Passionate about the planet since the age of 9

SIR Jonathon Porritt has spent the past four decades campaigning passionately about the environment.

The former teacher was a member of the fledgling Green Party in the 1970s, when it was called the Ecology Party.

Today, he is the chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission – an independent think tank that advises the government on issues to do with the environment.

He was appointed to the post in 2000 by the then prime minister, Tony Blair, but clashed with him over the decision to press ahead with plans to develop more nuclear power stations.

He is an eminent writer, broadcaster and commentator.

He also writes a blog, which he recently used to voiced his strong arguments against Boris Johnson becoming mayor of London.

He is also programme director of Forum for the Future, the UK's leading sustainable development charity. He was formerly director of Friends of the Earth, a trustee of WWF UK and co-chair of the Green Party, of which he is still a member.

He was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. He has two daughters.

His first book, Seeing Green, was published in 1984.

More recently, he wrote Capitalism: As If the World Matters.

He has been in St Andrews this week taking part in a panel discussion with academics about the challenges of sustainable development.

Q & A: SIR JONATHON PORRITT

What are four things anyone can do to help the planet?

The first is the hardest, which is to do some research into your own carbon footprint.

There are lots of really good websites where you can do this. Then you can begin to think how to reduce that carbon dioxide.

Reduce car use if you have got a car. Certainly reduce it for journeys of less than two miles, where walking is good for you.

Try to reduce your impact on the planet in terms of the food you buy.

Think about the impact of your holidays.

Have you ever measured your carbon footprint? How did you do?

Yes, reasonably well. My carbon footprint is very good because I don't have a car and our house is very well insulated.

It's then blown to pieces by the amount of flying I do. I do fly a lot and I report that on my blog on a regular basis. I have to fly. I can't really avoid it. I don't pretend it's not a problem. It is.

Who do you think has the most potential to influence behaviour towards the environment?

Much as it galls me to say it, if Jeremy Clarkson became a passionate supporter of the low-carbon economy, he would be so much more powerful than me.

I also think faith groups are very powerful influences on people's lives.

We also have to work with the politicians, of course.

What do you feel when you see a wind turbine or a wind farm?

I find them beautiful. I think the design of them is powerful and elegant. The beauty of them on the landscape can be astonishing.

Aesthetically, they are very pleasing; practically, I like them, but also symbolically they are very important, because they speak to a different kind of world. Every time I see them my heart lifts a little. They are very important expressions of hope.

What is your favourite green gadget?

My bicycle; actually both of them. I have one in Cheltenham where I live that I use to get to the station.

Then I have another in London that I leave at Paddington.

Do you drive a car?

No.

Do you still have a sense of horror about Boris (Johnson] being mayor of London, as you said on your blog?

I'm unhappy about Boris as the mayor of London, but he won the election. He persuaded people he was the right person for the job.

We have got to admire him for the way he has done that, and it was a very substantial campaign.

I quite admire Ken Livingstone for the way he reacted as well.

I hope all my worst fears about Boris are proved to be groundless. He does at least ride a bike to work. I have occasionally overtaken him on my bike. He doesn't go very fast.

What environmental event would make your year?

Barack Obama being elected president of the United States in November, and that he would then be able to bring America back into a sense of leadership in the world today.

We can't build a sustainable world without America. It's just not possible.

The fact that we have suffered eight years under George Bush holding the world back from everything that matters has been a tragedy for humankind.

That is my big hope for 2008.

Radiohead recently asked fans to take public transport to their concerts. Do you think it's good for pop groups to get involved in the environment?

Yes. I'm much less cynical about that than a lot of people are. I think a lot of what some musicians do today is fantastic.

I'm a huge fan of Peter Gabriel. Years ago, he was talking about global responsibility. Right from that day on, I have always thought musicians have a very powerful inspirational role.

I'm particularly struck by Thom Yorke. (And] Annie Lennox has just brought out a fantastic new CD which is so powerful about the state of the world.

Do you ever think you have become too close to the government in your role as adviser, compared to the days you campaigned with the Green Party?

Yes, I do. I don't feel it all the time because then I would stop what I'm doing.

I love what I'm doing and I feel, on balance, it's the best place to be, and I know that we are having an effect. That doesn't stop me going along with a lot of things I'm not very confident about. The pace of change is not fast enough. I get very grumpy about the slowness of it all.

On balance, I feel like I'm in the right place now. I have got another year with the (UK Sustainable Development] Commission, and I shall use that to maximum effect.

Were you always very aware of the environment, even when you were growing up?

I was always very interested in wildlife and natural history. I started subscribing to a magazine called Wildlife when I was about nine. It went a bit when I got a bit older. Other things became more interesting.

Then I didn't get back into it until I was 18 and went to live in New Zealand for a few years. While I was there, I got interested in forestry and that sort of thing.

When I came back from New Zealand and went to Oxford, I messed around with environmental ideas in terms of reading books.

Who or what had the biggest influence on shaping your attitude to the environment?

The Ecologist magazine that I started reading in the early 1970s was just such an eye-opener. That led to me joining the Ecology Party (now the Green Party].

Why did you train to become a barrister but then become an English teacher?

I failed to become a lawyer. I went to the College of Law in London and lasted for three months at the most, at which point I decided I really hated it and, more importantly, the people with whom I was doing it.

I couldn't believe the obsessive focus on money and how much they were going to earn when they became big wheeler-dealer lawyers.

I left there and went to the office of the Inner London Education Authority the next day. In those days, there were such chronic shortages in London schools that they would take teachers without any training whatsoever.

So I graduated in French and German but became an English and drama teacher. I did go on to get a postgraduate qualification. I had a teacher who was about 4ft 3in. She was really tiny and taught us about voice control.

She could use her voice to bring order. In my shouty days, I would just shout at people and then lose my voice after two days.

What was the Ecology Party like before it became the Green Party?

I joined the Ecology Party in 1974. It was very small. I was about the 74th member. Local meetings in London were bizarre occasions. They were slightly eccentric, to say the least.

You are well known for your anti-nuclear energy views. What are your main arguments against it?

The Sustainable Development Commission spent the best part of 18 months doing a lot of research bringing together a great deal of evidence that had emerged.

We said there are lots of advantages about nuclear, which there are. The safety record of nuclear is pretty good. It's a very low carbon source of energy, there's no denying it.

But then we looked at the disadvantages. The first was the nuclear waste issue, which we still believe has not been cracked. There's just no solution to that.

The second issue is what's known as lock-in. If you pump all that money into that sort of power station, you become dependent on energy systems of that kind. We think the energy systems of the future will be much more decentralised.

The third issue is around proliferation. I don't believe you can draw a line between nuclear reactors for civil reasons and for use for weapons of war. If you tell people it's OK to have nuclear reactors, on what basis can you tell countries like Iran not to have them?

The last reason is around the security issues and supplies. Is the uranium there in enough quantities, and how vulnerable is it to terrorist attack? In today's world, we are all very nervous about them being a very, very strong target.

Our opinion is that the UK does not need a new generation of nuclear reactors to meet the requirements of renewables.

Is the UK government making a big mistake by pursuing more nuclear power?

I don't believe it will be pursued. If it is, it will be making a big mistake. It will be too risky in terms of things like liability costs and too expensive.

How about the Scottish Government? Has Alex Salmond got the right idea – ruling out nuclear power?

The Scottish Government has the advantage of being extremely clear about this. We welcome that.

They have set themselves some very ambitious targets. The government in Scotland has been very clear that means some extremely big decisions around renewable energy.

If nuclear is not the answer, what is?

The answer to a sustainable energy future is efficiency first, first, first. Efficiency is just unbelievably important.

If you can reduce energy need by 30 or 40 per cent, you will then need to find less energy. We bang on about that.

Then there are renewables. Then the last thing is heat. We have to find better ways of using the heat that's currently released in the generation process. Huge amounts are produced.

Then, at the bottom of the list, is that we have to put a lot of investment into carbon capture and storage.

Does wind power really have scope, considering it is an intermittent source of energy? Won't it always need to be backed up by fossil-fuel power stations?

It's complete nonsense. I'm amazed this myth still persists.

Of course it's an issue. If the wind's not blowing, that turbine isn't generating. But even if the wind isn't blowing in one area, it is in another area. You don't need fossil fuel back-up.