Holding Out Hope in a Time of Crisis with Jane Goodall

The famed scientist says she sees threats everywhere, but she also sees reasons to believe humans can save themselves and the environment.

It has been a difficult year for everyone, and Dr. Jane Goodall is no exception. The famed primatologist, anthropologist and ethologist has been waiting out the pandemic at her family home in England at a time when she had planned to be out and about.

She didn't let that stop her from delivering her message about species protection and environmental conservation. Over the past year, she says, she has been able to reach many millions more people through video conferencing and podcast interviews than the in-person meetings and appearances she had planned. 

The kind of human ingenuity that has allowed Goodall to continue her work through the pandemic gives the doctor reason to believe that our species can right its wrongs, though our reluctance to employ its cleverness toward a world-saving endeavor also confuses her. 

In this episode of the Crosscut Talks podcast, Goodall speaks with Dr. Katharine Wilkinson as part of the Crosscut Festival, which took place earlier this month. They discuss the challenges facing the planet, how confounding she finds humanity's destruction of its home and, yet, how she holds onto the hope that it may be able to pull itself back from the brink.

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Credits

Host: Mark Baumgarten

Event producers: Jake Newman, Andrea O'Meara

Engineers: Chi Lee, Resti Bagcal, Viktoria Ralph