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Today on The Big Questions: Sex in the classroom, | :00:00. | :00:10. | |
pictures of us the police have on file, and slashing | :00:11. | :00:12. | |
the human birth rate to save other species. | :00:13. | :00:28. | |
Today, we're live from the Students' Union at Northumbria University | :00:29. | :00:35. | |
Welcome, everybody, to The Big Questions. | :00:36. | :00:38. | |
On Wednesday, the Education Secretary, Justine Greening, | :00:39. | :00:44. | |
announced that all schools, including academies and private | :00:45. | :00:47. | |
schools, must provide age-appropriate sex | :00:48. | :00:48. | |
From the age of four, all children will be taught | :00:49. | :00:56. | |
about relationships between adults and what is appropriate | :00:57. | :00:58. | |
behaviour between children, and between adults and children. | :00:59. | :01:04. | |
And in secondary schools, sex education lessons will cover | :01:05. | :01:06. | |
today's fastest growing risks - sexting, cyber-bullying | :01:07. | :01:08. | |
Should porn be on the school curriculum? | :01:09. | :01:19. | |
Clare McGlynn, law school, Durham University. What is it about the | :01:20. | :01:27. | |
modern world, how things have changed which means schools really | :01:28. | :01:31. | |
have to refocus and address this? The guidance schools have on sex and | :01:32. | :01:36. | |
relationships education is 16 years old, completely out of date. We | :01:37. | :01:39. | |
welcome the government's announcement this week. We need to | :01:40. | :01:42. | |
give guidance and help to our young people to talk about what you | :01:43. | :01:46. | |
mentioned, consent and sexual relationships. We need to talk about | :01:47. | :01:50. | |
this online world that is so new to all of them and that many parents | :01:51. | :01:56. | |
don't understand. About 16, online pornography, cyber bullying. | :01:57. | :01:59. | |
Importantly, we need to give them this guide of -- about sex sting. | :02:00. | :02:06. | |
This is part of a broader strategy to reduce the prevalence about | :02:07. | :02:08. | |
sexual harassment and violence against women and girls. APPLAUSE | :02:09. | :02:13. | |
On this particular issue, cyber bullying and sexting and porn, this | :02:14. | :02:20. | |
is about equipping children to deal with the world as it is, not the | :02:21. | :02:24. | |
world as you would like it to be or the world as it was. Absolutely. I | :02:25. | :02:28. | |
don't think anyone would disagree that we need to equip children. | :02:29. | :02:32. | |
There are some questions around what's actually going to be in the | :02:33. | :02:36. | |
curriculum, we don't know yet, the content hasn't been published. As | :02:37. | :02:39. | |
soon as the announcement was made, there was quite a strong campaign to | :02:40. | :02:44. | |
remove the parental opt out. Quite a campaign to say that the religious | :02:45. | :02:48. | |
protection and protection of religious education should be | :02:49. | :02:52. | |
removed. Isn't there a problem that those who would opt out and take | :02:53. | :02:55. | |
their children out of these classes are perhaps disproportionately the | :02:56. | :02:58. | |
very parents who would be less likely to address these issues at | :02:59. | :03:01. | |
home? That's possible. The question is, how do we empower parents to | :03:02. | :03:06. | |
have this conversation? The evidence is very clear that parents want to | :03:07. | :03:09. | |
have these conversations with their children. And children would prefer | :03:10. | :03:12. | |
to have those conversations with their parents as well. Parents don't | :03:13. | :03:17. | |
know what to say, they don't know how to have conversations in terms | :03:18. | :03:20. | |
of online threats. Their children are much more technologically savvy, | :03:21. | :03:26. | |
they don't know how to deal with it. One of the things I will be | :03:27. | :03:29. | |
campaigning for while this debate is going on is, what are we doing to | :03:30. | :03:33. | |
empower parents as well as empowering students? And also, what | :03:34. | :03:37. | |
are we doing to secure the family? The biggest influence on any child | :03:38. | :03:42. | |
when they are growing up is their family. I don't actually see | :03:43. | :03:45. | |
anything in these proposals that say we will be talking about building | :03:46. | :03:50. | |
strong families. The government's own evidence... In what sense? | :03:51. | :03:54. | |
Stronger, traditional families? Strong families where adults love | :03:55. | :03:59. | |
their children, children learn to love and be loved, trust and be | :04:00. | :04:03. | |
trusted. Places that are safe for their children. Should there be a | :04:04. | :04:07. | |
parental opt out? I don't think so. We need to think about the child's | :04:08. | :04:12. | |
rights. What about religious sensibilities? This is for the | :04:13. | :04:16. | |
children. We owe our children the education and guidance they need to | :04:17. | :04:19. | |
deal with consent, sexual relationships and the online world. | :04:20. | :04:22. | |
We can't let parents opt out of this because we need to give the skills | :04:23. | :04:26. | |
to the child. If we are going to reduce sexual harassment and sexual | :04:27. | :04:32. | |
violence, you can't opt out of that. Everyone needs to know about | :04:33. | :04:35. | |
consent. Everyone needs to understand what is necessary in | :04:36. | :04:38. | |
consent and sexual relationships, we can't have an opt out. I think you | :04:39. | :04:42. | |
absolutely have to have a parental opt out simply because the child is | :04:43. | :04:48. | |
the child of the parent. The parent should have as much control as | :04:49. | :04:50. | |
possible over their children and should decide these things. To say | :04:51. | :04:56. | |
the state should have the ability to override parents, whether it is | :04:57. | :05:00. | |
religious reasons or personal reasons, to take their child out of | :05:01. | :05:03. | |
sexual education is frightening. That is a frightening prospect to | :05:04. | :05:06. | |
say the state should have more control about what their children | :05:07. | :05:09. | |
are taught rather than their parents. It is actually about | :05:10. | :05:12. | |
collective response of the leading role of us to educate our children | :05:13. | :05:16. | |
and young people on these issues. We can't have parents just opting out | :05:17. | :05:20. | |
of these choices. What about the sex culture? Rape culture that people | :05:21. | :05:33. | |
talk about, male violence in our schools and society generally. This | :05:34. | :05:38. | |
comprehensive evidence was put before the cross-party select | :05:39. | :05:43. | |
committee. It is a problem and the best place is starting in education | :05:44. | :05:47. | |
in our schools. This is part of a really gross panic about the levels | :05:48. | :05:50. | |
of sexual harassment. We don't have a huge levels of sexual harassment | :05:51. | :05:54. | |
at school, we are talking about teaching, four-year-olds about adult | :05:55. | :06:01. | |
issues. This new call for greater sex education with things about | :06:02. | :06:04. | |
pornography and sexting and relationships is about making sex a | :06:05. | :06:11. | |
big deal for kids that they are panicked and frightened before they | :06:12. | :06:15. | |
need to be. Liz, you are moving so much in your chair, I am worried for | :06:16. | :06:19. | |
the safety of the furniture! Audience in a second. The reality | :06:20. | :06:25. | |
is, we deliver relationship and sex education to 24,000 children and | :06:26. | :06:28. | |
young people each year. More than 2000 parents as well. The reality is | :06:29. | :06:34. | |
very, very few parents actually withdraw their children from | :06:35. | :06:38. | |
relationship and sex education. Especially when they understand what | :06:39. | :06:42. | |
it covers. We send out letters to say that we will be working with | :06:43. | :06:47. | |
three-year-olds, up to 18-year-olds. And from aged four, we will be | :06:48. | :06:52. | |
covering issues such as pornography, sexting. Such as that. This brings | :06:53. | :06:57. | |
loads of parents in because it's like, panic, what on earth are you | :06:58. | :07:01. | |
going to be doing? Over to the experts? Yeah. When they see the | :07:02. | :07:06. | |
age-appropriate resources that we use, parents are completely at ease. | :07:07. | :07:11. | |
They understand that the world that we are moving into is very, very | :07:12. | :07:15. | |
different from when they were at school. Casper, why are you shaking | :07:16. | :07:19. | |
your head? I would definitely want to opt out for my children. I | :07:20. | :07:24. | |
actually think the agenda behind a lot of this stuff that is being | :07:25. | :07:29. | |
suggested to be taught, and is being taught, is a really degraded notion | :07:30. | :07:33. | |
of what it is to be human. It implies that all men are a problem a | :07:34. | :07:37. | |
lot of the time. It problem ties is normal sexual behaviour. It is | :07:38. | :07:43. | |
really outrageous. It is disturbing. What do you mean it makes problem... | :07:44. | :07:52. | |
To thinking that way. What do you mean it problematizes is normal | :07:53. | :07:54. | |
sexual behaviour? Basically, it encourages young | :07:55. | :08:00. | |
people to see everybody else as a potential threat. To see all sexual | :08:01. | :08:07. | |
activity as potentially dangerous. It's a really unhealthy way of | :08:08. | :08:11. | |
looking at the world. Look at all the child abuse cases in the past | :08:12. | :08:14. | |
which are horrific and horrendous. Any right minded person is brought | :08:15. | :08:21. | |
to tears reading about it. Dan, let me throw that, from the Catholic | :08:22. | :08:25. | |
Herald, I don't mean to beat Italy point at you for that reason, but | :08:26. | :08:30. | |
the Catholic Church has had huge problems -- I don't mean to | :08:31. | :08:33. | |
particularly point. Maybe if children were empowered and knew | :08:34. | :08:36. | |
what it was right and wrong to touch, what was right, what was | :08:37. | :08:40. | |
wrong, what somebody should not be doing to you, taught from a very | :08:41. | :08:43. | |
early age, that would have stopped some of these horrors in the past | :08:44. | :08:47. | |
visited on them by clerics? You are right, we can't do enough to | :08:48. | :08:50. | |
safeguard children and the Catholic Church is one of the institutions | :08:51. | :08:54. | |
which has bailed out that. In the past when it comes to sex education, | :08:55. | :08:59. | |
not a one agrees about the guidance -- which has failed in that in the | :09:00. | :09:04. | |
past. One of the leading guidance on sex education, as part of their | :09:05. | :09:07. | |
definition of sexual healthy development include 413-year-old | :09:08. | :09:10. | |
having sex with those of a similar age and develop mental | :09:11. | :09:13. | |
13-year-olds. You may agree with that but a lot of parents would want | :09:14. | :09:18. | |
to opt out of that. That is why it should go back to the parents and | :09:19. | :09:21. | |
not too what are often quite radical agenda being pushed. Radical | :09:22. | :09:27. | |
agendas, we will get onto alleged radical agendas, actual radical | :09:28. | :09:32. | |
agendas in the second -- in a second. Good morning. Is this | :09:33. | :09:37. | |
appropriate in school at an early age? Going back to a point raised | :09:38. | :09:43. | |
earlier, I am surprised to hear from a young girl in myself that she | :09:44. | :09:46. | |
doesn't believe there is sexual harassment in this day and age. | :09:47. | :09:49. | |
There certainly is. International women's day is coming up and in | :09:50. | :09:53. | |
preparation a teacher at my school asked a group of girls together to | :09:54. | :09:58. | |
ask about our opinions. Our daily experience of the sexual harassment, | :09:59. | :10:02. | |
does it exist, and it certainly does exist. Good education at a very | :10:03. | :10:07. | |
early stage and in primary school and secondary school, would it | :10:08. | :10:13. | |
militate against that? Certainly. People who believe that teaching | :10:14. | :10:18. | |
about porn at school will somehow people will then imitated is | :10:19. | :10:22. | |
certainly not true. If you believe that porn is dangerous, there is | :10:23. | :10:28. | |
more reason to teach about it. You can't educate ourselves out of a | :10:29. | :10:33. | |
social problem. We really have to take a step back and see that there | :10:34. | :10:38. | |
is such a hype and panic around sexual harassment and sexual | :10:39. | :10:42. | |
assaults. Which is inflating stats and is untrue. The biggest losers in | :10:43. | :10:46. | |
this conversation are women and young girls that are taught sex | :10:47. | :10:50. | |
education in this very panicked, very frightened we. It teaches them, | :10:51. | :10:56. | |
as Casper said, to see all sexual relations as problematic. They are | :10:57. | :11:00. | |
taught to tick box for things like consent in a very unnatural way, | :11:01. | :11:05. | |
which makes them grow up to be women who encounter sexual relations as a | :11:06. | :11:08. | |
potential threat, as a problem, rather than a great part of life. An | :11:09. | :11:12. | |
emotional formalised codification. Absolutely. Good morning. It was | :11:13. | :11:19. | |
quite interesting how one of you was going on about making good families. | :11:20. | :11:22. | |
I find it important that schools should be a safe place for children. | :11:23. | :11:26. | |
Especially if you are from a broken family, from divorced parents. And | :11:27. | :11:30. | |
both parents don't have that communication to talk to one | :11:31. | :11:36. | |
another. About sex education. And it is left completely by itself. You | :11:37. | :11:41. | |
have children who have no support from parents who don't want to talk | :11:42. | :11:44. | |
to one another about sex education. And they only see school as a safe | :11:45. | :11:49. | |
place, a safe environment where they have this, kind of, antagonistic | :11:50. | :11:53. | |
behaviour at home. So they rely on their teachers. People who they see | :11:54. | :12:00. | |
five times a week. For the good part of eight hours a day. They rely on | :12:01. | :12:04. | |
teachers. Especially from a very young age. It's incredibly important | :12:05. | :12:09. | |
to have sexual education in schools. APPLAUSE | :12:10. | :12:13. | |
Whilst it is important to have this, this ought to be done in very close | :12:14. | :12:23. | |
cooperation with parents. If parents feel that they are left out of this | :12:24. | :12:28. | |
initiative, I don't like it can work. OK. I completely agree with | :12:29. | :12:34. | |
that. I called you lose early on. You went on regardless, which is | :12:35. | :12:38. | |
exactly the right thing -- I called you Liz. What is appropriate for a | :12:39. | :12:42. | |
three-year-old, teaching a three-year-old or a four-year-old? | :12:43. | :12:47. | |
And how that is done. When we go into primary schools, we work with | :12:48. | :12:51. | |
the nursery children first. It is a little session, about ten minutes. | :12:52. | :12:57. | |
We show them little drawings, little cartoon boy and cartoon girl, to | :12:58. | :13:01. | |
explain that boys' bodies are different to girls' bodies, their | :13:02. | :13:04. | |
bodies are private and nobody should touch them unless they want them to. | :13:05. | :13:08. | |
And we go through the four area that nobody should touch unless they want | :13:09. | :13:13. | |
them to, the mouth, the chest, always have a Venus and girls have a | :13:14. | :13:18. | |
joiner and bare bottom. We get them to do the action and they think that | :13:19. | :13:24. | |
is great fun. -- always have a penis and girls have a vagina. Parents | :13:25. | :13:31. | |
liked seeing the resources. Why are you looking horrified? This is a | :13:32. | :13:34. | |
terrible intrusion onto the innocence of children. Children | :13:35. | :13:40. | |
played doctors. It is a great thing. Adults exploit innocent children. | :13:41. | :13:44. | |
We're not talking about adults, we're talking about children's | :13:45. | :13:48. | |
interactions with themselves. The previous point about educating | :13:49. | :13:52. | |
children about where they should not be touched, a small three-year-old | :13:53. | :13:56. | |
will not be able to stop an adult. Can I just say, nothing takes away | :13:57. | :14:01. | |
children's innocence. It does if you say this is bad. From sexual abuse. | :14:02. | :14:07. | |
Kids play! The great thing about kids, they figure out a lot on their | :14:08. | :14:12. | |
own. They figured out a lot on their own and between each other. They | :14:13. | :14:15. | |
played doctors and nurses, all this kind of stuff, lines are drawn and | :14:16. | :14:19. | |
they work it out between themselves. You are damning parents' ability to | :14:20. | :14:26. | |
take care of their children. Surprising to see people very | :14:27. | :14:28. | |
concerned about the family of children, the nine children -- | :14:29. | :14:34. | |
denying children the power to protect themselves. When people say | :14:35. | :14:38. | |
that should be for the parents, there is nothing about educating | :14:39. | :14:41. | |
children in schools that stops parents from educating them at home. | :14:42. | :14:44. | |
They are really saying, I don't want my children to know about this. I | :14:45. | :14:49. | |
won't tell them, I don't want you to tell them because I feel it is | :14:50. | :14:53. | |
mysterious and scary. They probably are not going to find out about it, | :14:54. | :14:57. | |
they will not look into it. If they tell you about it they will be | :14:58. | :15:00. | |
interested and find out about porn, sex doing -- sexting and | :15:01. | :15:07. | |
relationships. They will find out about porn. Casper. | :15:08. | :15:13. | |
It is scary to tell a child they should be worried about a person | :15:14. | :15:19. | |
touching them? Or grid that is an adult responsibility, three-year-old | :15:20. | :15:24. | |
can protect themselves. It is not about a child being able | :15:25. | :15:28. | |
to protect themselves, it is the child having the knowledge to go to | :15:29. | :15:31. | |
an adult and seeing it as inappropriate. | :15:32. | :15:37. | |
APPLAUSE If the parents were doing such a | :15:38. | :15:40. | |
good job without the state then we would not have some of the scandals | :15:41. | :15:42. | |
we have seen. This is adding to what parents do | :15:43. | :15:46. | |
and protecting young people, it should be encouraged. Education is | :15:47. | :15:49. | |
about giving the knowledge skills for people to go into the world, | :15:50. | :15:53. | |
being aware of sexual expectation is some of the knowledge they need. | :15:54. | :15:57. | |
There is an issue with the underpinning ideology of a lot of | :15:58. | :16:02. | |
the campaigning. We skated over that, what is the underpinning | :16:03. | :16:07. | |
ideology? You are from Christians in Education. The underpinning ideology | :16:08. | :16:13. | |
is that there is no right or wrong, good or bad, society should do as it | :16:14. | :16:17. | |
wishes and let's teach children to defend themselves. When we teach | :16:18. | :16:20. | |
children how to cross the road we do not teach them about different cars, | :16:21. | :16:25. | |
we teach them that can stop at a red light and they can cross safely. Why | :16:26. | :16:30. | |
are we not talking about moral red lights amongst adults if society? | :16:31. | :16:35. | |
Give some examples. I have not seen anything about teaching young people | :16:36. | :16:46. | |
about abstinence, faithfulness and exclusivity within marriage. Why are | :16:47. | :16:48. | |
we not teaching those? John, you made a strange phase. I apologise if | :16:49. | :16:51. | |
it was nothing to do with what was said. | :16:52. | :16:55. | |
Children have rights completely separate to the parents, it has been | :16:56. | :16:59. | |
touched on already that sometimes parents do a terrific job and I | :17:00. | :17:02. | |
think the programmes described can help parents in that, but children | :17:03. | :17:07. | |
have rights completely separate to parents, and I think probably the | :17:08. | :17:12. | |
programme talked about here is to enforce children's' writes as | :17:13. | :17:16. | |
separate individuals. What was it like for you, growing up in Ireland? | :17:17. | :17:22. | |
My own case was happy enough but Ireland generally, we had enormous | :17:23. | :17:27. | |
problems with abuse, particularly among religious orders and so on, it | :17:28. | :17:32. | |
was a huge com huge problems. Religious control of education in | :17:33. | :17:36. | |
Ireland meant that lots of people were abused and there was no | :17:37. | :17:40. | |
reporting system, children were disabled from reporting and there | :17:41. | :17:44. | |
was a whole generation of broken adults out of that system. Would | :17:45. | :17:48. | |
knowledge have been power? Absolutely. How can knowledge be | :17:49. | :17:58. | |
power? There is a difference... Knowing to tell an adult... An adult | :17:59. | :18:04. | |
to abuse as a child usually it's in -- intimidates, lies, tells them | :18:05. | :18:08. | |
they are at fault and not to tell, all of these things you see in | :18:09. | :18:13. | |
actual abuse cases. You will not protect a child by telling them this | :18:14. | :18:17. | |
stuff and you are not allowing... That is a sinister manifestation of | :18:18. | :18:23. | |
something they pretend is love, that happens quite often. Let's take it | :18:24. | :18:33. | |
back to abstinence. You are missing the point about what is damaging | :18:34. | :18:35. | |
about teaching people in this way. Children will have a terrible view | :18:36. | :18:38. | |
of adults. Lots of people say fidelity and abstinence and | :18:39. | :18:42. | |
constancy, should that be taught? These are part of a discussion about | :18:43. | :18:47. | |
relationships. There are some real misunderstandings here. This is not | :18:48. | :18:50. | |
about telling children what to do. The worst thing you can do as | :18:51. | :18:54. | |
children is as as adults say this is what you need to do and how you do | :18:55. | :18:58. | |
it. It is giving them a forum to discuss issues, the young women | :18:59. | :19:03. | |
themselves are asking us to give them these opportunities. The bottom | :19:04. | :19:07. | |
line is that if we do not educate them they are going online, looking | :19:08. | :19:12. | |
at pornography online, as many do, it is deeply racist, deeply sexist, | :19:13. | :19:17. | |
often violent, sexual lies as young girls and does not give a healthy | :19:18. | :19:21. | |
view of sexual relationships. It is distorted. -- Id sexual lies as | :19:22. | :19:27. | |
young girls. If we do not educate them, they will get this distorted | :19:28. | :19:31. | |
view of what is going on. APPLAUSE | :19:32. | :19:37. | |
Who decides what the content is? Who decides what children should and | :19:38. | :19:40. | |
should not know? That is what worries me. The Internet the sides, | :19:41. | :19:45. | |
hence the sexting, pornography, cyber bullying. It is decided for | :19:46. | :19:52. | |
them. We really need to stick up for parents, we get a lot of parent | :19:53. | :19:56. | |
bashing. When people are given sex education, my own family are very | :19:57. | :20:03. | |
good at talking about sex education, there are other families that are | :20:04. | :20:06. | |
not and that is where school needs to step in. You are saying but some | :20:07. | :20:10. | |
parents are abusing their children by not teaching them about sex ads, | :20:11. | :20:14. | |
whether that is religious parents or parents who want to hang back and | :20:15. | :20:20. | |
let their children because well -- by not teaching them about sex | :20:21. | :20:24. | |
education. They are very important and special family units in which | :20:25. | :20:27. | |
parents have control over their children, it is worrying. I grant | :20:28. | :20:35. | |
you the last word. How do we allow kids to be kids? All of us working | :20:36. | :20:41. | |
together, schools, parents and specialist organisations working | :20:42. | :20:44. | |
together to keep children safe. The one thing we seem to have made the | :20:45. | :20:49. | |
assumption about in the debate here is that where children are abused it | :20:50. | :20:54. | |
is adults. One out of every three children that are sexually abused is | :20:55. | :20:59. | |
abused by another child. It is educating children to speak out to | :21:00. | :21:04. | |
trusted adults, whether at home or at school. Thank you all very much | :21:05. | :21:08. | |
indeed. APPLAUSE | :21:09. | :21:08. | |
Interesting thoughts. If you have something to say | :21:09. | :21:11. | |
about that debate log on to bbc.co.uk/thebigquestions, | :21:12. | :21:13. | |
and follow the link to where you can We're also debating live this | :21:14. | :21:16. | |
morning in the Students' Union at Northumbria University, | :21:17. | :21:20. | |
is your image public property? And does the planet need the Vatican | :21:21. | :21:23. | |
to accept contraception? Get tweeting or emailing on those | :21:24. | :21:27. | |
topics now or send us any other ideas or thoughts you may have | :21:28. | :21:30. | |
about the programme. The Police National Database, | :21:31. | :21:36. | |
which covers England and Wales, is storing pictures and videos | :21:37. | :21:39. | |
of people they may have questioned, arrested, or observed | :21:40. | :21:41. | |
at demonstrations or festivals, many of whom were never | :21:42. | :21:43. | |
convicted of any offence. 19 million items are from | :21:44. | :21:49. | |
custody images alone. With DNA evidence and fingerprints, | :21:50. | :21:53. | |
the police are legally obliged to automatically destroy any records | :21:54. | :21:56. | |
they hold of people found And in 2012, the High Court ruled | :21:57. | :21:58. | |
that keeping images of innocent Yet, despite this ruling, | :21:59. | :22:05. | |
the police continued to amass Now the Home Secretary has ruled | :22:06. | :22:10. | |
that images of innocent people should be deleted | :22:11. | :22:17. | |
but only if the person concerned specifically | :22:18. | :22:20. | |
asks for this to happen. The snag is that many of us have no | :22:21. | :22:24. | |
idea whether our image Paul, Lord Scriven, you have been | :22:25. | :22:44. | |
campaigning on this for a long time. Who is on this database? We don't | :22:45. | :22:49. | |
know, that is the issue. If you have been into custody, false arrest, or | :22:50. | :22:55. | |
the court found you innocent, you are on, because the guidance that | :22:56. | :22:59. | |
just comes out says that the database and the software they are | :23:00. | :23:03. | |
using does not have the ability to wipe you offer. The software does | :23:04. | :23:07. | |
not know if you are innocent or guilty so you remain on, there are | :23:08. | :23:12. | |
millions of people. They are scanning Facebooked, scanning people | :23:13. | :23:15. | |
who have been to festivals who have been uploaded. Why should people be | :23:16. | :23:20. | |
worried? The whole basis of British law is you are innocent until proven | :23:21. | :23:26. | |
guilty. I have no problem with the police using good detective | :23:27. | :23:31. | |
techniques and appropriate images, but to say that the Government has a | :23:32. | :23:35. | |
right to have your face on a database which is not just used by | :23:36. | :23:40. | |
the police but many other Government agencies because of the fact you | :23:41. | :23:45. | |
have been to a festival or they have been scanning your face page or you | :23:46. | :23:49. | |
were wrongly arrested and uploaded onto the system, that they can keep | :23:50. | :23:56. | |
and use it for enquiring about a crime or about... You could get a | :23:57. | :24:01. | |
photograph of every single person in this audience by googling it, | :24:02. | :24:05. | |
looking online, you could probably get that of anyone within two or | :24:06. | :24:09. | |
three minutes, it is out there. There is a difference between you | :24:10. | :24:14. | |
and I as an individual citizen going on to Google and uploading something | :24:15. | :24:19. | |
on Facebook, and the state holding millions of innocent images for the | :24:20. | :24:24. | |
purpose of its own use. That is the issue. | :24:25. | :24:29. | |
APPLAUSE You are a body language and | :24:30. | :24:34. | |
deception detection expert, a former cop, why is this useful? | :24:35. | :24:38. | |
Digital policing for a digital age? In terms of gathering evidence, I | :24:39. | :24:42. | |
would agree that capturing people's images carte blanche is not really a | :24:43. | :24:47. | |
good idea, but I think if people have been convicted of offences, for | :24:48. | :24:51. | |
example DNA came in many years ago, it is something we accept now. A lot | :24:52. | :24:56. | |
of offences come to light now, historically, that otherwise would | :24:57. | :25:01. | |
not have been convicted. It has got a place, providing it is regulated | :25:02. | :25:07. | |
and not used, again, just to capture innocent people's images, that could | :25:08. | :25:12. | |
be potentially dangerous. How reliable is it, even DNA, which is | :25:13. | :25:17. | |
amazing, there could be mistakes with contamination, lots of people | :25:18. | :25:22. | |
look like each other? There are lots of systems at the moment in terms of | :25:23. | :25:27. | |
capturing biometric characteristics, fingerprints, we all use | :25:28. | :25:30. | |
fingerprints on phones, biometrics and things like that are very much | :25:31. | :25:34. | |
out there in part of normal society at the moment. If you were a | :25:35. | :25:39. | |
criminal, how would you circumvent this, 3D masks are coming out? I saw | :25:40. | :25:46. | |
that in the press. For most systems there will be a loophole, but it | :25:47. | :25:49. | |
comes down to the fact that if you are not engaged in terrorism or | :25:50. | :25:54. | |
crime, you generally have nothing to worry about, providing the system is | :25:55. | :25:58. | |
regulated. You have nothing to worry about? Have you got something to | :25:59. | :26:03. | |
worry about? I worry about my relationship with the state and the | :26:04. | :26:07. | |
police treating me as a potential criminal. I am not a potential | :26:08. | :26:14. | |
criminal, I hope I am not. In this instance, my right to privacy and | :26:15. | :26:18. | |
not to be treated as a suspect, but also it is not actually effective | :26:19. | :26:22. | |
for the police to have a bigger database, it does not make it | :26:23. | :26:27. | |
better. The DNA database this year has been more successful than ever | :26:28. | :26:31. | |
because it is not clogged up with millions of innocent people that the | :26:32. | :26:34. | |
police do not need their information. Police don't need my | :26:35. | :26:39. | |
photograph. To have it does nothing to improve their detection rates. | :26:40. | :26:46. | |
APPLAUSE I look at it from a legal point of | :26:47. | :26:51. | |
view, we have a right to privacy, article eight of the European | :26:52. | :26:55. | |
Convention on human rights, it is qualified because if it is necessary | :26:56. | :26:58. | |
in a democratic society for the state to interfere which, in this | :26:59. | :27:03. | |
case, could be the police, to prevent or detect crime, it is | :27:04. | :27:06. | |
qualified. The High Court ruling in 2012, that | :27:07. | :27:11. | |
is untrue. Article eight, they said if you are innocent or convicted, | :27:12. | :27:25. | |
the police, the state, cannot use your image in that way. The | :27:26. | :27:28. | |
guidelines that have just come out say that the Home Secretary has | :27:29. | :27:30. | |
said, whether you are innocent or guilty and you don't ask that your | :27:31. | :27:33. | |
image to be taken off that you may not know, they will store it for up | :27:34. | :27:36. | |
to ten years and use it in the same way as a convicted person. The issue | :27:37. | :27:39. | |
is not police using it, I believe it has a role, the issue is that people | :27:40. | :27:42. | |
not convicted of anything are having their face used by the state and | :27:43. | :27:44. | |
presumed guilty rather than innocent, that is the issue. | :27:45. | :27:50. | |
I think the issue, I agree, if the person is arrested, I don't like | :27:51. | :27:54. | |
that wrongful arrest, the person arrested with insufficient evidence | :27:55. | :27:58. | |
to charge... That is the classic argument, nothing to hide, nothing | :27:59. | :28:04. | |
to fear? Is a person is arrested and there was insufficient evidence to | :28:05. | :28:07. | |
charge and they are acquitted in court and they have no other | :28:08. | :28:10. | |
offences, I agree, destroy the image. There are individuals who | :28:11. | :28:16. | |
have a criminal background who are still being investigated, it is | :28:17. | :28:21. | |
useful. People failing to answer bail, it is useful. It is useful for | :28:22. | :28:26. | |
identification purposes. Our faces change, I look at people my age, | :28:27. | :28:31. | |
some have lost their hair, we all change, it is useful. That is why | :28:32. | :28:36. | |
you constantly need to update? Your face is not as private as your DNA | :28:37. | :28:41. | |
or fingerprint. People adding photographs taken at music | :28:42. | :28:44. | |
festivals, they are not aware that is happening. I can't justify why | :28:45. | :28:51. | |
they are doing that. Let's go to the audience, good morning. Your face is | :28:52. | :28:56. | |
on a TV screen! That may be useful, but I would | :28:57. | :29:01. | |
prefer if my pers -- my permission was sought, that is the big | :29:02. | :29:05. | |
difference. No matter how useful something maybe, if someone is | :29:06. | :29:09. | |
aware, at least, that their image is used, that is a lot more helpful. | :29:10. | :29:13. | |
They can have a choice in the matter. Moving along to you in the | :29:14. | :29:17. | |
brown jacket. The problem would be false | :29:18. | :29:21. | |
positives. With an increasing amount of civilian population you run the | :29:22. | :29:25. | |
risk of having false positives. The other notorious bad fact about | :29:26. | :29:29. | |
facial mapping is it can't do contrasting in darker tone in skin, | :29:30. | :29:33. | |
if you're going to implement something that takes away freedom | :29:34. | :29:37. | |
and miscarriages of justice, surely there is no reason to involve | :29:38. | :29:41. | |
innocent people into it? If you have ten people lined up and the picture | :29:42. | :29:46. | |
is all with an ethnic minority, surely there is nine times out of | :29:47. | :29:52. | |
ten a chance for false positives? It is not guaranteed you will come up | :29:53. | :29:53. | |
with the culprit. A couple more audience members | :29:54. | :29:58. | |
first. As a person who chance Harry Krishna | :29:59. | :30:09. | |
mantras, I've come to understand that 24-7 surveillance by Krishna or | :30:10. | :30:13. | |
God. That's not a problem, sometimes I am comforted by it because I | :30:14. | :30:16. | |
understand he loves me and he's my friend. The issue we have with state | :30:17. | :30:23. | |
surveillance is that that trust that the state is our well wish is being | :30:24. | :30:28. | |
eroded. Dodgy dossiers, wiki leaks, etc. Divine Big Brother is one thing | :30:29. | :30:37. | |
that the state, Kim Jong learned in the sky... Fine that erosion of | :30:38. | :30:40. | |
public trust is a problem because it morphs into our own relationships | :30:41. | :30:45. | |
between each other. It creates paranoia and distrust amongst | :30:46. | :30:49. | |
people. Spiritual practice has a role to play in mitigating that. It | :30:50. | :30:55. | |
helps us to understand that we are all connected and we are loved | :30:56. | :30:58. | |
amongst each other. Interesting link with the first debate, sowing the | :30:59. | :31:02. | |
seeds of paranoia. It is not paranoia if you are being watched | :31:03. | :31:06. | |
and monitored, is it? Are they not out to get you? It is absolutely | :31:07. | :31:11. | |
true. The vision of the police and the state as a friendly Big Brother. | :31:12. | :31:14. | |
That it's OK if you have nothing to hide, nothing to fear. That's a | :31:15. | :31:20. | |
terrifying concept. Any freethinking member of society would absolutely | :31:21. | :31:23. | |
stand up for the fact that I am innocent until proven guilty. This | :31:24. | :31:27. | |
could prove your innocence as well. It could go the other way. We are | :31:28. | :31:31. | |
increasingly living in a culture which is much more comfortable with | :31:32. | :31:34. | |
putting your picture on Facebook, putting a picture on the intranet. | :31:35. | :31:38. | |
That is one thing when it is in your own personal control but the | :31:39. | :31:43. | |
police... They must have hundreds of pictures of me because I've been on | :31:44. | :31:46. | |
many demonstrations. That makes me feel nervous. The police have a | :31:47. | :31:51. | |
history of not exactly being to the line and write about using images. | :31:52. | :31:54. | |
They have a history of fitting crimes. We can't ignore that. This | :31:55. | :32:01. | |
is a worrying concept. -- and being right about using images. There can | :32:02. | :32:06. | |
be a degree of paranoia about state observation. It is not just about | :32:07. | :32:10. | |
photographs. A recent piece of legislation came out late last year. | :32:11. | :32:14. | |
It was highly scrutinised in my view. But this is about people | :32:15. | :32:19. | |
worrying about what's on their social media. Andrew at MI5 18 | :32:20. | :32:27. | |
months ago before the Parliamentary committee said we haven't got the | :32:28. | :32:30. | |
resources to monitor everybody's social media. It's about risk. | :32:31. | :32:37. | |
Journalists, it's a very good resource for journalists, social | :32:38. | :32:41. | |
media. When a story comes out about somebody, they are straight in | :32:42. | :32:46. | |
there. There are photographs of them from social media all over the | :32:47. | :32:51. | |
newspapers. The police still police by consent in this country. We still | :32:52. | :32:56. | |
have that notion. But where is the consent from the millions of people | :32:57. | :32:59. | |
on this database that are being used? There is no consent. It is a | :33:00. | :33:06. | |
bit trite to say the police at the moment police by consent. There is | :33:07. | :33:10. | |
no consent. I worry that it is undermining confidence in the | :33:11. | :33:14. | |
police. I come from South Yorkshire where the police has been undermined | :33:15. | :33:18. | |
by bad policing. I believe this will... Rotherham. This will lead to | :33:19. | :33:22. | |
bad policing. From what the young man said. There is an issue about | :33:23. | :33:28. | |
racial profiling in terms of facial imaging. It has proven that people | :33:29. | :33:33. | |
with dark pigments and darker skin, facial software gets it wrong. Only | :33:34. | :33:37. | |
one test has been done on a database of 1 million faces. Everyone says | :33:38. | :33:43. | |
this is about 90% perfect. The examples have been done on databases | :33:44. | :33:49. | |
of between 12,000 at 20,000 people. The one case that has been done in | :33:50. | :33:53. | |
America which is on 1 million shows it goes down to only 33% | :33:54. | :33:57. | |
effectiveness. There is an issue about the technology not being | :33:58. | :34:01. | |
effective. Compounded by the fact that there are millions of people on | :34:02. | :34:06. | |
here. If you have somebody that is suspected of being involved, | :34:07. | :34:08. | |
terrorism things like that, the states have already got the systems | :34:09. | :34:12. | |
in operation and I agree it is by no means foolproof, things like | :34:13. | :34:17. | |
polygraph. It is not evidential. It just eludes to certain behaviours. | :34:18. | :34:21. | |
But if it may be helps to prevent something happening, it's got to be | :34:22. | :34:28. | |
a good thing, hasn't it? If I am on a plane and there is somebody taken | :34:29. | :34:32. | |
off that plane that is suspected and it's been detected through facial | :34:33. | :34:35. | |
recognition, you know, again, you've got to have the evidence but surely | :34:36. | :34:41. | |
it's a good thing? What if they are wearing a burqa? Are you saying that | :34:42. | :34:44. | |
the assumption in our society should be that they should show their | :34:45. | :34:51. | |
faces? Not necessarily. If there is intelligence, for example, I would | :34:52. | :34:53. | |
to a conference recently and I saw this software first-hand. It is not | :34:54. | :35:00. | |
perfect. But if people have been tagged for intelligence, they are | :35:01. | :35:03. | |
suspected of being involved in offences, this software was actually | :35:04. | :35:10. | |
quite accurate in picking out... Tagging the delegates. Saying | :35:11. | :35:13. | |
imagine you I suspect, walk towards us in a group and it facially trips | :35:14. | :35:19. | |
it, red flags them. It all comes down to the fact that, for me, it | :35:20. | :35:25. | |
has to be evident regulated. Not everybody should be on this | :35:26. | :35:28. | |
database. It is a dangerous concept. But people that have been convicted | :35:29. | :35:33. | |
are suspected. It's a good thing. But it is the old point, isn't it, | :35:34. | :35:39. | |
Carol, they might have these photographs, they might be collating | :35:40. | :35:43. | |
all of this information, but it's like the Stasi, the Soviets Soviet | :35:44. | :35:50. | |
Union. -- the Soviet Union. I went to work towards the end of the | :35:51. | :35:55. | |
soviet union. There is so much stuff, for practical purposes, you | :35:56. | :35:58. | |
cannot wade through it. That is one thing we have to think about. We are | :35:59. | :36:04. | |
infringing on rights. We are encroaching upon this idea of | :36:05. | :36:06. | |
trusting the police and policing by consent. We have to do that in a | :36:07. | :36:13. | |
balanced fashion. To say, what are the benefits? Are we benefiting from | :36:14. | :36:17. | |
this? Is it an effective use of police resources to have a database | :36:18. | :36:21. | |
with 90 million if mostly they will get false positives? Or if it will | :36:22. | :36:26. | |
impact on police. I disagree horribly with the idea that because | :36:27. | :36:31. | |
it's your image, that it's less intrusive -- disagree homely. The | :36:32. | :36:36. | |
police officer can't see my DNA profile and then start questioning | :36:37. | :36:38. | |
me or suspect me of something because my but they can because of | :36:39. | :36:44. | |
my face. I can't hide that. If a police officer sees my photograph | :36:45. | :36:48. | |
because I've been supporting the NHS at the weekend at a march and they | :36:49. | :36:53. | |
see me at a shop and is triggered something in their mind that she's | :36:54. | :36:58. | |
on the police database... That impacts on their behaviour. Would | :36:59. | :37:01. | |
you be happy if the police were to take photographs of everybody on a | :37:02. | :37:07. | |
BMP much? They haven't done anything wrong by being on a BMP March. If | :37:08. | :37:12. | |
they have committed crimes or suspected of committed crimes, the | :37:13. | :37:17. | |
police have measures they can date. Or in March of jihadis. The police | :37:18. | :37:21. | |
are given powers in society. They are allowed to abrogate our rights | :37:22. | :37:24. | |
in certain instances but we don't give them every power under the sun. | :37:25. | :37:28. | |
David, do you think they are certain demonstrations... I do, without | :37:29. | :37:34. | |
doubt. There are some groups who are maybe bordering on being described | :37:35. | :37:41. | |
groups under the terrorism act. That will be... We are talking about | :37:42. | :37:45. | |
people like Anshan Choudhury. A group like that. Some of those | :37:46. | :37:49. | |
people have never committed a crime that you want to film them. The | :37:50. | :37:52. | |
police have the right, if somebody is suspected of about to commit a | :37:53. | :37:57. | |
crime, they can monitor them. That's within the law. Let me ask you | :37:58. | :38:01. | |
again, people on rallies supporting somebody like an jam Choudhury, | :38:02. | :38:05. | |
there might be 25 people. You have seen them with placards, should you | :38:06. | :38:09. | |
not be filming those people? Absolutely not. If the police have | :38:10. | :38:13. | |
determined that the lower case march is lawful. | :38:14. | :38:16. | |
If the law says that it is lawful, people have the right to march. If | :38:17. | :38:23. | |
there are individuals who the police know of, who are potential suspects, | :38:24. | :38:28. | |
under the law, they are able to do that. It becomes a very slippery | :38:29. | :38:32. | |
slope if you start saying some marches are good, some aren't. Is it | :38:33. | :38:36. | |
legitimate to say he is newcomer he hasn't been on a March before, let's | :38:37. | :38:42. | |
keep an eye on him? It is people's democratic right to protest. On | :38:43. | :38:45. | |
certain marches like certain groups like David said, I think there are | :38:46. | :38:50. | |
under certain circumstances, the police film things for intelligence | :38:51. | :38:52. | |
circumstances. It is not right. You either have a | :38:53. | :38:59. | |
right to do that without being filmed or monitored or you don't. | :39:00. | :39:05. | |
You can't make an argument for freedom, but not for freedom for | :39:06. | :39:08. | |
others. This is what the police does, this technology is the way I | :39:09. | :39:14. | |
see it, more advanced version of stopping and searching. Targeting | :39:15. | :39:17. | |
certain groups. The police are taking pictures and videos, there | :39:18. | :39:22. | |
was a hilarious example, frightening, people tweeting a | :39:23. | :39:25. | |
police of Michael McIntyre from a helicopter in sky. And that was a | :39:26. | :39:32. | |
wake-up call. What they do is they target demonstrations, they target | :39:33. | :39:35. | |
areas they think crime should happen. Very problematic in terms of | :39:36. | :39:39. | |
racial profiling. This says certain people need to be watched. If you | :39:40. | :39:44. | |
believe in freedom of expression and people's right to privacy and the | :39:45. | :39:46. | |
belief that you are innocent until proven guilty, no matter if you are | :39:47. | :39:51. | |
on an Antrim shroud it march or NHS March, you can't have a freedom | :39:52. | :39:57. | |
but... Let me know. I'm going to curtail your freedom of speech. | :39:58. | :40:00. | |
LAUGHTER Thank you all very much for taking | :40:01. | :40:01. | |
part in that. If you have something to say | :40:02. | :40:06. | |
about that debate log on to bbc.co.uk/thebigquestions, | :40:07. | :40:08. | |
and follow the link to where you can We are in Canterbury next week, | :40:09. | :40:25. | |
Cardiff on March 19 and Oxford after that. | :40:26. | :40:27. | |
This week, the Vatican held a conference on the | :40:28. | :40:29. | |
Half of all the species alive today could be extinct | :40:30. | :40:33. | |
by the end of this century, unless steps are taken | :40:34. | :40:35. | |
to improve conservation and to change humans' behaviour. | :40:36. | :40:37. | |
One of the most contentious issues is the growth | :40:38. | :40:39. | |
At the time of Christ, around 300 million people | :40:40. | :40:44. | |
Today there are 7.4 billion people, and experts say with 250,000 net | :40:45. | :40:49. | |
added every day now, the world's population | :40:50. | :40:51. | |
will reach 11 billion by the end of this century. | :40:52. | :40:56. | |
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which organised the conference, | :40:57. | :41:00. | |
says that in 1970 humans were using around 70% of the earth's | :41:01. | :41:03. | |
Yet 800 million people are chronically malnourished | :41:04. | :41:13. | |
and 100 million are on the verge of starvation at any one time. | :41:14. | :41:21. | |
Huge problems you can read about in your newspaper this morning. | :41:22. | :41:24. | |
Changes must be made, they say, or there will be a sixth mass | :41:25. | :41:27. | |
Does the planet need the Vatican to accept contraception? | :41:28. | :41:36. | |
Karen, 11.2 billion by the end of the century. On this Little Rock | :41:37. | :41:43. | |
spinning in this part of this universe. Can the cannot cope? The | :41:44. | :41:47. | |
answer to the question is that we really don't know. We are taking a | :41:48. | :41:52. | |
big gamble with the future lives and well-being billions of people, many | :41:53. | :41:57. | |
of whom are life already. Children today have a good chance of being | :41:58. | :42:00. | |
alive at the end of the century of see whatever it is we have created | :42:01. | :42:05. | |
for them come to fruition. Where will the resources come from? | :42:06. | :42:08. | |
Exactly. People often say we already produce enough food for 10 billion | :42:09. | :42:12. | |
people. I haven't yet seen people say 11 billion. This is perfectly | :42:13. | :42:17. | |
possible, the numbers, as much as 13 billion is well within the range of | :42:18. | :42:21. | |
certainty. For the UN's projections. No one is saying... They are saying | :42:22. | :42:26. | |
we already produce quite a lot of food and we will be fine. What they | :42:27. | :42:29. | |
don't mention is that we are producing food in an unsustainable | :42:30. | :42:34. | |
manner. We are producing food in a way that destroys productive | :42:35. | :42:37. | |
capacity of the earth. Some techno optimists might say, we will figure | :42:38. | :42:41. | |
something out. We might. I certainly hope we will. But we just don't | :42:42. | :42:46. | |
know. We are pretty clever, some of us. We are pretty clever but we | :42:47. | :42:49. | |
certainly don't know it will happen and we don't know if we will solve | :42:50. | :42:53. | |
this problem. The population is not set in stone, the trajectory is not | :42:54. | :42:56. | |
set in stone, people can change their minds about how many children | :42:57. | :42:59. | |
to have. A lot of people today are not using contraception. Not because | :43:00. | :43:04. | |
they want to have a lot of children, but because they feel it's wrong. | :43:05. | :43:08. | |
They've been told it's wrong. It's full got to decide how many children | :43:09. | :43:12. | |
to have. They are often feeling internal turmoil because they would | :43:13. | :43:15. | |
like to provide for the children they already have. So we are in | :43:16. | :43:19. | |
trouble? It is trouble for them. They feel unsupported by their | :43:20. | :43:23. | |
culture religious leaders. In their wish to have a smaller family. So we | :43:24. | :43:30. | |
could so easily make people's lives better and reduce this enormous risk | :43:31. | :43:33. | |
to human beings and to our life. It's not coincident that we've lost | :43:34. | :43:38. | |
more than half of wildlife -- coincidence that we've lost. As the | :43:39. | :43:42. | |
same time as human population doubling. Lots of coincidences. Dan | :43:43. | :43:47. | |
from the Catholic Herald, we actually... You might not | :43:48. | :43:51. | |
particularly care for the wild or for wildlife, but we need animals. | :43:52. | :43:58. | |
Because we need forests. Animals sustained forests. With no animals, | :43:59. | :43:59. | |
there are forests. It's all about needing space, humans | :44:00. | :44:07. | |
going into ever more areas. The ecosystems are so important. How | :44:08. | :44:11. | |
much does it bother you that we are, for example, annihilating and | :44:12. | :44:16. | |
destroying our closest relatives, the great apes, because of habitat | :44:17. | :44:20. | |
destruction for palm oil? For biscuits, charcoal, does that | :44:21. | :44:23. | |
trouble you? It is a huge issue both the future | :44:24. | :44:33. | |
of the human race and the beauty of the. If there is a threat to the | :44:34. | :44:38. | |
environment does not come from overpopulation, it comes from | :44:39. | :44:41. | |
overconsumption. Look at fossil fuel emissions, and major threat to the | :44:42. | :44:45. | |
environment. The average American produces the same amount of carbon | :44:46. | :44:49. | |
emissions as 250 Ethiopians. The poorer half of the world's | :44:50. | :44:54. | |
population produces 7% of the omissions. The problem is one with | :44:55. | :44:58. | |
the ritual's consumption. Palm oil is a very good example. Sure. And, | :44:59. | :45:05. | |
surprisingly enough, the rich world, instead of saying we need to look at | :45:06. | :45:09. | |
how we consume and our society works has said that the real problem is | :45:10. | :45:13. | |
poor people in Bangladesh being selfish and having more than three | :45:14. | :45:18. | |
kids. I think we need to look urgently at what the West does. | :45:19. | :45:22. | |
Those are the people that would be covered in the floods and suffer | :45:23. | :45:25. | |
from famine, those will be the people... It is not a case of saying | :45:26. | :45:29. | |
don't have any more children, it is saying that if we have too many | :45:30. | :45:33. | |
children, you are the people who will suffer. Population growth is | :45:34. | :45:36. | |
overwhelmingly in place is not creating the environment or | :45:37. | :45:39. | |
problems, if we need to look urgently at the environment we need | :45:40. | :45:45. | |
to look at... And a lot of people worried about overpopulation, | :45:46. | :45:48. | |
population scientists like Stewart Brand who was very involved in the | :45:49. | :45:51. | |
70s with the great panic about overpopulation, they say we got it | :45:52. | :45:54. | |
completely wrong, we did not understand that the more people you | :45:55. | :45:58. | |
have, the more creativity and ideas you have. They are now worried about | :45:59. | :46:02. | |
under population, you will get to the middle of the century... Good | :46:03. | :46:06. | |
luck with getting President Trump to halve the living standards of the | :46:07. | :46:10. | |
American population. We asked him to appear on the programme but he does | :46:11. | :46:19. | |
not like the BBC! John, the Pope said this is about greed, Dan put it | :46:20. | :46:22. | |
very well, if we consumed less and properly managed agriculture, | :46:23. | :46:26. | |
properly respected and protected the wild and the beautiful scent | :46:27. | :46:31. | |
self-aware wild animals and dung beetles as well, and bumblebees, we | :46:32. | :46:36. | |
would be all right. It is all about being sensible? Of course it is. I | :46:37. | :46:41. | |
have to agree with Dan, consumption is a dagger at the heart of the | :46:42. | :46:47. | |
natural world. However, consumption is one of the crunchers that we | :46:48. | :46:51. | |
face. Population can never be extracted from this. For example, we | :46:52. | :46:56. | |
have this idea and I think Dan referred to it as under population, | :46:57. | :47:01. | |
the danger of under population. We are currently adding 80 million | :47:02. | :47:05. | |
people a year to the world population, greater them the | :47:06. | :47:08. | |
population of Great Britain, about the population of Germany being | :47:09. | :47:11. | |
added to the world population every year. The strange thing is that | :47:12. | :47:15. | |
according to UN figures, approximately 80 million people have | :47:16. | :47:20. | |
unintended pregnancies every game. If we simply enabled people to | :47:21. | :47:26. | |
control and manage their own fertility in the way that they wish | :47:27. | :47:32. | |
and enable girls and young women to postpone first pregnancy and | :47:33. | :47:35. | |
complete their education, we would offer an economic benefit to the | :47:36. | :47:40. | |
poor... I want to come onto that in a moment, that first of all let's | :47:41. | :47:44. | |
address the natural world. People say that the acidification of the | :47:45. | :47:48. | |
ocean, the Wales, it is their planet. Look at what is happening in | :47:49. | :47:52. | |
Africa. It is their planet, these wonderful species. Are enough people | :47:53. | :47:57. | |
aware of the fact that these are very often sentience, self-aware | :47:58. | :48:03. | |
animals with an inner life? When I started primary school in 1970, we | :48:04. | :48:11. | |
had at that time 58% more wildlife in the world than today. It is | :48:12. | :48:15. | |
collapsing at that rate. The reason I bring that up is that my kids are | :48:16. | :48:19. | |
in primary school and they have asked me, well, look, if in your | :48:20. | :48:24. | |
lifetime, that 40 year period, about two thirds of the animal world has | :48:25. | :48:28. | |
been wiped out, what will happen when it comes to us when we are | :48:29. | :48:33. | |
adults? When I am asked that question, the short answer is that | :48:34. | :48:36. | |
if we continue on our current trajectory there will be no natural | :48:37. | :48:45. | |
world by the time my kids are adults. It looks like an | :48:46. | :48:47. | |
extraordinary statement, that is the trajectory. Population is part of | :48:48. | :48:51. | |
that, overconsumption is, but they all work together. Do we respect the | :48:52. | :48:56. | |
natural world enough, the sentience of some animals? Absolutely not, | :48:57. | :49:01. | |
there is a wonderful book called Beyond Words which explores the rich | :49:02. | :49:05. | |
psychological lives of intelligent creatures like, for example, | :49:06. | :49:10. | |
elephants, amazing social creatures who live in long-standing families | :49:11. | :49:15. | |
headed by matriarchs up to 60 years of age. We humans have not a clue | :49:16. | :49:20. | |
about the natural world. We are terrific at expressing and | :49:21. | :49:28. | |
articulating our own needs, desires and wants, but we are blundering | :49:29. | :49:30. | |
like lumbering giants into the natural world. This is the ultimate | :49:31. | :49:33. | |
own goal, if we destroy the natural world which, by the way, we are | :49:34. | :49:39. | |
right on progress to do, if you insist Roy the natural world, human | :49:40. | :49:43. | |
society would collapse, no two ways about it. -- if you destroy the | :49:44. | :49:46. | |
natural world. APPLAUSE | :49:47. | :49:53. | |
What about the resources, mining? We do not have the resources, they are | :49:54. | :50:00. | |
finite. How will we cope? I don't buy any of that. What didn't you | :50:01. | :50:08. | |
buy? Everything that was just sad. I don't believe in sentience being | :50:09. | :50:13. | |
comparable to Allah sentience. There was recent peer-reviewed science, | :50:14. | :50:17. | |
but we will move on from that. What about resources? -- I don't believe | :50:18. | :50:27. | |
in sentience being comparable to our sentience. Silicon has only recently | :50:28. | :50:34. | |
become a resource. I don't want to try to predict to the end of the | :50:35. | :50:40. | |
century, that is ridiculous. When I think about what has changed in my | :50:41. | :50:43. | |
lifetime I have no idea what will be the main resources we will be using | :50:44. | :50:48. | |
for whatever purpose by the end of the century, which is quite good. | :50:49. | :50:54. | |
The young kids of today will invent the world that will exist and 50, 70 | :50:55. | :50:57. | |
years. Will they look around and say there is no more wildlife, no weld | :50:58. | :51:03. | |
animals, no ecosystems? That seems very, very unlikely. We are | :51:04. | :51:11. | |
exploiting resources on those habitats. Oil exploration in the | :51:12. | :51:16. | |
Veranda National Park, you finish off the mountain drillers, they are | :51:17. | :51:21. | |
self-aware creatures with an inner life, a right to be here. -- you | :51:22. | :51:28. | |
finish off the mountain gorillas. I am not sure about that. About what? | :51:29. | :51:34. | |
Whether they have a right to be year. Because nothing other than | :51:35. | :51:38. | |
humans have a right to be here?! So the 500 million years before humans | :51:39. | :51:42. | |
arrived, we have only been here 200,000 years, so apparently nothing | :51:43. | :51:47. | |
mattered before humans arrived. An extraordinary conceit. May I take up | :51:48. | :51:56. | |
the argument that we don't know what resources people will be using in | :51:57. | :51:58. | |
future? I think we can be pretty sure we will still use freshwater | :51:59. | :52:01. | |
for a lot of survival needs, people will still need food, they will | :52:02. | :52:04. | |
still need livelihoods and sources of energy, all of those things are | :52:05. | :52:09. | |
and a significant strain and it is quite irresponsible to say, oh, we | :52:10. | :52:12. | |
will figure something out and continue as we are when we say it is | :52:13. | :52:20. | |
just the trajectory of our culture and population. Aren't we too set on | :52:21. | :52:31. | |
material comforts and benefits? It is extremely hard to change | :52:32. | :52:35. | |
consumption. People say it is all about consumption. They all to | :52:36. | :52:42. | |
suggest ways to do that. I don't want to underplay the importance of | :52:43. | :52:45. | |
finding ways to reduce consumption but it is incredibly hard. But to | :52:46. | :52:52. | |
make as though population does not matter is showing a tremendous lack | :52:53. | :52:55. | |
of compassion not only to wildlife but to people, to human beings in | :52:56. | :53:00. | |
countries experiencing fast population growth, where | :53:01. | :53:03. | |
unemployment is rising... And for women, can I pick up the point that | :53:04. | :53:08. | |
you started with? Dan, we have a situation here that we have a church | :53:09. | :53:18. | |
run by men who have never known a woman telling women that they should | :53:19. | :53:24. | |
have lots of children. Not at all, the Church nudges bishops in Rome, | :53:25. | :53:27. | |
it is the biggest charitable organisation beyond any comparison | :53:28. | :53:31. | |
on earth -- the church is not just bishops in Rome. It includes | :53:32. | :53:35. | |
doctors, nurses, missionaries, many, many women. What about reproductive | :53:36. | :53:41. | |
rights? The data I have shown suggests that there is a vast | :53:42. | :53:44. | |
distribution of contraceptives across the developing world, often | :53:45. | :53:48. | |
at the expense of the health care women need and the real needs of | :53:49. | :53:58. | |
people in the developing world. For instance, there is an archbishop in | :53:59. | :54:01. | |
Ghana... It is a sin to take... And Archbishop and Ghana said he ran a | :54:02. | :54:04. | |
network of clinics and they could not get support from the major NGOs | :54:05. | :54:06. | |
and agencies because they refuse to provide abortion and contraception, | :54:07. | :54:11. | |
that is prioritising and ideology of population control over what people | :54:12. | :54:14. | |
need. There are innumerable stories of medical staff who say women come | :54:15. | :54:20. | |
to me needing penicillin for their sick children, needing malaria | :54:21. | :54:24. | |
medication, they don't have it, what I have is shelves full of condoms | :54:25. | :54:31. | |
because that is what the NGOs... Privileging and ideology? If we | :54:32. | :54:34. | |
privilege the rights of women and girls, that is fine by me. | :54:35. | :54:38. | |
APPLAUSE We need to alter the Vatican's view | :54:39. | :54:42. | |
on contraception. It seems like a win-win, we might | :54:43. | :54:46. | |
help the population but we would also help reduce poverty and also | :54:47. | :54:49. | |
have a better economic situation, that is a win-win all round. There | :54:50. | :54:56. | |
is no chance of this happening on contraception? Something simpler | :54:57. | :54:59. | |
solecism can change, this is one of them. I don't think it should be a | :55:00. | :55:04. | |
worry -- some things in pathology is cannot change. The church noses... | :55:05. | :55:12. | |
Knows the causes of deprivation, wall, corrupt political structure. | :55:13. | :55:16. | |
The Democratic Republic of Congo is threatened by war and resulting | :55:17. | :55:21. | |
Common. Who is negotiating a peace deal? The church. Who is handing out | :55:22. | :55:27. | |
a medical aids, educating, giving help to more people than any of | :55:28. | :55:31. | |
institution? The Catholic Church, I think we should trust them. Trust | :55:32. | :55:37. | |
the church is great, let's take the Philippines, the highest birth rate | :55:38. | :55:42. | |
in Asia. In the Philippines, we have half a million illegal abortions are | :55:43. | :55:46. | |
yet, 2500 Filipina women each year die as a result of illegal abortions | :55:47. | :55:56. | |
-- half a million illegal abortions EGF. That is the result of the | :55:57. | :56:01. | |
Catholic Church in the Philippines. It has resisted and taken 12 cases | :56:02. | :56:04. | |
to the Supreme Court in the Philippines. The idea you can't get | :56:05. | :56:07. | |
penicillin for your child because the shelves are heaving with condoms | :56:08. | :56:14. | |
is... The Philippine medical Association say differently, they | :56:15. | :56:17. | |
have opposed legislation in the Philippines to provide more | :56:18. | :56:19. | |
contraception because this way that many macro would be better spent on | :56:20. | :56:26. | |
maternal care. Who controls -- who controls the Philippine medical | :56:27. | :56:29. | |
Association? I imagine Filipino doctors. Lots of people say on | :56:30. | :56:34. | |
health grounds we need more funds for maternal care, many, many | :56:35. | :56:38. | |
Filipinos oppose the introduction of contraception and abortion because | :56:39. | :56:40. | |
they say it is a foreign eye geology are not what we need. On foreign | :56:41. | :56:45. | |
ideologies, I am a little sceptical, maybe it is coming from Ireland, we | :56:46. | :56:50. | |
were effectively a catholic state of the first 70 years of our | :56:51. | :56:55. | |
independence, we sought the brunt of the church's interest in babies up | :56:56. | :56:59. | |
to the moment of their birth. Beyond that point they lost interest in | :57:00. | :57:01. | |
them. APPLAUSE | :57:02. | :57:08. | |
The secular state in Ireland finally wrestled some control away from the | :57:09. | :57:12. | |
Church and I personally find it tragic to see the same mistakes | :57:13. | :57:15. | |
being made in countries like the Philippines right now that we in | :57:16. | :57:20. | |
Ireland were the victims. At overlooks the huge contribution made | :57:21. | :57:24. | |
by the Church, which is not equalled by any other body in the world. How | :57:25. | :57:30. | |
do you keep population down? Do you need to, when so many population | :57:31. | :57:35. | |
scientists say... Yes, we do. I hope you will not tell is 100 billion | :57:36. | :57:40. | |
people will be fine, these are all possible worlds... The UN projection | :57:41. | :57:45. | |
is wee peek at about 11 to 12 billion, that is the same until | :57:46. | :57:55. | |
2300. -- the UN projection is that we peak ad. This is building a lot | :57:56. | :57:58. | |
of assumptions that fertility will fall, they are extrapolating from | :57:59. | :58:07. | |
current trends, I was quite interested in how you think that | :58:08. | :58:11. | |
family planning is not something that women need, that what they need | :58:12. | :58:15. | |
is medical care but they don't really need birth control. We will | :58:16. | :58:19. | |
have to leave it there. Thank you all very much indeed. As always, the | :58:20. | :58:23. | |
debates continue online and on Twitter. | :58:24. | :58:24. | |
Next week, we're in Canterbury, so do join us then. | :58:25. | :58:26. | |
But for now, it's goodbye from Newcastle and have a great Sunday. | :58:27. | :58:29. | |
Thank you. APPLAUSE | :58:30. | :58:46. | |
I attended Mr Delaney's funeral and a ghost appeared. | :58:47. | :58:53. | |
I witnessed and participated in darkness that you cannot conceive. | :58:54. | :58:59. |