Jane Goodall last interview 9-23-25 eight days before death- video n transcript at Heating Planet blog

"We have a window of time, but it's not a very big window. If we get together, we know what we can do to slow down climate change and loss of biodiversity. Unfortunately there is an idea that economic development must come before the environment. And it's crazy. Because we're on a planet with finite natural resources. If we don't change the way we develop economically, it will be too late."

Watch Here: JANE GOODALL'S LAST INTERVIEW Recorded on 9/23/25 from dreamlion channel Oct 2

"Humans are not exempt from extinction"

JANE GOODALL'S FINAL INTERVIEW. Recorded on September 23, 2025 published online by the Wall Street Journal on September 26, 2025.

Transcripts here for readers writers and researchers

TRANSCRIPT: [Applause] Thank you so much everybody for being here. Thank you Jane Goodall for joining us today. 0:13 Um I wanted to start out by having you tell us about your special guest that you brought with us. 0:18 Well, Mr. H given to me 35 All right, those people at the back. It's given to me 35 years ago by a 0:26 man who lost his eyesight in the um US Marines when he was 21. Decided to become a magician. 0:34 Was told it was impossible. Children don't know he's blind. Anyway, he thought he was giving me a 0:40 stuffed chimpanzeee and I made him hold the tail. He said, "Never mind. Take him where you go." And 0:47 he's been 64 countries and he's my example of the indomitable human spirit. Um, I also brought with 0:54 me a stuffed monkey. He's not as well traveled as yours. Um, but this was my favorite stuff as a 1:02 boy. Um, and I think he may have the same problem because he has a tail, which chimpanzees do not. 1:10 That's right. Um, but uh, would you like to know what I named him? What did you name it? Monkey. 1:18 Not very creative. Well, so I wanted to talk about what is going on in our world right now, 1:24 what you've referred to as the dark times. You've dedicated your life to conservation, saving 1:29 endangered species, more recently, combating climate change, but my but by many measures, 1:35 things aren't looking so good right now. By your own estimate, the population of chimpanzees has 1:40 fallen by more than half in the last century. Many experts believe we're in a sixth mass extinction 1:45 event, largely as a result of human activity. the planet continues to warm. Do you feel like you're 1:51 losing the fight? Well, I think, and I'm not alone, fortunately, that we have a window of time, 1:58 but it's not a very big window of time when if if we get together, and I'm talking about, you know, 2:05 ordinary people and corporations, business leaders, and, you know, we know what we can do to 2:13 slow down climate change and loss of biodiversity. We know the sort of things that are making things 2:19 worse and worse like industrial agriculture and you know fossil fossil fuel burning and people 2:26 are seldom talking about it but the effect on the climate of these terrible wars is enormous. 2:34 So if we know the solutions, why aren't we solving the problems? Is because unfortunately there is 2:41 an idea that uh continued economic development must come before the environment. And you know 2:50 it's crazy because first of all we're on a planet with finite natural resources, growing human and 2:56 livestock populations. And if it just if we don't change the way that we do things, the way that we 3:02 develop economically, then it will be too late. I mean, we we will reach tipping points. One of 3:09 the reasons that the world is moving in this direction is also because of politics. Um, and 3:14 what governments choose to prioritize. The Trump administration is doing many things right now that 3:19 run counter to your mission. Expanding oil and gas drilling, cutting funding for foreign aid, cutting 3:25 funding for renewable energy. During his speech in front of the UN this week, President Trump 3:31 called climate change a conj job and the European countries are quote on the brink of destruction 3:35 because of the green energy agenda. How do you react when you hear the president of the United 3:40 States talking this way? Well, I find it very strange that somebody can say climate change 3:49 is a conj job when you think what's happening just in this one country alone. The frequency 3:55 and intensity of hurricans, flooding, droughts, uh heat waves, fires, and all of this. You know, why 4:03 are we going through all of this? It's because the climate is changing. The the planet is warming. 4:10 Sea levels are rising and we're on the brink of disaster. So I find it disturbing when presidents 4:21 make statements like this. You got involved in the 2024 election. You created the vote 4:26 for nature initiative to try to encourage people to vote for green candidates and candidates that 4:31 support the environment. Why do you think that message lost? I don't know. And it was, you know, 4:37 it's it was governments around the world really because there were many elections last year. It 4:43 lost for the reasons I've said that people are putting their own personal economic development 4:49 before thinking about future generations. And you know, if you tackle people and say, but you let me 4:56 tell a story here. Um, I was talking to a group of CEOs in Singapore and one of them came up to 5:03 me afterwards and he said, "Yeah, Jane, I want to promise you that for the last 8 years I've been 5:09 doing everything I can to make my business more sustainable and less a less heavy footprint on 5:17 the environment for three reasons. One, I saw the writing on the wall that we're using up natural 5:23 resources in some places faster than nature can replenish them and sometimes nature can't. Two, 5:31 consumer pressure. People are beginning to ask questions about what they buy, how was it made, 5:36 did it harm the environment? But he said, "What really tipped the balance for me was my little 5:42 girl of eight and she came home from school one day. She said, "Daddy, they're telling me that 5:48 what you're doing is hurting the planet." That's not true, is it, Daddy? Cuz it's my planet. It's 5:55 it's human nature, though, to think about your own situation and whether or not you have food 5:59 on the table, can provide to your family before you can start thinking about how to help others 6:05 for for many people, this is the case. How do you get people to care about the environment when they 6:10 when many people in this world and in this country feel like their livelihoods are are at stake? 6:14 Well, absolutely. So, our Jane Goodle Institute method of of conservation is working to alleviate 6:22 poverty because that is one, you know, on the one hand you get over consumption, you get 6:27 unsustainable lifestyles like probably everyone in this room including me. Um, and on the other hand, 6:33 you get poverty where people either if they're rural, destroy the environment to get some 6:38 money from timber or destroying the landscape for growing some crop just to survive. And if they're 6:45 in a city, they buy the cheapest junk food, which clearly has been made in the cheapest way possible 6:52 and harm the environment. So unless you alleviate poverty and reduce our unsustainable lifestyle and 7:00 have a a different way of thinking about things, we differ from other animals mostly by the the 7:07 development of this intellect. So we are without question the most intellectual creatures to ever 7:13 walk the planet. Even though we know animals are way way way more intelligent than was thought, 7:19 but we may be intellectual. We may have brilliant brains, but we're not intelligent. Because 7:25 intelligent creatures don't destroy their only home. And unless you believe there's going to 7:31 be air rockets that will take us off to some other planet like Mars, which I personally 7:39 don't believe, u then we we need to protect this planet and think about the future. But 7:46 as we have these intellects, if enough people who care come together and use the intellect, 7:52 surely we can find a way because if we don't, that's the end of our species. Humans are not 7:59 exempt from extinction. I I want to because you mentioned um someone who wants to put humans on 8:06 rockets to potentially colonize Mars. I'm really curious to know what you think of Elon Musk. 8:13 Well, um, okay. He He's the only person who's ever attacked me on social media twice. And basically, 8:25 uh, he said the second time that I I was guilty of wanting genocide. And why? Because I always 8:32 say one of the problems we face is uh, you know, a growing number of of humans on a planet with 8:40 finite natural resources. That's it. I don't say more than that. And he thinks that humanity will 8:44 collapse because of population decline. He's encouraging people to have more children. Yes, 8:48 I know. Um, but he's he's he is a a complicated figure in many ways because he's done a lot to 8:55 further the advancement of electric vehicles and green energy technology and battery technology. 9:00 And yet he also put a great deal of his wealth behind President Donald Trump who's now uh 9:06 advancing many policies that run directly counter to your mission. Yes. Um, how do you and and and 9:11 he stopped USID? He froze it. We lost $5.5 million a year for the next four years for our program 9:20 which was improving the lives of people, giving children a chance of going to school, protecting 9:25 the environment. That money just gone. Which do you think has had a bigger a bigger impact, 9:30 the work that he's done for electric vehicles and green energy technology or his his political work? 9:36 I think without any question uh his political work has caused immense harm. There's no question. 9:45 Tell me more about the impact that it's had on on your organization because you did you 9:48 mentioned you had some funding cut. What was cut and what will the impact of that be? Well, 9:52 the impact is we've had to lay off people who are really good people. We've had to search 9:57 very hard for alternative sources of funding to fill in the gaps. uh move towards uh perhaps more 10:05 stable corporate partnerships that will last through the years and also of course we need 10:10 to build up an endowment. Are there new are there any conflicts of interest that are coming in from 10:15 the new sources of funding that you're noticing? Well, we have to say no to some which is tough 10:22 but like what ones have you had to say no to? Uh offering well somebody offered me a private 10:30 jet. I had to say no to that. You had to say no to that. Not everybody says no to that. No, 10:35 but if you're ethical, you do. If you care about the environment and also, you know, 10:40 other other things like oil company that's terribly terribly polluting and not doing 10:46 anything about it except a bit of greenwashing and they want to give you money. Why? Because 10:51 because the Jane Goodell Institute has a good name and they want to be tied up 10:55 with us and we have to say no. Coming up, Jane Goodall on what she calls Jane Magic. 11:20 [Applause] [Music] 11:20 [Music] 11:20 There are a lot of young people in the United States and throughout the world 11:23 that have swung toward the right. there was a big uh switch uh among young people 11:28 toward Trump in the 2024 election. Have you noticed a change among young people 11:32 and and where their values are? No, I'm probably not meeting those young people. 11:41 Why do you mean and if I do meet them, they seem to kind of fall under a spell. 11:48 Mhm. Say more about what you mean. Well, it's called Jade Magic. Oh, I see. So, 11:54 you think that you can change their minds? I hope I can at least start to change their 12:00 minds cuz I've seen it happen. How do you change their minds? What do you say? Stories. Stories. 12:09 Children and adults. If I'm talking to somebody who, for example, is a climate change denier, 12:16 I don't try and argue. That's no point. But if you can tell a story to reach the heart like that 12:23 CEO and the little girl. How do you think the message needs to change? We talked about your 12:31 um your vote for nature campaign, but what needs to change about the message that progressives and 12:37 people who care about the environment are telling in order to have more success in elections? 12:44 Well, I don't know about more success in elections, but I think in general 12:48 uh people need to understand and so many people don't uh that what they do makes a difference. 12:55 Each one of us, everyone in this room, everyone who listens to this, it's a podcast or whatever 13:02 we're doing. Um it's multiple things at once. Yeah. Yes. So everybody, every day that we live, 13:10 we make an impact on the planet and we can choose what sort of impact we make. And people come to 13:17 me depressed and saying, well, the world's a mess and you know, there's nothing I can do about it. 13:23 I'm just one person. But I say to them, think of your own community. What can you do there? What 13:29 do you care about? Start doing something to make it better. Get other people to help you. 13:35 you will see you make a difference. That makes you feel good. Then you want to do more. Then 13:39 you inspire more people. So then you dare think globally. How do you balance? There's there's 13:48 obviously a tension as we've been talking about in conservation projects between the environment and 13:54 and people's economic situation. You mentioned poverty being an important thing to fight, 13:57 but how do you how do you think about that tension when you when you want to do something that you 14:02 think will protect a forest or or animals, but also has a trade-off and that it might mean that 14:08 there are then fewer jobs for people that live in that area? Well, first of all, the example we have 14:14 is our method of community-led conservation around GMI National Park where, by the way, the chimp 14:22 research. We just celebrated our 65th anniversary of research in that area. Yes. Thank you. 14:32 And the reason I left GMI and the forest and chimps that I love was at a big conference 14:39 that I actually helped put together. And by that time when we brought the people studying chimps, 14:45 there were six other chimp study sites. And it was basically to find out about chimp behavior 14:51 changing. But we had a session on conservation and it was a shock. Forests being cut down, 14:58 chimpanzeee numbers dropping. So I left the conference having gone as a scientist as a 15:05 advocate. I don't know what you want to call me but I knew I had to do something. I had no 15:09 idea what to do. Uh so I got some money from geographic to visit the different study sites. 15:16 And while I was learning the problems faced by chimps like habitat destruction, 15:21 the increasing bush meat trade and so on, I was also learning about the problems facing so many 15:27 African people living in and around the forest habitats of the chimps. And that's when it hit me, 15:34 these people are struggling to survive. They're living in crippling poverty. And unless we can 15:41 help them find ways of making a living without cutting down trees for making money from charcoal 15:47 or timber or clearing space for growing food to eat or to sell then we can't save chimpanzees 15:54 forest or anything else. So that's when we began our community-led conservation program. It began 16:02 with 12 villages around the park. Now it's in 41 throughout Chimp Range in Tanzania and people are 16:10 understanding that saving the environment isn't just for wildlife, it's for their own future. You 16:18 have spent a lot of time with humanity uh with humanity's closest relative, the chimpanzeee 16:25 with whom we share a common ancestor. What do you think are the best qualities that we have that we 16:30 share with chimps and what are the worst? Well, the best um altruism of course we can be more 16:38 better altruists than chimps. Chimps respond to an immediate situation of child falls in the water 16:44 and the chimp jumps in after it. Um but we can take altruism to a whole new level knowing that 16:51 by helping we may damage ourselves. We're seeing some of that today in the political arena. people 16:57 daring to stand up, therefore losing their jobs and their livelihood. Um the worst brutality, 17:05 war, chimpanzees are capable of killing and between neighboring communities there's a kind of 17:13 primitive warfare and one community may annihilate another. There are people who think that we are 17:22 creating the next phase of evolution right now with artificial intelligence that um the computers 17:27 and chat bots will uh be the next intelligent species to dominate the earth. If that is true, 17:36 what do you think would be the best qualities of humanity that you hope AI inherits from us? Well, 17:42 first of all, I'm glad I'm 91. I won't live to see that day. Who knows? I mean there's lot you know 17:47 there's new technology out there now. So well I would hope that these these intelligent whatever 17:54 they are robots I don't know what they'll be that they it's pushed into them altruism compassion 18:03 love respect um wanting to help wanting to make this a better world understanding that animals 18:12 are thinking feeling beings. uh that the humans, you know, we we should think as much of people 18:22 of different religions and cultures as we do our own. And there's one big thing when it comes to 18:30 relationships between humans and animals. And that's in Genesis where it's written, 18:37 "Man is given dominion over the birds of the air, the fish of the sea." It's a wrong translation. 18:44 And I've talked to many Hebrew scholars. It's something more like stewardship. Now, that makes 18:49 a huge difference, doesn't it? Great. Well, Jane Goodall, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. 19:00 Thank you. Thank you.