[Applause]
thank you I want to talk this evening
about I think the thing that is probably
most important in my life and I think
it’s probably most important in your
lives as well and I hope by the end of
this session that you will see that
there are ways in which you can be part
of my vision and that my vision can be
part of your lives
my vision is about how we think global
when we act local we’ve talked about it
for years it’s a concept that started
very clearly in the 1970s and I put it
above a picture of the world not just
any picture of the world that particular
picture is actually a computer it’s has
traveled through science museums across
the world and on that computer
scientists can register data about the
way the world is behaving I’ve seen data
on that that shows what happens in
floods I’ve seen data that happens on
that that shows what happens with
tsunamis I’ve seen data on that that
shows what happens with illness the
spread of AIDS the spread of Ebola what
happens if you’re taking any major
environmental disaster to trees or
anything else and what was quite clear
to me the first time I saw that was that
this planet of ours when you see it as a
single global ecosystem this single
planet of ours it does not recognize
territories or countries it operates as
an ecosystem and for the first time
in the history of this planet one
species is damaging it potentially
beyond repair and that species is us we
hold responsibility for this damage we
hold responsibility for potentially
ruining the lives of future generations
and the oddity is that so many people
care about this planet of ours if we
were out on the Gower the first area of
national beauty sorry about standing
natural beauty in the UK people will be
celebrating the sunset celebrating the
sea celebrating the scenery and yet
there might go back and take holidays
short haul flights and carry on emitting
in ways that are now damaging the planet
hopefully not irreparably now I’ve
wondered why this matters to me so much
and it struck me the other day when I
met a BBC reporter who last interviewed
me 6 years old 6 years ago when I was in
the National Assembly for Wales and have
interviewed me quite regularly about
what I’d done as Education Minister what
I’d done as Environment Minister and
when I was telling him what I was now
doing in the University of Wales $0.20
David here in Swansea and Kumar van in
Lampeter across the whole region
focusing our curriculum and our offer
around sustainability preparing our
students for the challenging times ahead
creating creative problem-solvers new
kinds of skills he said you’ve
reinvented yourself well I’m not sure it
was a compliment but when I thought
about it I thought I actually haven’t
reinvented myself at all I have just had
that set of beliefs all my life but it
wasn’t until I was 35 that I actually
realised
what really mattered to me and I think
partly what we do in those very early
years of our lives we need to think
about the influence because Aristotle
said give me the child of seven and I
will give you the man and it is so true
because so much of our value systems so
much of the way we relate to the world
so much of whether we’re curious or not
in the context of Education comes about
in those very early years and I was
brought up in Africa in what is now
Zimbabwe but was then Rhodesia my father
was there to start what was then the
first multiracial medical school in
Africa my mother was a doctor in the
bush and many a time I sat under bear
Bab trees while waiting for her to see a
long line of women but I learnt three
really essential things while I lived in
Africa one was about racial inequality
how can it be fair that people are
discriminated against because of the
color of their skin you know I was
living there under a man called Ian
Smith who had seized power as a white
man and as a white girl I could go
anywhere my black packed counterparts
were moved out of houses in the district
I lived in under that leadership we
didn’t have a part ID as a Laura’s in
South Africa we had it as a policy so I
learnt a fundamental lesson about the
importance of equality I learned a
fundamental lesson as well about the
importance of education I was in a
school we did spend a lot of our time
outside I learned so much outside but I
had a book on my desk and every time I
had a new lesson I had another book I
wasn’t sharing one book in that picture
between three but I have been in schools
in Africa where children love sharing
one book among a hundred it is not
appropriate in this world that we still
have girls and boys but particularly
girls
who do not get education it is wrong it
is absolutely unequal we should be doing
more about it but it also taught me
about waste it took me that nobody
wastes anything every resource is used
and reused and since I grew up under
sanctions we didn’t change furniture I
turned up in boarding school in the
early 1970s in the UK with one frock and
was shocked by the consumerism that I
experienced here absolutely shocked and
that shock has never left me
the second major epiphany for me is when
we did come and live in Wales we came to
Cardiff when the new University Hospital
of Wales opened and my both my parents
went worked there as doctors and I was
at boarding school and hadn’t seen them
for a very long time because I didn’t
even get letters from what was then
Rhodesia
under sanctions when I finished my
levels I had nearly been expelled on
eight occasions and my only crime was to
break out of school to climb Hills I
wasn’t doing anything else I wasn’t
drinking
I wasn’t bullying I was just trying to
get outdoors because it was the
fundamental thing that me means I have
my happiness in my life there’s nothing
better for me probably than standing in
the middle of a peat bog in the pouring
rain and smelling the peat where nobody
else is in sight and having that
experience that epiphany with Lilith
nature but I had a real epiphany because
we went and walked the Pembrokeshire
coast path for girls ages 15 to 16 after
our own levels on our own but the yha
then you could go the whole of the
Pembrokeshire coast bath by youth hostel
and every night you rang your parents
and the warden over saw you doing it to
tell them that you were all right so the
warden checked from day to day
who
came in and it really was a way in which
young people could get out safely and
they could play safely we swam every day
in the sea nobody watched us we swam
with seals occasionally we swam with
porpoises occasionally we left out of
the way of verb etre of a particular
jellyfish but I remember one day at a
place called put dairy and some of you I
hope will know it just soft Rumble head
waking up in the morning and looking
down over this incredible pool which was
in front of the hostel and in the middle
was a Portuguese man-of-war and the
colors were so extraordinary of that day
and that day is etched in my mind so I
discovered walking and I’ve walked most
of the long distance footpaths in the UK
and many of you all know it had effects
on what I did subsequently but this is
when I was 35 this was the biggest
problem epiphany in my life because I
didn’t know that I was an
environmentalist I didn’t know that I
was passionate about poverty until I
found out that I was a gender 21 woman
and held me nothing to most of you in
the audience and the Rio declaration is
huge multi-country documents always are
huge but the point about the Rio
declaration is for the first time it
made absolutely clear that human beings
are at the center of concerns for
sustainable development they are
entitled to a healthy and productive
life in harmony with nature they’re not
entitled to rip up the world for their
own benefit for their own profit motive
they are entitled we are all entitled as
part of one species to live in harmony
with nature and therefore from men I
probably have spent every job that I’ve
done and that’s quite arranged doing
everything I can in my small way to
contribute towards the idea of a one
planet life whether it’s as this book
describes the opportunity
it’s only here in Wales that I was able
to legislate for where young people
because that with the focus for me was
on young people could build homes in the
countryside affordable homes if they
repaired to live low-carbon lives and
this book tells you exactly how to do it
and to get your management plan in place
but it wasn’t just about that if we go
back to that those points about Africa
what I was able to do subsequently then
is put education for sustainable
development and global citizenship into
the Welsh Curriculum what I was able to
do is introduce a baccalaureate with the
idea of the breadth of learning that
would enable Wales to have a wider reach
in the whole world what I was able to do
in the environment in government was
introduced the Wales coast path was put
sustainability at the heart of
government and also to introduce the
legislation that has now made Wales I’m
told third best in the world so second
best in Europe and third best in the
world in the context of recycling and of
course take plastic bags out of the
system now those pieces of legislation
all together are factors of my
upbringing just as things you believe
are factors of your upbringing and there
was a critical moment when I was given
the environment portfolio back at the
beginning of 2007 when we as a family
decided that we were going to be greener
every year than we’d been the year
before we’ve kept to that and that has
been critically important as a way of
both of demonstrating that you do get a
better quality of life living that way
because after all all those things that
really matter they’re not whether you
have the newest car or the newest phone
you’d throw those away tomorrow if
anybody you loved was ill when I went
back and looked at that picture of the
world right at the beginning if the
world had been a member of our family
we’d cut shit we wouldn’t break it and
yet we treat this world of ours because
it’s so much bigger than any of us
dividual II as something that we can
break that we can trash that we can
carry on not considering in our daily
actions so for me I am always going to
try and live a one planet life and I
hope that others will come on that
journey but one of the things I
discovered about Rio was that you can
create those declarations countries can
sign up just as they signed up to the
Millennium Development Goals just as
they’ve now all signed up to the
sustainable development goals that we
have very exciting 17 goals which
actually will dramatically change what
goes on in the world if the countries
over 190 countries signed up to that
deliver on big ambitions around quality
education around climate change in this
age of the Anthropocene about land about
water about fairness equality about
collaborating together about working
across boundaries we had a climate
agreement in Paris I’ve been to three of
those major climate conferences and each
time particularly in Copenhagen in 2009
we thought we were gonna get it we
thought we were going to get those world
agreements but they slipped away and the
greater the scientific challenge is the
more it slips away the more the normal
political processes find it difficult to
engage with this agenda so I think you
do have to do things yourself you have
to make the individual and the political
the same you have to do it in your home
you have to do it in your workplace you
have to do it in your country because
you can also then encourage others Wales
is a beacon for many other countries at
the moment because the bomb I left
government in the manifesto was for
Wales to legislatively commit itself to
introduce sustainability into everything
that the Welsh government did that is
now the well-being of future generations
Act you may not know about it many of
you yet
it’s only a year or so old and people
are only starting to assess where they
are now but that act will change the
lives of people in Wales because that
defines prosperity as low carbon that
defines work as decent work that has
requirements on people to consider how
they can contribute to physical and
mental health how they can contribute
towards equality to cohesive communities
to culture and language and to make sure
picking up on that Brunton definition of
health and wealth but no future
generation is in a worse state than the
one we’re in now now we know that 60% of
species were made extinct between 1970
and 2012 and we know that the
predictions for the future are as bad if
not worse if we don’t take action so in
my own little way you’re looking at my
lifestyle you’re looking at what we grow
in our garden what we forage for how we
get our energy and there are actually
two pictures that are linked to cider
because after all you could have some
fun as well but I think the message that
I was once given about live your passion
has stayed with me all my life my
passion is to do what I can to work with
others at home in the village I live in
through the university in the country
and more widely on looking at how we can
be stewards of our planet how we can
deliver better opportunities for future
generations after all as John Rawls said
do into future generations what you
would have past generations do unto you
and just to close Satish Kumar a man who
walked 8,000 miles with no money for
peace in the 1960s
I interviewed on his whole life
of years ago and he said profoundly eCos
is the Greek for the planet home ecology
is the knowledge of the planet home
economy is the management of the planet
home how can we be in a situation where
we only care about the economy the
management of the planet home without
any knowledge of it no wonder we’re in a
mess and it’s time to bring ecology the
economy together to really look after
this single planet of ours and also
selfishly to look after our own species
thank you
[Applause]
thank you I want to talk this evening
about I think the thing that is probably
most important in my life and I think
it’s probably most important in your
lives as well and I hope by the end of
this session that you will see that
there are ways in which you can be part
of my vision and that my vision can be
part of your lives
my vision is about how we think global
when we act local we’ve talked about it
for years it’s a concept that started
very clearly in the 1970s and I put it
above a picture of the world not just
any picture of the world that particular
picture is actually a computer it’s has
traveled through science museums across
the world and on that computer
scientists can register data about the
way the world is behaving I’ve seen data
on that that shows what happens in
floods I’ve seen data that happens on
that that shows what happens with
tsunamis I’ve seen data on that that
shows what happens with illness the
spread of AIDS the spread of Ebola what
happens if you’re taking any major
environmental disaster to trees or
anything else and what was quite clear
to me the first time I saw that was that
this planet of ours when you see it as a
single global ecosystem this single
planet of ours it does not recognize
territories or countries it operates as
an ecosystem and for the first time
in the history of this planet one
species is damaging it potentially
beyond repair and that species is us we
hold responsibility for this damage we
hold responsibility for potentially
ruining the lives of future generations
and the oddity is that so many people
care about this planet of ours if we
were out on the Gower the first area of
national beauty sorry about standing
natural beauty in the UK people will be
celebrating the sunset celebrating the
sea celebrating the scenery and yet
there might go back and take holidays
short haul flights and carry on emitting
in ways that are now damaging the planet
hopefully not irreparably now I’ve
wondered why this matters to me so much
and it struck me the other day when I
met a BBC reporter who last interviewed
me 6 years old 6 years ago when I was in
the National Assembly for Wales and have
interviewed me quite regularly about
what I’d done as Education Minister what
I’d done as Environment Minister and
when I was telling him what I was now
doing in the University of Wales $0.20
David here in Swansea and Kumar van in
Lampeter across the whole region
focusing our curriculum and our offer
around sustainability preparing our
students for the challenging times ahead
creating creative problem-solvers new
kinds of skills he said you’ve
reinvented yourself well I’m not sure it
was a compliment but when I thought
about it I thought I actually haven’t
reinvented myself at all I have just had
that set of beliefs all my life but it
wasn’t until I was 35 that I actually
realised
what really mattered to me and I think
partly what we do in those very early
years of our lives we need to think
about the influence because Aristotle
said give me the child of seven and I
will give you the man and it is so true
because so much of our value systems so
much of the way we relate to the world
so much of whether we’re curious or not
in the context of Education comes about
in those very early years and I was
brought up in Africa in what is now
Zimbabwe but was then Rhodesia my father
was there to start what was then the
first multiracial medical school in
Africa my mother was a doctor in the
bush and many a time I sat under bear
Bab trees while waiting for her to see a
long line of women but I learnt three
really essential things while I lived in
Africa one was about racial inequality
how can it be fair that people are
discriminated against because of the
color of their skin you know I was
living there under a man called Ian
Smith who had seized power as a white
man and as a white girl I could go
anywhere my black packed counterparts
were moved out of houses in the district
I lived in under that leadership we
didn’t have a part ID as a Laura’s in
South Africa we had it as a policy so I
learnt a fundamental lesson about the
importance of equality I learned a
fundamental lesson as well about the
importance of education I was in a
school we did spend a lot of our time
outside I learned so much outside but I
had a book on my desk and every time I
had a new lesson I had another book I
wasn’t sharing one book in that picture
between three but I have been in schools
in Africa where children love sharing
one book among a hundred it is not
appropriate in this world that we still
have girls and boys but particularly
girls
who do not get education it is wrong it
is absolutely unequal we should be doing
more about it but it also taught me
about waste it took me that nobody
wastes anything every resource is used
and reused and since I grew up under
sanctions we didn’t change furniture I
turned up in boarding school in the
early 1970s in the UK with one frock and
was shocked by the consumerism that I
experienced here absolutely shocked and
that shock has never left me
the second major epiphany for me is when
we did come and live in Wales we came to
Cardiff when the new University Hospital
of Wales opened and my both my parents
went worked there as doctors and I was
at boarding school and hadn’t seen them
for a very long time because I didn’t
even get letters from what was then
Rhodesia
under sanctions when I finished my
levels I had nearly been expelled on
eight occasions and my only crime was to
break out of school to climb Hills I
wasn’t doing anything else I wasn’t
drinking
I wasn’t bullying I was just trying to
get outdoors because it was the
fundamental thing that me means I have
my happiness in my life there’s nothing
better for me probably than standing in
the middle of a peat bog in the pouring
rain and smelling the peat where nobody
else is in sight and having that
experience that epiphany with Lilith
nature but I had a real epiphany because
we went and walked the Pembrokeshire
coast path for girls ages 15 to 16 after
our own levels on our own but the yha
then you could go the whole of the
Pembrokeshire coast bath by youth hostel
and every night you rang your parents
and the warden over saw you doing it to
tell them that you were all right so the
warden checked from day to day
who
came in and it really was a way in which
young people could get out safely and
they could play safely we swam every day
in the sea nobody watched us we swam
with seals occasionally we swam with
porpoises occasionally we left out of
the way of verb etre of a particular
jellyfish but I remember one day at a
place called put dairy and some of you I
hope will know it just soft Rumble head
waking up in the morning and looking
down over this incredible pool which was
in front of the hostel and in the middle
was a Portuguese man-of-war and the
colors were so extraordinary of that day
and that day is etched in my mind so I
discovered walking and I’ve walked most
of the long distance footpaths in the UK
and many of you all know it had effects
on what I did subsequently but this is
when I was 35 this was the biggest
problem epiphany in my life because I
didn’t know that I was an
environmentalist I didn’t know that I
was passionate about poverty until I
found out that I was a gender 21 woman
and held me nothing to most of you in
the audience and the Rio declaration is
huge multi-country documents always are
huge but the point about the Rio
declaration is for the first time it
made absolutely clear that human beings
are at the center of concerns for
sustainable development they are
entitled to a healthy and productive
life in harmony with nature they’re not
entitled to rip up the world for their
own benefit for their own profit motive
they are entitled we are all entitled as
part of one species to live in harmony
with nature and therefore from men I
probably have spent every job that I’ve
done and that’s quite arranged doing
everything I can in my small way to
contribute towards the idea of a one
planet life whether it’s as this book
describes the opportunity
it’s only here in Wales that I was able
to legislate for where young people
because that with the focus for me was
on young people could build homes in the
countryside affordable homes if they
repaired to live low-carbon lives and
this book tells you exactly how to do it
and to get your management plan in place
but it wasn’t just about that if we go
back to that those points about Africa
what I was able to do subsequently then
is put education for sustainable
development and global citizenship into
the Welsh Curriculum what I was able to
do is introduce a baccalaureate with the
idea of the breadth of learning that
would enable Wales to have a wider reach
in the whole world what I was able to do
in the environment in government was
introduced the Wales coast path was put
sustainability at the heart of
government and also to introduce the
legislation that has now made Wales I’m
told third best in the world so second
best in Europe and third best in the
world in the context of recycling and of
course take plastic bags out of the
system now those pieces of legislation
all together are factors of my
upbringing just as things you believe
are factors of your upbringing and there
was a critical moment when I was given
the environment portfolio back at the
beginning of 2007 when we as a family
decided that we were going to be greener
every year than we’d been the year
before we’ve kept to that and that has
been critically important as a way of
both of demonstrating that you do get a
better quality of life living that way
because after all all those things that
really matter they’re not whether you
have the newest car or the newest phone
you’d throw those away tomorrow if
anybody you loved was ill when I went
back and looked at that picture of the
world right at the beginning if the
world had been a member of our family
we’d cut shit we wouldn’t break it and
yet we treat this world of ours because
it’s so much bigger than any of us
dividual II as something that we can
break that we can trash that we can
carry on not considering in our daily
actions so for me I am always going to
try and live a one planet life and I
hope that others will come on that
journey but one of the things I
discovered about Rio was that you can
create those declarations countries can
sign up just as they signed up to the
Millennium Development Goals just as
they’ve now all signed up to the
sustainable development goals that we
have very exciting 17 goals which
actually will dramatically change what
goes on in the world if the countries
over 190 countries signed up to that
deliver on big ambitions around quality
education around climate change in this
age of the Anthropocene about land about
water about fairness equality about
collaborating together about working
across boundaries we had a climate
agreement in Paris I’ve been to three of
those major climate conferences and each
time particularly in Copenhagen in 2009
we thought we were gonna get it we
thought we were going to get those world
agreements but they slipped away and the
greater the scientific challenge is the
more it slips away the more the normal
political processes find it difficult to
engage with this agenda so I think you
do have to do things yourself you have
to make the individual and the political
the same you have to do it in your home
you have to do it in your workplace you
have to do it in your country because
you can also then encourage others Wales
is a beacon for many other countries at
the moment because the bomb I left
government in the manifesto was for
Wales to legislatively commit itself to
introduce sustainability into everything
that the Welsh government did that is
now the well-being of future generations
Act you may not know about it many of
you yet
it’s only a year or so old and people
are only starting to assess where they
are now but that act will change the
lives of people in Wales because that
defines prosperity as low carbon that
defines work as decent work that has
requirements on people to consider how
they can contribute to physical and
mental health how they can contribute
towards equality to cohesive communities
to culture and language and to make sure
picking up on that Brunton definition of
health and wealth but no future
generation is in a worse state than the
one we’re in now now we know that 60% of
species were made extinct between 1970
and 2012 and we know that the
predictions for the future are as bad if
not worse if we don’t take action so in
my own little way you’re looking at my
lifestyle you’re looking at what we grow
in our garden what we forage for how we
get our energy and there are actually
two pictures that are linked to cider
because after all you could have some
fun as well but I think the message that
I was once given about live your passion
has stayed with me all my life my
passion is to do what I can to work with
others at home in the village I live in
through the university in the country
and more widely on looking at how we can
be stewards of our planet how we can
deliver better opportunities for future
generations after all as John Rawls said
do into future generations what you
would have past generations do unto you
and just to close Satish Kumar a man who
walked 8,000 miles with no money for
peace in the 1960s
I interviewed on his whole life
of years ago and he said profoundly eCos
is the Greek for the planet home ecology
is the knowledge of the planet home
economy is the management of the planet
home how can we be in a situation where
we only care about the economy the
management of the planet home without
any knowledge of it no wonder we’re in a
mess and it’s time to bring ecology the
economy together to really look after
this single planet of ours and also
selfishly to look after our own species
thank you
[Applause]
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