\n<\/p>\n
Earth might be under pressure, but the Queen guitarist Sir Brian May is hopeful a new award from the science, music and arts festival he co-founded will encourage people to take action.<\/p>\n
The Starmus Jane Goodall Earth medal will be given in honour of the British primatologist who died this year and will recognise those who champion life on Earth.<\/p>\n
The first recipients are expected to be announced at the Starmus VIII festival in Tenerife and La Palma, which will run from 17\u201322 October next year.<\/p>\n
May told the Guardian that Goodall, who was a Starmus advisory board member, had supported the award\u2019s creation. \u201cThe idea of having this medal, and Starmus being entrusted to organising it, is Jane\u2019s. Jane said she would like this to happen. And I think it\u2019s because of the very special relationship she had with us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/span>(left to right) Peter Gabriel, a Starmus board member, with Garik Israelian and Brian May.<\/span> Photograph: Paul Harmer<\/p>\n Goodall\u2019s grandson Merlin van Lawick welcomed the award. \u201cThe Starmus Jane Goodall Earth medal will acknowledge sustainable programmes undertaken to make our world a better place for people, animals and the environment and provide encouragement for the continuation of that work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Starmus\u2019s co-founder Garik Israelian said the medal \u2013 which was announced at the Royal Society \u2013 would probably have multiple categories.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to be very much similar to the Stephen Hawking medal for science communication that we created exactly 10 years ago,\u201d he said. Goodall was a recipient of that award.<\/p>\n May said it was difficult to be sanguine about the future of the planet. \u201cHonestly, it\u2019s very hard to be optimistic,\u201d he said. \u201cThe present government in America is conducting a war on science and knowledge. So this really cripples the world\u2019s efforts in my opinion.<\/p>\n \u201cTo be honest, things don\u2019t look very good so we have to really start thinking again, I would say, much more seriously about the consequences of our actions. And that\u2019s not just global warming, that\u2019s the whole way that we treat the natural world.\u201d<\/p>\n As a result, May said, it was a good time to follow Goodall\u2019s example. \u201cI think that when we\u2019re awarding the prize, we will be considering this essential spirit of Jane\u2019s \u2013 that was her priority, to change the way we treat the other animals around us.\u201d<\/p>\n Israelian said an important issue at present was the proliferation of misinformation. The focus of next year\u2019s Starmus festival will be \u201cthe search for truth\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe realised that truth is becoming a subject of discussion when politics is involved. And it\u2019s a very dangerous thing,\u201d he said. \u201cThe climate science is a science; you cannot have any influence from politics in climate science.\u201d<\/p>\n May hopes the medal will inspire action. \u201cIt\u2019s about encouraging people to get involved and to care and to work in that direction, really. Whether or not we\u2019re optimistic we have to look at working the best we can,\u201d he said. \u201cBe prepared for failure, but you still have to work towards succeeding.\u201d<\/p>\n Van Lawick, who is involved in conservation work, said he was optimistic that \u201cwith guidance and when empowered, humans can be responsible caretakers of our planet\u201d, pointing to the work of the Jane Goodall Institute which, among its other activities, helps young people get involved with their community, animals and environment.<\/p>\n \u201cAs my late grandmother Jane Goodall constantly reminded us all, our daily actions make a difference and it is up to us the kind of difference we make,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is not too late and the Starmus Jane Goodall Earth medal will give encouragement and raise awareness about the positive actions that are being undertaken.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Earth might be under pressure, but the Queen guitarist Sir Brian May is hopeful a new award from the science, music and arts festival he co-founded will encourage people to take action. The Starmus Jane Goodall Earth medal will be given in honour of the British primatologist who died this year and will recognise those<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[589,15256,771,5428,16741,364,5799,5215,550],"class_list":{"0":"post-37704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-earth","9":"tag-goodall","10":"tag-improve","11":"tag-jane","12":"tag-medal","13":"tag-people","14":"tag-recognise","15":"tag-working","16":"tag-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}