New Podcast Release: Jane Goodall

The next episode of "Lives Well Lived," the new podcast I am releasing with Kasia de Lazari-Radek, is now live.

In this episode, Kasia and I speak with the renowned primatologist Jane Goodall. To give you a taste of what she said, here is some of the transcript, lightly edited for clarity. You can listen to the full episode now, live on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred platform.

On the impact of her mother:

"Well, I was very lucky. I was born loving animals, and I had a supportive mother. So apparently…when I was one and a half she came into my room and I'd taken a whole handful of earthworms to bed with me. And you know so many mothers would have said’ Oh how dare you,’ you know. She said Jane you were looking at them so intently I think you must have been wondering how do they move without legs. And anyway, she just said they'd die if they stayed in my bed and so we took them back into the garden."

On her early curiosity:

"When I was four years old she took me for a holiday on a farm. And I had to collect the hen's eggs. And there were about four or five I can't remember exactly hen houses where they slept at night. And I was given the job of collecting the eggs. So apparently I was asking everybody but where is the hole big enough for the egg to come out? Because I couldn't see a hole anywhere like that. And nobody told me. And I distinctly remember seeing this hen she was brown. And she was going into one of the hen houses. And I must have thought ah she's going to lay an egg. So I crawled after her. Big mistake. I can still feel her wing hitting my face. A squawks of fear. She flew out. And again in that little four year old brain I must have thought well this is an unsafe place. But now I'm on the warpath. I'm going to see a hen lay an egg and find out for myself. So I went into an empty hen house. And I was gone four hours which is a long time for a four year old child. And the family had no idea where I was. Mom was about to call the police and here's this excited little girl rushing towards the house all covered with straw. And again instead of how dare you go off without telling us don't you dare do it again she sat down to hear the wonderful story of how a hen lays an egg. So if you think back on that isn't that the making of a little scientist?"

On the importance of hope:

"Well you'll probably think this is weird. But I just feel I was put on this planet for a reason. And you know the first reason was to… well, to really change science and its attitude to animals. It's got a long way to go with testing too by the way. But now it's to give people some hope because there's so much doom and gloom. It's true you know… climate change, loss of biodiversity, poverty, unsustainable lifestyles, intensive agriculture… all of it is bad. And so people are losing hope. And when you lose hope you either get angry or you get really depressed. Suicide rates are going up. Or you just become apathetic and do nothing. And if we all get apathetic and do nothing or get angry and throw bombs or whatever, or go into deep clinical depression and commit suicide, we're doomed!  So I always say to people yes there's all this bad stuff, but think of all the amazing stories. And every interview I do with the media, I tell them, you know, there's so many good stories out there! Please share them, as well as the doom and gloom."

On making a difference:

"I always say to people who say, “What difference can I make? I'm just one person…”  I say, “OK, what do you care about in your community? Maybe it's trash. Maybe it's homelessness. Maybe it's refugees. But whatever it is, maybe it's cruelty to animals. Well, get some friends. See what you can do. See if you can do something.” And then when you do it, when you start doing it, you're only maybe ten people, but the whole little area was covered in trash and now it's clean. And then that inspires you to want to do more. And then more people want to join in. And then, instead of this saying, “think globally, act locally,”  I say: “No. Think globally, you get depressed. Act locally. And then knowing other people are acting locally, you can think globally."