Welcome to Climate Courage – the actions we can all take

Welcome to the first Climate Courage, a fortnightly Livestream and podcast published on Uncommon Courage, where we will go big picture on the climate crisis and focus on the actions you and I can take to be part of the solution. Whether individual action, community action, or national/global action - every single one of us can be part of ensuring a live-able future for our children and grandchildren. We owe them that!

With climate impacts accelerating and ‘news shocks’ hitting daily, it is obvious we are in a bad place as a global society, but it’s also obvious that our leaders have failed us. With climate emergencies striking all countries across the world – from fire to drought, famine, floods, extinction, ecosystem collapse, melting glaciers, melting permafrost, and more – the failure of politicians, business leaders and economists seemingly stare us in the face, daily.

The risk of an unlive-able planet is understood by leaders – the science has been clear for decades - but the actions required to minimize impact have not materialized. If we are honest, there’s barely been any action at all – and definitely nowhere near the scale required.

What can we do? How can we make a difference? How can we have hope for the future? At Climate Courage, we believe the answer lies in one billion people (#OneBillion) becoming imperfectly in tune with our planet. With one billion people making serious changes at home, in our communities, and in our countries, it will ripple out and others will join the fight. They will because, we will all become beacons of hope and inspiration.  

The truth is, if enough don’t act, we can’t succeed. If enough don’t change their lifestyles, we can’t succeed. If enough don’t understand our role in this (especially those from wealthy countries), we can’t succeed. 

No matter how the media and everyone else positions this, it isn’t an ‘us-and-them-situation’ – not at this stage in the game - it’s an ‘all-in-let’s-get-the-job-done moment!’ We’re wasting too much time on blame, and we have no more time. Don’t worry, it doesn’t mean we won’t call out the super polluters!

Hosted by me, Andrea T Edwards, I will be inviting guests with expertise on all areas that matter, and will cover the full gamut of issues, as well as get very specific on what we can all do about it. We will attempt to provide the big picture view and help each of us understand our place and role in this crisis. 

The intention behind this series is to discuss actions so we can stop feeling useless, as well as give hope in a world that is struggling to find any. There is always hope, especially when WE are the answer we’ve been looking for. 

Come and join me with my amazing guests. Share it with your community if it resonates too. Also, if you would like to be part of this, you are welcome, because I will be looking for guests with serious expertise. All ideas, opinions, and solutions are welcome because no one person has all the answers.

Let’s stop feeling useless in this fight. It’s stopping us from acting #UncommonCourage #ClimateCourage 

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

Transcript

Unknown: 0:03

All right, welcome to the very first episode of climate courage, and I've already stuffed up my words, I'm going to do that a lot. I'm a little bit anxious about doing this today. And I know that it's going to be one of the most courageous things that I'll probably ever do. doing stuff like this, it can attract ugliness. And I've had that experience many, many, many times. But honestly, I don't care about that side of things. You know, it upsets me that people are willing to say horrible things to other people. Definitely. I find it very sad. But I don't really care what people think or say, I, I trust in my ability to make sense of information. So I'm going to keep going. But the other side of things, of course, is that I'm going to speak a bit about things that people don't like to hear, you know, just just today, just going through my social media feed, and just watching all the beautiful celebrations of life that we see on a daily basis. And to me, that's always a joy. And then I'm going to put this heavy message in the middle of that. But it's time I'm going to speak from my heart, I'm going to ramble and get words wrong, which I've already done. I've got some notes, not many. But mainly, so don't go off script. And, you know, keep talking and talking and talking when I should be more focused. But before I start, I need to talk about my authority. My right to even be speaking about this in the first place. Just recently, I, I found a review for my book, uncommon courage on one of the review websites. And basically this lady who hadn't read the book, but she could tell by what she wrote, challenged my authority to even have the right to publish this book. And I thought, I found that sad, really, really sad. Because I've lived a huge life travelling all over the world. And I've had a lot of experiences in that life. And I think I've been able to draw some conclusions that I think are worth sharing, and some lessons of life that are worth sharing. So authority is a funny old thing. You know, if I had a PhD or a doctorate, people would say I'm being paid money from vested interests, or I'm not a real doctor or something else. So the concept of authorities are a challenging thing, right? But when it comes down to it, it's about trust. Who do you trust. And when it comes to the climate crisis, the order of trust in the top three is first, NASA, second, family and friends, third, climate scientists. So you and I are more trustworthy than climate scientists. And this is why we've all got to speak up, we've all got to get out there, we've got to raise our voice to many people are quiet, they're thinking about it. They're stressing about it, but they're quiet. But trust is a huge part of the challenge that we face. It's a really, really massive challenge. And we've got to sort it out, you know, the institutions that our societies have built on a crumbling, and that's where the trust issues arising from. So we've got to regain trust in our societies. And we've got to not immediately distrust people. But the other thing is, when we vote people into power, we've got to support them. So we've got to stop sitting back and be passive participators in life, and we've got to be active participated in life, but we've got to get trust back. And it's going to be a common theme through everything that I talk about. But just for those who don't know me, I've spent three decades really tracking the climate crisis. But it was in 2018, when the IPCC released its report that year. And we've only just seen the other one really well, one last year and to this year. And I turned around to my husband and I said, it's time for me to go all in. Are you okay with that? I knew that the time was now that the crisis was real, that we were going to be in a lot of trouble. And I could see that nothing was being done. Nothing was being done to prepare us for that. My husband's an absolute legend, I tell you, it's not easy being married to me at the moment, especially. We've had a really hard year and I'll talk about that a little bit later on. But I just want to say thank you, Steve, for always having my back. You know, even today, I've got my two cups of tea. But anyway, for those of you who do not know me. Let me explain to you how I think and how I take onboard information because we all think in different ways. So for me to understand a story. I need to understand all of the different parts of the story before I can make sense of it. I can't do pieces I have to do the whole So therefore, I don't claim to be an expert on issues around the climate. And even though I go very, very deep on many issues around the climate, my focus is always about bringing all of the pieces together and trying to make sense of them. And I've been doing this for many, many years now. And I read everything, I go wide, I read, opposing points of view, I read people I don't agree with even though it can make me feel really uncomfortable reading it, but I do it anyway. Because I think it's important. I look for patterns in the information. And I look for ways to bring the threads of information together. And so that's basically how I go about things. And so what I'm going to be sharing in this series, called Climate courage, is my understanding of what that big picture story is like. And then I'm going to try and break it down into different pieces that make sense to all of us. I'm always happy to be called out if I get things wrong. I don't want to be wrong. In fact, when it comes to the climate crisis, I certainly don't want to be right. But I'm always happy to learn as long as it's done respectfully. So if you disagree with something, I want to talk to you about it. But if you're just going to abuse me, I got no time for that, alright. And that is my long COVID cough, which I thought I might be able to get away with that not anyway. The other thing that I'm going to be doing is really sharing my thinking, and plans for our family, for the future. So you can see it through that perspective as well. Like people often say to me, where should we move to? And from everything I'm reading, it's, we all need to get up north, right? But actually, that that's not necessarily the case. So and I'm still trying to work it out and still trying to put the pieces together. And our priority now Steve and I, it's not for us, it's for our boys, where can we get them in the world so that they can be safe and have a chance at a future. So that's the sort of thinking that we're doing at the moment. And, you know, a big part of the reason that we went to Europe for holidays was obviously to spend time with the family we hadn't seen for three years. But it was also to look at it through the eyes for our boys to look at it through the eyes. And ask the question, is this somewhere where we could live? So I'm just going to turn comments on, if you leave comment, but when the trolls Come on, I'm going to turn it off. Alright, so that sort of gives you I'll share those conclusions as I come to them. But there's nothing definitive yet. Okay. All right. So let's get stuck in so why did I decide to do this? No, I think that's important first sort of question to answer. I speak to 1000s of people both formally and informally, about the climate crisis. Often when people see me they want to talk to me about it, because I'm someone that they feel that they can talk to about it. My conclusions from all of these conversations is most people I know, especially this year, have moved into a place of deep fear, and worse, hopelessness. And that's what I'm really going to try and help with you is hopefully, move people beyond fear and hopelessness into action, because action is actually where, where it really, really matters. I think we have come to understand this year that we are a world in trouble. We are not here to save the Earth, the Earth will keep doing whatever she does. We are here to save our ability to live on Earth. And part of that is sustainable climate. And our climate has become unstable. And the ramifications for that are just mind blowing. So when you face it, you'll you'll understand. But just to give you an example. All Thank you darling and prayers here. Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay, so we're in trouble. So we're likely we're likely going to be passing six tipping points. When is soon. So this isn't 2100 this is soon. So here's the six tipping points that is being reported just in the last couple of weeks. The Greenland Ice Sheet collapse. This is estimated to mean a one foot increase in global sea level. The number two is the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapse. So this is the doomsday Glacia or Thwaites. Right, that's expected at minimum to increase global sea levels by 63 centimetres. Number three, the collapse of ocean circulation in the polar region of the North Atlantic. So I'm presuming this means a mock. And that will mean Ice Age temperatures in many parts of the world and considering my boys have British passports, that's one of the countries that's going to potentially be impacted by that. Coral Reef die offs in the low attitudes. And this, this is just, you know, we're seeing what's going on with the Great Barrier Reef. And when I see it here, when we go snorkelling in Thailand, the loss of ecosystems in the ocean will have a catastrophic impact on all of us. But especially the people who rely on this for their livelihoods and for their food. Number five, is a sudden thawing of permafrost in the northern regions. And we've seen this, we're seeing this escalate. And it's terribly, terribly frightening, because they're going to release a massive amount of methane, which could of course create more tipping points. And number six, abrupt sea or sea ice loss in the Barents Sea. Now, a lot of the countries like Russia are working out how they can get their ships through so they can get more oil moving back and forth, which will create more problems because they'll put these brown carbon onto the ice, which will create more more thorium. So anyway, it's not looking good. Alright, so this is on our doorstep, not 2100 2022 is definitely the year that the climate emergency freaked out everyone who was paying attention to it for a long time. For me, it started when the Antarctic and Antarctica hit 30 and 40 degrees above normal. And that happened on the same day. And that happened back in February, something that still hasn't been explained. But it's not a normal thing. Then the climate scientists and this is also back in February, March started saying we were not expecting what's happening in the environment to happen until 2050. So we are in the climate emergency now. Okay, so if you're not clear, then in Australia, there was one weather pattern that wasn't expected until 2080. This still such a strong mindset that this is a long way away. And a lot of the conversations that I have with people are about that just the other day I was on the beach, and I'm watching this new construction of this villa complex. And that beach will be underwater by 2030, which is basically just over seven years away, right. So you know, this is happening now. And I know, it's not a great thing to think about or face, but it is happening now. Around the World. This year, we've seen unbelievable weather crises. So China's 70 Day drought. And it's the longest and harshest ever recorded. And the ramifications from this are going to be huge, you know, the the amount of crops failed in China. So China's going to focus on feeding its people first, but it's also a provider of food to many, many other nations, especially around Asia. And those nations rely on China. So they've stopped growing their own food at the same scale. And, you know, so I can see some really terrible times coming for this region. And I live in Asia, and I'm very passionate about Asia and I want to help the people in this region survive this time. We've seen fire in heat domes across the US Europe, the Middle East, India, Pakistan, we heard wet bulb temperatures us for the first time in Iran. You know, and wet bulb temperatures are basically when it's too hot to leave and you can't sweat so and your and your organs cook and even healthy people suffer this famine is on the rise and it will get worse. You know, we've seen crop failures of 30% 50% 90%. And this is across all food groups rice, wheat, maize, tomatoes, olives, you name it. And the farmers are basically saying because we're in the same learning your patent for another year, they're saying they're not going to try and grow their crops again. So this year, we have supplies. Next year, we'll have less supplies, and we won't have any new supplies coming into the market. So three years down the track. What are we going to be looking at? You know, and when I hear the the global economists talking, I'm like what, this this this is happening, this pattern is happening. You know, we continue to chop down the trees, the Amazon is look like it's well and truly past its tipping point. We're consuming and polluting more than we've ever done. Rain everywhere on earth is full of forever chemicals. And that's unforgivable. Our rivers are full of pharmaceuticals. We're past six of the nine planetary boundaries. And those last three look like they'll be crossed soon. And of course, in Pakistan, we saw the largest body of water ever released on Earth. And that was because a glacial lake melted. There were 33 Other glacial lakes in Pakistan at risk. So we're in trouble. We're in a lot of trouble. We are in a climate emergency. And while the world's politicians just don't seem to be able to call it what it is, and you're gonna unify us around it. You know, a common cause to come together and overcome, so we can give our children the best chance possible. You know, we are here, it's happening now. And I know it's not comfortable to listen to. And I know that everyone would prefer to pay attention to the other stuff that's lighter. But what we do now matters, and every day that we wait, matters. So what can we do you and I, as average people? Well, this is the question I'm always asked. And I find the messaging around this always very, very, very confusing. So first of all, the media is a bloody shambles. When it comes to the climate crisis. There's some standout publications, and there's more and more media joining in the conversation. But they need to rethink their business model. And they need to rethink how they talk about the climate crisis. In America, they're protecting their audiences from the worst news, and they try to focus on on solutions, that's not going to cut it right. So the media is a big problem. But the vast majority of us know we have an issue. And the research is starting to say 80% of people like in America now actually believe that the climate is an issue. So they need to get the honest information on the day after Pakistan, when that when the glacial lake burst, there was no media coverage in the US on the day after I couldn't believe it. And emissions haven't stopped growing through all of this, we are well on the way to passing 1.5. That was agreed in Paris. When El Nino kicks off probably in a year's time, if linea in its third unusual years changes, we are definitely going to start to experience 1.5 and feel what that feels like before it's permanently embedded. We're on the way to 3.2. And you don't even want to imagine what that looks like. But right now we're going to look around the world. And this is the impact of what 1.2 looks like. So this is where we are now. So one of the conversations that goes on around the climate emergency is who's responsible. And I think we're all responsible. So we hear that 100 companies are responsible for all global emissions. And that's correct. But it's not at all it's not the whole story, or 10 finances, and I call them finances rather than banks, because one of them is a country. They they with their money, they can help this crisis. For us, we just need to recycle more and eat less meat, or get our carbon emissions trackers working as well, right. We don't have time for this anymore. So if we were doing this back in the 1970s, you know, that would have been great. But now it's not enough. And it's really time for all in let's come together, let's get the job done. Let's unify as a, as a global society and address this because it it's a global issue. But part of that is really accepting that. The reality is we are all responsible. So and this is moreso, for the for the wealthy people in the West. And even if you don't feel that you're wealthy within your country, in your society, you are still contributing. But it's also true for those with wealth in the developed world, who often live very, very extravagant lifestyle style. So it's the people with money who are making the impact, were the ones that have to come together and address this, those 100 companies would not be poised pushing out their poison, if it wasn't feeding our growing appetite for the life that we have built. So they can go away. But when they go away, we lose everything that we've got. So we've got to, we've got to work together to reduce everything. And this is from single use plastics to how we construct our homes when was talking about that Villa being built, and it's going to be washed away. So we're dealing with the emissions of that Villa now. And it's probably never going to ever be even lived in. So countries have to recognise what's going to be lost and they have to stop. What's been what's happening in those in those countries. That's never going to come to fruition. How we live, how we work, how we play, it all has to come into consideration the 10 finances, they wouldn't be putting the money in if they weren't making money in return. That's not how they work. They're there to make money. So we're all responsible. And until we understand that bit of the story, I don't think that we can overcome. We will not vote in leaders who will make the changes necessary. If that end will give us a fighting chance. If we don't come together, what we'll do instead is we'll we'll vote in these leaders who promise riches and growth and progress. But they can't deliver that. In a world that's crossing these climate tipping points. They can't They can tell you that they're going to deliver it, but they can't. So if we vote these people in power, who promises something they can't deliver, what's going to happen is, which is going to lose time. And we can't afford to lose any more time. Every day of inaction makes things worse every single day. So we need to build a global consensus, and we need to get moving. With or without those who can't see what is already before our eyes. What I think is our best possibility right now, is we need 1 billion people coming together, imperfectly changing that their way of living, voting, existing travelling everything. And we also influence the communities that we're a part of. And we work with those communities on the adaptations that are required to make sure that everybody is ready for what the scientists are telling us is coming. So we it is going to get worse. Like there's that's there's no question about that, right. But how worse that's up to us. But we need to come together as communities with or without our governments and get ready. Many are going to have to leave their homes. I already know some people who have left their homes, and they're going to have to migrate because we have already gone too far. But we need to get ready for that. And we have to make sacrifices to get there. And I know that people don't like that word I was interviewed for a podcast in America. And when I use the word sacrifice, the host said, well, we don't like that word in America. And I'm like, Yeah, okay. You know, it's not actually a bad word. But it is, there's no other word other than sacrifice. And I've been making these sacrifice sacrifices for a few years now. And actually, what I've found is, there's a lot of joy at the end of it. So when you start to recognise where you contribute negatively towards the environment, and then you start to change your behaviour, what you actually find is, you're more in tune with this earth that sustains us so, but that we do have to make sacrifices. On the other side, there is also grief. And it's not just the grief of facing the true scale of what we face. And that is definitely not an easy thing to walk through. But it's also the grief of what we have to give up. And I'm gonna give you two examples. One is tiny, and one's massive. So the first one is the small things. So I gave up balloons a few years ago, single use plastic, right? I can't see who's just posted from LinkedIn. But thank you brilliant messaging and appeal. Appreciate that. Yeah, it's an intense thing to do what I'm doing right now. But okay, so Christmas, if you grew up in a family with Christmas, we have Christmas crackers. And it's a big part of the Christmas table decoration. And it's, it's a it's something you do with the people you sit next to it's beautiful, right. But a few years ago, I had to say to friends that were coming, no, no crackers, because the waste from the crackers go straight to the bean. But it's those little plastic toys that come out, that sit in landfills for 500 years, 1000 years. But there was a sense of grief when I had to let go of that. So grief is part of the story. But the other side, the bigger side is at some point, I will need to move my boys somewhere in the world so that they have an opportunity for a life. It's on some level, and I don't know what that life's gonna be like for them. But I have family in Australia, and family in the UK. And if we get to the point of catastrophe, where it all breaks down, when we make that decision, I'm going to have to grieve the loss of the family on the other side of the world that I will no longer be able to say. So I that's the sort of grief that we're moving towards. To start with it's small group but down the line, we could potentially be moving to much greater grief and even loss from from climate crisis. So this is where we are. I am a mother. I am a parent. I am someone who's very, very passionate for the Asia Pacific region, as well as all the other parts of the world that I have visited in my years. It's been a great privilege of my life to travel and build friendships and connections with people from all cultures, all walks of life. And so I speak for them as well because they're the ones on the frontline of this crisis. And they're the ones who right now, it looks like the rest of the world will put the door put the walls up and say you can't come in even though it's not their fault what we're facing. But as a mother. I look my boys in the eye every single day and I tell them I will never stop fighting for them. I will never stop trying to give them every other child on this planet a chance at a future. Because I really, really, really believe that they deserve that. And I call on all the parents of the world to join me, because it's up to us, I really believe that our kids should be in school learning and developing skills that you know, for a future that we can actually guarantee them. And right now, we can't guarantee our children anything. And the kids should be saying, it's alright, the parents have got it, the adults have got it, they're going to sort this mess out, we can get on with learning. So we can we can be ready for our future, the children shouldn't be out on the streets protesting we should be, the children shouldn't be out acting, cleaning up beaches, we should be doing it. And I'm really, really believe that I'm really passionate about that. And you know, when I look at my boys education, my husband and I have so many conversations about it. But my priority for my boys education right now is to make sure that they can shoot, they can fight, and they know how to plant food, because that is where we are currently moving towards. And I want to make sure that I'm preparing my boys for whatever comes so that they're strong enough to be able to deal with it, I may not be with them, I may not be able to be strong enough to go with them. But I want to make sure that they that they're strong enough. I'm a realist. But I'm also an optimist. So that's why I'm sort of really practical about what I'm trying to get my kids to do. And I still have a lot of hope for the future. But I also listened to the Doom as to and if you haven't come across the term Doom is this group of people looking at the climate crisis, and they believe that we have gone too far. And I listened to them too. And they make a lot of sense. It's not looking good. It's looking good at all. But to me, what it means is that we've got no time to lose. Because this climate courage series that I'm doing, it's about you and I and what we can do in the mix of the biggest story, because I do believe that the only possibility is systemic change. But right now, I think the only chance of creating systemic change is through us. So I'm going to break climate coverage up into segments every couple of weeks. And I might do some podcasts on it as well. And really just sort of go into all the different areas. So and now, obviously, I don't know everything, and I don't pretend to know everything. So I'm going to be inviting in experts who can help not just teach me but hopefully teach you as well, some of the more complicated issues that that we need to understand if we if we want to understand the the crisis and what we need to do. But just to give you an idea of some of the topics that we're going to cover. So first is is where you're living safe. And if not, what can you do, and I'm really happy, my friend Kate Marsden is going to come and join me for that in two weeks. And she lost everything this year in the Queensland floods, and has been on a real roller coaster, and really suffered. And I think it's really important that we hear those stories so that we can understand, you know, that this is coming for all of us. I'm happy to to have anyone on who would love to share their experiences, who are at the forefront of these emergencies. We're going to talk about food, drought and famine, and what we should be doing as societies to get ready for that. I've got this sort of idea where I say we can't sustainability our way out of this crisis. Everywhere I look, we're replacing what we had with something new that sustainable. But the reality is, we're still just making stuff which takes energy, which creates pollution. So we're going to talk about that. I've I follow a Duma on Twitter that I really value I'm gonna see if I can get him to accept an invitation to join us how we dress and fast fashion, you know, it's not changing some of these fast fashion chains and make making more money than they've ever made. And I've got this amazing panel for that. We're going to talk about pets. Yep. This is an area that we're not really talking about, you know, pets eat a lot in the crowd, a lot of waste. So how can we do that? And I think insect protein will be the way forward for pet food. We're going to address the waste crisis and just get really honest about what we need to do. Just yesterday, I was in Phuket Town. And these these villages who live in these stilts, over over this marshland, and there's ocean currents coming in and out. And underneath where they live in these these beautiful children and babies there is just so much filth on waste. And I'm trying to work out how we can solve that. But we need to, we need to solve it on a much bigger scale globally, and the top 10 plastic producers in the world are not even remotely addressing this and we need to make them responsible. We need to raise our consciousness. So Carl Sagan in 1985 was speaking to an American sort of parliamentary whatever they call it, and he used the word consciousness which surprised me but I know a lot of people feel uncomfortable about races like that. But actually consciousness is a raising consciousness is actually a critical part of what we have to do. Dealing with doubt and having the confidence to speak up. And I know a lot of people aren't speaking up because they feel that they'll be mocked. Other people aren't speaking up because they want to protect the knowledge of what they know. And I think that's part of the mindset of the old world. I mean, we need an abundance mindset and the new world will be come together and share our knowledge so that we can make decisions together, pensions and money. This is obviously not an area that I'm an expert in, but I'm going to bring in some experts. And I think this is really important where people are saving their money based on an economic system that needs to become redundant. Or it will collapse when everything else collapses. So how are we going to make that transition. And it's a really talking about that, because I think that will be a really interesting conversation, the media, their role in this, especially with Rupert Murdoch, demographics, vote voting, and Boomers is another topic I want to cover. So in this last 12 months, millennials have finally equaled the boomers in voting power, which is a great thing. But I also want to talk to the boomers not in a negative way. I don't like that anti any generation sort of stuff that goes on, I think the boomers, a very large population that could make a massive contribution to the crisis that we're in. Going meatless our diet, I'm going to try and get George mom Bo to come and join us. But it's another topic. And there's many, many more, but another topic is what businesses need to go. You know, we're not having that conversation at all. Like, I've just never confused the tickle coming back. Like the fast moving consumer goods, companies, right? The massive, massive brands, they've got 100 shampoo brands, and they've all got different marketing teams, they've all got different advertising budgets. And what we need those companies to do is to shrink down to say two or three options. And we can go into a supermarket and refill those containers, you know, stuff like that, we need to massively scale down the businesses that serve our world and look at ways to solve the the emissions, the pollution, you know, and all those sort of crises. So, I hope that sounds interesting. But there's lots of other things to talk about. And, you know, my goal here is I just want to break it all down. And, and I'm going to understand more by going through this process as well. But you know, just help everyone understand what each of these pieces look like. Because I really, until we face this, until we acknowledged it, when we're just not going to be able to do what we do what we need to do. And we need to change everything, not just how we live. But I think we also need to change how we think even the words we use, you know, I was talking about sacrifice before, you know, the positive sort of psychology movement that sort of took off in America, and I think it was in the 80s, or the 90s. You know, and the so many of the mindsets that have been sort of popularised in the last sort of 2030 years, that people, people who embrace those ideas that kind of struggle with what's next. So we need to think about that. Alright, so here's what I'm talking about easy, it's definitely not easy. But you know, you know, one of the things that sort of really, really sort of annoys me, I suppose, or I don't know, I don't know what the word is for. But the reason that that people have no hope for the future, is because they don't believe that humanity has what it takes to transform for the future that we actually need to transform to, to that was a bad sentence, sorry. And, you know, when you look at what you how we handed, handled COVID, or the divisions in our societies, or the Western sort of me, me, me versus us, the collective versus the individual. You know, it makes sense to me, why people think that there is no hope. But I do have hope, because I think we are capable of doing it. We can come together and do this for our kids, we can, and we can surprise ourselves. And it's not going to be easy. And you know, just just the challenges that I'm trying to address. It can be totally overwhelming, but it doesn't mean that I won't keep trying. But in order for us to do this, we've got to stop being distracted by the bullshit, we really have to stop being distracted by the bullshit. And we really have to stop reacting to those who are fighting against this change. And we just have to move forward without them. They're still going to be there. They're still going to be carrying on. They're still going to be trying To create doubt, and all they're doing is delaying action. But But the other thing they do is they stop people having the courage to speak up. And we have to accept that they're there. They're gonna keep doing what they're doing. But maybe over time, they'll start to disappear, or they won't, but it doesn't matter. So, I like to think visually. So I'm a huge fan of Asterix. And when when Asterix and Obelix fight with the Romans, there's always a cartoon with, it's like a circle, and they're all in a tussle. And dogmatics is running around the side. When I think back to like the last five years, the best way I can describe it is, it's like an an asterix, tumble with the Romans in the middle, and we're all standing around watching the fire. And we're angry, and we're outraged. And what we need to do is we all need to turn away from the fight, look in the other direction and say, right, what are we going to do to create change, and let's come together. And let's create that change. So there you go. I like my Asterix. I need my visual metaphors. But I want to talk about another side, which has been a hard side, but I think it's an important thing to talk about. And that's the pain of 2022 for anyone who's paying attention to the climate crisis. And I follow a lot of people who talk about it, and especially a lot of the climate scientists who are crying, they've been crying for years, the media just talking about it now. You know, the protests that they're doing, what they're standing up, and what they're saying, and I admire them. But, you know, I'll give you my perspective, it's been an incredibly, incredibly tough year. It's the toughest year I've ever faced. When I left for holiday, at the end of June, I felt spiritually exhausted. And when I came back, I actually realised and I said it to my husband, and he wasn't very happy to hear this. I feel like the impact of what's going on is actually reduced some of my life force. And I know that's a deep thing to say, right? But I want to be really open and honest here. Because I think it's important. You know, when I went on holidays, everyone said, Oh, my God, you, you did so much. And I said I had to, I needed to move on, I couldn't stop because I was trying to escape my mind. I needed a break. Because it was having such a big impact on me, it was taking so much away. And I've been thinking about, you know, what is it? What is it that's having such a big impact. And the first thing is, we live we live in this world where it's a duality. So there's the people who are paying attention to this crisis, hurtling towards us. It's such a vicious spade now. And we know what this looks like, we know what this pain looks like, and it's gonna get worse and worse. Thank you, Abby, nice to have you here. But then on the other side, we've got this business as usual approach. And it's so hard to live in the world when you're, you see this, and then everybody else is living this. And that's a really challenging thing. And, you know, you listen to the government leaders, and they don't know how to talk about this. They don't know how to, you know, they're still using language, you know, they're still talking to the boomer generation, because they've been the biggest and most dominant voting demographic for for decades. So they're still talking to them, which means that young people are feeling like there's no hope. But it's like, they don't even know how to talk about it anymore. But recently Macron said, The Age of abundance is over. And that was a really interesting moment, to hear a world leader say that, because the End of Abundance is over. And if we can come to terms with that truth, I think we'll already be a lot further ahead than other people. But you know, the other thing was, I did a podcast, I think, was back in June, where I was talking about my second bout of eco anxiety, which really, really amazed me, I didn't see you could have it more than once I thought, you know, you go through it once, and you come back swinging, right. And a lot of people haven't even stepped into their first stage of eco anxiety. And if you ever struggle with it, and you know me, please reach out, and I'll help you with it. It's a very difficult thing to go through. But it is part of the journey towards acceptance. And once because you can get through it. And then it's actually out the other side. And I'll talk, I'm happy to talk to anyone about it. But actually, I realised that I wasn't going through a second bout of eco anxiety. It was about the fact that nothing is changing. Like literally nothing is changing. You know, I read an article in the Financial Times just the other day, and they've got this really optimistic piece. And this is a publication very late to the climate game, that there's so much more action going on. There's so much and I'm like, wow. It's I love your optimism but really, in 1970 What we're doing now would have mattered we You have to do so, so, so much more. And we're making so many mistakes right now. Replacing, you know, we don't, yes, if you're going to get a car, get an electric vehicle. But if everyone who's got a car got an electric vehicle, seven years to cut their emissions out, we've got two years to really get this under control. We haven't got time for that. So we need to transform everything. But the other thing is, of course, everyone is hanging on to this life, because we love it. And of course, we love it, I love it. But that time has to be over, you know, maybe, maybe if everyone just said, right, we're going to, we're going to faces but between now and the end of the year, I'm just going to enjoy my life, I'm going to travel without guilt, I'm going to eat red meat, red meat without guilt, and I'm, you know, I'm just going to have a really good time, great 2023, let's get to work. That's the point we're at. And we need a billion people coming together and doing it together. You know. So, changing home, once you start, it's a process anyway, you know, every change that you make will open up another door to another change. So you've got to be ready for a long haul sort of process. And I'm going to keep sharing what I do to make changes at home. And I really want to encourage everyone out there. That what whatever change you're making, share it publicly, don't keep it to yourself, have the confidence to speak up, the small tips matter? You know, we all need to be speaking up and speaking about it. And please, can we just come to accept that the time is now the time is now. And I know, everybody's been waiting for the time. But it's now I promise you it's now facing the climate crisis is not a nice thing to face. It's a terrible, terrible thing to face. But if we don't get our heads around this, we are going to continue heading towards a dystopian future. Or think of it as a Mad Max future where it's everyone for themselves. But we don't have to do it that way. We really don't. And people can say, oh, it's naive. It's idealistic. Yeah, maybe, maybe. But why would any of us want to go towards that, you know, we just war over water? No, we don't, we don't have to go that direction. So who we are in the world, how we participate in the world, how we live in the world, how we influence others in the world, and then how we vote, how we shop, you know, all of it, it all matters, I believe that we are the change that we've been looking for. And we need to step up and step into this role. It's our greatest chance now. In fact, I think it's the only chance we've got. So we can do this. But we have to face it square on. And we can start building the infrastructure that we need or adapting the the infrastructure that we've already got to take care of the people that are going to have to migrate because of climate change, we must start investing in the countries on this front line of climate change. And we must invest in the infrastructure to help them to live in those countries in a way where they're not everyone's going to thrive in the future, especially until you know that I don't think we'll ever be really thriving again. We might, we might get lucky. But these feedback loops, they're pretty intense. So but we need to help people stay where they are, you know, invest in that infrastructure. Because if people get on the move, and they start migrating around the world, then we've got a whole other issue to deal with. And you know, that mindset of putting up walls and keeping people out and I don't want to live in a world like that. Do you want to live in a world like that? I don't want to put my children in a place where they're safe and protected at the expense of other people. I don't want to live in a world like that. And I think that's part of my life was comment earlier to you know, where we're going. It's, it's a terrible place for us, for all of us. You know, so we can get ourselves and our families ready and our communities ready, we can step up. We can we can do so. So so much. But we've got to face it. And I know a lot of people don't want to face it. And I know it's I know it sucks. By the way, it really sucks. But we're on this course now. And we've got to come together and work out how to solve it. And everyone needs to get on board. Let's keep our kids at school. Let's keep them learning and let's come together and solve these crisis. If you're not working, spend your time working out how you can contribute to this crisis. I basically haven't had any money for a few years because I've been focused on this because I believe in it so much. And I'll never stop fighting I won't. So there we are. Will you be one of the 1 billion people that change imperfectly and help direct this world where it needs to go? I hope so. Come and join me every couple of weeks. Like I said, I might do a couple of podcasts in between. But let's do it. Let's do it for our kids. They really deserve it. And the people on the frontline who've done who've done the least to contribute to the climate emergency. They don't deserve it either. So let's do it. Let's humanity. Let's bring it back into the centre of how we live our lives. All right. Thank you for joining me. Sorry. I'm seeing a couple of comments coming through. I can't see everybody's name. But I, I appreciate you being here. And I will be back with more and with lots of guests and let's solve this problem. We can do it. But we got to believe we can do it and stop. Please stop feeling hopeless. We can solve this. All right. I'm turning it off now. talked enough.