Why our planet now needs a "revolution of solutions"
Award-winning natural history photographer, documentary film-maker, author and public speaker Doug Allan looks back over a busy career in a theatre tour which brings him to Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud Theatre on October 5.
Transcript
00:00 Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Fantastic
00:06 to speak to natural history photographer and documentary filmmaker Doug Allen, who is on
00:11 a theatre tour with dates including Guildford, a theatre tour called It's a Wrap, which
00:17 sounds a little bit ominous when you think about the fact that you're not entirely confident
00:24 or optimistic about what we've done to this planet and about our prospects, are you? As
00:28 you're saying, it's really quite grim. Well, it's not getting any better, you know, and
00:35 we need to embrace some very big thinking, joined up thinking, mature thinking about
00:42 what we're going to do in this country and around the world in order to curb CO2 emissions.
00:49 And to my mind, it all comes down really to making a very rapid transition to renewable
00:54 forms of energy. Yes. And can you see that happening? What's got to happen for that to
01:01 happen? All kinds of things have to happen. I mean, if you just look at UK's level, sort
01:08 of planning permissions need to get changed so that things can happen faster. We've got
01:15 to roll out new technology. It's all very well, you know, to talk about electric cars,
01:21 but we need the infrastructure in the power grid system to be able to recharge them, etc.
01:27 The challenge is that the government has set some very good targets, but there's not very
01:32 well thought out pathways that we're going to get there. And there's the practicality
01:38 of the pathways, but also the cost of the pathways. And in terms of confronting those
01:43 costs when we have a cost of living crisis, but also a government that's pretty broke
01:49 because of all the amount that they spent on COVID, etc, etc. It's going to need some
01:53 radical thinking to get through, you know, to achieve what we want to achieve by 2030
01:58 and beyond. But can you clutch at the straw that for many things, it isn't actually too
02:05 late yet? It isn't too late. I'm not sure when it would become too late. There will
02:12 always be a tiny window of opportunity. Well, there will always be a chance to do something.
02:18 But as we leave so little done, that something that's necessary becomes bigger and bigger.
02:26 So that's the challenge. And you can't talk about living or coping with climate change
02:36 if it goes to two degrees and above. You can talk about it, but the natural world as we
02:43 know it, and the natural world as we know it will not be there anymore. And that will
02:50 affect agriculture, will affect fisheries. It will change the economics of the country
02:56 and it will change the economics of the world.
02:59 So what do you want in your audience in, say, Guildford to go home and do?
03:05 Well, I would like to, everyone can do something at their own level. I would like people to
03:10 look into whether they can get their energy supply from a renewable energy supplier. But
03:15 I think we do have an opportunity here with a virtually certain general election coming
03:21 up. Make the green policies the ones that you want to investigate and look into and
03:28 quiz. Make sure that whoever you end up voting for knows how important you think those green
03:34 policies are. And don't be afraid if you feel that you're voting a certain way in your life
03:39 all your time, all your life, but there's another party which has better green policies,
03:44 then consider them seriously and moving your vote to them. There's enormous power in that
03:50 cross in the way you put it.
03:52 Fantastic. A huge amount to think about, Doug. Thank you very much indeed for your time.
03:57 Good to speak to you.
03:58 No problem.