Instant Genius - Chris Packham wants you to be a scientist – and then forget the science

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

In this episode, we hear about Chris Packham’s guide to saving the planet. Think of the most iconic creature in the world. Now put that creature into its natural habitat, and imagine all the ways it connects with other parts of the sprawling web of life. You’re now thinking of nature as we should be thinking about it, according to the biologist and presenter – who has written the foreword for a new book called Habitats. In this episode, we spoke to Chris about his top tips for making the most of nature, a close encounter with a baboon, and what he thinks about COP28. Chris even gives us a peak at some childhood memorabilia that reveals what he wanted to be before he became a biologist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and now put that creature into its natural habitat. Imagine all the ways it connects with other parts of the sprawling web of life. You're now thinking about nature as we should be thinking about it. That's according to biologists and presenter Chris Packham, who's written the foreword for a new book called Habitats. In this episode of Instant Genius, we speak to Chris about his top tips for making the most of nature, as well as his battle wounds, including a close encounter with a baboon, and what he thinks about COP28. Chris even gives us a peek at some of his

childhood memorabilia, revealing what he actually wanted to be before he became a biologist. Welcome to Instant Genius, Chris. Thank you. Good afternoon. Evening. Morning. Yeah, all of the above. Chris, in Habitat. you say that humans often think about species in isolation, so putting tigers and polar bears, for example, in the spotlight, but the habitats and ecosystems actually are all deeply interconnected. So what did you mean by this? And what are some key examples? I think it's a habit of ours to take species out of context in order to isolate them and then perhaps even fully understand them or fully appreciate them.

We kind of put them on a pedestal and consider them to be, an independent entity. Let's take an example, one of those that you've mentioned, perhaps the tiger. So the tiger means so much to us in so many ways. It's integrated into our culture. It appears in art, music, so on and so forth. And when we think about tigers, sometimes I imagine we think about them in a situation which is entirely detached from the reality of where they should be. So most of us get to see tigers in captivity, of course. We don't get the luxury of seeing them in the world. And when they are in captivity, they're not connected to that ecosystem where they play a fundamentally important part. And for me, as much as you can stand a few feet away from a tiger in captivity

and marvel at its exquisite beauty, its greater beauty is when that organism is performing its role in a fully functional, diamagnomic, harmonious ecosystem, when it's part of something bigger that's evolved over millions of years and works to all intents and purposes perfectly. So, you know, I do think that unfortunately that becomes a burden when it comes to conservation too, because when I was a kid, I'm 62 now, old person, going back to the 1970s, we had saved the whale and Project Tiger. And these were very much single species focused conservation efforts. It was all about saving tigers. It wasn't about saving the forest or the step or the marshes. where those animals lived. Now, of course, we've radically changed our approach to conservation.

We understand that it's about looking after ecosystems. It's about looking after essentially habitats, because in doing so, you are able to far better protect those individual species and all of the others, which you'll never get any attention for, no matter how hard you clamour. It's much more difficult to put a wood louse on a pedestal and marvel at it than it is, for instance, in our own backyard, perhaps a honey buzzard, a rare bird of woodland. Everyone would stop and marvel at that, but they wouldn't look twice at the woodlice. But without the wood louse, there would be no honey buzzard. I love the idea of putting wood lice on a pedestal because I really like them.

I think woodlice are great. I mean, they're one of the creatures I fell in love with as a child, these little armoured crustaceans that trundle across the palm of your hand, leaving a faint tickle. Obviously, one of those crustaceans that, you know, can stay permanently out of water to breed, the only group, actually, that doesn't have to return to water to breed. And they have an intrinsic charm to the heart to breed. them. In the UK, we've got about 40-odd species, maybe 45, 46. Some of them are quite

isolated in the habitat where they live. They live in shingle areas on beaches, so on and so forth. But yeah, I still find joy in picking up a woodlouse, gently placing it on my hand. I'm watching its antennae twitch as it trundles away. Chris, if you could spend a day in one habitat in the world, maybe one of those that you mentioned just there or any other, which one would you choose? And how would you choose to spend your day there? Well, I would choose for comfort, a habitat that I know very well. It's always exciting going to new habitats. It's like being a kid in a sweet shop. I can remember very, very clearly my first morning in a tropical rainforest. I mean, I was so excited. I could have burst. But I didn't know the names of any of the trees. I couldn't find the birds. I could only hear them calling. But most importantly, that was an alien environment to me. It was one that I'd never visited before. I didn't know it. sounds. I didn't know the feel of it, the aura of it. Whereas the oak woodland that surrounds the area where I live and where I've grown up is, it's like whenever I go out, I'm walking amongst

old friends. I know the smell and the sounds of oak trees in rain and in snow and in wind. And so I can immediately segue into that environment. There's not a point of conflict for me there. I'm not struggling in any sensory way. Also, I suppose, perhaps even in a lazy way, I know the vast majority of the species that live there, certainly the obvious ones, or the trees, the plants, the birds, the butterflies, so on and so forth. And there were many I've not yet cast my eyes upon and probably won't in my lifetime. So home is where my heart is. There's no question of that. So I would choose Oak Woodland in Southern England. Lovely. And what are you there? Are you Chris Packham or are you a woodlouse? I'm an explorer. You know,

I still go into that woodland, you know, hoping to see something new, find something that I've not seen before, be tantalized by something that I can't see or, you know, might never. I like to basically connect with that in a maximal way. So I do listen to all of the birds' songs, and I do sit under the trees and listen to the rain falling through their leaves and therefore learn to identify, you know, trees by the sound of the rain falling through their leaves. And for obvious reason, a birch tree sounds very different than an oak tree, different shape of leaves, different number of leaves, different texture of leaf. So they sound different. So my mission, if you like, is to connect as much as I possibly can, given the constraints of being human, with that environment. And I have a thing called a pantone chart. And a pantone chart is a swatch. It's like an enormously exaggerated paint swatch that you would get from a do-it-yourself shop. And it's got a multitude of colours in it. and obviously used for graphic design, so on and so forth.

But I bought one about, I think, five, six years ago. And it lives in a little pouch. And I take it out into the woods. And I try to colour match each one of those colours in the swatch. And they're about 1,500. And my mission is to find colour match in my piece of woodland for every colour in the swatch before I'm no longer able to visit that woodland. So again, it's about forcing myself to look more deeply into that habitat and to experience it in the richest way possible.

And that isn't all about science. It's not about understanding the species. It's not even about naming the species. It's about fully engaging with that particular piece of the natural world. And I like to try and do that in maximal capacity. So I do get down on my hands and knees and I lay there and I wait for the time. dogs to disappear and I just listen and I might roll over and just smell the earth. I mean, even the earth, I have to tell you, smells very different throughout the course of the seasons. And again, for obvious reasons, you know, degrees of moisture, fungal activity, leaf cover, so on and so forth. But I just want to know that. Ultimately, I just want to know that that habitat as much as I possibly can. You're clearly a learner and need all of that refreshing

knowledge to kind of wash over you. And you were telling me before about ancient birdsness. So could you tell us more about some of the new things that you're constantly learning about? Well, one of the joys of having an interest in the natural world is that you're going to be learning all of your life. There were more species and more stories and more things than you could ever, you know, get to know. The greatest joy of my job, in fact, is that it is a lifelong learning experience. You know, I get to meet people who know more. about things which I'm very interested in and I'm able to ask them questions and they give me direct answers and that is it's like a permanent lecture if you like a permanent lesson and for me

aside from the fascination you know of the science of that and the scientific techniques involved there's a romance to it so when I was at school in the 1960s and 70s you were either on the science side of the line or you were on the art side of the line but for me science is is the art of understanding truth and beauty. And I'm never embarrassed to say that the art of nature and the beauty of nature is a formidable fuel when you need to drive a greater understanding of that nature. And that might be the science, the truth, if you like. So for me, there are no lines.

And I'm quite happy to accept romance in science. Absolutely. Is that romance something that's part of the shows that you produce? You specialize in bringing wildlife and science into people's home, and then actually inspiring people to get out of those homes and to get outside and experience nature. So what are your tips for helping people make the most of the nature around us? Does romance play a big part in that? I think it does, yes.

I mean, one of the tips I always give is if you're to be a good lifelong naturalist, then what you need to do is to maintain the ability to look at things in a childlike way, not a childish way, but a childlike way. So you've got to be able to get down on your hands and knees and almost pretend that you've never looked at a butterfly before. Because what tends to happen is that we do that as young people and we marvel at these organisms and we fall in love with them and then we develop an affinity for them and then we want to know more about them. And then we start to give them names and then we start to do surveys and then we start to communicate with other people doing surveys. And they say to you, what did you see? And you say, well, I went out and I saw a red abram on a peacock and a brimstone.

And you did. You did see them, but you didn't look at them because you'd very sadly gone past a point where you looked at them. All you do now is you give them names because you're clever enough to be able to identify them. But I think that if you retain the ability to look at the fundamental aspects of their anatomy, their behavior, then you'll never lose that freshness and a desire to learn more about the natural world. And some of the best questions are always those sorts of questions, which people consider childish, what are wasps for? I mean, if I had a pound for every time someone in a pub has asked me, what a wasp or has it been buzzing around their pint and annoying them in the summer? And I've had to explain what wasps are for. But those are actually quite good

questions. I think, you know, why does stars twinkle? Why is the seed blue? What a wasp for? And what I quite like sometimes is that people do get to adulthood. And they either didn't ask those questions when they were young, or they've forgotten to ask them whilst they were adults. So I think that, you know, having that ability to look at things in a fresh, fundamental way is important. But also to recognize that, you know, there's nothing wrong with feeling in science and in nature, the way that it makes you feel. I mean, I can be excited by a great new scientific discovery. But equally, I can be excited by the color of the beach leaves in the tree behind the screen and out of the window that I'm now talking to you about. I've seen that, well, I'm 62 years old.

I probably can remember seeing that for at least 57 years, the color of beech trees, given that I've grown up here. But that flame that's burning out there, that cascade of sparks that's coming down the tree and some of them breaking free as I speak and the wind is carrying them down onto the ground. That is just so good. I don't care it's a beech tree. I don't need to tell you about obsition, the shedding of leaves. I don't need to tell you about the pigments that are giving them those colours.

I just need to know that I'm looking at that and it's building a sense of euphoria because it's simply so beautiful. So one, ask the childlike scientific questions. Two, forget the science and just look at it. And three, maybe take those colour swatches into the woodland. Would that be fair? Is that a kind of a good summary of your top tips? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think, you know, maximise your connection. I do love the science. Don't get me wrong. I am intrinsically a scientist at heart, I suppose. I love the idea of discussing. I love the idea of discovering new things, developing techniques and collaborating with other people to discover those things. I love the stories and very often in nature, and very often it's the science that underpins or tells those stories. But at the same time, I refuse to forget, as I said,

the fuel, which is the intrinsic beauty of nature. And that's what gets me out of bed in the morning. What gets me out of bed is I know that I can go for a walk out here with my dogs at this time of year and I can walk through those showers of beach barks as the leaves fall to the ground. And that's what makes me set my alarm clock. What's your favourite ever encounter with something in nature? Oh, I don't know. Favorite encounter? It might be the formative ones when I was young.

I have a really good memory as part of my sort of autistic condition. And I do remember as a child standing on the wall near the gate of our small house in suburban Southampton and our. neighbor had a bush which was covered in ladybirds every year and I would get the ladybirds off and I would get them onto my fingers and I would watch them and they would sometimes climb to the tip of my finger and open their little red elytra, their wing cases and then their little orange wings would unfold and they were magical because they've been previously hidden and I remember not even knowing that ladybirds were beetles, not even knowing that they could fly and then they would open those wings

and they were just sort of waft away. And, I mean, it's just, it was so enchanting. What's your scariest encounter, or perhaps the strangest encounter you've had with wildlife? Well, I have had scary encounters. I've had one or two very, very close shaves, actually. I had a very close shave with a young male elephant on one occasion when I was looking at the back of my camera,

having taken a photograph of it, and thought that it had left the area, and it hadn't. And I only just made it back into a, vehicle and that would have been, you know, potentially a terminal encounter. I also got attacked by a very large male baboon again in Africa on one occasion. It was an animal that was not frightened of people. It was in a picnic area where unfortunately the baboons had been finding food. And again, it was whilst we were working. So I do remember after the baboon encounter, I smelled different. I could smell fear that had come from the pores on my body. I assure you it

only the paws on my body. And it was barking right in my face and I stood above it and I raised my arms and I shouted at it at the top of my voice and didn't move a centumika backwards. Had I moved backwards, I think at all, or certainly if I'd run, I would have been savage by this very large baboon. So yeah, things like that, I guess. And I've got a few scars where things actually did connect and leave some holes. But I have to say, there were always my fault, always a learning experience. You know, always one of those situations where I got complacent or not fully understood the needs of those particular animals in that context. So I've always blamed myself.

But luckily, I'm still here to blame myself. So, Chris, have you always wanted to be a biologist and a presenter? No, curiously, when I was a child, although I had a really deep interest in the natural world from a very young age, it was the 1960s. And like many other young people at that time, I was obsessed with the Apollo Space Program. I mean, what people don't realize now is how much that

dominated the news. The whole world followed those rockets into space. And I do remember, and I'm very grateful to my mother, her waking me up in 1969, so I was eight years old, and she took me downstairs, and I watched Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon in black and white in Midbury. And my mother said to me, this is a momentous occasion. You will never forget it. And she was right. And it was such a privilege to have seen that. So no, I wanted to be an astronaut. That was what, I mean, every kid wanted to be an astronaut. You know, I was going to study maths and physics, and I wanted to go to the moon. Trumbly is I wasn't very good.

I was better at biology. But, I mean, look, here's some stuff that I had when I was a kid. So for those listening, Chris is actually showing me some space memories from his childhood that he's dug out from under a load of punk rock memorabilia, apparently. You can watch Chris holding up this collection over on our social media channels. So here's a collection of coins. And these were given out by show. shell, the petrochemical giant, and you could go with a certain amount of fuel, you would get

all of these and you and you would collect them. So, but just because it had, you know, an astronaut on it, I had to do that. And then much later on, I managed to get this. And this is a collection of the signatures of the three astronauts on that program, the 11 program that landed on the moon. I still stand and look at the moon like I did when I was a boy. And like I did, you know, the day after or whenever, and I look up and I think, they went there. They went to that satellite glowing in the night sky. And it's just, even now, it sends a shiver down my spine. But, you know, I was never going to be an astronaut.

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name.com for more information. So what do you think about people who think the solution to the Earth's troubles are jetting off into space? Do you think it's good that humans leave the Earth to its own business and vacate? I'm really torn. I mean, the scientist in me loves all of that. I mean, you know, some of the rockets that now go up and come back and land again. That's Thunderbirds from the 1960s. That's Jerry Anderson. You know, that was sci-fi for kids on TV. So obviously, you know, I'm interested in exploration. I always have been. But at this point in time, the enormous costs of those projects weigh heavily on my conscience. Because I do think that if those people were more philanthropic when it came to looking after the environment, we would be in a much better place. I don't think there is a planet. be. I don't think we've got time to think that we will actually escape our Earth's orbit and be able to find anywhere else secure. And therefore, I think we should be investing maximally and preserving the one planet that we've got. The only planet in the known universe where we've got any proof of this complex life or life at all. So that does give me concern. But I mean, again,

at the same time, you know, I love watching the rockets blast off. It's a complete conflict for me. But ultimately, if I were to make a decision about it, I'd say no, pull the funding, put it into environmental good. So, Chris, when this podcast comes out, will only be a few days away from COP 28 happening at the end of November, beginning of December, which is the latest of the annual UN conferences on climate change. So what are you hoping to come out of that? Well, I've not elevated my expectations, if I'm very honest with you.

I went to COP 26. I spent all of the time there in Glasgow. I found it a very contrasting experience. On the one hand, it was fabulous to meet with some of the world's leading climate scientists. There were some remarkable presentations that were given, some remarkable campaigners and protesters and some very, you know, great minds that were there. But then I would leave one part of the building and go to another where the world's politicians were, you know, basically formulating excuses.

is to do nothing. And I was surrounded by enormous numbers of fossil fuel lobbyists that have been smuggled in by the oil producing states. And ultimately, a lot of the promises that were made at COP 26, only a few years ago, have not been honoured. And the UK, along with lots of other nations, has been responsible for an ageing on those promises. I think I've got to the point whereby I know that the conferences are important. I know they give a global platform to the most important discussion that's being held on our planet at this point. But I think that a lot of the hard work will be done by citizens of planet Earth outside of those conferences. I think that ultimately it will come down to us to demand that governments take action. Because, you know, the very fact that

it's being held in an oil-producing state and there is a vested interest in the perpetuation of the use of fossil fuels, obviously will ever shadow the conference. I mean, I think people will do some good things, but they shy away from the biggest issues. Inequality, the inability for the world's poorest nations to be able to address climate breakdown in the way that we can afford to do it. So until we start being more generous and basically helping them out, particularly when we've been the principal drivers of the problem, that inequality, I think, is probably the thing that hangs over it most like the sword of Damocles in the most dangerous way. So, yeah, it's very sad. isn't it, when you have such a focused and driven interest in preserving the world's health, its natural environments and everything that lives in them. But you can't generate much of an

expectation for something which should be lauded, but unfortunately sometimes can be laughable. Well, as you say there, it's a conference which has a huge platform in the media, essentially, and coverage all over the world. So do you think that they, could be worthwhile, and what would it take for a COP conference to have a positive impact? I think that if people, I think if we excluded the lobbyists, that would be the first thing, put a ban on lobbyist. I think lobbying is a very dangerous force, particularly when it comes to climate breakdown at the moment. We've had years of being essentially led astray by the fossil fuel giants and big agriculture and so on and so forth, and we need to get those people

out of that room. We need to give the scientists more of a platform. These are the people who truly have their fingers on the pulse of climate breakdown. They fully understand it as best they can at this point. And so we should be making best informed decisions based on best advice. And that best advice should come from the scientist. I mean, essentially, you know, the delegates that go to a cop like that are the elected representatives of all of us. And they have gone there with a collective responsibility to make sure that we have a healthy future. That's all of us. That's me, you and everyone listening to this. So we do have, I think, a fundamental right to hold them to account. And having a conference like that means that we have a focused capacity to do that. They're all in one place

so we can address them collectively and say, listen, the eyes of the world are upon you. We have an expectation that you will serve us properly. But history shows that that doesn't necessarily happen. Will you be going to COP28 this year? No, I won't go because it would mean, you know, growing my own carbon footprint. I will be watching it very closely under the microscope of Zoom or whatever else it happens to be. But I don't plan to go. Can I tell you one other thing? And this is going to sound selfish. But at the end of the cop in Glasgow, on the final evening, I'd stayed to do something for Channel 4. And I was walking down an all but empty corridor. And there was a man coming towards me. And I looked at him and he looked a little bit haggard and beaten.

And then I sort of thought, well, I feel a little bit haggard and beaten, and I probably look the same. And it was Ed Miliband. And we sort of stopped and spoke. And it was clear that we were both exhausted. And we'd been exhausted by that experience. And then for a period afterwards, I think I was depressed. I remember writing again on the train home to George Mombio and saying, I could barely breathe. And I really, I felt really quite disempowered.

And it took me a few months to sort of pick myself up again, get back on my feet and think, I'm not going to allow despondency, you know, disenchantment to influence. I'm going to stay strong and I'm going to continue fighting to, you know, to do the right thing when it comes to the environment. But I've got to say, it took the wind out of my sails, really. Yeah, and I would like to ask you about positive action. You've spoken there about what we can actually do as individuals. But this seems like an apt time when you're talking there about exhaustion following these

kinds of events to talk about eco-anxiety. So as much as there are things that we can do, what would you suggest to someone who is struggling with eco-anxiety? What would be your advice? Well, firstly, make sure that you're looking after yourself and your mental health to the best of your ability. And very often that means reaching out for help. And that means talking to people about it. And there are plenty of platforms now, and you'll find them online, particularly for young people with eco-anxiety, where they can share their concerns, you know, communities with which are shaped to provide proper and managed assistance. So that's the first thing.

But then also, what we have to recognise is that we can empower ourselves to make a difference. So you could just sign a petition. Now, all you have to do is go online, type your name, and put in your postcode, and then, you know, you've done it. It could involve a little more. It could be about organising a local campaign to protect the natural environment or to protest about a development that's taking place or something that would be damaging to environment. Or it could be more radical. You could go on marches and you could write banners. And

increasingly, environmental protesters are finding it difficult not to break the law because the laws are being tightened to restrict their right to protest. But what I say to people is find that type of activism where it's comfortable for you. Don't think that you have to be arrested to be an activist protester. You don't. There are many things that you can do, which will empower you and you don't have to be, certainly don't have to be arrested at all. So find that. And then When you do those things, invariably, you'll feel good about them because you would have done something positive. You would have seen something, not as a problem, but maybe a view being part of a solution.

And then what we typically do in that sense is we then tell other people because we're excited about it. We communicate about it. And that's one of the ways that that empowerment grows from an individual into a community. Many protesters that I've spoken to say they feel a sense of euphoria when they're protesting. Do you think that AI and other technology can play a role in conserving wildlife and treating the issues of the climate crisis? I don't know. I'm not an expert on AI. I mean, I've seen AI being used for scientific research in the natural world. And it's, of course, can be enormously advantageous. It can generate data that otherwise couldn't be generated by humans or other methods.

And it can do so extremely quickly. So I think when it comes to learning about things, I've definitely seen artificial. intelligence playing a very positive role. There's no question about that as a tool within science. More broadly, I don't know. It's not my bag, really. I'm really keen to learn about the impacts of artificial intelligence. I don't hold conspiracy theorists views that it's all going to go sky net and the world would be run by robots whilst we're hiding in caves under the ground. But I do think, I suppose, like so many other advances in science, which can have a direct impact on people, that it needs regulation. And the best thing to do is to have regulation from the start, not retrospectively. It's so much easier not to give people the capacity to do something than it is to take it away later.

So I think if people are, you know, thinking about regulating the way that artificial intelligence impacts on our lives on a day-to-day basis, now will be the time to do it. But I would equally say, don't be risk averse, because there might be enormous advantage. to it. Are you using it yet? Are you on chat GPT? No, no, not at all. I'm really keen on art and I go to art galleries and I sculpt and I paint and I would jealously protect the human individual and their capacity to generate originality and to conceive of, and be able to transfer and communicate unique individual thoughts from their own mind. So no. Do I use AI? I do. Yes, I've got apps on my phone, which identify birdsong, which count birds, all sorts of things like that. So, yeah, no, on the creative side of things, I, maybe I'm a Luddai, I don't know, but I still go into art

galleries. And, you know, if we get to a point where AI can paint some, not paint a Van Gogh, because obviously it could do that, because it could probably scan all of the paintings that we know are his and then recreate one. But what was unique about his skill as an artist is he saw the world in a way that had never been seen before. And he put that onto canvas so it could be communicated to everyone else. So if AI ever gets to the point that it can do that, then I'll be in the queue for the gallery to see what it's done. So Chris, kind of rounding off for a few of the things that we've talked about. You spoke about media at COP and the role that they're going to play there. And as people who do bridge that gap between science and beauty and arts that

we talked about and the role that AI might have in the same way, I suppose. How can we strike a balance as people who do work in the media and create things out of science between raising awareness and causing dread? Because obviously there is this overwhelming level of bad news when it comes to the environment at the moment. Yeah, I think to some extent we've grown fearful of fear. We're frightened of fear and that frightens me. I think fear is a really important emotion. I mean, fundamentally it's about fight or flight. isn't it? And if we are fearful of something at the moment, there's no other planet to fly to, which means we should be fighting to protect ourselves here. So I think that an element of fear is

really important. If you cosset people in the idea that everything's okay, then that's not highly motivational. So I think that we do have to show people what's happening, and we do have to tell them the truth. However, the reason that I'm not fearful of that approach is that we have so many of the answers. If we were telling people, we're going to hell in the handcart, and we haven't got a clue what to do, then that would be a desperate situation and that would put the media in a very difficult position. But that isn't the case. I think the thing to do is to say, we could be heading to hell in the handcart. Certainly if we don't do anything about it, that's probably the case. But look at this. If we did this, it would ameluate the situation. If we did this, we could

adapt to that part of the problem. And we do have such a rich, tried, tested portfolio of technologies, abilities, energies, things which we've tested and practiced and have worked to rectify the situation. The problem is that it takes me back to our discussions about the COP, and that is that the lobbyists from the meat industry and the fossil fuel industry are very powerful, and they have extremely widespread connection to governments and where they can influence policy. And that's what I, I'm more scared of that than anything else, is the power of those lobbyists to shut down the science, basically, shut down the science so that scientists can't be heard and their advice can't be heard and it can't be heard by our politicians

who should be implementing proper policies to deal with it. So, you know, that's it. So media tell the truth, but at the same time celebrate the fact that we already have the capacity to address so many of these problems. Are you optimistic about the future? I am and I'm not. I'm optimistic, for the reasons I've just outlined, that we have the capacity to address so many of the very, very significant problems, our only problem really being that we're not rolling it out rapidly enough and broadly enough, I think that having looked at the human species and understood it for what it is, an enormously intelligent, adaptable, resourceful, creative organism, it's not very good at change. You know, when you think about, even in recent history,

when we've been confronted by things that have put our species under stress, like the COVID pandemic. Now, you know, people have been telling, that scientists have been telling us for years that we were going to be vulnerable to a pandemic. None of the precautions were in place, or very few were in place. So what happens is that we have a pandemic. Very sadly, tragically, millions of people are killed. But in the space of just eight months, we get a vaccine that has saved millions of lives. We are so good at cure, but we are. hopeless at prevention. What worries me when it comes to climate breakdown and biodiversity loss

is that if we wait to the last hour to start curing the problem, then maybe a lot of damage will have been done and it would be a lot more difficult to cure that problem. And the tragedy of that is that at this point in time, as a sentient, conscious species, we know what we should be doing. The one thing I will say I am optimistic about, and again, I see this in other parts of our history, is that when it reaches a point, you know, when the poo hits the fan and we start acting, we act very quickly and we cascade in our activity. It then kind of snowballs and we sort out our problems very, very quickly. And we've done this throughout the course of history. So whatever that, I just hope that point is tomorrow rather than intention.

years time. That was biologist and presenter Chris Packham on how to go about saving the planet. The new book called Habitat, which Chris, who wrote its foreword, describes as sumptuous, is now on sale. Thank you for listening to this episode of Instant Genius, brought to you by the team behind BBC Science Focus magazine. By the latest issue of Science Focus in store, or come visit us online at sciencefocus.com. This podcast is sponsored by Name, Audio and Focal. The texture and emotional depth of music

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