Author: Rachel Crowther

“My activism is just one tool in the activism tool-kit.”

Sarah Corbett is an award-winning activist, author, Ashoka Fellow and founder of the global Craftivist Collective. She grew up in a low-income area of the UK into an activist family and has worked as a professional campaigner for over a decade, most recently with Oxfam GB. She started doing craftivism (craft + activism) in 2008 to add a different tool of activism into the toolkit – a form of slow, quiet and intimate effective activism she calls ‘Gentle Protest’. 

Due to demand, Sarah set up the award-winning Craftivist Collective in 2009, providing products and services for individuals, groups and organisations around the world to be effective gentle craftivists. Sarah’s work has helped change government laws, business policies as well as hearts and minds through her unique ‘Gentle Protest’ methodology. She works across the arts sector, charity sector and academia, as well as with unusual allies to reach people nervous of activism in an attractive and empowering way. Corbett regularly gives talks, events and happenings around the world. Her book “How To Be A Craftivist: the art of gentle protest” is now available in paperback. Her talk ‘Activism Needs Introverts’ was chosen as a TED Talk of the Day and has over a million views. You can preorder her Craftivist Collective Handbook here

https://linktr.ee/DavidPearl

Time Line

00.00 – 00.45 Opening Credits

00.46 – 04.58 Introducing Sarah Corbett

05.00 – 06.25 Growing up in an activist family

06.25 – 09.05 Routes into Gentle Activism

09.10 – 13.00 The Canary Campaign

13.05 – 15.55 The importance of courage and care

15.57 – 18.10 Different forms of craftivism

18.30 – 23.15 Gentle protest & self control

23.18 – 26.35 Making change

26.38 – 27.41 Being ‘crafty’ but kind

27.43 – 29.30 How Sarah manages anger

29.35 – 34.25 The Tale of the MP & the Handkerchief

34.28 – 37.55 The Wanderful Exercise: In Their Shoes

38.12 – 41.29 Epilogue

41.30 – 42.16 End Credits

Quotations

“My activism is just one tool in the activism tool-kit.” (Sarah)

“I knew change doesn’t just happen in transactional and loud and public ways.” (Sarah)

“My craftivism is all about where are the gaps and where can craftivism fill certain gaps to compliment other tactics and where can it bring in audiences who are scared of activism but (who are) influential.” (Sarah)

“My approach to craftivism is Gentle Protest.” (Sarah)

“There’s something in the process of craft that’s really helping me slow down, calm down and think more strategically, so I thought there must be something in this.” (Sarah)

“If we want to make change then gentleness can be so powerful, and putting yourself in the power holder’s shoes, and not just the person affected.” (Sarah)

“The gentleness is treading lightly and being gentle with people.” (Sarah)

“It’s more about trying things out and being light touch on everything… not holding things and forcing things.” (Sarah)

“If you receive something which feels a little manipulative… you’re going to close off. You want people to feel genuinely encouraged and accountable.” (Sarah)

“When I’m angry… I jump it out, I dance it out, I power walk somewhere, I just shake the anger out of me. Long term anger is chronic and produces really bad health and mental health problems. I know anger is a good catalyst, but I need to shake it out.” (Sarah)

“I swing from really angry to okay.. .how am I going to use this anger in an effective, useful way, which won’t change the world dramatically but I can try and make some nudges and tweaks with the little power I have as one little scouser.” (Sarah)

Contact Information

Sarah Corbett

https://craftivist-collective.com/

Twitter: @Craftivists

Instagram: @Craftivists

David Pearl (Host)

Twitter @DavidPearlHere

Instagram @davidpearl_here

Website www.davidpearl.net

Andrew Paine (Producer & Audio Engineer)

Twitter @ItPainesMe

The Green Room at COP26 – What (On Earth’s) The Story?

Full film: https://youtu.be/UWoO9UmWscM

Trailer: https://youtu.be/zmQqj5WHSPM

With more than 25 years experience as a green entrepreneur,  Dale launched Ecotricity (http://www.ecotricity.co.uk), the world’s first green energy company back in 1995.  Today, it powers around  200,000 homes and businesses across the UK with renewable energy from the wind and sun. 

Dale also owns Devil’s Kitchen (http://www.thedevilskitchen.co.uk), which makes vegan school dinners, and his latest business, Skydiamond (http://skydiamond.co.uk) – creating lab grown diamonds from the wind, rain and sun. His work focuses on three key areas – energy, transport and food – collectively responsible for 80% of our own carbon emissions. 

He is Chairman and owner of Forest Green Rovers (http://fgr.co.uk) – recognised by FIFA as the “world’s greenest football club” and became a United Nations Climate Champion in 2018.  He launched his first book, Manifesto in 2020, and is Executive Producer of the Netflix Original documentary, Seaspiracy. 

https://linktr.ee/DavidPearl

Time Line

00.00 – 00.44 Wanderful Theme

00.45 – 04.25 Introducing Dale Vince

04.30 – 09.48 Travelling & living off-grid

10.05 – 13.25 The Origins of Ecotricity

13.27 – 15.33 Green Populism

16.45 – 19.10 Forest Green Rovers FC and the Green Agenda

20.00 – 21.40 Business versus Politics

21.50 – 23.00 Thoughts on Leadership – the Ecotricity ethos

23.40 – 25.27 Adopting the best elements of business

25.30 – 27.20 Business, Government and the People

27.25 – 29.12 The Wanderful Exercise – Slow Right Down

29.30 – 33.10 Epilogue 

33.11 – 33.55 – Outro

Quotes

“ A term I learned in my twenties, was ‘new radical dis-possessed’ and we had been dispossessed… we are dispossessed by the system of wealth and wealth maintenance. Money stays with the people who have money and the rest of us are kind of cogs in the wheel.” (Dale)

“When were the first company in the world to start selling green electricity and were able to price match brown electricity… it seems obvious to me the way to get real traction for the environment cause for sustainability is for it to become a business opportunity or at least for it to be business like.” (Dale)

“The conventional environmentalist way of communicating is too often about doom and gloom and catastrophe on a global scale, which makes people feel a little powerless and a little bit hopeless. At the same time the presentation of living a green life is made to feel like we’re asking people to give up the way we live.” (Dale)

“Living a green life is just as good, it’s actually better – you will live healthier and longer.” (Dale)

“We have to get away from this altruism first approach, which says its about polar bears, melting ice and people somewhere else in the world and actually come back to the people in this country which we’re asking to change their lives and say ‘this is actually about you’, our economy, it’s about Green sustainable jobs, a stronger economy that supports our people better and in the process doesn’t create pollution of the air, the land and the water and then fighting the climate crisis just becomes a happy by-product.” (Dale)

“On day 1 of being in charge of a football club (Forest Green Rovers) I found we were serving red meat to the players and I got the manager and the chef together and we agreed to stop it on that day. The Sun called it a ‘red meat ban’ which was fantastic, we leaned into that infamy that they created for us and day by day I bumped into things that had to change in terms of environment and ethics. After a couple of weeks, I realised this meant we would be creating a green football club and we would be communicating to a very different audience, the world of football fans, and that appealed to me.” (Dale)

“Football is the most incredible platform to reach people..” (Dale)

“We have a one-page ecotricity manifesto, which we share with everybody that joins us.  It talks about how we want people to treat other people – it’s about openness and honesty, admitting mistakes when made, so we can fix them and move on in a non-judgemental way, and treat people how you would like to be treated yourself.” (Dale)

“I think it’s really important to do something before you talk about it. Prove it, do it and then when you talk about it you’ve got a standing to persuade other people to then pick that up themselves. There are two ways to bring change in the world. One is to do it yourself, necessarily limited by what one person can do. The other is to be the catalyst for other people and it comes back to do it first, show other people you can become a catalyst and other people will follow you and then you create more change that way..” (Dale)

“There are three things, which between them, account for about 80% of everybody’s carbon footprint and general unsustainability – energy, transport & food – it’s about how we power our homes, how we travel and what we eat and these are things we all spend money on every day. If we choose to spend that money on a greener option, where we can, that sends a very big signal to businesses who are picking this up and changing what they do, adapting to what people want and then the government picks that up from business. And these three sectors from our society are the main players – business, government and the people – and we have much more power than we realise because ultimately – we’re the consumers of everything that’s produced, we are the people who drive demand and our money gets to choose which way the world goes round.” (Dale)

Links

Dr Dale Vince OBE 

Twitter @DaleVince

Insta @zerocarbonista

David Pearl (host)

Twitter @DavidPearlHere

Instagram @davidpearl_here

Website www.davidpearl.net

Andrew Paine (Producer & Audio Engineer)

Twitter @ItPainesMe

The Green Room at COP26 – What (On Earth’s) The Story?

Full film: https://youtu.be/UWoO9UmWscM

Trailer: https://youtu.be/zmQqj5WHSPM

People all over the world come to a creative practice like Street Wisdom because they are looking for better ways to live and work. Large and small. We love ‘em – the inspiration seekers;  the people who are always looking – and who share what they’ve discovered with others.  People like Sam Furness, founder of Channel Twelve. We spoke to Sam about finding better ways:

—

I am currently looking for a better way to… strike the balance of being the founder of a young creative business and being an artist! Being both of those things is important to me – and I see them as a help to each other, not a hinderance – but finding the time and headspace to be both is a work in progress 🙂

I just discovered a better way to….enjoy running. I now see my runs as equal parts thinking time and physical exercise. A lot of my good thinking and breakthroughs happen in movement. It’s like my body finally catches up with the speed of my brain…and somehow things just feel more in sync and clearer. The running is still tough – but it’s certainly easier if you set a thinking intention for your run. For me any way!

—

Sam is on a lifelong Quest to expand the edges of his creativity. On any given day you’ll find him searching for extraordinary creative ideas in ordinary places and bringing them to life in adventurous and collaborative ways. Since 2016, he has been exploring the world around him through new themes each month. What started as an experiment in finding new ways to express himself has turned into an ongoing learning journey into seeing the world differently. In 2020 he turned his artist blog Channel Twelve, into a business which runs monthly, themed Creative Quests; guiding people through the same perception shifting explorations he began himself in 2016.

If you’d like to join Sam and Channel Twelve on their next Quest kicking off on 4th May, they’ve offered Street Wisdom followers a 20% off code. Find out more here and book by 1st May using code QUESTER20.

“The wolves represent ‘wildness’ and if you ever have the occasion to see them and walk in the same place where they live and share the same territory as them, it’s a privilege.”

Paul Bulencea is an award-winning author, educator, entrepreneur and speaker inspiring forward-thinking Fortune 500 companies and governments to foster innovation and drive sustainable growth by shifting business models from services to co-creative transformational experiences.

Following his vision to help organisations migrate to the Experience Economy, he co-founded The College of Extraordinary Experiences in 2016, which serves as a worldwide community and think tank for experience designers. The College is described by creative thought leaders a must for pioneers in experience design. 

Since she was a child Valeria Roselli walked along the paths through the forest of the mountains where she was born. Her curiosity led her to explore and get to know the territory. While listening to stories from older people in the area, Valeria learnt the importance of the local traditions and how necessary it was to preserve traditions and value the past.

Her love of nature and for the Abruzzo mountain’s became her passion, which in turn became her profession. She is now a nature guide, environmental interpreter and Nordic walking instructor and an expert guide in the Italian Apennines.

https://linktr.ee/DavidPearl

Timeline

00.00 – 00.44 Intro Theme

00.45 – 06.54 David introduces the re-wilding special

06.55 – 11.59 What is the fascination with ‘tracking’ wildlife?

12.00 – 12.48 Combining tracking with trailing

12.50 – 13.53 The benefits of sitting and observing

13.56 – 17.15 The story of the Red Deer

17.30 – 26.55 The Eye of the Wild Bison

26.57 – 29.54 What we can learn from the Wolves?

29.56 – 32.00 David’s ‘Sit Spot’ exercise – observing nature

32.22 – 36.08 Epilogue: The story of the fox

36.09 – Bonus Feature: David descends the mountain (field recording)

Quotes

“What I like about tracking is that it shows you how everything is inter-connected. (Therefore), it’s much easier to become self-aware and to understand how inter-twined everything is by observing and seeing and noticing.” (Paul)

“Trailing is where you follow the tracks until you find and discover the animal.” (Paul)

“The moments spent in nature are special. Every day is a new day for a new moment and a new emotion.” (Valeria)

“One of the Bison came very close, he was very curious… about 7 metres and was just looking at us. I made eye-contact and in that gaze with a wild animal… it felt like finding ‘home’. It’s very hard to describe because it’s an experience we rarely have nowadays.” (Paul)

“When you’re calm and not tense, then you start seeing things all around you.” (Paul)

“The wolves represent ‘wildness’ and if you ever have the occasion to see them and walk in the same place where they live and share the same territory as them, it’s a privilege.” (Valeria)

Links

Paul Bulencea

https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulbulencea/

Valeria Roselli

https://www.wildlifeadventures.it/en/meet-our-team/

David Pearl (Host)

Twitter @DavidPearlHere

Instagram @davidpearl_here

Website www.davidpearl.net

Andrew Paine (Producer & Audio Engineer)

Twitter @ItPainesMe

The Green Room at COP26 – What (On Earth’s) The Story?

Full film: https://youtu.be/UWoO9UmWscM

Trailer: https://youtu.be/zmQqj5WHSPM

“Despite all our best endeavours… we rely on six inches of soil and the fact that it rains.”

Discover more stories of hope with Johanna and other climate innovators on the newly released ‘The Green Room – What (On Earth’s) The Story’ film on You Tube.

Full film: https://youtu.be/UWoO9UmWscM

Trailer: https://youtu.be/zmQqj5WHSPM

Johanna Gibbons is a Landscape Architect and Fellow of the Landscape Institute. Jo was named a Royal Designer for Industry for her ‘pioneering and influential work combining design with activism, education and professional practice’. She is founding Partner of J & L Gibbons practice, Director of social enterprise Landscape Learn and a core research partner with Kings College London of Urban Mind. Jo is a panel advisor to Historic England and the Forestry Commission. She is a Trustee of Open City and publishes and lectures widely.

https://linktr.ee/DavidPearl

Time Line

00.00 – 00.45 Opening credits

00.46 – 05.37 Introducing Johanna Gibbons

05.40 – 08.19 Johnanna’s Origin Story

08.54 – 12.47 The untold story of the soil

13.07 – 16.10 How we can connect with the soil: re-wilding, composting, digging holes

16.55 – 19.15 Community effort and grass-roots

19.17 – 21.12 Day-lighting water and understanding natural processes

21.15 – 26.50 Johanna’s Four Steps

26.51 – 31.18 The Wanderful Exercise: Naming objects – Someone’s Something

31.36 – 35.05 Epilogue – Post Exercise

35.06 – 35.52 Closing Credits

Quotations

“ Landscape connects our family. It’s my work but it’s also all my passions – soil diversity, urban forestry, rain water management and the connection with the natural cycles and connection with everything that feeds the soul and gives you a joy of life.” (Johanna)

“To me, a city is a landscape.” (Johanna)

“It’s not muck-away, this is one of the most important, critical infrastructures of the planet and we talk about muck-away. It comes from ignorance, it comes from a mis-understanding or nobody pointed it out in the first place.” (Johanna)

“There is a disconnect with nature and the most fundamental aspect of terrestrial life on earth… is soil.” (Johanna)

“A handful of soil has more microbes than there are people on this earth.” (Johanna)

“We do like digging holes. Because when you dig a hole you reveal all sorts of secret horizons, a layer cake of human endeavour, of natural cycles, it depends if it’s urban, brownfield, greenfield… and therein lies the story.” (Johanna)

“The whole re-cycling energy is to do with the soil and not touching it… letting it repair itself.” (Johanna)

“Nature is resilient if we would let it be.” (Johanna)

“Composting… because it is (soil) like black gold. You take your good quality waste, you put it into a hot rotter (?) and it comes back as soil. It is quite a magical thing.” (Johanna)

“Despite all our best endeavours… we rely on six inches of soil and the fact that it rains.” (Johanna)

Social Media

Johanna Gibbons

Web:  www.jlg-london.com

Instagram: @jlg_london

David Pearl (Host)

Twitter @DavidPearlHere

Instagram @davidpearl_here

Website www.davidpearl.net

Andrew Paine (Producer & Audio Engineer)

Twitter @ItPainesMe

“In 2018 we built the world’s first sailing boat, made from already used plastic.”

Discover more stories of hope with Eliane and other climate innovators on the newly released ‘The Green Room – What (On Earth’s) The Story’ film on You Tube.

Full film: https://youtu.be/UWoO9UmWscM

Trailer: https://youtu.be/zmQqj5WHSPM

Ben Morison is CEO of Far & Wide Travel, and has worked in the Africa travel industry all his life. He started the Flipflopi Project after witnessing the dramatic impact that plastics are having on the continent that has given so much to him.  He became convinced that plastic was far too valuable, versatile and often beautiful to be used just once and thrown away.  His mission; ‘a world without single-use plastics’.

https://linktr.ee/DavidPearl

Timeline

00.00 – 04.38: Introducing Ben Morison

04.44 – 07.07: Building a boat out of re-cycled plastic

07.10 – 08.35 : How Ben arrived at Flipflopi

08.36 – 10.54: Positive African Voices & Leadership Roles

10.56 – 14.20: Fast Emerging Consumer Populations and Winning the Plastics Challenge

14.24 – 18.15: Bringing value to re-cycled plastic

18.17 – 21.18: Using creativity to convene

21.20 – 24.11: The Wanderful Exercise: Finding value in ‘rubbish’

24.32 – 29.07: Epilogue: Waste as an act of appreciation

29.08 – 30.02: Closing credits

Quotations

“In 2018 we built the world’s first sailing boat, made from already used plastic.” (Ben)

“The reality of this challenge we have around plastic pollution and climate change generally, is it needs a holistic global approach. So what’s lacking here is confident, cheerful, positive voices from… African voices, who are taking leadership roles… and if you look around there’s not really many strong leadership roles, positive one’s too, that are coming from our environment. It’s really important for us to have that positive voice.” (Ben)

“The reality is, if I am a young man in Kenya and I am on a date with somebody, I’ll be in a car… I will wind down the window, I will drink my bottle of water and I will throw it out the window in a deliberate ostentatious show of… ‘I’ve arrived, I’m a consumer now.” (Ben)

“We as the developed world have had the starter, main course and dessert of this amazing thing called plastic… it’s developed our economies and now… just as some other parts of the world are just starting to develop consumer economies… we… how dare we go… oh we don’t want you to start with that (plastic). So, there’s some complexity to how we as a global community have this conversation. We have to be nuanced and thoughtful.” (Ben)

“If you give value to anything… stuff will happen. So what we wanted to show by building a boat was, using already used plastic… we can build a boat. That’s got value as a creative art object. It’s got value as something you go fishing in or take tourists in or travel in. It’s not really about the boat, it’s about the fact we were able to re-cycle or re-use and create something of value.” (Ben)

“The boat is a convener. If I arrive up the Clyde in a brightly coloured boat that looks like Elmer the Elephant, I can guarantee that the policy makers will definitely be keen to come and welcome it in and its going to draw lots and lots of crowds of people, because they want to see it. Of course, for the media it’s a very interesting thing to capture, so you now have the three ingredients you want to engage with.” (Ben)

Social Media

Ben Morison

Web https://www.theflipflopi.com/

Twitter @theflipflopi

Instagram @theflipflopi

David Pearl

Twitter @DavidPearlHere

Instagram @davidpearl_here

Web: www.davidpearl.net

Andrew Paine (Producer & Audio Engineer)

Twitter @ItPainesMe

“What we need is soils that are resilient… that are sponges”

Discover more stories of hope with Eliane and other climate innovators on the newly released ‘The Green Room – What (On Earth’s) The Story’ film on You Tube.

Full film: https://youtu.be/UWoO9UmWscM

Trailer: https://youtu.be/zmQqj5WHSPM

Éliane Ubalijoro, PhD,  is the Executive Director of Sustainability in the Digital Age and the Future Earth Montreal Hub.

She is the founder and Executive Director of C.L.E.A.R. International Development.

Eliane is a Professor of Practice For Public-Private Sector Partnerships at McGill University’s Institute for the Study of International Development, where her research interests focus on innovation, gender and sustainable development for prosperity creation and her teaching over the last decade has focused on facilitating leadership development.

She is also a Research Professor at Concordia University in the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment. She is a member of Rwanda’s National Science and Technology Council.

Eliane is a member of the Impact Advisory Board of the Global Alliance for a Sustainable Planet.

She is a member of the Expert Consultation Group on the Post COVID-19 Implications on Collaborative Governance of Genomics Research, Innovation, and Genetic Diversity. Eliane is a member of the African Development Bank’s Expert Global Community of Practice on COVID-19 Response Strategies in Africa.

She is a member of the Capitals Coalition Supervisory Board as well as the Crop Trust Executive Board.

Eliane is a former member of WWF International’s Board of Trustees. She was the principal investigator on a Gates Grand Challenges Phase I grant looking at Innovations in Feedback & Accountability Systems for Agricultural Development. Eliane was the project manager and an investigator on a Gates Foundation Grand Challenges in Global Health project led by Professor Timothy Geary, the director of McGill’s Institute of Parasitology from 2009 to 2014.  As a result of this work, she has been a reviewer for the Grand Challenges Canada Stars in Global Health program since 2012.

Eliane is a co-editor of the 2021 book Building Resilient African Food Systems after COVID-19.

https://linktr.ee/DavidPearl

Timeline

00.00 – 00.43 Opening Credits

00.44 – 05.23 Introducing Eliane Ubalijoro

05.26 – 08.40 Sustainability in the Digital Age & Future Earth

08.41 – 10.43 Soils are sponges

11.25 – 12.42 The big stories Eliane is up against

13.30 – 15.04 Bridging the knowledge systems of the West & the knowledge of Eliane’s ancestors

15.06 – 16.00 Technology & sustainability coming together: the collective and planetary intelligence

16.07 – 17.20 The story of the fig tree

17.44 – 19.40 Planetary intelligence (Yesterday & Tomorrow)

19.56 – 21.26 Innovators and early adopters: connecting and supporting communities

22.11 – 24.41 Harnessing the collective intelligence with nature and artificial intelligence

25.28 – 26.16 The big lie: discounting nature’s intelligence

26.20 – 29.11 Leafy greens: healthy diets for the body and the planet: biodiversity thrives

29.21 – 30.31 The power of storytelling: cultivating planetary intelligence

31.00 – 32.39 The connection of the past, present and the future

33.10 – 34.51 Loving nature is not enough: the value of living with nature

35.27 – 37.25 Optimism v Realism

37.30 – 39.07 Dreaming is free

39.10 – 43.15 The Wanderful Exercise – Walking with our past and our future

43.34 – 47.10 Post exercise – epilogue

47.11 – 48.01 Closing credits

Quotations

“What we know is soils are a living space… soils that have worms, that have fungi, that have insects, can hold fifty times more water than soils that have been polluted or have no microbial life in them anymore.” (Eliane)

“What we need are soils which are resilient, which are sponges.” (Eliane)

“Part of my story is the story of an African woman, who was born in a space where I was deeply connected with nature and with the stories of my ancestors, who flew to North America for University, who went on to get her PhD in academia. And so I hold the knowledge systems of the West and the knowledge systems of my ancestors and so my work is about bridging both.” (Eliane)

“In the cosmology of the indigenous people it’s really how we are an element in the universe and so we look at time in different ways. In my native kinyawanda, ‘yesterday’ and ‘tomorrow’ are the same word… it’s ‘ejo’. It’s depending on how I conjugate my verb that you know whether I’m talking about yesterday or tomorrow. And so how we see our selves cosmologically is really critical to how we move forward and I think of living in Canada where indigenous populations always say… how do we govern for seven generations from now?” (Eliane)

“The big lie of today is the discounting of nature’s intelligence because we’ve had over 400 years of exploitation and colonisation of natural resources in order to gain more and more power and so we had to discount nature’s intelligence in order to exploit it in the same way that people of African ancestors or black had to be considered three fifths of a human being to say, ‘we can enslave them, because they’re not really people’ and so it’s how we create narratives that are exploitative and dangerous and allow disempowerment of whole systems.” (Eliane)

“We have the power of the media that need to harness these stories that you and I are cultivating and so part of it is how do I create spaces for more people to gain the needed knowledge, for them to have hope and to have the capacity for action.” (Eliane)

“How can storytelling bring out the beauty and truth of what we need to live our inter-dependence and so I’m excited about the mission of cultivating our inter-dependence and opening more people to cultivating planetary intelligence and respecting all these different knowledge systems, so we can resonate and work at a higher level of power and consciousness for everybody.” (Eliane)

“The more trauma we have, the bigger our dreams have to be, because if not, we can be swallowed up  by the suffering and the pain… and be paralysed. That’s why I remind people… dreaming is free. Give yourself the opportunity to dream so audaciously that people are going to say ‘how dare you’ and that’s why I say, dare to dream beyond anywhere people think you can dream, but only share it with the people who can help you get there.” (Eliane)

Social Media & Links

Web https://futureearth.org

Twitter @elianeubalijoro

Linked In – linkedin.com/in/eliane-ubalijoro-1b8a7b

David Pearl (Host)

Twitter @DavidPearlHere

Instagram @davidpearl_here

Website www.davidpearl.net

Andrew Paine (Producer & Audio Engineer)

Twitter @ItPainesMe

Discover more stories of hope with Nigel and other climate innovators on the newly released The Green Room – What (On Earth’s) the Story film on You Tube’

Full film: https://youtu.be/UWoO9UmWscM

Trailer: https://youtu.be/zmQqj5WHSPM

‘I’m the murmuration meister… I should put that on my business card’

Nigel Topping is the UN’s High-Level Climate Action Champion, appointed by the UK Prime Minister in January 2020. Nigel works alongside the Chilean High-Level Climate Action Champion, Gonzalo Muñoz. The role of the high-level champions is to strengthen collaboration and drive action from businesses, investors, organisations, cities, and regions on climate change, and coordinate this work with governments and parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Nigel was most recently CEO of We Mean Business, a coalition of businesses working to accelerate the transition to a zero carbon economy. Prior to that he was Executive Director of the Carbon Disclosure Project, following an 18 year career in the private sector, having worked across the world in emerging markets and manufacturing.

‘Discover more stories of hope with Nigel and other climate innovators on the newly released The Green Room – What (On Earth’s) the Story film on You Tube’

Full film: https://youtu.be/UWoO9UmWscM

Trailer: https://youtu.be/zmQqj5WHSPM

https://linktr.ee/DavidPearl

Time Line

00.00 – 00.44: Opening Credits

00.46 – 05.08: Introducing Nigel Topping

05.15 – 07.51: The advantage of converging pathways

08.22 – 10.40: The collaborative process at COP26

11.00 – 12.19: Momentum and how to change big systems

12.36 – 13.34: Where Nigel finds his inspiration and energy – moving through despair

13.35 – 16:21: The 4 unhelpful micro stories

16:30 – 21:28: What are the helpful stories to tell ourselves?

20:30 – 24:36: David’s ‘Wanderful’ Exercise: Recognising Patterns

24:59 – 28:42: Epilogue

Quotes

“Changing big systems is very difficult and for all the clamour on the streets, there’s a lot of people who don’t want change… so… the louder the clamour gets, then the more it becomes a political force and so it opens up, but it’s only in the last few years that we’ve had that… it’s relatively new and it’s still only a minority of people.” (Nigel)

“Plenty of people who won’t allow politicians to move fast. It’s all very well saying you’ve got to move faster but we see CEO’s and politicians who have gone really fast, lose their jobs. The challenge is to take the WHOLE of society with us.” (Nigel)

“It’s not in the small hours, it’s in the middle of the day that I find despair and in Glasgow (COP26) I went through about three cycles of grief and joy per day.” (Nigel)

“The trick is not to fall on the two horns of the dilemma… there’s the ‘we’re so f****d, it’s not worth doing anything’ and ‘we’re so clever, it’s not worth worrying’. Both of those are b******t.” (Nigel)

“I do think you should be scared and sceptical and so you should dip into those stories. For example, the science is a story, which is based on fact, right, but it’s still a narrative that shows you why you should be scared. And the history of in-action shows you why you should be sceptical… but… you shouldn’t get stuck in those stories, because there is very little agency in those stories and there’s a danger of being stuck in despair or anger.” (Nigel)

“Hope is an active choice… and hope and action are intertwined.” (Nigel)

“Choose hope…to try to do something… to make the world a better place… and then think about your skills and your influence.” (Nigel)

“If you’ve got kids, go to their school and see if the school will get involved in the ‘let’s get to zero initiative. If you’ve got access to business leaders, bring them into your work.” (Nigel)

Further Information

Nigel Topping

Twitter @topnigel

Instagram @nigel.topping

Web: https://racetozero.unfccc.int/

David Pearl 

Twitter @DavidPearlHere

Instagram @davidpearl_here

Web: www.davidpearl.net

Andrew Paine (Producer & Audio Engineer)

Twitter @ItPainesMe

Discover more stories of hope with Gabrielle and other climate innovators on the newly released The Green Room – What (On Earth’s) the Story film on You Tube’

Full film: https://youtu.be/UWoO9UmWscM

Trailer: https://youtu.be/zmQqj5WHSPM

Gabrielle Walker, Founder and Director of Valence Solutions, is an expert strategist, speaker and moderator focused on unleashing capitalism on climate change. She works with global companies at boardroom-level, analysing emerging trends, challenging conventional thinking and driving meaningful action. Through its partnership with the UNFCCC High Level Champions for Climate Action, Valence Solutions participated in many COP26 events in Glasgow.

Gabrielle gives keynote addresses to corporate audiences around the world and is an accomplished moderator of high-level debates. She has presented many BBC TV and radio programmes, given a TED Countdown talk, was Climate Change Editor at Nature and Features Editor at New Scientist, has written extensively for many international newspapers and magazines including the FT, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and has authored four books. She earned her PhD at Cambridge University and has taught at both Cambridge and Princeton.

https://linktr.ee/DavidPearl

Timeline

00.00 – 00.48: Theme

00.49 – 05.04: Introducing Gabrielle Walker

05.10 – 06.15: What’s Gabrielle’s story?

06.20 – 09.10: When the ‘stories’ are broken and the thirst for a better story

09.11 – 12.07: The ‘removals’ story

12.09 – 15.23: Saints and Sinners Story (Good Guys v Bad Guys)

15.24 – 17.35: Holding up a mirror to myself

17.40 – 19.32: The Wooly Pigs Story & Bringing Green (Natural) and Chrome (Technology) together

19.35 – 23.40: David’s ‘Green & Chrome’ exercise

23.59 – 27.50: Epilogue

27.51 – 28.35: End Credits

Quotes

“We cannot now get down to net zero by 2050. We can’t stay below 1.5 degrees, this target we’re trying to get to, with all the means that we’re currently trying. We have left it too late.” (Gabrielle)

“ A much more heartening reason for getting behind carbon removals and taking CO2 back out of the sky (is) we can stop the problem getting worse and we can start to make it better… we can clean up our own mess and give the world a chance to heal.. and that… is a magical story.” (Gabrielle)

“You can store CO2 in the earth, in the trees, in soils, in ocean chemistry… you can store it in buildings, clothes, rocks, geological formations deep underground and probably other places we haven’t even thought of yet. And that means we can take it out of the sky and put it in all these other places and actually fix the problem.” (Gabrielle)

“You can use stories to connect individuals with people who don’t think in the way that you do in a way that they enjoy. Then you can make them feel safe enough to feel comfortable enough, for long enough to maybe go well ‘maybe it could be different’.” (Gabrielle)

“Go to the place inside where you can feel who you are and then go outside to the place to the friends around you… who helped me hold up a mirror to myself. And when I looked into the mirror and could go deeper… it’s a loving mirror, it’s the most wonderful thing anyone can ever give you. If you look into it you find a source of strength and power and energy and love that’s really spectacular.” (Gabrielle)

“I’m a woo-woo scientist” (Gabrielle)

Social Media

Gabrielle Walker

Twitter @GabrielleWalk3r

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/GabrielleWalk3r

Vimeo Channel https://vimeo.com/gabriellewalker

Websites https://gabriellewalker.com/

                https://valencesolutions.org/

                https://rethinkingremovals.org/

David Pearl (Host)

Twitter @DavidPearlHere

Instagram @davidpearl_here

Website www.davidpearl.net

Andrew Paine (Producer & Audio Engineer)

Twitter @ItPainesMe