Andy Atkins

This clip is from a series of 100 life history interviews with environmental campaigners in the UK, 1970-2020. It will feature in a book published by UCL Press in 2026. The full interview, along with the rest of the collection will be searchable on the British Library’s Sound and Moving Image catalogue and the interviews will be accessible onsite at the British Library in St Pancras from February 2026. For more information visit www.royalholloway.ac.uk/ohemQuotation:[I]f we’re going to get more people on board, we have to show that everybody has a place in this movement and so you can be a non-macho white male or you can be a black female or you can be anything and you’ve still got a really critical part to play in this movement. I think I’m starting to see that really happen. I think one of the ways it’s happening is also the flip side of climate grief. We’ll all hear more about this. It is very clear that a lot of people, not just young folk but particularly young folk but other people have been working on this forever are appalled at what is coming down the tracks. People like me, deeply frustrated that for all of our efforts we have not been able to stave off what we could see coming a mile off but just couldn’t get people to react. So there’s a lot of frustration, there’s a lot of climate grief.I hope this isn’t gender stereotyping but I think the women have been much better at saying this is emotionally devastating, we need to talk about how we feel about this, not just what do we do next. So yes, Andy Atkins, it might be right that we redo the grid and we have an extra x billion pumped into renewable energy. I’m sure that’s right but we also need to deal with the younger generation that are terrified, that are wondering whether there’s any point even campaigning on this stuff because bad stuff is going to happen anyway so why don’t we fly anyway. There’s no point even trying anymore. I hope that isn’t gender stereotyping but I do believe, from what I have seen, because I know some of the individuals who have started whole courses in mindfulness about environment, they seem to be, by and large, women. I may be wrong. I haven’t done a scientific survey but I think the flip side of the tragedy of climate grief is that we are seeing a much more rounded appreciation of the implications of environmental problems but also therefore potentially some of the solutions. If ever you see an issue that is not actually technical, is not actually economic, is largely emotional and political, it’s climate change. We know what to do. We’ve known for years from the science where this was leading. We knew that we had to get off fossil fuel. We knew that we had to go down the renewable energy, we knew, we knew, we knew but could you get politicians to do it…British Library catalogue number: C2037/65 Project clip number: 225