When I caught up with Sam recently, she didn’t look good. It turned out she’s in the midst of eco-anxiety and has been for some time. Well, if you’ve been through it, all I can tell you is it’s not fun, but at the same time, we have no time to sit in it for too long anymore either. Time is of the essence now.
Anyhoo, I said we have to chat about how you’re feeling right in this moment, as well as what is helping you get through it? Sam said yes immediately.
And so this podcast was born. It’s not depressing, we promise, bit it is realistic. It’s also actionable. For all my experience with eco-anxiety, action is the only path out. Sam is experiencing the same truth.
We covered a lot in this discussion…
And so much more. We hope this helps anyone going through eco-anxiety, as well as those who haven’t been able to face it yet.
You can follow Samantha Gayfer here
On LinkedIn
On Facebook
To get in touch with me, here I am
Websites www.andreatedwards.com and www.uncommon-courage.com
My book Uncommon Courage, An Invitation
And the Uncommon Courage workbook
My other book, 18 Steps to an All—Star LinkedIn Profile (2022 edition)
LinkedIn @AndreaTEdwards
Twitter @AndreaTEdwards
Instagram @UncommonAndrea
My professional Facebook page
And my Facebook Group Uncommon Courage
Tik Tok @uncommonandreatedwards
To get in touch with me, all of my contact details are here https://linktr.ee/andreatedwards
My book Uncommon Courage, an invitation, is here https://mybook.to/UncommonCourage
My book 18 Steps to an All-Star LinkedIn Profile, is here https://mybook.to/18stepstoanallstar
When I caught up with Sam recently, she didn’t look good. It turned out she’s in the midst of eco-anxiety and has been for some time. Well, if you’ve been through it, all I can tell you is it’s not fun, but at the same time, we have no time to sit in it for too long anymore either. Time is of the essence now.
Anyhoo, I said we have to chat about how you’re feeling right in this moment, as well as what is helping you get through it? Sam said yes immediately.
And so this podcast was born. It’s not depressing, we promise, bit it is realistic. It’s also actionable. For all my experience with eco-anxiety, action is the only path out. Sam is experiencing the same truth.
We covered a lot in this discussion…
And so much more. We hope this helps anyone going through eco-anxiety, as well as those who haven’t been able to face it yet.
You can follow Samantha Gayfer here
On LinkedIn
On Facebook
To get in touch with me, here I am
Websites www.andreatedwards.com and www.uncommon-courage.com
My book Uncommon Courage, An Invitation
And the Uncommon Courage workbook
My other book, 18 Steps to an All—Star LinkedIn Profile (2022 edition)
LinkedIn @AndreaTEdwards
Twitter @AndreaTEdwards
Instagram @UncommonAndrea
My professional Facebook page
And my Facebook Group Uncommon Courage
Tik Tok @uncommonandreatedwards
To get in touch with me, all of my contact details are here https://linktr.ee/andreatedwards
My book Uncommon Courage, an invitation, is here https://mybook.to/UncommonCourage
My book 18 Steps to an All-Star LinkedIn Profile, is here https://mybook.to/18stepstoanallstar
Hello, my lovelies. It's Andrea Edwards. Welcome to Uncommon courage. Today, I'm really excited to introduce you to a very special friend of mine, Samantha kafer. I've known Sam for about five years now. And I've gotten to know her as a communications and marketing professional. And she's outstanding at that. She set up her own company, duck feet communications, and she's based in KL Malaysia. And she has recently been going through eco anxiety. Unfortunately, Sam has been working closely with me this year. And basically, you can't work closely with me and not be confronted with what's going on in the world today. It's so sorry, Sam, I think it's my fault that you've got eco anxiety. But let's talk about it. And one thing I want to promise you is this isn't a depressing conversation. It's, it's an important conversation. Some of the climate scientists are basically saying now, we don't have time for people to get stuck and to sit in their eco anxiety for long because we haven't got time anymore. But it's not easy. It's not easy at all. Welcome, Samantha. Hi, thank you. Thanks so much for having me. Well, when we spoke the other day, for the first time I could really see on your face. And in your being that eco anxiety had struck and I went away from that feeling very, very responsible. You can't work with me and not be paying attention to the climate. You can't you know, and you're you've been a big, big part of what I've been doing this year. And I'm so grateful to you for the for the quality of the work that you just bring to the table every time you're amazing. But I am feeling guilty. And I know you're not feeling great. So this isn't a depressing chat. Like I said in the introduction. It's an important chat. And that's why I asked if we could sort of get together and just really talk about it where you are right now. So what happened to trigger it, you know, and sort of talk about how you feeling? How is it impacting you? What are you noticing? And how long has it been going on for? I think it's been going on for a really long time. I don't blame you. We've had some pretty crazy adventures. And I think as you grow, your perspective changes significantly in terms of what you value. And we used to be people who really valued the adventure. So we lived in the Middle East. And I worked on developing Palm Jumeirah, which, you know, now through an environmental lens is not something that I would participate in again, but it was exciting. And we were building a manmade island, you could see from space, and there were enough people paid to say it wasn't going to be an environmental disaster to go to bed at night. So I think when you're involved in a project like that, it's always in the back of your mind. So I would say this thinking is 20 years old, it is now exacerbated to a tremendous degree, not just by the media that I consume, but by the fact that I am a parent. And the reality of the world that my children will inherit is not okay with me. And I find it hard now to enjoy the things that we want to enjoy. If I get on a plane to go home to see my family because we live overseas, it's clouded with guilt about that flight. If I go shopping for my kid's birthday, and you know, they want something that isn't sustainable. It's this battle between wish she's just a 10 year old kid. And you know, but these are the choices we're making. We had a moment of celebration, though, because Seanna wanted an iPad, or a stylus to draw on her iPad, because she's an amazing artist. And we couldn't buy one because all iPads are all from 2007. We've done a good job of holding on to our tech now can't be used properly. But at least we still have our many, many, many years old tech. So I think all of those things you look through in a different perspective. But the biggest is my kids. I can't consume the way we used to travel the way we used to live, maybe where we're living with the same clear conscience that I did when they were little. And they were three and they were four and I was buying all of the educational toys and trying to give them the best start in life. And now I look at the education they're getting and it's wonderful, but I think is there any point in them going to university like everything has changed and I just I feel quite untethered. Yeah, feel lost. And I'm a data per Listen, even though I work in a very creative industry, so my husband is better at believing that human ingenuity will come up with a solution. I'm more of a people watcher, and I've spent my life messaging to people. And I think that we're in trouble. There's no question, we're in trouble. And I think once you accept it, and face it, then we can get on with doing something about it. But adaptation will be required, you know, and you're one of the lucky ones, your passport is a good passport to have in the world. Alright, I have two of the best passports in the world, I have a British passport and a Canadian one extraordinarily lucky to have been born where I was born. That's one of my one of my options for the family for getting the boys in the right place. But the Atlantic meridional current, a Mach is going to slow down. And when it does, it's going to stop. And that's the bit that pushes warm water up and down around the world. It's an important one, they're expecting minus 15 degrees in the British Isles. So it's that Australia, for us, Australia is on fire or flooding. So I don't know, like and you know, you know, I've been spending a bit of time trying to work out where can I put my boys so they can be safe, because billions of people will survive? What's coming. It's, you know, people talk about human extinction. We're not facing human extinction. We're facing huge mass human migration, extinction down the line short, if we really get it wrong, the tipping points and all that sort of stuff, but well, that migration is gonna result in war, which is an example of a different kind, right? And we're gonna be fighting for limited resources. And and yeah, I mean, we spent the summer looking for land in Canada. And, and it was like, can't be near a major city can't be near the US border needs to be near a fresh body of water, you know, you start feeling like a tin foil hat, crazy person who's gonna build a bunker and fill it with canned foods. But if I had the money, that's exactly what I would do right now. Yeah. Because all I can think of is Where do my girls go? Like, it's not for me and J. And for the first time in my life, our thinking has shifted from the now experience that they're getting to how do we future proof of life for them? You know, not the beautiful house that we have in Southampton, where we go and enjoy the summers with my mom, that's not what they need. Because there's an artificial grass in the backyard. Like they can't grow anything there. It's they need something with access to a freshwater lake, they can fish in place where we can plant trees now, so that they're mature and bearing fruit in 10 years time and enough to have chickens and solar panels and how do we make that sustainable? And how do we make it far away from anyone who might want to take it from them? And that like, that's very dark? No, no, it is it is i I've had many moments looking at my boys eyes, and I just want to burst into tears. They'll sit there telling me their dreams for the future. And I know, those dreams will never come to be nice. It keeps things stable, get stressed about the boys at school. I'll see people sometimes posted on Facebook, what are the what's the biggest priority for your children? I don't I don't respond, because I don't think the world's quite ready for it yet. But I said we need to teach them how to fight, how to shoot and how to plan food. That's the three things I think we need. We're at the point now, if we want to give our kids a chance they need they need. They need their real survival skills. And, and that's hard, right. And then the other side of things, probably the thing that impresses me the most is we are heading towards the place where everyone's putting up their borders, putting up their barriers nationalisms on the rise. And the reality is what we need to all be doing. And our leaders of the world are not doing this. And they haven't done it for decades. And you see in the UK suffering drought, they haven't built a new reservoir for water for three decades. Like how can any government sit there and not be preparing their country for what needs to happen? I'm shot and it's right in your backyard. I mean, we ran out of water in Phuket what was three years ago when the levee went dry. And we had a water crisis meeting at the school and brought a whole bunch of people in and and then COVID happened and so the water was okay because there were less and less people there and we didn't have the tourists but there were still 89 new hotels slated to be built in Phuket know where the water is back, by the way. Pardon my French that water coming from? Yeah, well, the water is back. So there's been incredible rain rains people have never seen before not making the news. Some of them are gonna sustain 89 new hotels, all of them have a little pool in the backyard. Or just the roads. How can the infrastructure support that many more hotels, right, chopping down more trees and forests and it's, you know, the hospitality industry around the world. Oh, they really did come back. And, and I'm like, You guys paying attention to what's coming. But anyway, okay, so eco anxiety Tell me, tell me about the feelings that you're feeling. You know, is it just one of the words that you'd use to describe it? Like things like useless? Rage? Rage? Right. Yeah. And this belief, I think. And also, I'm reading, I'm reading this fascinating book right now, which is, I think one of those things, what you were sort of alluding to about, what can we do? You know, and how do we make this not a super depressing conversation? And it's called Don't even think about it. Have you read that? No, you will love it. Okay. And it is why our brains are wired to ignore climate change. And it's, it's a fascinating, he's an environmentalist. And he's done this deep dive into psychology and evolutionary psychology and looking at, you know, literally how our brains are programmed, in kind of a CRO magnon way to we're really bad at risk assessment, which is, you know, interesting for me, because I work in crisis, but also interesting, just from a psychological perspective, that, that it's imminent, and now, and proximity that makes our brain pay attention to crisis. And basically, climate change is too, it's too big, it's too difficult to wrap your head around. And what he's seeing is that even when it is impacting places directly, like he's interviewed, the victims of Hurricane Katrina is Victor, like people who've been wiped out by that typhoon Hyah. And none of them will openly discussed the role of climate change in that disaster. They all tell the narrative of how their community came together, and were wonderful, and everybody took care of each other. And he said, like, there's this, like, very, very basic, primal communication that is about this societal grouping together, you know, so we all stay together as a team, we all work together, we all survive together, and it can handle that kind of conversation. But when you talk about this greater force that may be involved, that that is Morpheus, it just isn't even on the radar isn't talking about it, is it because there's no sense of ability to control the bigger, bigger story, so therefore, don't pay attention to it? Or, I mean, I'm halfway through that may come that may come in. But it's fascinating. What he's basically saying is, is if it's, firstly, you know, we're socially driven animals. So your frustration and my frustration, and this is where the rage and the disbelief comes through. This is my long detour back to your question is that I know so many really bright, successful people who are quietly doing the same thing Jay and I are doing and the conversations I had with people this summer, a family here, where he's Irish, and she's Indian. And he's looking for land, like north of Belfast, somewhere friend of ours, Dr. And a professor in Canada, families from Thunder Bay, they're looking for land in Thunder Bay, like all of us are quietly in our family units having these discussions. But everybody's afraid to have that discussion in a more open setting in an open environment. And the argument for that in the book is this idea that of social acceptability, like if we have an idea that we think is going to make us an outcast, and it goes down to like hunter gatherer days, right? You needed the tribe to protect you. So if you use any barrier, you exhibit any behaviour that risks you being isolated or left behind, then you risk your life. And he's like the same logic as applying to climate change right now. People are aware of it, they're processing it, they're thinking about it, they're planning for it, but they're still afraid to talk about it. And there's a whole other segment of how climate change has been tainted by the discussions around it are tainted by political views. And so then there's an association that this is, this is a, you know, a liberal agenda versus like a global agenda. I mean, there's 1000 reasons why, unfortunately, I'm waiting for the part of the book where he tells us what we can do about it, because right now, it's just like, we're not built to process an event of this magnitude. And and then I look at crap like the Congos decision to now allow drilling rights, and I understand the argument that but my people are starving now, screw you and your planet saving You know, my people are starving. And I'm not going to watch my neighbour starve. This is really, really interesting things happening there. Right. So the first is a group of come in that aren't fossil fuel companies. And they're doing a whole cryptocurrency thing where they want to make money from it. So basically, you can invest in that the rights to the, to the oil, but they keep the oil in the ground, and that some of the big international brands are saying they're not going to be putting the application in, because obviously, it's not very good PR. But if the big companies don't do it, and the small sort of local national companies like we're seeing in Nigeria, do it then we see of a typical oilfield. In Nigeria, there's more pollution coming out, because they don't play by the same rules as the big guys. So I actually think it's an industry wide opportunity. So when I was in Scotland, you know, companies like ici reforesting, massive tracts of land and buying land. So if an entire industry could buy these riots, and create an income stream for the country, and keep it in the ground, and that's their, that's their carbon offsetting programme, but that should never come out of the ground. What's there because it's not just that it's not just deforestation, it's all of the species, some species that are there that are nowhere else on earth, it's, it's untouched forest rise mountain gorillas, it's all things, you know, and I think that that's, that's the disbelief and the rage. And, and the, you know, along with that is a little, I find myself oscillating between, like, quiet resignation, and no, no, not my kids. And so, you know, another thing he talks about is this idea, and this is where I think this is an opportunity of where, when it exists already, it's very difficult to get people to change or to, to change their perspective on an industry. So we already have planes and cars, and we already have oil drilling. And so he's like, if you were to introduce a new kind of fossil fuel, that was bad for the planet, he's like, I guarantee you, you could have everybody up in arms to stop it. But when it's something that's there already, it's been part of the psyche, it's been part of the fabric, it's so much more difficult to rally people against it. And I think there is an opportunity with this in the Congo, for people to say, like, No, this is too far. And we haven't been drilling there. And it's not okay. And, and like you said, and have other people come in and say, you know, let's find other ways to protect this land and bring an income to your country. So we're just gonna get creative broaden. And I think you know, going back to what you were saying earlier, a lot of people quietly going about doing things, if you want to start to step out of eco anxiety. I've been talking about this for a long time. And I appreciate that there's probably people in my community who don't want to hang out with me, don't want to spend time with me, because they think that's all I can do. Because on social media, that's what I do, right? But I try when I'm with people try not to sort of bring it into every conversation unless people want to talk about it. But we all have to start talking about it. And we all have to suffer the potential consequences of our feeling foolish because more people are thinking and acting on this than we think. But the silence is actually, it's actually harming our ability to to make progress. Because the more people that start speaking up and going, this is what I'm doing. And this is the action I'm taking, that actually might make even political leaders go wait a minute, there's a movement here, and it's a big movement, and it's one we need to be on. Whereas when they don't think people are really thinking and acting, they're not going to do anything to change, they're going to keep pleasing the you know, sort in the Australian election earlier this year, the liberal leaders who got voted out, they kept speaking to the boomer generation, because they'd been the dominant voting demographic for 40 years. And for the first time, the millennials caught up to them in numbers for the first time. So Gen X have never had more power. We I won't have more power than my parents until 28 When I vote in Australia, but the millennials have caught up. So we've got this younger generation that are dominant, and this is all over the world, not just in Australia, the younger generation have caught up Gen Z have started to move into voting age, the boomers are starting to lose their power. And boomers are bad people, you know, and I don't like that whole, knock them down. And, you know, they're, they have different priorities. And we need to make sure that we're taking care of them, but they've dominated the voting cycle for too long and where the world is going and when their priorities are different. That's not That's not giving people hope. So I think from a demographic perspective, we should be feeling hope, you know, the kids have got to say, yeah, absolutely. And you have you know, you have a vocal left and a vocal right. And you have a massive silent majority, exactly down the middle. And all the research that that talks about where where your influence, the sources of media and information that are most influential it is it's your neighbours, it's your friends. It's your it's it's we've lost faith in all Other forms of media and so it is word of mouth that is your neighbour. It's not unfortunately, the scientists anymore. And I don't think it ever has been so just recently. So NASA is the number one trusted source for climate research, family and friends. Number two, climate scientists. Number three. And so every every piece of research I do on influence, family and friends are always in the one or two 100. Your voice matters, it matters. And that's why that big silent majority, if we start using our voice, then we shrink the gap between left and right, yes, and we can realise that you can be card carrying Republican and still want a livable planet for your children and their and future generations if we're lucky enough to have them. And it's this polarisation that's not helping. I know, everybody can, can agree that all these different perspectives can all be right that ultimately we all want our children to survive. So let's do what we can, then we stand a better chance. And I think one of the things I've always believed is the people on the extreme left and the extreme right. They have dominated our societies, our politics, our media, they are dominated at all for too long. And then there's another group of greedy people who know how to milk, those extreme sort of ways of thinking, the mass in the middle of our lives are being dictated around the extremes. And I'm tired of that, you know, I'm tired of it. I'm tired of all these rules and regulations and legislations, based on a tiny minorities voice, and we need to, we need to drown it out. And it starts with all of us that are participating. So I'm going to use the visual metaphor, one thing before we move on to the final question, do you feel guilty as well, based on the life that you've lived to this point is guilt to be proud of how you've been feeling? Yes. And no, I think that I have very strong feelings about judging actions of yesteryear through today's lens. Awesome. Because you can't you know, and this is, this is a generational thing for sure. Right? And, and it doesn't mean that you should let grandpa say something racist. That's not what I'm saying. And yeah, you need to say, Hey, that's not okay, now that this is what we're doing. But revisionist history doesn't help anyone, me feeling guilty about having had two children, that I now feel guilty every single day about the planet I'm giving them, I just wasn't aware when I was having them. And so I can't feel guilty about what I didn't acknowledge or know, at that time, but now is different. And now, you know, we've had some really intense discussion about the way we live our life and where we live our life. And, you know, you know, that we've been involved in international education for a long time. And, and that's there is a noble, you know, cause in terms of educating kids from around the world, you don't have access to that kind of an education and sending them out to be changemakers and all those things, but now we're having conversations about does that offset living, you know, we're in Kuala Lumpur right now. And the irony of Petronas Towers being the most recognisable thing about KL and Malaysia in general and not you know, the orangutangs in Borneo is like not lost on me whenever I see those buildings. And I think, you know, in Canada is got its pipeline issues in the tar sands and cut everybody likes to mention the seal clubbing, you know, we're not perfect, either by no means there's nowhere perfect. But can I continue to live in a place that is literally run by oil and gas and mining, and that is what everybody is working and palm oil? Yeah. And on the side, some deforestation. It's the first time in our lives where we've ever had to enemy Dubai is a glittering city in a desert. So it was not an environmental success story either, right? But at that time, again, we didn't really know better, but now we do. And now we have to look at everything through a different lens. So is there guilt associated with that? I don't, I don't think it's guilt. But I think it's a reassessment of how it aligns with our values and a very different impetus to say either, we have to be able to make a change here. And the school actually just the solar deal got signed for IGB You today, we have a commitment for regreening the community we're in, you know, so now it's a discussion about can we make enough of an impact here? Or do we need to be somewhere where the environment is more of a focus across the board? And those are huge questions. That's our careers. It's our lives. It's moving our kids, it's commitments we've made here. So every day is a roller coaster of, Can we stay? Can we make the impact? Do we need to go? What kind of example are we sitting for the kids, you know, we are in a neighbourhood we have one car, it's a, it's like the Adam Sandler song piece of shit car is like a 12 year old Camry, it bottoms out every time I go over speed. You know, we're every house around us has four cars in the driveway. It's, it's not an eco conscious place. Overall. Yeah, we've got a massive challenge to overcome in Asia. I struggle with that one every day. And one of the things that I try and do is sort of, I have a great community here, I've been here for 20 years. So if I can convince my community, they can convince their community. And it's step by step. And you know, just recently, when we're away, I had a cousin beau, who you know, and a team go out all over Phuket and find the local recycling centres, which we're going to then document on a Google map. Nice. And we're going to put it all up on a website. And we're going to share it widely with everybody. And then also specific things that you can recycle and things that we shouldn't. But just the act of going through the process, some of the people that I've been speaking to that have been doing it and working on it, it's changed them. And now they're talking to their families, and they're talking to their community. So you know, getting getting people in the community involved in change, I'm already seeing how it ripples out and just, you know, the action, that's really given me a lot of hope, because I can't do it, I can't do it, I don't have the language, I don't have the connections, if I can get people to understand why it's important to do it and get them to do it. Even to start, I think it's sort of the ripple, the ripple happens. So for the goat goat exam, I was just gonna say the guilting is a really interesting one, because it's very easy for all of us who grew up in Western societies to feel very guilty about the lives that we have lived before becoming aware of what's going on. But I found, like you it's like, one minute, you don't see it. And the next minute you do see it, and when your eyes are open, I think the first experience is just sheer horror. What you were even willing to do, you know, but being grown up in Australia, where there's a lot more environmental sort of sort of messaging, in our in our growing up with ozone hole, rubbish, all that sort of stuff. But I think for me, one of the big steps in Eco anxiety is really understanding your own personal impact. And the first step is cleaning up your own life in every way in every way. And and it's a process, it takes time from working out how to compost properly, all the way through to how you buy clothes, you know, the cotton fields have been decimated in recent weather. So not only is food going to pricing going to be increasing, including coffee and wine and tequila energies up. But the other thing that's going to be more expensive is cotton. So therefore clothes are going to be more expensive, but we we all need to buy less. Yep, you know, and that's, that's a very empowering stage to go through, you kind of kind of get to it and you like, right, there's practically no rubbish leaving my home, you know, I'm turning everything off, I'm saving everything, I'm not using the dryer, I'm hanging my clothes up, I'm doing everything I possibly can. And I'm gonna keep doing more as I discover more. And that's, I think that's a really good place to start. So I think the thing that frustrates me and when Changa shared this cartoon the other day, and it was kind of a toast to like the recycler who still takes long baths or the composter, who you know, does it whatever. It was this idea of like, just start somewhere somehow and we're all imperfect, you know, and we and I remember having this discussion at the school before about compost and and there was a very adamant must be done this way. It's got to be worms and dirt. It's got to be turned and done as the whole school and, and, and that sometimes butts up against the reality of what you can actually expect school kids in a community to do. And so there was another solution that was imperfect, but had a higher chance of buying in and participation. And for me like, then that's it, because because if we put this mantle down like you have to do it perfectly We're going to lose everyone. Instead of saying, you know, like our compost or here we have this strip of the backyard this big and it's full of shrews. So if I put raw food out there, I'm going to have an absolute infestation. shrews. What's a shrew? It's like a rat and a squirrel. Oh, yeah, we've got them. Okay. Yeah, we're called shrews. Okay. Yeah. So it's like a, it's got like, you can't eat her nose. Yeah, and like, like an alopecia squirrel tail, like a squirrel tail. But it's not fluffy. You know. So like, we're, we're managing the environment that we have. So the one that we have is more of like, it almost turns it more into mulch than compost, like a dehydrates at all, so that you can put it outside and we've got a papaya tree, the sides of our house from it's only about four months old. So the plants are all very happy with our dehydrated vegetables. But, you know, the, the reduction in the waste from that small countertop machine that we have has been significant. And so I think sometimes it's like, fight the battle, and you'll make a dent towards the war. But if you look at it, like I've got to do everything at once, I've got to stop flying, I've got to get rid of my car, I've got to have plastic, I've got to compost, like people are just gonna die and overwhelm. And it's like, step one, you know, okay, like we can all consume less, we can all choose not to have plastic, we can all choose our red meat, and we can all reduce our red meat, we can, you know, we've really fought hard to stay with one car. And we chose a house that allowed Jason and the girls to both bike to school. So often days, that car is just sitting in the driveway, you know, and then we still get on a transatlantic flight to go home, like, but that's still better than if we'd had two cars, and everybody was driving back and forth to school, and then we got on our transatlantic flight to go home. Yeah, so it's not perfect. It's far from perfect, we need to do more. But I also think with kids, you've got to be careful. Because if you come barreling in one day and just say everything is a disaster, and we need to change the way we do everything. It's overwhelming, and it causes panic. And so we've been just making these little adjustments and talking about why. And now over the course of the year, we've managed to make a significant amount of change. Yeah, but it's not causing like panic. It's just awareness. And Jason's done this brilliant job of hiring teachers, and putting them in the apartments in this area. And almost all of them are biking to school. And so we're seeing like, most of the kids at this school live within this area, and they still get driven to school every day and picked up every day. And it really does my head because Canadians I'm sure Australians the same way that you always walked to school, it didn't matter if it was raining, snowing. You walk to school because mom was at work, like, Yes. And you had to live like in the boonies to qualify for the bus, you know. And so just those small the Head of School rides his bike, his kids ride their bike, more teachers are riding their bike, which a helps people move over into the belief that it's safe to do so. Because your kids not the only kid on the street on a bike. And also like, it's actually like, oh, well if the head of school can ride his bike and and the teachers can ride their bikes and and their kids can ride their bikes, and then maybe my kid can ride their bike. And so it was little, again, you just chipping away, right? Absolutely. Turn around and say, We're not going to let a single car on campus, you'd have immediate uproar, and push back and you're never going to get acceptance from that message. But if you just change habits bit by bit by bit, slowly you start seeing people opt in, ya know, feel like they're being forced. It's such good advice, you know, like the whole moving towards vegan vegetarian with our family. I've totally done it with the boys. You know, we go through recipes together where he's asked what they think and so many fail before we even get started, but but they're trying and they're part of it, you know, the whole composting talking about not putting anything organic in the rubbish bin and why it matters, but like, you know, not freaking him out because they don't deserve that, you know, but the point is, we need a billion people changing their lifestyles imperfectly. That's what we need and In the judgement of others, you know, you can't judge another person for what they do you know, Rebecca Coniston is one of our mates and she taught me off reading chicken at a restaurant once and I said, mate, I'm not going to be vegan, but I'm aware of the impact of all of the different animals and, you know, chickens, of all of them. It's the best. And by the way, I've been wanting to have this meal at this at this restaurant for three months, can I just enjoy it? Well, uh, nobody's without their vices, you know, it's just everybody's vices different. And so I just don't think you can, you can't judge anyone's actions unless you are living the perfect existence, which doesn't exist, you know, you've got a roof over your head, and you've got electricity. So there you go. There's your fossil fuels, you know, like nobody is, it's we should be congratulating people on the five other meals you ate that week that were vegan, instead of haranguing on you for the one that's not right. It's, but that but but I understood, because that's, you know, that's an area of passion, right? And, but we just got to be very careful with each other and not make other people feel uncomfortable for their choices. You know, somebody shared on Facebook the other day, someone asked him, Are they offsetting their flights? And then they said, Well, you know, the climate issue isn't my issue, which I'm like, No, the climate is kind of everyone's issue. But like, I won't criticise someone for the amount of flying that they're doing. But but you know, when I went to Europe with the boys for six weeks, I planted 1000 trees, which was 75%, more than I needed to do to offset the flights, right. But I don't believe that offsetting is the answer, but I'll do it while I can. Right. So but, you know, we've all just got to do what we can. But the next one, what helps you escape these dark days? Are they days, weeks, months, you know, even if for a moment, what's helping you to get out of the of the bleakness, not wine. Contrary to your instinct, which may be to just get really pretend it's not happening, I find it just makes me sad. That's actually been an interesting health benefit to I think going through this is that I legitimately am like I can, if I get drunk and think about it, I just, it makes me miserable and sad. So I have been drinking a lot of tea, I think, action, you know, reading, educating yourself, making those small changes, and like I didn't stay in the grocery store. So we have a daughter who has some very significant allergies, and makes the choices around what we can feed her much more difficult. And so I can't always make the choices that I would like to make, and still feed her. And I had something in my trolley that was kind of like a, like a luxury item. And then I wanted to get her some cucumber sushi, because she can eat that. And she's going horseback riding today, he needs a quick snack. And it's not always fun for a kid to just have vegetables and hummus every single day. And it comes in plastic and that shitty thin, slice your finger open plastic, right. And so I made this, I went through my buggy. And I put like five things back that had any kind of a plastic component, so that I could buy her cucumber sushi in the shitty little plastic. And we'll recycle that plastic here because we have a system at school. But still, it was like, that's not a conversation in my head I would have had even six months ago is to say, no, like, I'm going to be conscious then like, if I'm gonna make this decision, then then you know, my offsetting it that shifts already in the grocery store, all that kind of stuff. You know, there's a million arguments against all of that, but but the point is, I'm looking at every decision through that lens. And when you make decisions, even small ones that are in support of where your values are going, or have already gone, then that isn't a tiny bit of empowerment, right? Every day that car stays in the driveway, I feel better about our family's footprint. Every time one of those compost buckets goes out to the backyard every time we eat a cucumber that we've grown in our backyard. So I think it's just action is the only way out. You know, I you know that I've applied to do a master's in sustainability. And that's not something I would have considered even a couple of years ago. But now it's like I I'm fortunate enough to have had a good education to have had great experience to be skilled in an area where I think I can make an impact and now it's like how do I double down and and refocus that Add on something that makes the world a better place. Yeah, when we were home this summer, and everybody kept telling me to become a real estate agent, be a great real estate agent. Well, there's gonna be there's gonna be a demand and Canada. I know, you know. And yeah, do Interior Design and real estate. That's why my mom does and she's brilliant at it. And I, I just can't, I just need to do something more. And so I'm taking whatever steps I can towards doing more. I always say the path out of eco anxiety is action. But you've got to allow yourself to feeling feelings first. And then a very big and intense feelings. And I think a lot of people aren't stepping into this fight, because they can't even they don't want to take that first step because they've seen people go through eco anxiety, and they've seen it consume them. And it does consume you I had, you know, like you I've been dealing with in small bouts for 20 years. But it was in 2018, when the IPCC report came out that I, I went, wow. And then like six months, and I sort of said to Steve, right at the time, I said, I'm going all in now dials on the environment, I have to, I can see, I can see what we're dealing with. And that was 2018. So this year, I was a little bit surprised to go through another big part of it. And that was mainly because the messages are happening faster, wasn't expected until 2015. You know, we're seeing some really crazy stuff going on around the world. And it's the feedback loop sick concern me things like doomsday closure tweets, Felicia, in Antarctica, you know, a Mach turning around to changing jet stream, which is causing a lot of the freaky weather in Europe and North America, you know, and I'm just sort of looking at it all. And just like, if we can't convince people to face this now, every delay makes it worse. Every action we don't take now makes it worse. So the the unwillingness to face up to what we are actually facing is actually making it worse for everybody. The people have been paying attention to this for a long time, they're starting to get really frustrated. And you know, like Beck's was getting frustrated with me about eating chicken, especially because she knows that I know, right? When I sort of said to we can't we can't be frustrated. We can't, we can't express that with on other people, because it's going to push people away. So we have to keep being patient, we have to keep pushing, we have to keep sharing, we have to keep trying to educate, it's very difficult to share a message that people aren't ready to hear. But we have to keep trying. That's that's all I can. Like, the only thing that I believe that I can really do, apart from local action is global awareness and contributing to the information and just seeing Congress pay attention, pay attention. And you know, yeah, that's why you're gonna love this book. That's why I'm reading. I'm like, Yeah, I've got a download. It's on Audible and have a read, and then we'll have a brainstorming session afterwards. Because I think it's I think it's really interesting to understand what we're up against, like from extensive meta analysis of all of this research about literally people's response to it. And so how do you message that? And I think that the challenge for me right now, what frustrates me, and I know that you share this as well, is all of that distraction? Oh, yeah, no, and, and it's like, if the whole world was focused, if, if, if climate change was a pandemic, and everybody got locked down until we found a solution, we'd be in great shape, but it's not locking people down yet. And instead, we're fighting wars that don't need to be fought and exacerbating food shortages and fuel shortages, and it's going to inevitably increase conflict in other areas. And that is what does my head and that is where the rage gets me the most because firstly, I mean, the war is a joke to start with, it should never have happened. But you know, this is a guy who boasts about his children, and yet is creating a destabilised world messing with the global food chain, because he still believes he's a read enough to make sure that he can take care of his own. You know, I don't know if I'm, as I'm as angry with Putin or or, or the other people who've made, you know, mega mega millions or billions of bucks, not just the not just the fossil fuel industry, but all of the food, food industry, the pharmaceutical industries, all of these industries, right, because inflation's making everything go up like pineapples in Thailand went from 20 baht to 40. But you know, increasing petrol costs when a person's earning a very small income crippling right, so I'm seeing it from a developing world perspective and a wealthy world perspective. People are food poverty and energy poverty in countries like the UK, you know, and 60% of the population of the UK is in energy poverty. 60% like so for me, Putin, absolute asshole. No question about are that we need to sort that out and get it done quickly. But there's all these other greedy bastards who are taking money and making profits and shareholders that are making money and and the people who suffer the most Are always the people whose backs we've built these global society on. And we keep making them bend over, we keep making them bend over. And if you've got, can I swear, Elon, fucking wanting to spend a gazillion dollars to buy Twitter, like Jesus Christ, really, that is what you think you should spend your money on right now. And he's one of these crazy people who thinks that the world is not populated enough. So he's popping out kids through everyone who's willing to sleep with him with women should just stop doing that. Like I just, and this is where it's dangerous, right? Like when those people who hold so much wealth that could be so impactful, are caught up in their own crazy PR. And then you've got Bill Gates, who just Sachs has made his mistakes. But as I like, done what he can do and is eviscerated everyone, just like watch every time. Like every time I say people criticising Bill Gates, I'm like, What about Elon Musk? Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison. What have they done for the planet? Why don't you talk about them, but it's like what, you know, we criticise single mothers, for taking money off the state. And we don't criticise the wealthy bankers who actually take the money off the state, we kicked down and kiss or the man who leaves them as single mothers. Exactly right. But we don't you know, Elon Musk. For me, it's been really fascinating. Because for me, 12 months ago, he was he was an oddity. I didn't really know what the hell or who is he now like, my son's obsessed with Tesla cars. And I said, we will never buy a Tesla car because of him. Because I think he is. I still don't understand who he is. But I think he is becoming a very, very dangerous man in the world. And the fact that we don't really know who he is, is what makes him even more dangerous. I don't know the game he's playing. I don't even know if you know, he's supposed to be so intelligent, right? But what the hell is he trying to do? You know, I don't understand it. But we've got to keep an eye on him. I'm concerned about him. But so final thoughts, tips for everyone out there. If you know Elon Musk, get him to use his money for good. Pay attention to the science. If you can't, if it's not more than you can bear. And if it's more than you can bear then just pay attention to your own personal footprint. And just take baby steps towards reducing your impact on the planet. And that's an if everybody did that, then there's hope. Right? But if nobody's willing to talk about it, because I guarantee you as we discovered this summer, your friends are thinking about it. And they are also too afraid to talk about it in case they you think that there's some crazy tinfoil hat bunker building, zealot, right, like, really sensible, reasonable, successful people are all afraid for their kids. And so if we talk about it together, then maybe it's not so daunting, because then you're not suffering in silence in your bedroom, thinking of the end of the world is nice, and your friends are oblivious, like they're probably not, I think you'd be done if you don't have the courage to speak up publicly about it. support people who are, you know, because it's really hard to speak about it as someone who's been doing it for a long time. It's really hard. A lot of what you share gets ignored or feels like it's being ignored. You find out behind the scenes it's not but support the people who've got the courage to do it, because they need to be supported to keep going. And you know, the only reason I'm still going is because I'm so goddamn determined and stubborn. But I watch a lot of people fall, by the way, because they just feel like that no one's listening. People are listening. So if you are a person sharing on this, and you feel like no one's listening, people are listening. They just don't know what to do with it. They don't know how to support it. They don't necessarily want to put their name to it by supporting it. So we're still in that space. But we've all got to keep going because our kids future is worth it. And I think to like, you know, you and I have talked about this D politicising climate change and the idea of planet before party because you know, whether you're a democrat or republican or a liberal or conservative is not going to matter if you have to hunt and gather for food for your children. So we can save the political debates for after we've found solution to climate change. But right now that really feels like it should be the top priority. I think we need to the whole world needs to stop. I don't think there's a solution, by the way, but I think all we're doing now is making it less worse. Less worse is a step in the right direction. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, the world has changed. We need to accept that. So let's just get on with making it less worse. That's enough. It's something or muddling. Thank you. Pleasure. Talk to you soon.