It wasn’t until I took my seat in Exeter’s Great Hall the other Friday that I noticed the title of the Simon Reeve show I had bought tickets for over a year prior - “To the Ends of the Earth” - and it was to prove apt.
The seemingly ageless TV presenter was his usual effervescent self as he regaled the audience with stories from some of his journeys to the distant place of the world - the Ends of the Earth.
We were taken from the hottest to the coldest places, the wettest to the driest; and alongside humorous and poignant anecdotes, there was also an almost evangelistic zeal in Reeve’s frequent pleas to “green” our money and time.
“Less screen time, more green time!” he revealed is a Reeve family motto.
And if he could give us one piece of advice, he said, it would be to “green” our pension - ensuring that the money invested goes to good causes that reduce our carbon footprint, rather than, say, to tobacco or oil companies.
It may not make us as much money, he said, but it would do more for the environment and reducing our carbon footprints than never getting onto another plane.
Food for thought.
Although, perhaps surprisingly, Reeve is actually somewhat of an advocate for tourism.
For despite the carbon footprint and potential to tarnish some of the best places on Earth, tourism also provides an important source of income and an economic reason to keep beauty spots special, he explained.
We can ask people as nicely as possible not to cut down trees or to look after wildlife, he said, but if they have an economic incentive, it’s likely to prove more persuasive.
Perhaps my biggest takeaway from the show was the passion with which Reeve spoke about the climate, “Mother Earth”, “Mother Nature”, “the natural world”, and “the spinning rock on which we live” - all phrases that he used.
At times, his language was almost spiritual.