So, we had the privilege of going to hear Jane Goodall speak today. It was an intense experience. Apparently, she’s 80 and still going strong[1]. Hearing her speak, she talks about the very human things that are causing our worldwide problems, the intense poverty which is forcing people to make destructive choices, the intense greed which promotes the same, and the continued population growth which amplifies everything. I wonder how much of this perspective was from her growing up during the War, seeing firsthand much of the hardship and devastation, even in the UK, at the time.

She also credited her mother with giving her huge amounts of support and encouragement in her love and study of animals, that at many seminal points in her upbringing, if that support had gone the other way, with a parent who had disagreed or squelched, her life would have been very different, and nowhere near as successful or fulfilling.

I think most useful to me was her message of hope, of the successes people have had re-introducing species into the wild, of her institute’s ‘Roots and Shoots‘ program to help young people to identify and work on the challenges they see around them, from the ground up.

[1]Which makes sense with my memories of her being enough of an icon in the 80’s that I got the joke in The Far Side about her.