Uncommon Courage

Understanding Conservation Psychology (aka why we DO or NOT do)

June 13, 2022 Andrea T Edwards, Joshua O'Neill Episode 68
Uncommon Courage
Understanding Conservation Psychology (aka why we DO or NOT do)
Show Notes Transcript

Pleased to introduce you to Joshua O’Neill, founder of The Litter Club in Singapore and Malaysia, who is also a green Project Manager and reef conservation expert, and he studies Conservation Psychology. 

Conservation psychology is the scientific study of the reciprocal relationships between humans and the rest of nature, with a particular focus on how to encourage conservation in the natural world. We discussed a wide range of topics, from why he established The Litter Club, the psychology of why do people not care about waste, how only 5% are really engaged in the waste crisis, and ideas on how we engage the rest. 

Not forgetting the importance of fun if you want to be successful and how we can create the desire to get more people involved!! In a world struggling with separation and real fears for the future, the best focus is to build community connections. 

We covered three core questions:

1.     Conservation psychology – what it means and how it looks in real life

2.     How can people embrace this mindset

3.     Three must dos

Wonderful conversations and insights. Thanks Josh, aka the Energizer Bunny!!

 You can follow Joshua Here

The Litter Club https://thelitterclub.org/ 

On Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thelitterclubproject 

On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshoneillnz/ 

 To get in touch with me, here I am

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

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My professional Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/TheDigitalConversationalist 

And my Facebook Group Uncommon Courage https://www.facebook.com/groups/442905877003333

My book Uncommon Courage, An Invitation mybook.to/UncommonCourage

And the workbook mybook.to/UncommonCourageAction

I publish my Weekend Reads every Saturday here https://andreatedwards.com/ 

I also publish more personal content on my Uncommon Courage Website here https://uncommon-courage.com/ 

#UncommonCourage #HumanPotential 

To get in touch with me, all of my contact details are here https://linktr.ee/andreatedwards

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Unknown:

Hello, my lovelies. It's Andrea Edwards. Welcome to Uncommon courage. Today, I'm excited to introduce you to Josh O'Neill. And he's the founder of a lizard club in Singapore and Malaysia. He's a Green Project Manager and reef conservation expert. And he studies conservation psychology. And that is why I have asked him here today. I want to know more about it. And I hope you do too, because psychology is a big part of succeeding. All right. Welcome, Josh. Thanks so much, Andrea, thank you so much for having me on your show. I love it. I'm thrilled. And I recently read a bio for you for an event and I went, Wait a minute, I need to speak to this guy. You've done some pretty interesting stuff. So conservation psychology, which is fascinating to me. So do you want to just start maybe by giving everyone a bit of a lowdown of you know, your story, what you've done, why you're doing what you're doing right now? Wow, Andrew, thank you, again, so much for this opportunity? Well, I guess the journey started a really long time ago, I'm I'm hitting towards 60 really started on it. Yeah, it started on a on a farm in New Zealand, growing up and being very much part of the agricultural community, not only in my younger years, but also through high school. And then after high school, being really kind of involved in in just the basics of, of growing things. And she, of course, in New Zealand, and then I moved, I studied and moved into doing project management. And I've been doing project management as a contractor typically, for about 30 years. So that gives you it gives you an idea. I specialize in two areas, I guess project management, one is green project management, and I'm certified about five years ago, as a green project manager. And that looks purely at the sustainability sidewalk. It doesn't look purely at it, it adds sustainability to what we already do as project managers. And then also I really love change management. And I've been involved. My last project in Singapore was a huge Asia Pacific wide integration, 14,000 employees, bringing 30 companies into one company, and you're looking at sustainability and synergy. But the big thing, the reason why they actually hired me to do this was because of my change management background, how we get people to move from one organization to another able to change their processes and ways of doing things incredibly challenging. And but I'm so passionate about it. So I've lived in Asia now for around about 11 years. And some of the Crazy things I do I look I've done for wrist of course just so I know how to make a good coffee. I've I've learned how to do sweetest massage. I don't know why. But it was great. But I've never met anybody in my life. I'm a scuba diving instructor of any scuba diving instructor. I devote a lot of my free time as a volunteer to protect that reefs and stuff like that, and just get involved in community work. And my study around psychology, human psychology, we start off with a nap specifically more in conservation psychology is army. I just I love it so much. The reason being is I want to find the ultimate answer of the universe. And that's not why we're here. It's why people need to and and I'm still I'm still on that path. I'm still on that path. Why? Why people litter but what about the litter club? You you set that up in Singapore and Malaysia as well, right? Correct. So three years ago, almost three years ago, I set it up in Singapore. It started with me. Just a crazy old family going out and picking up litter around the edge of the reservoir in Singapore was Singaporeans were looking on looking at me strangely and going What is this guy doing? He got slowly we gathered. We had 40 people, after about a couple of months coming out and doing the thing that's with us. And then COVID hit and I left left Singapore, I went back to Malaysia. But the team in Singapore continued and continued to grow. Malaysia we're still doing cleanup. We do it every couple of weeks in Malaysia as well. And we've just had a huge event here in Thailand. Zumba and beach cleanup. Just on the weekend. 150 people came and did half an hour of Zumba. And then unbelievably went and cleaned up how to beat parents who cat just just crazy stuff. I mean, it was just so much fun, so much energy. So one to give you an idea of the litter cover over this COVID period over the last two and a half years. We've collected in excess of 50 can that's 50,000 kilos that we've registered through our app. I know that we've collected more than that, but it shows on that app. Pretty amazing. So tell us about the app. It's a little club app. I need to download it. Yeah, the little club app is available. Well Google an app. It's real simple. Basically, it's gives you the opportunity to report where litter is. So you can take your photo maybe you can't clean it up straightaway but you can report it. It goes automatically onto our Facebook page and it will show Where the litter is, what it is, etc. And you can identify it as hazardous liquid household, etc. If you can't clean it up yourself, that report gets looked at by us. And we tell local communities or government, etc, that there's an issue, maybe illegal dump site, flag dumping, etc. And we get it cleaned up and when it's cleaned up, we then take more photos to say we've cleaned it up, and we have an audit process. And then people can enter how many bags How many kilos, and then identify the top 13 offenders out there things like face masks now, plastic bottles, foam containers, plastic bags, etc. So we can start to know exactly what the litter what's prominent in it, you know that people are littering and where it is. And now obviously that that somebody is wanting it, can anyone use the app anywhere in the world and sort of get it going anywhere in the world. And every month, we download the information from there. And we create a little social media report that you can put on your facebook and instagram page, and show people what your community what your group has done, and it can be anywhere in the world. That's awesome. Well done like that. Alright, so the topic that really sort of caught my attention. And one of the things that I'm I'm trying to do is work out how to communicate in a way that gets people to face the multiple crises we face in the world, right? So conservation psychology, can you explain sort of what it means and sort of how that looks like in real life. So this purely comes from obviously, psychology, so if you look at psychology is the scientific study of how basically everything on our planet interacts with each other. Typically, from a human perspective, we look at how we interact with our environment, how we look when we interact with, with animals, whether those environments are built or natural environment. And psychology is the study of people, and why essentially, they do things and how they, if you do delving a little deeper to environmental psychology, environmental psychology, looks at the human impact on built up and natural environment. So how we cope with living in a city compared to it, and maybe how we traveled living on a farm. It's a play in between those two, we drill in a little bit further, that's conservation psychology. And that purely looks at the symbiosis of the how we interact with the natural world, not so much with the built up environment, how we we interact with our natural environment, and what we do there. And this, you know, this encompasses many things. The area that I look at specifically is around waste conservation technologies around what we can do, and how we we interact with our natural environment. So this is thinking about how can we reduce our waste? How can we reduce consumption? Because obviously, we, there's only so much we can consume on this planet? And what does that look like, but also what we're doing in the case of biodiversity, and those types of things. So I really focus in is on how we impact our natural environment, by the waste that we generate as as human beings. Yeah. Right. So trying to find the answer of why people rush waste, right? So I'm, I have always felt this deep, sickening feeling in my stomach, if I don't have a place for waste to go. I've consciously been reducing my waste for years now. Everything that comes into the house, I think about it, like, where's it gonna go? Next, I try and make sure that there's a path out of the home, or it shouldn't be in the home single use No, even you know, here living in a country where you can't get water out of the tap, we still we just invested in a good filter system so that we just carry our water with us. Like you. How can we, you know, seeing young people are sitting on a beach in anywhere in Asia and just getting up and walking away and leaving all their rubbish on the beach. And then you see people complaining about the waste on the beach, but living a lifestyle that contributes to that waste on the beach. It's like, Why? Why are we like this? Why are we so disconnected from the contribution that we're making to the problem? Do you know? Have you gotten to the answer yet? And you're I haven't found the golden or what I found a lot of interesting facts along the way. And I think you know the word they can just use disconnected that what we do in the literature, we connect together and connect to nature. And that's a big aspect because we do have that disconnect. You know, there's there's multiple facets, and it's amazing the amount of people who say to me, are they people illiterate because they're not educated? People literate because they're lazy, people that are deposit all of these kinds of excuses. And it's when you truly look at it from a from a psychology perspective. It's not that you're humans, built the way we were built, and we do things typically the way most other human beings do it from an instinctual perspective. And the interesting thing that you just said is that you are very conscious about what you bring into your home, about what happens afterwards, etc. And you have the sickening feeling when you go to a place. And it's, it's, it's already literally, now there's quite a few things that that human beings do. One of them is that is that we can have the strong feelings that you do it. But we can also be in a situation where there's no reciprocal for us to put our letter, we don't want to take it back to the car. So we might hide it under somewhere. But we've never done it before. But we can turn around and justify it to ourselves. It's only once. Yeah, I just need to do it this one time. And that's one, one incident, we have around about 5% of the population engaged, truly engaged, like your staff and myself, Andrea, and what we're looking at is another 35%, who are engaged, but not to the level that we are in the sense of understanding in the sense of being aware in the sense of everyday doing what, what needs to be done to save our environment. We then have another 30 40% Who are disengaged, they hear the news, it totally desensitized. They, yes, yes, yes, but it's not affecting me, it's not a drama, someone else sought it out scientists know what to do, we can just go and live on another planet, etc. And then you've got another kind of the same level as the Engage, totally disengaged. And that's another kind of five to 10% of, of the population. These are the people who say, you know, this plastic thing is really good, because you know, this climate change is great, because we had better summers in Canada, and the earth is flat. So you know, the lifts is not going to let you can just fall off the edge of the planet, there are people truly get to the point where it's a lot of people out there totally disengaged, totally, and you won't change their mind. Because this climate change is not climate change, nothing to do with plastic, it's a great thing. And there's no impact. And if there is impact, then it's fantastic. And we're having a great time. So you know, it's those, it's working through those spectrums, basically on being able to engage more people into understanding. And that's not just done through education, and awareness is done through changing behavior. So we have to look at it from a different perspective, let's have a look at what I call the infrastructure of convenience. So when we build a park, we put lovely picnic tables around our parks and stuff like that, we put the rubbish bin near the table, because we don't want to too close because it'd be a bit smelly, things like that, we put it near when we may not think oh, we put it near the entrance exit, we put it to the other side of the table. And we're not lazy. But it's like I don't want to walk that way to go and, and put it in, it's inconvenient. It's taking the time it's costing me money. It's out of my way. People don't like to do things that are out of their way. It's just human nature. If we proactively place the reciprocals for our litter in places, which is convenient for people, you will find that people will use them more if they have sweet cup lids. So they're not smelly and haven't got flies buzzing around them. If they are empty regularly so that there's not rubbish piled up next to them, people will use them. And this is the whole philosophy that we use to deliver cup this is what we do each day. People say to me, why do you go and clean a beach, tomorrow, it's just going to be dirty again. Because once you clean a space, and your let's say your pattern, or your beach or your community is clean, people are 35% less likely to litter again, they will feel guilty about dropping litter in a clean space. And you can find places around your time around the world, which are clean, have lots of rubbish bins of all the right places, and people will not litter. But unless you provide the infrastructure of convenience, or come up with any excuse. I don't want to walk that way obviously. Yeah, just whatever. If you go to the beaches like we did yesterday, before long yesterday at the beach, etc. Where are the reciprocals that it's easy for people to just pick it up and put it in on the way out. Are they been cleaned regularly? Are they exciting and fun? Are the you know, all of the rubbish bins outside the police station that in Thailand, painted like a police box for people to go and put put their litter in? are the ones on the beaches painted with fantastic corals and exciting bits and pieces. Are they they're conveniently for people to use them because people will use it. We want to do the right thing. We inherently want to do the right We know that if we eat out, take away at home, and that's in a plastic container. And we just, we just switched the container off the table and onto the floor. We know what our mother's going to do for us. We know right from wrong, yet we get it. But it really is about building that, that infrastructure of convenience, and making sure that we are thinking through the entire process, and how a human acts. Now Andrew, to give you an example, Walt Disney did this. And he ran two experience experiments at Disneyland, one where essentially he cleared out all of the litter bins, or all of the rubbish bins on Main Street. And then as people entered the pack and gave them a lolly, he gave them a you know, a snack to guide them or whatever. And then he led them into the pack. And he watched how far it took some people to eat the lolly and then look around not find a bin and drop that paper on the ground. He also bought a hotdog at the hotdog stand, and he would walk from the hotdog stand eating his hotdog. And he paced out how far it took until he finished his hotdog. And he had looked around where was it been nap, he worked out that the the optimal figure was 30 feet, or 10 meters. If you go to Disneyland is clean this time music faculty worked because he did not want to be the same as, as other amusement be created the swing top rubbish meant he was the first person that he didn't want to open rubbish bins with lies and smells and all the rest, He created the swing club, he never even painted it. Because his engineer said oh, this is not going to take off. So he never even painted it. But he put a bin within 10 meters of any spot. In that time. He painted them up, right they sit within the themes of the Neverland and all the lands that they have in indigenous land. And everybody uses them. In fact, people take photos of them putting litter in the bin with the bin because they stand out. And this is one way that turns what we're doing with the use of psychology to say, let's make this an event. Let's make this important. Let's make this fun. And unless we do that, we can just take the air, people are lazy, and they just leave it on the beach. human psychology will tell you, I don't want to extend additional energy, I don't want to waste time, I don't want to spend money, I don't want to do whatever. If it's going to cost me I don't want to do it. So if I can get away with it, I know it. It's so obvious. You know, from the time my boys were little, anytime we were out. If they had some rubbish, as I put, put it in your pocket until we find a beam that was that was their mantra, right. And I remember being out with a whole bunch of parents, and we're at this at the marina in Singapore. And one of the boys dropped some rubbish on the ground. And I'm like, and they were tiny. And I'm like, boy, when you think the rubbish is gonna go, it's gonna go down that drain, it's gonna go down, that train is gonna go out into the ocean, then it's going to go into a fish's stomach, and it's going to make the fish sick, right? Put it in your pocket. So we find a Bean. And I looked up and I was surrounded by these mothers with his look of astonishment on their face. And they're like, Oh, my God, I can't believe you just explained that. To them. I'm like, why wouldn't you explain it to them, you know, and they will go the extra 20 meters to go to a beam because of that. So but it totally makes sense. And you have now become the project manager of the big initiative that we're going to launch in Phuket. Because one of the things is, how do we do it in a way where it looks spectacular? It's everywhere. But also how do we make sure it's service so that everything is cleaned up? And you know, it's a really actually a big complicated process on top of the existing infrastructure. So but the other thing that I'd say is, I was speaking to Michelle meaIs recently, and she's been cleaning Mike our beach for some time. Now. She says it year after year, the trash that comes back is less, because they're cleaning it up. So when people feel that it's not worth it, it is worth it. One, there's less trash to, we've got to stop the trash going into the ocean where it's sinking to the bottom and breaking down into microplastics. So even though it feels like a worthless task, it's definitely worth it. So that's awesome. You know, in the Salem center, I'm happy to be involved in the in the rubbish bin project. The reason being is that we really did, there was a massive thought process with that goes into this. And we need to send people out not just to pick up the litter but we need to send people out to actually identify how people are littering where they are littering. Where is that? Where are they hiding it? How are they hiding it? Yeah. And then put something there to say don't need to hide it anymore. This is fun. Let's do it. You're the other big thing that we have. We have a huge opportunity and I've kind of changed the three R's around a little bit from your gig more and to regulate it. So use governments to To be able to say, we have to be doing things the right way, packaging needs to change, like what's happening with the the annual reporting in Singapore, for large organization. So regulate it and report on it, start making it transparent. But the other big thing is repacking it, repacking it so people know what to do with it. You know, this is the crazy thing, we have a single use plastic bottle, and we call it single use. And then people think that they're doing the right thing by filling it up with water again, and continue to filling it up with water, not understanding that it's breaking down every time that they do that. So single use actually meet single use, many people in the community don't actually understand what single use means we are, by law must put the nutritional value and the good stuff and the bad stuff on a label on that bottle, we have to tell you what's in the bottle. Now it's going to affect you, what it's going to do to you how much sugar how many carbs, if you're on keto, all of these things, we have to put that on a label and tell you what's in there. But we don't tell you the issue and the problem with what we've packaged it in. And then we don't tell you effectively what to do with that packaging, once you have consumed within it. This is the thing that we're missing. We have all of these amazing brands and advertising and all the rest of it on these labels. But 50% of a label should tell you what it's made of what's in it, what are the chemical compounds that make this plastic and what to do with it, like it's the single use plastic bowl, remove the lid, rinse the bottle out, take the label off, put these into whatever, from here, an individual here in Thailand, because of studying marketing and packaging, actually learned the other day, what the numbers within the recycle logo actually mean on a bottle. Now, I mean, this should not be happening in 2022, where people do not know what the recycling numbers mean. And what what the recycling symbol means. So you're we have the prime opportunity we have the brand sticker on a bottle 50% of it should be regulated, that must tell you what's in it, how many times you can use it, if it's safe to use in a microwave or not, you know whether to put boiling water in it or not what to do with it. And then once you've used it and consumed what's in it, what you must do with it responsibly, doesn't mean people are going to do it. Yeah, because that takes time, effort, etc. Doesn't mean people are going to do it. But it takes away the excuse that people are not educated and not aware. This is the big thing. And if we regulate and then it gives governments the opportunity, even local local municipalities, the opportunity for them to turn around and say, now you know what to do it because we've labeled, you must follow and put it in the right Recycle Bin. If you don't, then we can charge you and then we can do kind of other things in synthesize that that's a negative incentive, if we can incentivize how to do it. But then we can turn it around and turn that trash in cash, because people know what to do with. So we're getting clean, sorted at source, recyclable products that are worth money. That's the big thing. We have to work on how we do that trash into cash. Now we make it worth something. Because at the moment, it's not worth. Yeah, that's a really good point. All right, so you were talking earlier on with the sort of 30 to 35%. Who are, they're aware, but they're just maybe not sure what to do. So obviously, they're the target, you know, for any campaign, the other sort of 40 50% on the other end, we'll just leave them for now. Because there's, I just don't think there's any point, especially if they're gonna fight you every step of the way, right? And it's just gonna take energy away, and we don't have enough of that energy. Right? So how can people embrace this mindset? I mean, we use found. So you know, this comes back to another another law that I studied with, within psychology is the law of diffusion of innovation. And this is just incredible war. And I use this in my change management, I created an incredibly innovative program for change management. At the last last place. I did, I ended up to 250 volunteers out of a workforce of 8000, who would change ambassadors in the organization. And the law of diffusion of innovation. This is there's two aspects. One is the fun one is the law of diffusion of innovation. This law of diffusion of innovation is how we create desire. Like if if the Olympic club are going out there and they're they're having fun, and they're they're doing this and they're getting a lot of publicity and whatever. People are drawn to that. Yeah, because you've got your early adopters, you and I early adopters were like, Yeah, let's go pick up litter. Nobody else wants to do that. We're crazy. We're early adopters. Yeah, we're into a we know that there's an environmental crisis happening. So we're early adopters to change that. We then have to turn around and change the mindset of others. How do we do that? Do we have to create desire? It's the desire. What are these guys doing? How come they're out there having fun? I thought picking up litter was was dirty, horrible yucky stuff to do. These guys are out doing Zumba on the beach. And they're doing a cleaner. And they're having fun. And they're socializing, and they're meeting up and they're networking, and they're making friends. And they're doing all the rest of it. Why aren't I part of that? How can I be part of that, that's one way of working out engagement, getting people engaged, is to create that desire. Now, once you get good, you've got early adopters 5% of your population, again, will use this number five, probably like early adopters. These are the people who sleep for three days in front of an Apple store, just so they could find the latest Apple, Apple phone. But in the afternoon, I can just walk in and buy one. But early adopters, they've got to be the first one to write that's you and me, yet we get we were the first one to go and clean up everything and do all of this good stuff. But we have to use that energy, not just us and let people take we have to use it in the way that we create desire. Yeah, people desire, what we have people desire, what we're doing, and then build the incentives into it. Yeah, that it's not costing you time, money, or whatever is creating networking opportunities, is creating business opportunities. It's allowing your organization to identify as green. But do it from a fun perspective. Like yesterday is just my dream. I wanted to do this for years seriously wouldn't do this, we'd have a huge dance event on the beach, everybody dancing with a plastic bag and putting rubbish in it. Yeah, because that's fun. You meet people, you connect with people, you connect to nature. And the byproduct is you clean the beach, you walk away feeling fitter, healthier, happier, but you also walk away with that feeling of having achieved something incredible. Yeah. And that achievement is what is what drives it's what it's what, it's what changes. And then somebody goes, oh my god, I went to this amazing event the other day, we should do this, we should be part of this, this should happen. And then that creates desire. Now once you get once you get a population to around about 15 20% involved and engaged in there. Right. That's your tipping point. Because then others will just go Oh, yeah, okay, well, it's normal. Let's, let's, let's just go do that. Now. Your your late adopters, or your never adopters almost, eventually have to come on board. They eventually have. Yeah, so this is the law of diffusion of innovation. It connects into the fun aspect of it. But also, fun sits beside it as well. Make the events fun, identify the incentives that people get out of it. I'm not going to do a beach thing. I mean, what a beach means hot, sexy, picking up litter ain't sexy. So how do you make picking up litter sexy? How do you make it fun? How do you engage people in doing an activity, which is like, I mean, I go out with the kids and they go, Mom, I don't want to be picking up other people's litter. Why can they just put it in the bin themselves? DREW? Yeah, true. So it's got to be, we've got to change our mindset. And you said to me earlier, it's about being positive. And that's exactly what this feeds into. The positivity creates desire, once you have that desire. People want to join, people want to be part of it. What are these people doing? They're not just greetings. hugging a tree or picking up litter. It's adding value, adding value. And this is a big thing when I when I do ESG training, as well. So environment, social and governance, training, etc. This is one big thing is that we have a huge disconnect within our community as well, in bringing sustainability and connecting it to profitability. Many companies still think sustainability of the tree huggers over there to the green good. And there are a cost center that we have to go into each year. We've got to, we've got to plant trees and all the rest of it while the rest of us are over here making money. Yeah, for the company. We have many of these kinds of disconnects and bringing bringing this together. But I know I'm saying a lot, but it's good. It's really about that engagement. The more people who get on board, you will bring a tipping point. Not everybody's going to want to come out and do beach cleanups, right? There's plenty of people who don't want to get their hands dirty. We always offer them the opportunity to help us financially, sponsorships, etc. To be able to, let's say ease their mind, because not everybody wants to go to a beach governor, that's fine. I'm happy to go do it, but you show me how you can support me in doing it. You give me some money, to be able to get all the tools to be able to do it. You give me some sponsorship, give me some media coverage, give me some whatever. That's your contribution into spreading the word and making and creating the desire and in that way you Well, I think, you know, one of the things that, you know, you're seeing a lot in the media at the moment is the great loneliness, you know, people are very not disconnected from nature, they're also disconnected from each other, especially post COVID. So, sort of listening to you, it's also potential solution to help, you know, people find community, find joy, find pleasure in life again, you know, I think that's a, that's another positive outcome of it, right? I couldn't agree more. Andrew, we just did an amazing cleanup this weekend to World Environment Day in Singapore, we had 40 employees from one company, they now they're a huge logistics, and ocean logistics organization, and they brought their kids, etc, at a barbecue afterwards, all of these things. So you know, epilate that's what we say we connect people together, people have been stuck into their houses, their offices, their houses, based off their houses during this COVID period, and have not been able to connect to each other. As teammates as we do. We as social beings, we are social beings, we need it. We need other people. And we need nature, to think about and this is what we study in environmental science, psychology, and the built up environment. If you live in a city, how do we complement that with nature, we build packs, we build aquariums, we've heard back, we build zoos, we build all of these things, to allow people who live in a in a built up environment in the cities to be able to go somewhere, not for the rural, rural side, but to go somewhere to experience nature, connect the nature, because we miss it. We know that if you go and spend a weekend in the chalet in Eco forest somewhere or whatever you get to come online, so relaxed, so distressed, because you've connected to nature. So these are the two important things that deliver each other, we connect people to people. So it allows people to network EFA, we do have the music out, we dance we do whatever it is to connect people to bring them together. If they want, if you want to do a sundowner and have a couple of champagnes before we do beach cleanup, probably dangerous, but we facilitate it. And we would facilitate it. And then the the other aspects, you've got to understand that we need nature, we might think we don't, I'm happy in my job. And I work across the street and I'm in an office and blah, blah, blah. And then the weekends I go to the beach, and I stand on the beach with my child as the plastic legs around my feet. And I go oh my gosh, the ocean. So calming, because it's so beautiful. We have to connect and we know we have to connect make it and when we do we feel better. We relate better, we are more relaxed. And this is this is why in build up environments, we have to provide the substitutes for nature. No, because otherwise, we just don't, we don't get to connect. Yeah, so there was one of those stories that came out of India and Pakistan, I don't know if you notice there's a past 50 Just in the last few days. So they're in another intense heatwave. If we get up to global warming of two degrees, they're going to be sort of facing 60 degree temperatures. So we're rapidly escalating towards that. But one of the things that came out in India is in the cities where the wealthy people live, because they've got more trees, they didn't suffer as badly as the people living in the poor areas where they don't have trees. So for me, like communities, everything to solve this crisis, I know, everyone's looking for, for leaders to do it. But the reality is, every single one of us and people are always saying, Well, what's something I can do, and obviously, the cleaning the beach, which we've talked about, but another thing is, if you live in a city with neighborhoods, which are basically just concrete jungles, get your community together, go and work with those communities and start planting trees. So that when these extreme temperatures do come, at least, you know, people have got a chance, because trees make a massive difference. But those sort of communities aren't getting that sort of funding and that sort of attention. But all over the world, we need to be doing it. The other thing is, you know, I think especially when you see a lot of the poorer countries, you know, there's there's so much waste in the system that it's like, where do you even start where about to tackle some really big, big waste issues. So some of the rivers, the clunks, they're just so jam packed? Where do we even start? So really sort of getting the right people together, getting the engineers in the mix and people who understand city planning and people who understand how waterways work, bring all the experts together and find the best solutions to get things going. Because that's, I think community driven change is going to be the most powerful force that we're gonna have moving ahead, and it will happen here because Western culture tends to be very, very independent. And I remember back when I was when I was growing up on the farm, we had a massive fire in our hay shed. Actually, I caused it. But But yeah, he had burned Yeah, which meant that our stock feed for the winter was destroyed. Now, you know, we had was sort of working and the neighbors came around and they built a new shed and they feel good of hate that they had. I mean, that just doesn't happen in our communities anymore, sadly. And I think that as, as we progress with that change, it will push us to go back towards more family and community orientated activities, etc. We cannot sustain the level of not only consumption, but the level of work, etc, that will do it. I mean, it's just people burn out. And it's just just bad for health, because we don't get an opportunity to connect to nature. Yeah, I think that the big question is, how do we change that? How do we change the focus on it, the focus is already there. I mean, we have reports out daily, of what's happening, we have, we have scientists standing in front of buildings, crying, and tears and getting arrested, because nobody's listening to what they're saying. Human beings are very short focus. And if you look at if you understand the psychology of a human being, with very short focus purely is about now people say live in the now Yeah, given that we already do setting and to be able to change it, when you talk about the clones, etc, you've got to, again, bring the sustainability back to the profitability, the end of the day will always be about money, that will will still generate community, but we change our focus. So we say, how much can we save? If we don't have to do this? How much can we make if we don't have to do this? If, if we clean something up? If we reduce your consumption in this area, and we save this amount of money? How can we utilize that then to do this, it really does come back to how we prove sustainability against profitability. Otherwise, they were all look at, oh, you want to clean up a river that's going to cost us people, it's going to cost us trucks that it's going to cost us things to be able to do that we can afford it. We don't have a budget. Yeah, we'd go in with that. With that, again, we had that total disconnect from sustainability and profitability has to come back to the commercial solution as well. So when you're looking at somebody who's got a budget of a million baht, or a million dollars, that's all right head, to be able to be where are they going to spend, they're going to spend a fee to make more money, or to secure their, their office Yeah, as to so that they stay employed, or they stay as an elected official, etc. They're only going to spend that money. And where can they go? Where do they spend it not necessarily in the workplace or in sustainability only if you have to, only if you have smart people and the sustainability areas map, people who are working in this space, have to turn around and identify really quickly. If you do this, you're going to be more popular, you're going to make more money, you're going to save time, you're going to save you know, you're gonna you're gonna save this, you have to what, at the end of the day, it's always with them. What's in it for me? What's in it for me? So, yes, we have to propose and bring these to it. But what are the opportunities for the person who is going to sign the cheque and his department? No, I think you're right. I think I mean, I do think it will change over time, I think it will become, you know, we saw with the Australian election, I think the young people are dominating the vote. It's a big climate angle. Someone was saying the other day, you know, let's see how they go. And I'm like, No, it's it shouldn't be that we shouldn't have that mindset anymore. We should say, how can we help you succeed? You know, even even on a political level, even if we're not in politics? How can we help our politicians succeed? Because they're going to have to make hard decisions if they're going to do the job that's needed. And if they're not going to be supported in those hard decisions, they're going to get voted out. So therefore, they're not going to do them. Right. So it's that big cycle. But it's definitely an interesting time. All right, if you could leave everyone with three must dues to move forward, just you know, help progress our world towards where it needs to go, basically. Yeah, I think what needs to go, what needs to be done? What needs to happen? Three things, Andrea, I think I think the first one is a very short word, three letters only. And that's ego. You know, we truly need to kind of let go of our ego, our ego drives consumerism, consumerism drives waste, waste creates problems. And then our ego goes well, it's not my problem. I pay people to pick up litter on the ego continues to grow. And that creates that disconnect. So I think we need to be more humble, we call our mother and we need to be a little more humble and looked at at our mother and how how we connect to nature and start to understand why we why we are forcing a disconnect from nature and thinking we can live without it. So that would be my first thing. Find a way to reduce ego and become a little more humble. The second thing I will say is it has to be about fun. We have to enjoy what we do an outline. We have to find ways of bringing people together bringing communities together. So take action. Don't don't get swept up in the the Whoa, anxiety, I guess, yeah, we understand that it's there. We understand what the issues are, especially people who are very, we understand that it's there. But we have to bring fun to the people who are engaged, but not as engaged, and even to the others. But if we can get more people engaged, that gives us that tipping point, moves us to that law of law effusion of innovation, and allows more people to understand from the perspective that we have and where we are. So I think it's about having fun. Just before you go into your third point, I just want to talk about eco anxiety point, because it's a really, really important one, it's impossible not to suffer eco anxiety, the thing is, don't get stuck in it. And the best way to get out of eco anxiety is action. So getting involved with the community being part of something and like you say, having fun when you're stuck in Eco anxiety. And I've just gone through a whole roller coaster of emotions around eco anxiety for me since February, because I needed to come to terms with how much more serious the situation is now than we were led to believe which I'd already come to terms with. So I've had to move my timeframe forward and all sorts of stuff. But it's not as simple as saying, Don't get in it. Because if you're in it, you're in it, but just feel it, feel the emotions, you face the horror, because there's a lot to face. But just don't get stuck there. As soon as you're ready, come back out and get involved. And action is your pathway. So I just wanted to say that because that's I just published a podcast yesterday, I've just published a blog today. So it's a really hot topic for me because it's it's intense. And I think that we've got to find a way to stop media sensationalizing a lot of what's happening, and bring the true facts, because they're not bringing the true facts because obviously, if they brought the true facts to us, you know, that's going to affect people in power. And and people in power do not like to be affected, in any which way or form. So no, I totally, I totally agree. And as, as somebody who has been through dark times myself, potentially, you can get stuck in an eco anxiety. And it is good to acknowledge and be aware that that's what that's what you have, and to look at ways and support groups, etc. In getting in working through it in your own way. And in your own process. But certainly being involved in and looking for support groups and talking to people, etcetera, is the way to be able to do it. And I think the third point for me is community, it's like, just talk to your neighbor. Just don't be embarrassed or shy about picking up some litter in your in your own community doesn't have to be a beach, you can just go home, this part of the road is always messy. All this blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, it's always happening. And we can just pick it up and we can we can do something different. You know, it's just as simple as being part of that and being part of community. That's my three. Yeah, no, I like that. It just we got to see, right. It's like we've got our blinkers on all the time. And something is in front of us since like it doesn't exist. When How can you how can you not say that? It's so yeah, now this is awesome. Absolutely awesome. Congratulations on the big beach cleanup man Zumba dance party yesterday. And so yeah, I'm looking forward to doing some stuff. You've actually given me two ideas for you to to lead for one Phuket. So I'm going to make your visit. I'm happy to be involved. You know, you're absolutely happy to be well, you are you've, you've injected some energy into us because we've been going for a long time. And it's always great to have a new force of energy in the mix. And knowing a little bit more now about you. I get it even more. So thanks for joining us today. I really, really appreciate it. Thanks, Andrew. It's been an absolute pleasure. And I'm looking forward to working with you even more in the future, right? Yeah, absolutely. All right. See y'all take care. Bye. Bye now.