David King

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and five, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

Mike Osway this week is a scientist. At the height of a distinguished academic career, he's still the Professor of Physical Chemistry at Cambridge. He was asked to take on a more public role as Chief Scientific Advisor to the Government. For the past five years, he's found himself in the thick of every scientific and medical controversy that's going, from foot and mouth disease to the safety of the MMR vaccine and GM crops. It's a tricky job. Though he works with politicians, he has to stand above politics.

Presenter0:58

Independence should come easily to a man who was brought up in South Africa, but became isolated from both his parents and his country by the stand he took against apartheid.

Presenter1:08

He was virtually kicked out of the country by the secret police and has spent his life since here in the UK. Openness, honesty, transparency is my mantra, he says. We can't keep the public on side unless our scientists can say what they mean. He is Professor Sir David King.

Presenter1:26

Four and a half years, David King, as the Government's chief scientist, and you've just been booked for an unprecedented second term. And it's been a roller coaster ride, as I've said. Foot and mouth, MMR.

Presenter1:39

Nuclear power, climate change. The first thing that strikes one about all of that is the breadth of the science. I mean, you can't possibly be an expert in it all. So how do you operate?

David King1:49

The way to handle it is first of all to recognize that a professional scientist who's worked all their career at the cutting edge of science is able to pick up topics outside their normal area of speciality fairly quickly. And secondly, in my job I can call in the experts to give me a personal seminar. So if you take foot and mouth disease...

David King2:12

I very quickly found that I could call in virologists, epidemiologists, vets to talk to me about it intensely.

Presenter2:21

So then you go in and give the Prime Minister a seminar or a tutorial, do you? I mean, one to one, Downing Street, on the sofa. Is that what happens?

David King2:28

That's exactly what happens. By the time I take it to the Prime Minister, I would have in my mind a very fairly clear line of advice that I'm going to give.

Presenter2:37

Absolutely. So, what happens then if you say to him, take foot and mouth?

Presenter2:42

You say to him, Look, there's only one option, Prime Minister. It's the mass slaughter of animals, both on infected farms and their neighbours, immediately now. Let's go do it. What happens if he says, I'm not sure about that, David?

David King2:54

Then I would have to look at other options because one of the things I've been very keen to do in government is not to leave science in a box. In other words, the scientific advice has to engage with what is publicly possible, publicly acceptable. If, for example, we had said slaughtering animals on neighbouring farms is not going to be acceptable, then we would have to look at other options. It's not always...

Presenter3:19

Despite the fact that that was your scientific view.

David King3:21

Yes. So we we had analyzed the situation and we, for example, had looked at the use of vaccines, we'd looked at all of the options, modelled them all, and then come up with the best solution for bringing the epidemic under control quickly and, I want to stress, with the least number of animals culled at the end of the day.

Presenter3:40

Done.

Presenter3:41

Sure. But what I'm trying to get at is: are you the government's chief scientific advisor, or are you the nation's chief scientific advisor? And if you think.

David King3:41

So

David King3:42

Yes, I think.

Presenter3:50

That all these animals should be culled. And that is your honest opinion, having listened to all the experts. Shouldn't we know that? It shouldn't stop at the Prime Minister, should it?

David King4:00

I think that's absolutely right, but of course that is very difficult for the government system itself to have an advisor who will give advice but then go into the public domain. But that is exactly what I've done, and the reason I've done that is, and you've already outlined this, to recapture public trust in what the science advice is. You see, I think there's a suspicion that sometimes scientific advice has been driven by political decisions rather than the other way round.

Presenter4:27

In the rubber

Presenter4:29

So you made it a condition of your accepting the job, did you, that you had to have the right to say in public what you said to the Prime Minister in private?

David King4:36

I've always made this absolutely clear that that is the way I operate.

Presenter4:42

Tell me about your first record. We're sending you to a desert island.

David King4:46

But I'm going to start with Miriam McKeever.

David King4:49

And the track is Harpo Zamani and of course this takes me right back to my origins in South Africa.

Speaker 44:56

Appoza manu mama sikuyayivi.

Speaker 45:02

Yay anymore.

Speaker 45:06

Applesa money mamma, shawdi appombe, aum

Speaker 45:15

Balega Buya, Sezon Kenatina, Seson Buya, Seson Buya Kaya.

Presenter5:25

Miriam McCabe and Hapo Zamani. I want to come to your views, David King, on topics on the scientific agenda, not least climate change and nuclear power and so on. But let's go back to South Africa since Miriam McCabe has taken us there.

Presenter5:37

And I want to learn about what informed you a a as a scientist or as a boy. Um were you always curious about how things worked?

David King5:47

Yes, I I was, and it's one of these things I can look back on now and see that I had um some unusual curiosity traits. Um I always wanted to know how everything worked.

Presenter5:59

I gather you dissected your guinea pig at one point.

David King6:01

That is right. It was a guinea pig that had died and I did take it apart, but I was only four and my mother was quite shocked. I was quite interested to see how it worked. I think that this curiosity, this rather childish curiosity, has stayed with me always. So it is something we have or not.

Presenter6:20

Um so

Presenter6:23

You were at the teenager, I think, when space travel had begun. That caught your imagination, didn't it?

David King6:28

That was simply amazing. One of my most wonderful memories is the first Sputnik being launched and my father and I going out and lying on the lawn in the garden. We knew exactly where it was going to appear in the sky.

David King6:43

And sure enough, there it was, this tiny object that had been thrust up by mankind, shining so brightly. It was virtually unbelievable.

Presenter6:54

Hm. This was nineteen forties, early fifties in Johannesburg. What was it like then, the city, when you were a boy?

David King7:02

It was a wonderful place to be brought up in. Within the city itself, the Jacaranda city, in fact the largest man-made forest in the world is Johannesburg. Because it was a savannah before the city arrived. I was living in Parkview near the Zoo Lake. I would say it was a delightful place to be brought up in.

Presenter7:23

So this was a sort of middle class suburb.

David King7:25

Middle class suburb, very definitely white suburb, servants living in rooms at the back of the houses.

Presenter7:32

And what did your father do?

David King7:33

My father worked uh for a paint business and my father anticipated that his uh sons would also end up working in the paint business.

Presenter7:43

How many sons were there?

David King7:44

Uh there were uh three of us.

David King7:46

And my older brother and I began working in the paint business when we were about 12 or 13 years old. And through the vacations, we then carried on working in the paint business. And of course, it was in the paint laboratory in Durban that I really enjoyed myself most. And my father simply said, at the end of it, when we had to go to university, so what are you planning to do? I said, I want to do science. And that was probably my smartest move.

Presenter8:16

I call number two.

David King8:17

Record number two is Paul Simon. Now Paul Simon has has managed to pick up South African music and transform it into a medium that has become very popular worldwide. He worked very closely on this one with Lady Smith Black Mambazso, and the track is called Homeless.

Speaker 48:37

Palmless, homeless, moonlights gleaming on a midlight day.

Speaker 48:45

Somebody say

Speaker 48:47

Somebody sing Hello, hello, hello Somebody sing

Speaker 48:52

Somebody crying Why, why, why? Somebody says

David King8:54

Why why

Speaker 48:57

Somebody sing somebody sing

Speaker 49:02

Somebody cry why why why

Presenter9:06

Paul Simon and Lady Smith, Black Mambazo and Homeless, which uh points up your position, if you like. David King, a South African who spent his life in in another country. And that all came about because of your instinctive opposition to apartheid. Can we trace that briefly? So you're in this

Presenter9:22

Middle-class suburb of Johannesburg. I presume as a boy you would have taken the system for granted. I mean,

David King9:30

Absolutely. No questions asked, and we had two black servants, one of whom, the chef Noah, was a a highly intelligent man.

David King9:42

who started telling me the story of his people, the Zulu people.

Presenter9:46

So did he live within your compound?

David King9:48

He lived in the compound at the back of the house.

Presenter9:50

So what would you do? Sit on his stoop with him and listen?

David King9:53

Yes, sit on his stoop and listen, go and sit in the kitchen while he was cooking. It really did become my my favorite activity in the house.

Presenter10:01

And school, I mean, you wouldn't have known any other you wouldn't have known any black boys, would you?

Presenter10:08

Your school was all white.

David King10:10

The school was all white, but your point is a good one black children didn't live in Johannesburg, because they they actually were brought up in the homeland, so there were not many young black people around.

Presenter10:22

But there would have been townships. I mean, there were townships just outside Johannesburg. Did you go there? Did you see that?

David King10:26

There were townships and one did not go into the townships and uh it was only because I was at a school

David King10:33

where there was a a very long tradition through the Fathers of the Resurrection of making the the white children aware of the political situation in South Africa. And um when we were sixteen we were taken around the townships and uh by

Presenter10:49

By the school.

Speaker 410:50

Yeah.

David King10:51

the priests of the school, and this was the big eye-opener for many of us.

Presenter10:56

Was it? Oh, it's quite an enlightened thing, because I shouldn't think it happened in many white schools.

David King11:00

I don't think it did, and I think that most parents of the children were actually a little upset that this even happened.

Presenter11:07

And then you went on to university. I mean, at what stage would you have started questioning the system?

David King11:14

I think when I went to university I was still not questioning it, so it would have evolved while I was at university. And as a matter of fact, there was a a small group of students, and I would say we were armchair intellectuals, who sat around discussing the political situation.

Presenter11:31

But you knew you were anti-apartheid and that's the defining

David King11:33

That's right, that's right. I I think it was very clear then that we had begun to reject the system we'd been brought up in.

Presenter11:42

Was Nelson Mandela still around?

David King11:44

Nelson Mandela was a charismatic figure at this time. The the title he was given was Black Pimpanel because Mandela was wanted by the police but kept appearing at large meetings and making speeches and then when the police arrived he would disappear into the crowd.

Presenter12:02

So what did you do about it? And you sat around being armchair intellectuals, as you say. Did you do anything?

David King12:08

I wrote to the newspapers and my letter writing became quite a frequent feature. I was already totally dedicated to science and used to write these letters actually sitting in my research laboratory.

Presenter12:21

But you found you had this power and you enjoyed it, that the these letters would get published.

David King12:25

Yes. I I think it was quite heady, to be honest.

Presenter12:28

Record number three.

David King12:30

Well record number three is Bartock's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste, and it's something that really does take me back to this period when this is one of the pieces we listen to regularly.

Presenter13:41

Part of the second movement, the Allegro of Bartock's music for strings, percussion, and celeste, with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe conducted by Nicholas Honancourt. How did your parents react, David, to your your activism, your letter writing, your your anti apartheid stance?

David King13:57

My parents were embarrassed, distressed, frightened, but also quite simply disagreed with the position I was taking.

Presenter14:04

Mm.

David King14:04

Our telephone at home was tapped and my mother was particularly upset about that.

Presenter14:09

I'm sure. And how had the streets of Johannesburg changed during the summer? Because by then there were police and tanks on the streets right now.

David King14:17

We're into the early sixties now, and near the University in Johannesburg there were many armored vehicles around. It was a bit like an occupied city.

Presenter14:27

Hm. And Mandela had been arrested by this time.

David King14:29

And Mandela was then arrested, that's right.

Presenter14:32

And then you were sent for.

Presenter14:34

by the police, and described to me what happened.

David King14:37

Well, I I was uh interviewed on the seventh floor of the Grays building in Johannesburg. This is the place where most of the interrogations were held, and we were all aware of this.

Presenter14:48

An infamous building.

David King14:49

Absolutely, several suicides, apparent suicides, from that seventh floor during interrogation.

Presenter14:56

You were taken to that seventh floor with

David King14:58

Yes, yes, and interrogated in uh in a fairly aggressive fashion. The window behind me was open, and essentially I was accused of being a Communist. And this was a sufficient reason for the Minister of Justice to take action, as I was told.

Presenter15:17

What sort of action?

David King15:19

Well, they could incarcerate you at this point.

Presenter15:19

Well that

Presenter15:21

Hmm.

David King15:21

I was asked what my intentions were and I said, well actually I'm a I'm a scientist and my commitment is to science and I'd be very keen to move on to Britain and continue doing science here.

Presenter15:36

So you volunteered to go into Isaiah, essentially.

David King15:37

I volunteered that information and they encouraged me.

Presenter15:41

They said, get on with it.

David King15:42

to get on with it and I left in September 1963.

Presenter15:46

How frightened were you during the course of that interview?

David King15:49

I was terrified. I didn't feel like a courageous person at all. I walked out of it feeling I'd been terribly naïve. But I was a fortunate one. I had friends, close friends, who at that time were incarcerated. It was a very difficult period.

Presenter16:06

Pretty pretty traumatic for what would you have been, twenty-four years old, something like that.

David King16:11

The 23, 24.

Presenter16:12

Then you set sail for England or you set sail.

David King16:14

Set sail literally, yes, in a Union Castle liner from Cape Town. As that ship left the docks there was a great sense of fine, I I can move on now.

Presenter16:26

Record number four.

David King16:27

Record number four is uh

David King16:29

Something that brings me on to that uh trip the end of the trip to London. The Beatles were part of the London scene and this uh record yesterday takes me right back to that period in the early sixties.

Speaker 416:43

Yesterday.

Speaker 416:46

All my troubles seem so far away

Speaker 416:51

God looks as though they're here to stay, Oh I believe

Speaker 416:57

In yesterday, suddenly.

Speaker 417:03

I'm not half the man I used to be

Speaker 417:08

Does the shadow have

Presenter17:10

Hanging over

Presenter17:12

The Beatles and Yesterday. London must have been a grim place, David, for a a young man brought up in those big African skies and the brilliant colours of

David King17:20

Absolutely, going from the wonderful blue skies of South Africa and arriving in London in the nineteen sixties, it was grey. My memory of it is lack of colour.

Presenter17:30

Yeah.

Presenter17:32

And what about the science? How did that compare?

David King17:35

Well the science was just a giant step up from what I'd been experiencing in South Africa. I had elected to go to Imperial College and I worked with F. C. Tompkins who was one of the world leaders in his field. And of course that was just so energizing. Suddenly arriving in London was wonderful.

Presenter17:57

Your career blossomed. You were, as you said, you were a Shell Scholar actually at Imperial College, weren't you? And then a lecturer at the University of East Anglia, a professor at Liverpool, and then aged forty-nine to Cambridge to the professorship you you still hold. Um but you must have missed your homeland. I know you're a rational man, you're an optimist, you're a forward-looker, you're not given to nostalgia for its own sake, but you must have ached sometimes for South Africa.

David King18:24

Yes, I think that you've described my temperament. I'm always looking ahead, thinking of what the next move is going to be. But I've missed the people, the music, the warmth of the people there. There were many things that I missed, but at the same time the sheer excitement of being able to move on in my scientific career in the way it did happen was a big compensation.

Presenter18:52

But what about when you finally went back? How did that feel, may I ask?

David King18:57

I arrived back in in Durban. I was asked for my passport and I showed it and the passport officer, who was Indian born, opened it and said, Ah, born in South Africa, you're very welcome back and I had tears popping into my eyes.

David King19:14

I then took a small plane to Port Elizabeth and just flying over the coastline,

David King19:21

I suddenly realised that I could recognise precisely where I was flying over from holidays when I was a teenager with my parents. We were flying over areas that my brother and I had explored along the beach, and we came around the corner one day, and there was a dead whale on the beach, and we had leapt all over it, as young people would do. I did burst into tears, and the chap sitting next to me on the plane was worried about me, and when I explained it to him, he then pointed out that I was precisely right in my geography.

David King19:58

Um so no, that that was uh one one of the grand experiences.

Presenter20:04

I got number five.

David King20:06

Well, I could have chosen eight Bob Dylans, I decided when preparing for this, but I've cho chosen just like a woman.

Presenter20:10

Of course.

Speaker 420:16

She takes just like a woman.

Speaker 420:21

Yes she does, she makes love just like a woman.

Speaker 420:28

Yes, she does, and she thinks.

Speaker 420:31

Just like a woman.

Speaker 420:35

But she breaks just like a little girl

Presenter20:41

Bob Dylan, and just like a woman. Of all the issues you've had to deal with, David King, in your years as the government's chief scientific adviser, it's that of climate change, global warming, which now dominates, and you've had some strong

Presenter20:56

words to say about it. You've said it's the most severe problem facing the world today. Delaying any kind of action is not an option. Just to start with, colour in the picture for us, if you would. What are the threats? What will happen if we do nothing?

David King21:11

First of all, I think we're all aware that we always have experienced extreme events and we've got to be very careful about attaching any particular extreme event to climate change. But the hot European summer of two thousand three, which is the biggest natural disaster in Central Europe for hundreds of years,

Presenter21:30

In terms of loss of life.

David King21:31

In terms of loss of life, it's estimated thirty thousand people lost their lives in that hot summer. Now, statistical analyses indicate that half of the severity of that summer can be attributable to the climate change that has already occurred.

Presenter21:48

And the nineteen nineties were the hottest decade on record, we know.

David King21:52

That's right. So and were predicted by the climate change scientists to be the hottest decade on record.

Presenter21:53

So

Presenter21:58

What are the other threats now? I mean, we hear a lot about the ice cap melting. What happens when sea levels rise?

Presenter22:06

Moving forward in the 21st century, we're talking about flooding. I mean, devastating floods, yes?

David King22:12

The the impacts are many.

David King22:15

We're going to see in Britain an increased intensity of rainfall.

David King22:20

So the phrase flash flood is now becoming part of our terminology.

Presenter22:25

As in Boscastle.

David King22:27

The Thames barrier was designed to prevent London from flooding, of course, first used in the early nineteen eighties, and it was anticipated it would be used every two or three years. We're now using it more than six times a year.

David King22:42

and that it usage is increasing with time.

Presenter22:45

But extrapolating even further forward to the middle of this century and beyond, we are talking about huge floods. I mean, particularly in the developing world in the deltas to start with. And then on here, we are talking about the collapse of buildings.

Presenter23:02

If we do nothing, scientists like you are telling us that that is an inevitability.

David King23:07

We're going to see sea levels rise very substantially as ice based on land melts into the sea, and also because the sea is warming up, it expands as it's warming.

David King23:19

Eventually, if we, for example, lost all of the Greenland ice sheet, the sea level would rise by seven metres. Now we've been building over the last eight thousand years all our major cities on coastlines, and it does mean that the cities around the world are under threat.

Presenter23:35

But these are facts, are they? I mean, are there people, are there scientists who would dispute these facts? Or are you telling us this is absolutely as it is?

David King23:45

The facts are carbon dioxide levels are increasing because of fossil fuel usage to a level that is now 40% higher than any record going back one million years at least. The fact is that the global temperatures are rising on average now 0.6 degrees centigrade around the world. The fact is that we're losing ice from land masses around the world as well. Glaciers are being lost.

David King24:11

All of these are facts. In terms of the future impacts, there's an enormous amount of discussion.

Presenter24:18

Let's pause for some relief and some music.

David King24:22

Well let's take some relief from John Coltrane. Jazz has always been an important element of the music I listen to and love and this was a very difficult choice but Coltrane from his track I Love Supreme.

Presenter25:33

John Coltrane on the Tennis Sacks and um A Love Supreme, that was part of the Resolution track. Okay, David King, you have said, have you not, that if you were an alien arriving from Mars and saw that we were burning up our planet here on Earth, you'd worry for a bit and then you'd suddenly say, Oh no, it's okay. They've discovered nuclear fission technology, so that's fine. In other words, nuclear power. And that is our answer, isn't it?

David King25:57

And nuclear power is one answer. I don't think it's the answer because there is no capacity to produce the nuclear power stations around the world that would be required and maintain safe disposal of nuclear waste. In Europe at the moment and in the United States, public acceptance of nuclear power is a real issue as well. I do think that the nuclear option

Speaker 426:20

Who

David King26:24

is critically important, but of course we have to take the public with us on this very important issue.

Presenter26:29

Yes, but you also as you're suggesting time is running out, you have to make a decision. That's the problem, isn't it? When you say take the public with you, how are you going to persuade the public to engage in this and to get its head round this?

David King26:44

What I want to stress is that I think it may be that around the world we need another generation of nuclear fission power stations, but in the longer term I think first of all renewables and energy efficiency gains will begin to play through into the system.

Presenter27:00

Renewables being wind, solar, hydrogen, power.

David King27:03

and tidal energy and so on. But there is also an alternative on the horizon, which is nuclear fusion power, the power that drives the sun. And the waste from nuclear fusion power is non-radioactive, it's helium gas, it has no side effects for humanity, and the fuel for nuclear fusion power is widely available in the sea.

Presenter27:28

So there are you you have to trust, you have to believe, you do believe, that there are solutions there lying in the future. Are they going to come soon enough to solve this problem for us, that that that we can alter?

Presenter27:40

from thirty years hence, what is going to happen to the earth?

David King27:43

Right, so the important thing is the science is telling us what the risks are ahead of us. The technologies that are being developed are going to be there for us to deal with it.

David King27:53

The final question in that particular equation, though, is there a political will around the world to actually invest in these technologies? And in the end, it really is a question of political will.

Presenter28:05

Of course it is, because it's very expensive and it takes a long time and p politics by definition are are are short term.

David King28:12

I would stress that it would only appear to be very expensive, because the alternatives are very expensive as well.

Presenter28:19

We call number seven.

David King28:21

My next record is Tom Waits, the gravelly voice of Tom Waits, and the track I've chosen is Tabletop Joe.

Speaker 428:28

I said I'm gonna join the circle.

Speaker 428:33

Cause that's where I belong

Speaker 428:37

So I went to Cody Island.

Speaker 428:41

I was singing this song.

Speaker 428:46

Tevent Yo

Speaker 428:50

He will tap you.

Presenter28:54

Tom Waits and Table Top Joe. Let me just ask you about all of this at the immediate level of human experience. And what should we do? Get on our bicycles and never get into a motor car again and never light a fire?

David King29:08

I think what we all ought to be thinking about this in terms of our normal lives. Each of us on average is producing nine tonnes of carbon dioxide a year. Half of that comes from the way we use the built environment for heating and lighting. And we could be considerably more efficient. We could reduce that by a factor of two. A quarter of it comes from motor transport, from the use of cars. I don't think it's exactly defensible to drive round in SUVs in cities, but it's become very fashionable.

Presenter29:45

But these are things, of course, that we've been told over the years.

Presenter29:50

In a sense, as far as the public is concerned, these messages might go in one ear and out the other with many, because they think, oh, they're banging on about all of that again. I mean, just give it to me one more time. How serious is it?

David King30:04

Well, I think it's a sufficiently serious issue for all of us who actually think about the lives that our children and their children will lead to change the way we live today. We have become very free and easy about our use of energy. Now, there is a massive cost to our societies around the world, and we, I think, need a big cultural change.

Presenter30:30

But what you're saying is that our grandchildren and great grandchildren will curse our graves unless we do something.

David King30:37

Well, they're going to inherit a very, very different uh world to live in if we don't manage the process now. And we've got the ability to do it. It's a matter whether or not whether we have the will to do it.

Presenter30:51

Last record.

David King30:51

Yeah.

David King30:52

Well, my last one is a very recent recording, Nora Jones, and it's from an album Come Away With Me. I've chosen the track Don't Know Why.

David King31:03

It sounds to me absolutely genuine. I think she actually wrote this the day after she regretted not meeting somebody for a date.

Speaker 431:13

I waited till I saw the sun.

Speaker 431:19

I don't know why I didn't come

Speaker 431:25

I left you by the house of farm

Speaker 431:30

Don't know why I didn't come Don't know why I didn't come

Presenter31:40

Nora Jones and don't know why. Now, if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take, Dave?

David King31:47

Well, I think I would actually stay with Norah Jones. It was introduced to me by my children.

Presenter31:52

It's not a very good title for a chief scientist Don't Know Why.

David King31:56

Yeah.

Presenter31:57

What about your book as well as the Bible and Shakespeare?

David King31:59

Well, the book I would choose is an anthology provoked by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. It's called Wild Reckoning. And it's an anthology of poems, and they date right back over the last few hundred years. And I think it's a wonderful way of sitting on an island and reading about nature and moving a little away from the science base.

Presenter32:27

And what about a luxury?

David King32:29

Uh for a luxury I would like to have a bunch of canvases and oils and brushes to allow me to once again get back to the world of art where uh where I was once active.

Presenter32:45

Professor Sir David King, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

David King32:49

Thank you.

Speaker 332:58

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.