall: Yes.

Alan Jones: Can you say something about how about young people who - you talked about South Dakota and the poverty there and the hopelessness of some of the young - you are seeing the determination of young people as a sign of hope and it's patriotism but it's really there and it's happening.

Jane Goodall: Yeah we will think how this roots and shoots program has spread and I think it's spread because the young people sit down together and work out what are the problems surrounding them and what they could do about those problems and it's to be in three kinds of project, one for people, one for animals, one for environment with the theme of learning to live in peace and harmony within yourself, your community, between religions very important now, between cultures, between nations and between us and then natural world and I haven't found a groups of kids yet where there wasn't, when a few of them passionate about animals, they drive that and some passionate about community service and they drive that and many who care about the environment, they want to clean streams and collect trash so between them they are covering all these aspects and they are all empowered because they are all able to follow there own passion. You know and we got quite a few out in front of us today.

Alan Jones: Well today yeah I want to talk a bit before we open it up - we talk about that natural environment the and you you talked about flying over and seeing that forest, this whole impact, this sense of connection you have with the human environment and what human flourishing and human human beings are flourishing and places and toxic the food is infected and the you know things like that one of the one of the things that worries me is that I am worried it is a strange kind of thing where you are all in a kind of chasing your own tail of anxiety, is that we live in a time of you know the fact that you are searched at the airport and I feel more secure of course. The the act - the climate if you will a fear, that says we got to do this this and this because we are going to be attacked, that culture of fear seems to be something which undermines human flourishing and the sense of you know well being and I wanted that's another thing I think you speak to rather well of getting out of that cycle of. One of the ways to get out of the cycle of fear is to go and do something for somebody else.

Jane Goodall: Yeah I think I I really - I really do things that I am you know people ask me how I can keep hopeful and don't I get depressed and of course I do sometimes I mean we all do but I think if you if you really try every single day to be doing what you can about it in one way or another, even if its small it just I knew you just have this conviction that other people again to be doing the same and that really keeps you out of being too depressed because you see the difference so like these kids you know they see well between us we can clean a stream, we can write letters to legislatures we can eventually reintroduce fish and then - yeah and all around the world there are other kids doing the same, there is other streams being cleaned, so the resists growing power. I think roots and shoots is growing really quickly.

Alan Jones: We know that yeah. I don't know whether you know of Mary Oliver's poem just a couple of lines in it which says "tell me about your despair I will tell you about mine, mean while the world goes on" And she talks about nature and the geese that are flying and so you you were the first show that chimpanzees engage in what we would normally call very human behavior warfare, would you say - I am thinking about that violent - issue of violence as being natural to us and how we then - that energy, how it's turned to nonviolence I mean there are people who say well this is the way history is, you look at history and the slaughter is going on through centuries after centuries and since centuries, is it - and there is a there is a kind of fatalisms among some people who say, that's that's what human being do. And I think there is some argument, now I am saying that may well be true. But if we are going to survive, we are going to have to learn something else in order to to survive

Jane Goodall: Yeah. I mean, I do believe it's it's kind of innate - this violent tendency. And that you say, you look around the world, you can hardly not believe that we can be very violent in certain situations. But again we come back to this to this brain. We are capable more than any other animal I think of controlling our inherited behaviors, our instinctive behaviors. And war isn't inevitable, violence isn't inevitable if we can just build up a more just society around the world. I mean think of the the gap is widening between the people yeah. It really is widening and it's shocking to me to think that, in the hands of so few organizations, resides so much of the wealth of the world while so many people have nothing.

Alan Jones: Final question thought before opening it up is this another amazing thing I get from your writing is the benefit human beings derive from the bonding with other animals and there is dogs obviously.

Jane Goodall: But you know who call them dumb animals?

Alan Jones: Yes they are - dumb animals is- that that study is studies have shown that pets minimize tension between family members. I mean, if you want to sort of - so it is going to church actually but

Jane Goodall: Depends on the sermon.

Alan Jones: It depends on the sermon. It will be all right today. And I want to assure the congregation that Jane will be thoroughly searched before she gets into this into the pulpit. But that that that human animal oh humans are animals but that animal bond is something that's underestimated and you think can we - And and you you have been concerned about the way animals have also been exploited and so and so. Would you say something about that because I am back at the beginning of your story, watching, silent, still, respecting, paying attention and then developeing amazing bonds with with these amazing amazing creatures.

Jane Goodall: I think there is absolutely no question but that animals can do so much for us. There is absolute scientific proof. That contact with the dog reduces blood pressure reduces levels of stress. Dogs going round to visit elderly people are causing some people to speak for the first time; to move hands that didn't move before because they went to stroke. It doesn't have it to be a dog, a cat, a rabbit, there is a llama I know that goes around.

Alan Jones: I understand we have a stoat.

Jane Goodall: Somebody told me there's a stoat Yes, - I mean, I I don't think there is too many stoats visiting old people But going in to hospitals too and these things really - really are much more important and you know they find something really interesting. They find that there is something about a cat's purr that is healing there is something to do with the frequency. So the first things they decide to do this is just an example where the science can take over in the most ridiculous way that they would make a machine that purr with the same. And they they would then destroy every thing. It's the warm; it's the furry little body

Alan Jones: It's a combination of everything.

Jane Goodall: It's a combination.

Alan Jones: Yeah. Let's make a CD of cat cat purring.

Jane Goodall: That's right. That will do won't it?

Alan Jones: Yeah. It's great idea.

Jane Goodall: However this was going to be a vibrating machine. I mean, cell phone why not?

Alan Jones: Why not why not? We are going to open it up to the audience.