Yahoo News Good Morning Britain's Laura Tobin opens up about 'mum guilt'
Good Morning Britain presenter Laura Tobin said she feels 'mummy guilt' around working the show's irregular hours, but that she now realises her trip to Svalbard last year was 'the trip of a lifetime' even though it was a difficult choice to go.
The weather presenter said seeing the landscape near the North Pole changing and the way polar bears were affected helped her realise the reality of 'irreversible' climate change, and was upset on air and talking about her four-year-old daughter.
She told Kate Thornton on White Wine Question Time that her husband, who she met when they were both doing their physics degree, had a 'regular hours job' and she had good support nearby with a childminder and friends who helped out.
But, she said: "the mummy guilt's there. But also, I want her to see that I work and love my job. And she knows that I love it. And I think it's really important for her to see that as well."
WATCH: Laura Tobin on climate change, being competitive and getting her daughter interested in science
Tobin joined ITV in 2012, where she has presented the weather ever since, first for Daybreak and now on Good Morning Britain. She told Thornton she had to make a choice when offered the trip because it was the same week her daughter started school and she missed her first full day.
She said: "At the time it it felt like a really difficult choice, a sacrifice. But actually, it totally wasn't because she completely understood that I was going to see the polar bears because the ice is melting. And it was the trip of a lifetime."
While there she spoke to someone who ran tourism trips and had had to ring people to tell them not to come because there was not enough snow for tourist activities in a place that is warming six times faster than anywhere else on earth.
She described polar bears as a 'big thing' for her daughter Charlotte, and described how changing sea temperatures are affecting the fish that live in the seas, meaning the polar bears have to swim further to get the Arctic fish they need and are dying because they are malnourished.
Tobin told Thornton: "I'd learned all about the cryosphere, which is the frozen parts of our planet, I know how the glaciers are in retreat, they're at the lowest they've been for 2,000 years. I get the numbers. But I didn't realise the reality of it."
The more the ice melts in places like Svalbard, the warmer the planet becomes because the white ice and snow are no longer there to reflect the sun's heat. Tobin described it as a "positive cycle. So the more ice melts, the more it will melt.
"It just makes it warmer and warmer and warmer and warmer. And it's on this rapid runaway that we call a tipping point, a point of irreversible change. And we're so close to not being able to stop this change."
Tobin has written a book - Everyday Ways To Save Our Planet - which Thornton described as 'full of simple, bright ideas make simple changes'.
The weather presenter said her love of science had to be in the book, as well as helping people to make small changes with things like a tick list at the back but with an awareness that some could just be crossed out, because 'you can't do everything'.
She said her mantra is: 'No one can do everything. Everyone can do something.'
"You can't do everything," she said. "I tried to do everything at the beginning. And my mind nearly exploded. And my husband was getting very cross.
"He was like: 'What are we doing this week? What crazy eco idea are you doing now?'"
Telling Thornton she really wanted to have science in the book, to give a 'sprinkle', she said: "If people have a little understanding of something, I think it goes a long way to appreciating and understanding more."
WATCH: Laura Tobin on going into premature labour at Good Morning Britain
