I don't know [why we're here]. People sometimes say to me, 'Why don't you admit that the humming bird, the butterfly, the Bird of Paradise are proof of the wonderful things produced by Creation?' And I always say, well, when you say that, you've also got to think of a little boy sitting on a river bank, like here, in West Africa, that's got a little worm, a living organism, in his eye and boring through the eyeball and is slowly turning him blind. The Creator God that you believe in, presumably, also made that little worm. Now I personally find that difficult to accommodate.

No one will protect what they don't care about, and no one will care about what they have never experienced.

Climate change will affect the whole of humanity, while terrorist attacks will only affect a small section of humanity. Of course, you wouldn't say that if you were related to someone who had been beheaded or blown up or murdered.

The idea that the Lord had given us a present, that the world is a gift from God... well, the amount of stuff, back then, that the Lord was giving away was limited. We do not have dominion.

Before the BBC, I joined the Navy in order to travel.

Now, I find that very difficult to reconcile with notions about a merciful God.

I would love to see a giant squid. Very few people have seen them. And only about half a dozen people have seen one alive.