The Know Show - theme: achieving consensus, with Joanne Flinn

Welcome to The Know Show. Join Andrea T Edwards, Joe Augustin and Tim wade, as we review the news that’s getting everyone’s attention each week, as well as perhaps what requires our attention. 

This week we will be discussing the theme – achieving consensus. Whether for Covid or the climate crisis, working harder to achieve consensus in our communities and across the globe is critical if we are to overcome the challenges we all face. 

How do we achieve it? How can we all work together to reduce the divisions that do not serve any of us?

Our special guest this week is Joanne Flinn, The Strategic Sustainability Specialist – who we expect to be a regular. 

The Know Show is based on Andrea T Edwards Weekend Reads, which you can find every week at andreatedwards.com. This weekly blog covers the climate crisis, Covid 19, topical moments in the world, global politics, business, social issues and passion/humor/history. The goal of The Weekend Reads is to help everyone navigate information overwhelm and manage the onslaught we’re all facing. 

#TheKnowShow #GlobalNews #UncommonCourage 

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

This is an AI transcript and will have typos galore!! 

We are live. Well, welcome to the no show. My name is Andrea Edwards.
Your next line is Tim's Hello, Tim. Hey, I'm Tim Wade, and welcome to the show that hardly knows no, actually the show they're trying very hard to help you to keep you in the know. And this week, we've got a very special guest. She is a strategic sustainability specialist. She's also a very good friend of the team. Please welcome Joanne Flynn.
Hello. I get to be in the know with a no show.
Yeah. Would you? Would you want to let people who don't know you yet? A bit more about yourself?
Oh, okay. So I'm an eclectic human being who's lived in Asia since I was 12. I lived on five continents before I got to the Philippines. And I am completely only focused on how we can make the changes in the world. So it's one that each one of us who's listening and alive now would like to be alive in in a decade. and sustainability. Oh, yes. And I have a right brain. That's a huge artist as well. So occasionally, you get that perspective showing up. She's got a lot of things in that one. There you go, Andrea.
Well, no, it's true. I've known I've known you for a long time, you are one of the unusual, left and right brain people. We need more of you in the world.
We also have the we also so I'm getting introduce Andrew because we didn't really introduce Andrew. But Andrea, is Andrew T. Edwards is the is. Well, I guess you're the curator of these weekly summaries and the one that that reads the news and is passionate about it, and is the one that's running and hosting the no show. Andrea, welcome to your own show.
So yeah, I know I'm a bit annoying in my pursuit of knowledge. But anyway, someone's got to do it right. And I love the opportunity to share it. And this week. There's a lot going on. So should we get stuck into what's going on in the news this week? You guys ready? I'll do a summary. So there's when it's the news that really struck a chord this week, there's two big stories that I think are important. The first is Afghanistan continues to be in the week in the news. But as we're seeing it's it's sharing front page with Hurricane Ida. But let's start with Afghanistan, because I do think it will start to diminish in people's minds. I don't think it should stop attracting our attention. But we know how the news cycle works. So obviously, as the time has gone on, there's been lots and lots of commentary on women's and girls rights in Afghanistan. But this week, the Taliban came out and said that girls will be able to get an education, but it needs to be separate to the boys. Time also, there's been many, many, many heartbreaking stories from from women who've left everything behind as they escaped. And they're mourning for their country. They're mourning from everything that was lost in the progress that was made. But of course, for those who didn't leave, there's also stories that are coming out, which I think also require our attention. This, you know, you can't even imagine what it's like for them to be hiding in fear for their lives for their future. You know, they can't pursue their skills, they can't do their profession. And of course, let's not forget those who were left behind at the airport. Often people who had the right to get out that they just didn't make it. One of the examples of a female leaving Afghanistan was the female journalists to interview the Taliban in the first week. Do you guys remember that interview? Yeah, yeah. So that was held up as a moment of hope. Or she's fled the country, obviously in fear of life. But there's some beautiful news in the mix. So when I shared it, it got the most interactions on social media of everything I shared, a group of United world college students came together and rescued a classmate, a young lady who's part of a minority in Afghanistan, who's been fighting for women's rights. They used all of their networks they used they were relentless, and they got this young lady out. And to me, it's just a real sign of, you know, hope for the future, what young people are capable of doing. And my boys go to UW say, and it's really a core part of what the education is all about. So I was really impressed with that. an outrage story that broke this week was a plane left with rescue dogs and cats on board, as well as the man who was running the shelter. The people working in the shelter did not make it out. And the message was, it was a brilliant British guy. The message was the Britain cares more about animals than it does about humans. The business of war in tissues to get attention as the week's Go on, you know, the billion trillion dollar profits of the Raytheon's and Boeing military divisions. But then we did hear Biden say, this is the end of nation building wars for America. See money's gonna tell that story in the future. Biden's continued to get a shellacking on the world stage, just over the handling of the evacuation. But as we saw the last soldier leave, and the Taliban, celebrating at a ruined airport in Kabul, or we can do is hope for the future of the people of Afghanistan. But it's not looking good, not just from a Taliban perspective. for Afghanistan, and many, many other countries, they are facing a bleak future because of the combined forces of war and climate change. In my weekend reads, tomorrow, look out for a headline, a new breed of crisis, war and warming collide in Afghanistan. This is a story that goes beyond Afghanistan. But I think it's something that all of us should be paying attention to. Because as Kevin said last week, people who are hungry start to migrate. And we are facing a humanitarian crisis that is going to overwhelm the world. So that's what I've been reading up on Afghanistan, anything you guys have been picking up to overwhelm the world. So that's what I know. We're hearing that music. Yes, sorry. Yeah. Well,
I just say hi to Philippa, Philippa, who's joined us on on Facebook and also Amanda. So Philippa Edwards and Amanda Kelly, thanks very much for being on on Facebook right now. Let's sister All right. What about you guys?
And I noticed that Lex is also proud of you. Yeah, a little sweat, Lexi.
I was I was tuning into the commentaries around what was happening in Afghanistan, and the signal that it was allegedly sending the rest of the world man American power and how much you could rely on America as a partner, in terms of staying there for the long haul and all that kind of stuff. I don't know how I happened upon it. But it was this really harsh comment data on Sky News, Australia. And I thought, yeah, no, I just thought Fox had all the I thought they had the monopoly on the on the the Mad commentators, but I think they seem to spread them around. But yeah, no, they were,
you know, it's the same same owners, right. medaka in Sky News, too. So it's a, and it's that Republicans trying to dig and blame the democrats for the war that the republicans started. So I'm not surprised to hear that at all. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But it's still it's still Murdoch, right.
Yeah. There's lots of criticism about about about Biden, and the signal is sending about American power and the the in and the signal that is sending out in terms of the decline of American power. And I think they were things they did mention, which was quite interesting. I didn't know I didn't have time to go and dig deeper into that. But they were talking about how China is engaging the Taliban. Yeah, but that was a on one hand, you could tell is really, really biased. But they on the other side of that, as well as just curious about, you know, what, what, what real, what real change, life change looks like, as they're moving forward there. You know, what, what is the future going to be like?
Yeah, well, I think that the China, Russia, Pakistan, friends to the Taliban, I mean, it's a good thing. From a humanitarian perspective, at least we know, that vaccines can get into into Afghanistan through those, especially through China and Russia, they both got their own, and potentially food aid, which is going to be critical. But you know, it doesn't a lot of the commentary and other news commentary, it's so short, so short, in its focus, if you look at the arc of history, America is not going anywhere for a while they've got some credibility to get back. I think, you know, bone, Biden is going to be a builder of relationships around the globe, there's no question that he's going to do that. He's not Trump. So you know, the Europeans don't like him very much at the moment, but though, they'll get back on track, but yeah, Sky News is definitely an interesting channel to watch. And what what are your thoughts on the the news of around Afghanistan? Well,
it's just really weird. It reminds me of the comment, commentary that when I was when I was I did my high school in the Philippines, so which is not far off from Vietnam. And it was pretty much the the tail end of the period and that the history writing of what happened in Vietnam and how America had failed. And it's the same narrative that's going on now. Just a different country, a different set of things that have happened that, you know, history will have its own view on sets of tragedies within the country sacrifices by people who went in and feel like that what they've done, you know, is for naught. I'm hearing of soldiers in America committing suicide feeling that their time was wasted. But equally, you know, Afghanistan in the same way that Vietnam is now bearing the who do we become now after? And yet, if we look at now, you know, 2030 years old, you know, Vietnam is a thriving country, yes, is operating from a different value system than some other countries. But you know, there are millions of people there, they're doing, okay. And then to your point of history, if we take an even bigger arc on I mean, the British Empire kind of ended up learning that you can't hold a nation hostage if the nation doesn't want to be in the game.
Yeah, interfering with other countries, you know, for your own ideals. I think, you know, those those, those times, should have been over a long time ago. But we don't seem to be very good at learning our lessons. So moving on to a hurricane either, I don't know if you guys were gripped by this, I went to bed on Sunday night, quite afraid of what I was going to wake up to. Katrina really, really had a big impact on me and the way that that played out. But Sunday was also the 16th anniversary of Katrina. So obviously, the emotions are running very deep in New Orleans. And in Louisiana. When I woke up the next morning, I was happy to say that the levees didn't break. So we weren't facing the scale of destruction that we saw 16 years ago. But obviously more than a million customers in Louisiana and 100,000. And Mississippi, we're out of electricity. This matters because like hospitals were out of electricity. mold, mold is a huge issue. And when we were talking about fantastic fungi last week, within 48 hours, it becomes uncontrollable. So it really has an impact. We're still not sure of the number of deaths since it made where it made landfall. But right now, we know that 44 people have died in America across America. Because the storm has has surprised everybody. Did you see the New York City subway flooding? Yeah, I mean, it also had the tornadoes in places that I just didn't even think tornadoes hit. So the destruction, we won't know for a while the death toll is expected to rise. But one of the pieces of news that really stunned me was the meteorologists were absolutely sideswiped by this, they had no idea that this was this water was coming and that it was going to have such such a big impact. So why did it happen? Why was it so bad? Well, climate climate change, there's an article I'm sharing where they send these to take this technology to, like 150 feet into the ocean and measure the temperature, and we have a warmer ocean. And when when the oceans warmer, the Hurricanes bigger, they last longer, and they dumped more water. Is this the moment that America wakes up? Because of course, this isn't the only climate catastrophe happening on American soil right now. What else did you guys where you guys paying attention to what's been going on with either
go? I was very surprised by the maybe. I mean, of course, I mean, I'm not a meteorologist. But I was surprised by the scale at which a storm could sweep from the lower left the western nice, southeastern part, southwestern part and make its way through the mainland and across to the right in New York. Yeah. And that that aspect of it, which was really surprising for me was how much moisture was in that storm, because it held, it held enough moisture to dump on everywhere else. And we're at the tail end of that trip, you know, as it hadn't come off the sea. So that was a really crazy thing. Getting the estimate, it was at the at the start of storm, it was like 12 to 15 inches of rain. And even at the end, it was about five inches, which is a crazy amount.
Yeah, that was pretty shocking. And we've had a lot of lot of rainfall at nature as well. I know Singapore has been experiencing some flooding and unexpected rainfall, right? It's, the world is going mad, right?
So here's a weird little factoid that came across one of my faves in the last week was that with the level of warming that's going on the atmosphere can hold 7% more water. And that's just that, you know, the current one and I'm looking at the rains that we're seeing at the moment and going well, if we can get like a month's worth of rain in like an hour and a half and Singapore was yesterday morning. water reservoirs are full. And what we're seeing, you know, an either and then other floods that have been earlier on this year, but a balanced off I hate to use the word balances. It's not the right word. But then other places no water rising so that the droughts in the destination that's happening elsewhere. So the amount of water on the planet is the same, but it's just going really different places. Am I really looking volumes. Yeah, that's massive.
Yeah, we're in and we're experiencing a global drought. So yeah, you're right. It's that that's that there's nope no new water is created. And so it's always the same amount of water just where it where it ends up. And, and well, we're starting to see the beginnings of what that looks like, right? And still countries are saying we won't make any changes, we'll get to net neutral by until 2015 2016. I mean, what does that look like? Oh, Who's 2017?
Well, there's a bunch that haven't really declared that kind of going. We'll do. We'll try that. We'll try 2070. Yeah. We'll do it. Yeah,
we're not gonna do anything. Somebody else will do it, maybe in 2017.
And that's what the government's have been saying. Right? Right. all the way along, right. As already getting air already getting hot. She's already good news at the moment. So, okay, what's next? All right, the climate crisis, what's new? Okay, so we've talked about hurricane either and why it's as bad as it is. But the US is also dealing with two mega fires on the west coast. So on the East Coast, they've got rain. On the south, they've got they've got obviously rain and hurricanes. But on the on the west coast, they've got fire. So we've got the Dixie fire and the cold or fire. I don't know if you guys have been paying attention. A Colorado has been more than 200,000 acres. And it's currently impacting like dark Tahoe. And Dixie has burned more than 800,000 acres. But don't worry, the Biden administration has announced plans this week to open 18 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas exploration. That makes sense, doesn't it? It's not a choice. It is about complying with a court order requiring it to resume lease options. We can't make money being might not get that message in time.
That's going to be an interesting one, just from a point of view how the bidding for those leases will go. Hmm. Because I would like one of the big, you know, massive pieces on this. This whole one is the you know, carbon pricing con conversations that are going on and some of the numbers on that one slide. We're not talking $10 or $3. They're talking hundreds of dollars. Yeah. Which kind of changes the economics of some of these sorts of things.
And when are we going to get to the point where we just say that's it no more new new new refineries, no more new digging, no more new, we just say if we're going to get into the fossil fuel era, then we need to start making the steps rather than continuing as with always continued.
Some countries have actually done this. I was talking to the ambassador from Chile. And what ended June no July, so about six weeks ago, and chilies made that commitment. They're actively decommissioning fossil fuel power stations and strongly building their renewable energies. It turns out, you know, Chile, who's You know, this long, skinny country, up and down the coast is in a weird position of having the world's driest desert at one end, whichever data has got an awful lot of sunshine and can literally basically do 24 hours stability. Evidently, they've got some tech that will allow 24 hour power generated out of this, which are just mind blowing, from what I understand a solar power. So I'm like, wow, this is a cracker. And then down south Patagonia is where all which is absolutely, you know, beautiful. but evidently, is the center of winds, all the winds that are running around through there? And so they basically got these two things. They just go and like, renewable energy is us. Come? Yeah, might be Australia could learn from that. Yeah, I didn't ask our Australian Ambassador about that. And he is, he had an interesting opinion. Actually. He was incredibly diplomatic. Actually, it was very political, because in fact, he's a former politician. He comes from my, my home state Tasmania. And he was actually the premier of Tasmania when Tasmania went netzero. Okay, so what does main is hydro powered? Yeah. So it's kind of, you know, got there earlier. Which, you know, was the big challenge is people making the commitment to different forms of energy and just saying, okay, you know, As tempting as coal is, or to use the dietary thing, yeah, it's like sugar. It's like sugar is great stuff, except to eat too much. It's really bad for you.
But Australia is the double issue of becoming, using becoming a country that uses renewable but also a country that stops shipping out the bad stuff to other countries where, you know, where they're contributing to the crisis. So it's the double side, building an economy that's resilient, right beyond the beyond call.
As long as you're, as long as you're on the supply side of the fossil fuel industry at all, it's a lot easier for you to say, I'm going to change the way I do things. It's easier to make a large commitment because you're not you're not taking a fundamental, you know, peg or keg in your economy and taking it out of the equation. So that's the that's that's the challenge that I think politicians, especially when they're entrenched in these kind of situations how they're going to make that move. I think it's very interesting for me to see what China's going to do in this regard, because I think they they rely quite a bit on coal. And I think it's the own coal as well. And how they're going to move away from from this because I think they've, they've shown signs as well as going into green energy. But whether it's green energy, because it's a highly exportable kind of technology that the rest of the world wants, or it's something that they themselves, are really going to go for as well.
China's China's a complete contradiction, they've got some of the most highly advanced renewable technology in the world, but they're growing so quickly in their population, so massive, that, you know, they, they have to still use these bad technologies like coal and steel and everything else, which is part of the reason Australia has been a wealthy country for a long time, because China needs what's in its ground, right. But China is definitely a big part of the challenge of doing what the world needs to do moving forward. So yeah, another report that's been released this week, which I think you guys will find interesting is apparent, apparently, US residents, but I think this would apply probably to many parts of the world struggle to understand the terms that are being used in the international reports describing climate change, and believe that it needs to be done more simply. So a message to anyone that's talking about the climate crisis, if you want to get people to understand you've got to look at the language that you're using. So here's just one example. Rather than saying tipping point, it's better to say it's too late to fix anything. So that's it's a really good report. It's kind of it's kind of a bit tongue in cheek, but I think it's an it's an important message that if we're going to, we're going to communicate successfully about the challenges that we face. And we need to be able to do it in the language to reach the most people. Some other news.
Andrea, can I just jump on? I got to totally agree with that. Because even just talking about carbon, negative carbon neutral, carbon positive, other than carbon neutral, what what are the other two really mean? And from whose perspective, which is why I always say climate positive? Let's just talk about climate. Paul, what's positive for the climate? What's climate positive. So I'm going to take these actions in my business to do X, Y, and Zed to make it climate positive, rather than carbon negative carbon positive carbon neutral, carbon, something or other. And, and because it does depend on who you're talking to. I mean, that one I love I love redefining tipping point, as it's too late to do anything. I mean, I don't love the fact that that's what's happened. But, but, but that does make that does make sense. The other thing about the climate side from from all the fires, is, you know, one of my solutions has always been planting more trees. But because of the sequestering nature of, obviously, the treats, but if the fires are going to increase, then do we need a plan B for trees? If If everything that they sequester just gonna be put back up there when they burn, and it sounds like a burning is gonna increase more than decrease? at this, this point is things are getting cooked, unless we're deciding where to do it. So yeah, you know, maybe we just need to plant more seaweed or something.
Well, we need to look, we need to look at all the different types of trees and, you know, the stuff that sequesters because trees take 20 years to grow big enough to actually sequester but there's, there was a story I read a few months ago where trees are already starting to migrate, they're already moving. And most people would look at a tree as a stationary thing, but they're actually moving. They've got evidence. They're moving up hills, they're moving up north, the trees that look like they've got no chance of surviving this crisis. So we're already starting to go extinct. Like, you know, the redwoods in California. They're really big, big, big trees. So there's a lot going on, but then the tropics, why stop chopping down stuff in the tropics, right? Keep the trees where they are in the places that aren't burning, which potentially could help right?
I've got a very last image in my mind of trees moving as soon as they as they realize people are not looking at them they like pick up the bags.
Like Macbeth, I mean Shakespeare had it already was the first movie and of course the Lord of the Rings where the trees are moving. Yeah.
Andrew on that one about language because Tim some of the pieces on the trees. As sections are properly reefers they start creating water catchment and more. You know that more virtuous cycle but it does take time and a decent scale is not putting three trees in the backyard. But some will show it's a bigger, bigger question there. But throw your comment about the wording. I also realized this other thing around sustain, we like to talk about sustainability and climate, you know, the part of the piece that I realize is, it's so dull, it takes me it takes me back to, like, you know, you know, the boring goody two shoes who said, you know, you know, you don't love to do this, you're not allowed to do that. And so for a point of view of, like, what's exciting to go forward with that there's also a bundle of the way it's being described in languages is give up last let go of like diminish your life. In that, you know, I would like to think there are other narratives and ways that achieve the same outcome. But how somewhat more zing.
Yeah, and this the climate, the climate scientists have acknowledged that they're not the greatest storytellers on Earth, right, and that they've got a job to do. But we've, we've got a job to do to help them and I think, you know, everyone who cares about it needs to start sort of speaking up and sharing stories and, and doing it in a way that their communities going to understand. And then we've got an opportunity, right, but just going back to the the rest of the stuff going on. So obviously either. There's a whole bunch of oil slicks out in the Gulf of Mexico, Mexico after it, Madagascar is on the brink of climate induced famine. And that's just an official that's kind of like genocide, it has to hit a point before we can get the word famine. They're already in famine, and people are eating crickets. So I definitely encourage you, it's not an easy story to read. But it's an important story to read to understand what's going on the pandemic This is good news is accelerating the decline and fall of the fossil fuel industry. Obviously, the only way that this is going to continue is if the government stopped propping them up, which is not happening. There's a hot blob of New Zealand's I don't know if you guys have heard about the hot blob, it's the size of Australia, a hot blob is a is a is a part of the ocean that's hotter than the rest of the ocean. So a lot of a lot of the fish that in that area, they can't be in that water, but it's actually contributing to the drought in South America. Singapore, apparently they've just said, report, most of Singaporeans believe that it's inconvenient to take action on climate change. But there's some good news. Some research have rediscovered a type of coffee that can thrive in a warmer world. So at least as we look to the future and the smoky skies and the droughts, we can have a cup of coffee. But Michael Mann, who is one of my favorite climate scientists says that the climate crisis will not make humans go extinct. Because that's that's a narrative that a lot of people share. But I think we can all agree that it's definitely going to reduce our ranks significantly. And we better hope we're in the right part of the world when that happens. So that's the main things going on in the climate this week. Anything else you guys have picked up on?
No, I'm just great. I'm just glad that you have all that, you know, for anyone who's looking for good news, and a good feel good feeling we just got here in here, Ryan go recharged.
Depending on how you want to look at this one, this is good news. So for anybody who is a works with businesses, and works with organizations in terms of culture, and performance and change, anyone who's a strategy consultant, anybody who's into storytelling, so there's quite quite a number of people, hopefully, who are actually listening, this is good news. Because what we've just identified is a there's a real gap in the stories and the narrative that helps people engage connected to be excited. And secondly, for anybody here, who happens to be a financial type persons, you know, accountants, that kind of that kind of one sitting on any boards and things like that. It's super exciting. You get to refresh your business strategy, because of the sustainable accounting standards boards, which is going to be picked up by interest, which is the international finance Standards Board, who sets the old financial reporting rules, has gone awesome possums and issued a report that's gone and set as a 77 Industries out there only eight are not affected by climate risk. And everyone has a financial impact. So guys, there's a lot of business. Oh, how you want to look at it?
Yeah, lawyers as well. Well, a lot. A lot of work there. Yeah, no, there is opportunity. But you know, I know it's not good news, Joe. I know, it's, it's overwhelming. It's frightening. But until we recognize it and say, Okay, we have a problem. We need to solve it. We're not going to solve it. And that's one of the reasons I wanted to do the no show, just to give people just just a chance to hear what's happening every week. And like, if you think about it, we've been doing this for three weeks, every week. There's new climate crisis information. And this I've been reading this for years now. And I want people to start paying attention because if they do, then they can understand that we need to act and there is hope. That Time's running out. We've got a decade to get this sorted or or we you know, we're in trouble. We're already in trouble. But it's going to be a lot worse. So it's not it's not all bad. Dude. There is hope that hasn't gone yet. Well, the challenge really
is it's much like I've and I know it's a may not be the most cogent idea But I was thinking about how this is really like someone back in the, in the 80s, or 90s, who was a real fan of this company that was doing things a little bit different. And, you know, they were, they were always a minority, but they, they, they had some nice values to them. And and when you had that friend in your room who was always talking about this particular company will be irritating. And they'll always be trying to promote this. But it got to a point where people began to know what Apple was, and kind of enjoyed the products that they came up with, you know, and I think and I think this whole thing about doing the right thing with the environment, it's a little bit like that, that, you know, we have to kind of empower the people to be a little bit irritating at this particular point, I think we've got to take away the need to be nice. The, the allow people to be able to, or empower people so that they know how to communicate stuff in a way where, you know, you can't really argue with it. You know, I think when you when you do things, and when you when you when you use words that that don't quite get to the point and say exactly what's happening, then you you don't you don't, you don't really have to pay attention. So we need to try and figure out how to get this message out in a way that gets attention live without the, you know, like, you know, a while those of themselves it's about something about, you know, as does it as well as it is right now, I think what we're looking for is actually a better way to do it. We really, really need to do it better than the way it's done right now. Because obviously, it's not working. As we're doing it right now. It's not getting enough attention. It's not getting other people's attention. It's not it also has to be sticky so that people can pass on the word somebody else.
Yeah, checking the weather, john Vinson, Gordon. You're right. It is blue sky day today. But the weather has been pretty bad here. In Singapore. It's been massive. Yeah, there has been flooding. My my question, Joe, I mean, with regards to getting to getting the message to people, even with regard even with all of this, I mean, clearly everybody here is on the same page. But what about those people are still in denial about climate change? What about? What about Can I show you something that I produced a couple of years ago, this this, this will only take a couple of couple little while? Not Not that long. But it's a nice. It's it's an argument that I came up with, to say it actually doesn't matter about climate change. It's about taking action. Whether you believe climate change is real or not. It's about taking action. And my my presentation at the time was about offsetting your flying, which of course, is irrelevant now, because we're not flying anywhere. But
all my fights this year, Tim?
Yeah, yeah, I've Well, actually, yeah, you've offset the ball by doing nothing. So everybody's great. Everybody's actually taken action on that, which must have been my presentation. Possibly, I caused COVID. So but the but so what, what? So he he was my, my argument, what about the elephant in the room? And the big elephant in the room is where and that was my step seven of this particular the elephant elimination, which sounds a little bit dreadful, but it's not really what I meant. And I wonder why. Yeah, what if climate change is fake. And so I had Exhibit A, which you mentioned the other time, Andrew, about Singapore Prime Minister, at least in long, this is a couple, this is the National Day rally back in 2019. He was talking about climate change to the whole nation. And he was saying we need to understand it, we need to mitigate it, we need to adapt to it. And he was talking about $100 billion required to build a seawall that they had investigated. they'd gone to the Netherlands to understand how they'd protected low lying areas from rising sea levels. And that we might have to do that in low lying countries as well like Singapore, which is in a position, unlike a lot of other low lying countries where they can, it can generate the funds to be able to build this sort of thing. So it was important, I did a comment at the time that in that pink area on screen on the map part of the screen, not the shirt. The the pink area of the screen was the east coast of Singapore, which is exactly where I used to live. But now I've moved to the middle of that what is the pink me? Oh, that's the area that's going to be flooded. Oh, Jesus, if so, so if the sea levels rise by one meter, and you have a storm, so usually when you have a storm, it goes up another meter. But so that means it's two meters up from where it is now. So if it goes up a meter, for example, all of those areas are going to be flooded and a whole bunch of places I think was a major. Oh, a bunch of places is going to have a disaster, which is why all the mrts have got stairs going up before you go down, which I always thought was stupid, but now I think it's pretty It's it's to keep the floodwaters out of the underground railway stations, which make a lot of sense. Anyway, so the idea was to build this huge wall a seawall and in front of East Coast to protect it, which I think about good reclaiming land, it might secretly be an excuse just to reclaim some more land. But, but I think it's pretty good idea. Except, of course, if you have beachfront property, which won't be beachfront anymore, because I'll be a thing in front of you. Anyway, the going back to this. So he did say we need to understand it, we need to mitigate it. And we need to adapt to it. And the reason we need to understand it and do something about it, even though we're Singapore. And what we do is not going to make a scrap of difference to the rest of the if the rest of the world isn't doing anything, is so that if we understand that they've taken action to mitigate it, we can tell others what we did, we can show them what we're doing, we can export our knowledge, we can actually lead by example, we can be talking from a position of authority in what we've done to those people who are yet to, to do it, for example, but it's still not addressing the elephant in the room. At the time, I was just saying that the governments are talking about, and I had people in the audience I was speaking to who were like nah. And so then I had exhibit C, Exhibit B, and Exhibit B was was simply a global temperature change from 1850 to 2018. That's not really doing anything. It's supposed to be doing something amazing. But basically, it's going up. That was Exhibit B, exhibit C is what I really wanted to show you. Which is this, the elephant eliminator. And my idea here was very simple. I in fact, I went through a very complicated graph here, where basically it's either true and fake. And I don't know if you can see below that I can't see blood. But on the screen, but what it says is, do nothing is on the left, and do something is on the right, it's just as doodoo on the screen. But but on the left, and do I know? Yes, it does do so the left hand column is do nothing. And the right hand column is do something. So if climate change is true, and we do something, it's going to be the top right hand corner. The idea is, well, we save the world, that would be the idea. Okay, so if we do so if it's true, and we do something, it's saving the world. Now, what I was proposing that everybody does, is I was proposing that they plant fruit trees, to offset their travel to offset their electricity to obtain their offset all bunch of stuff. There's a whole bunch of blog posts that I've written about the calculations about this, and how much we should add on the on all.
So so that the idea was if if we plant fruit trees, we can we the fruit, first of all, the tree will sequester the carbon, and the fruit will feed the people in that impoverished area who will take care of the tree, because they can get the fruit for food. And they can sell the fruit for income, instead of chopping down the tree for firewood or, or charcoal or something. So there's an incentive and their programs around it costs 40 cents to plant a fruit tree in US cents to plant a fruit tree through the big wind program, for example. But there's lots of other places you can plant trees through, etc. But this is what I was suggesting to these guys. Plant fruit trees anyway. So if climate change is true, and we take some action, we save the world. If climate change is true, and we do nothing, will we kill the world? I mean that that was that was my sort of like, two options. If it's true, and we don't do anything, we end up killing the world because we're doing what we're doing now. Which is
I don't think kill the world is the correct is the correct way of saying it. We make it unlivable for humans and other life forms that the world will go on. Yeah, Andrew, give him a break. He doesn't speak English as a first language.
We just talked about language we just talked about. Yeah, I'm gonna go with kill the world because it's a little bit. Okay. So we have to save the world of reduced dumping if we do nothing kill the world. Now if it's fake, and we do something, so if it's fake, and we do something, then basically we help the poor, because we're planting trees and feeding them. Fruit and and all that and they've got an income. They've got food. So if we do something, and climate change is fake, then we help the poor. And if we do nothing, and it's fake, we can we get to be smug. We can go all I told him though, I knew it. I didn't do anything. And it was fake. And I knew it so I can be smart. So when you look at the two options, if climate change is true, sorry, if we do something if you look at the right hand column, if we do something we are the save the world or help the poor. And if we do nothing, we have to kill the world or be smug. And it was at that point that there was this denier in the room there was a CEO speaking and her husband was was sort of sitting there with his arms folded and I started talking about climate And and she came up to me later after the presentation. And apparently he had he leaned over again. Okay, let's do something. Because Because the logic of that was it doesn't actually matter if it's true or fake. The two I mean, it does matter I Andrea, don't get me wrong. It does. But, but if we need to do something because we're either going to save the world and ourselves and our grandchildren's future and everything else, or we're going to help people along the way, and both of those things are good. The other two, not so good. So yeah, but
there's a there's a win win winning there. Depending on who you are. There's one one bad thing but there's three wins, right? The smoke is a win for some people.
It is but it Yeah, but it's a it's a it's a socially unacceptable win. Yeah, basically, it's, if it's fake, and you do nothing, and you'd be smug wallets. You know? Good on you, mate. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Cuz I don't need a good on you to dinner. I need somebody who, who rather I like to have dinner. So it's not a socially acceptable one. So the idea was to socialize it to make it like, let's just do something
yet. Yeah. And I like the other emphasis, like, on helping the poor. And I mean, you know, the underlying messages we're not, we're not doing good by humanity, we've got plastic in our bodies, we have a waste crisis. You know, there's so many aspects Do you want your children to only know beaches covered in trash? You know, like, there's only there's so many ways that you can appeal to people, it doesn't even if they don't agree with the climate crisis, it doesn't matter. Just look around. Like it's everywhere. You know, babies are born with plastic in their bodies, you know, just that. Like, can you imagine? Like, can you just just think of that? You know, so how do women who are pregnant right now feel about that? We're all eating a credit cards worth of plastic a week in our you know, it's in it's in us, it's everywhere. And we still actually don't even understand the impact of that. So I don't know, you don't have to look very far to see proof that we're not doing a very good job by Planet Earth and its ability to sustain us, right. But we all need to come up with our own way of communicating it like you've done and if you've got a way of communicating it that makes sense to people go for it. We all need to reach different audiences. And none of us can reach everyone.
Yeah, well, if anyone's watching and you're interested in actually taking part in planting some of those trees, go check out B one g one B, number one g number one.com. And check out what they do. I think, Anna, you're a member B one g one.
I was there when Masami came up with the idea I've been a member forever in a day. We were both in Bali. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, we were there. Yeah, the business. And so when you're talking about flight offsetting flights, so I went and calculated literally worked out the number of flights I've taken in my entire life. And my goal is to progressively offset just to go further and further and further back to offset those those flights to to kind of go like my life. So you know, how do I get to a point where my life kind of is? So you're at the pearly gates, and you go see everything? Thank you very much. Yeah, well, I mean, it's more than more this thing. But what I realized was that if I didn't have the courage to go and look at my, my actual life, and what its ramifications was, I was kind of being a little bit of a hypocrite, I think it'd be a great idea for them to do it.
Yep. So and, and it's not a lot. And the other thing, the other thing, if you end up going and checking out those blogs, the other thing that I do talk about is something is a concept called triple offsetting. And my argument for triple offsetting is, is and I was talking about flights at the time, but really, it's about anything, it's about offsetting itself. It's about offsetting somebody else, your neighbor who can't afford to offset, and the third one was the offset immediate politician. Now, good politicians, but I wanted you to offset an idiot politician. And the reason for that is you get so fed up of upsetting an idiot politician, that you'd probably write to them, and say, what are we doing? So it was it was that was the concept of triple offset, offset yourself offset somebody in some country that doesn't is not aware of this is still throwing up plastic gun con, you know, they just they don't know, right? To offset them, and then offset the person that can actually make one of the biggest differences globally, which is a politician. And this is to really this the politician. There's the global CEO, and then there's the individual, they're the three. Yeah.
All right, shall we move on to COVID? Yep, we're going to sort of get stuck into some COVID years. So just to give you a bit of a wrap up of what I've been reading, so Iceland has reported zero deaths from COVID since May, and they say it's due to the very high vaccination rates. In the US, it continues. I thought you're gonna say it's due to climate change. No, well, no.
I'll be called Iceland in in 100 years. Yeah.
In the US, COVID continues to be out of control. But it's also including much higher hospital hospitalization rates for children. They don't believe the hospitalization of the children is because of delta. But because there's so much more virus in the community because not enough people are vaccinated, especially in the south. Florida continues to be an amazing example of how not to fight COVID you know, that penalizing schools that sort of stuff, I honestly don't understand it in Louisiana before the hurricane hit COVID was already a huge issue, and challenging the state and the hospitals were completely overwhelmed. And only today, 10 of the hospitals in the state have got their electricity back. So we've got to expect a big COVID surge coming out of Louisiana, Mississippi and other southern states are also suffering from COVID resurgence and it's all about low vaccination rates. Even Canada is getting hammered by kona COVID because their vaccinations have plateaued. And it looks like it's going to be impacting tradus chance for reelection. Southeast Asia, so that's Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia. Continue to face a grilling fourth wave, fourth wave in Singapore sitting in the middle of that. well protected. Australia is a land of contradictions in infighting from the federal government to the state governments and of course, the 70 plus percent ownership of Murdoch media, as you can tell, I do not like the Minot media. Back to the that's what it is. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Remember, originally in Australia and right, back to the US for conservative radio DJs, who were talking about COVID as being fake and fake news, have all died from COVID. And you've got to wonder, how many deaths are they responsible for? And when will that actually start to carry some sort of consequences for those people?
But the big piece of Tim's point, Andrew when they get to the pearly gates,
Hmm, yeah. Yes. Anyway, I'm not, let's just say I'm not a fan. But the big story around COVID, it's always been on top of mind, for me is the impact on the poorest people in the world. And when I encourage people to do the right thing, when it comes to COVID, I, I'm doing it for them, because I want this over for them because they are suffering. Anyway, this week, more than a million infants, estimated had to have died due to pandemic poverty, more than a million infants. But this didn't talk about those who is suffering from malnutrition, which, of course, is a long term developmental issue. Their brains don't develop properly, properly, their bodies don't develop properly. And this has always been the reason I'm trying to get people to understand that we have to do everything that we can to get this get the situation under control. We have to do it for the poorest children in the world. A million infants. I mean, do you guys find that absolutely shocking. Yeah, no, it's crazy that see the impact of this? Yeah.
This is a million extra over those. Yes. We dying from malnutrition. Anyway, we saw, yeah, that horrible term, excess deaths.
Now these don't even sit in the excess deaths. This is because most of these countries don't even measure that sort of thing properly.
So if I'm gonna be a skeptic, also, then I'm going to basically say, Well, what are they in poor places that are going to they're going to die anyway? Are we just blaming everything to COVID? And, and, and that now, for example, what would be our response to that?
But but the poverty for the first time in in 20 years, we've gone backwards with poverty, the people, you know, how much people are ending the day.
But is that just because it was gonna level out at some point?
No, no, it was never going to level out the only time the only thing that was going to level out is with a global crisis. And that's what's happened. And the people who get impacted by that are the poorest people in the world, and the wealthiest countries in the world who are not doing everything they can to stop the spread of a pandemic, that the result is the poorest people in the world will continue to suffer more. So I'm sitting in Thailand, I'm working with a group of people where we're delivering 1000s and 1000s of bags of food every week to people to give them something to eat because they're starving. And they need their business back. They need the tourists back. They need everything back, you know, to an extent right and It's the length of time because the wealthiest countries in the world have not taken it seriously. The poorest countries did everything right, right from the beginning, especially in Asia. It's the wealthier countries that didn't take it seriously. And I think it's on us, these death and despair is on us. So if you're not donating to the World Food Program, please set up a monthly donation because they are feeding millions of people all around the world, the famine, and poverty has increased significantly in these time, and it's devastating, and we're all responsible for that. And that's what infuriates me a lack of responsibility for the, for the least amongst us, but now our entire society is built on on the back of suffering. So, you know, not not unusual, right?
You know, I think I didn't want this this moment that just happened here between, you know, Tim and Enrico and, Tim, I know, you were, you were playing the role of someone who could do argument. But you know, we need we need people to be educated to the point where they should have a reply, like the way Andrea was, you know, in terms of like, the sentiment that you have, at the heart of it, I think a lot of people share, but people don't have the courage to do it, because they seldom actually have enough behind what they're saying. So they don't know that they can continue the argument they can, they can feel that they are aligned with you, and they can feel they support you, but they don't feel that they can actually robust legal and, and have an argument with you. And so they don't, you know, I have that experience in my own household as well, my wife really doesn't look forward to having a long discussion with me about anything, because I'll press for details. And sometimes she doesn't have them. And I realized that that's, that's, it's also because, you know, it's the problem for a lot of people, they don't have those details. And without those details, they really don't have the confidence to perceive like like, so what you did your your, your, your vehemence only comes because you know, all that stuff. And you can you can reach deeper, we haven't even gone as far as you can with that information. Because you know, there's more to talk about.
And that's why I published my weekend reads to share the knowledge, right, and I'm passionate about it. But that that's a really interesting thing. When men and women have an argument men press for more details. So my husband will press for, for information on memories of moments. I remember them. I don't remember the details in the moments. I remember other stuff, but not the details in the moments. And that's a very male thing, but pressing people for more details when they're not the sort of person. So
I got to stop you there. Did you say it's a male thing that we remember the details? Because we don't remember anything? No, you don't remember the important things? We don't remember what anybody was wearing? We don't remember what we ate. We don't remember what anything was. We remember him. Yeah.
Why does he remember? Remember this? That's what we put on the screen when we invent things. Yeah, when I get into arguments, I don't get hysterical. I get historical.
Well, yeah, using that argument, give me more data. It's a debate technique to try and invalidate something. Because very rarely, if they press you back and say, okay, so interesting. What what counter balancing data sets do you have that might?
Yeah, but the other the other opportunity is if so the next time you have one of these conversations with your wife, if she's not ready to respond, so why don't we pick this up in a week, a day, whenever. And let's let's have a proper chat about it and give her a chance to go and get herself prepared. Because the more you do the preparation work, the better you get at arguing or having a conversation. It doesn't have to be an argument. It can be a conversation, but some people don't like to be put on the spot. And I think honoring that's important too. So if I'm talking to someone and you know, you guys know how passionate about I am about stuff, and they're not ready for it, I'm not gonna push because then I just make them look silly. And I don't want to do that. I don't want to shame them if they're not if they're not ready. So we've got to respect and honor each other as well. And we don't want to pontificate right
now. He can can I share something with you that made me Well, I've made a few people laugh as we as we saw it, it's a picture I've managed to get a screen share and 10 this is how you can share a bigger picture with everybody else if you want. But if you if you'll share that, you know in Singapore every year we have that one month of sanctioned littering where it's the seven months and you can put drink and whatever it is, and you get the burn offerings that go into the afterlife. It goes months and months favorite month. So Andrew if you can if you can share that I put that I put that up on the on the screen to be shared and you can just throw that up.
Yeah, how do I do that? No. All right, right, right, right. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's, I've got you. I've got a screen. Not Not me the other one. Oh my God, that's awesome. We're doing the thing. That's the only one I've got. What am I done? That's why Joe, I never. I have given you the wrong one. Let me let me let me try and get that. Send it to me and I put it on my thing and show everybody.
Now here we go. This is the way this is the way it goes. There you go. That's the one. You can share this one now. There you go. So yeah, if you'd like to you can you can burn this COVID kit and send that to the afterlife as well. It comes with three different kinds of three different kinds of vaccines. Okay,
that's very respectful to make sure your ancestors are well looked after. Absolutely. I like it. I don't like
tax because what happens if you lost someone to COVID and then you said member vaccines after the fact.
You have to be slightly diplomatic to think about which ancestor you're sending it to. That's why Joe is called me after
the people outside of Chinese culture because it's very much a Chinese culture hungry ghosts month. I remember when I first arrived in Singapore, I was fascinated by it. And you know, you turn up in these communities and that'd be burning a car for the you know, to send to the afterlife and paper guide it Yeah, paper car, obviously. But there's so many. And you could go to these shops that are just full of things that you can buy and boat spikes, bowls, everything. It's a I found it a really fascinating part of the culture. But you're not supposed to move during hungry ghost month, because then you're going to have bad luck in the house that you move into. So it's not a good time to move. Is it? Or is it finished now?
Well, it's, it's, it's over now. But and it's also also also important to qualify that it's not Chinese. It's a it's a certain portion of the of the population that that subscribes to it. And everybody else tolerates it. Yeah. So what who, which which portion is
you get mon cakes with it, which is I think why most people tolerate it because you get a bit of value add for everybody else. What do you mean tolerate? Everybody? Well, I think,
Oh, I think we have I think we have a way of doing things in Singapore where you know, if this has to do with a religious observance by a large enough group, we then go like, okay, so it's religious. So we go about traffic jams can be because of a religious ceremony. We're okay with that. You know, smoke museum religious observances, we're Okay, with that noise because of a religious observance. We tend to be okay with that. So there is that, that kind of contract that allows that to happen. But yeah, it's one of the confusing things for me, because it is literally the only time we allow littering on such a scale. Yeah, right.
There is a there is a longer there is an interesting discussion that we can have some other time, maybe about any religious ceremony that that in any religion that goes counter to climate issues, for example, I mean, so that one particular one is burning, but the act of creation, all of these sorts of things are could be an interesting discussion. But perhaps not for today. But it would be across across religions, too. Yeah. There was some other news.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So what other news captured your attention this week? I've got a couple you had on your own? Yeah.
Well, I don't know what's happening. You you you veto this one? If you need to Andrea Bangkok protests against the Prime Minister demanding resignation, need to veto or
it's not a conversation I can contribute to?
Okay, how about how about this one, you can definitely contribute to this.
And let me be clear about why I won't. Ever since I've been a guest in other countries around the world, I believe it's very important to be respectful to the nation that I live in. And it's not because I feel censored. I just think it's uh, you know, it was the same in Singapore. So that's why but yeah, the the protests in Thailand have been pretty intense for a while now. Yeah,
yeah. Okay, China, banning non masculine enough men have their reality TV programs. Ooh, oh, just for fun, Tim, you'd be fine. Why it's why Greg is for you. trauma, trying to remember things starting from now. I'm speaking for myself whoever said that. It's teaches dairy well has been what was yesterday Teacher's Day round. I was gonna say around the world, but certainly in Singapore. I don't know if it's around the world, teachers. But the teachers Yeah. If you're watching you It's been a tough ride for the teachers, because especially with schools, closing schools, opening schools, closing schools opening in some countries has been going on, Australia's been going on for ages. And it's tough on the teachers. It's tough on the parents, of course.
It's also tough on the teachers who are parents,
teachers or parents on top of the teachers trying to keep their the kids engaged in on curriculum.
exhausting, right, exhausting. So, teachers. All right, so one of the one of the highlights in the news for me this week has been the ABA is going to be releasing a new album in November, and they're going to be doing some virtual concerts. I'm very excited about that. Well, it's been a serious one. I can do this series. One of you guys. If you guys have any news items that have been capturing your imagination, find some bell bottom pants just to be like, in Time's up.
Yeah. First of all, I gotta say for the ABA one. kudos to them for doing this. This is amazing. They're basically again, the avatar themselves. So they're basically getting they're wearing that that's, that's for animation. So they're wearing that so that they can do the moves and then their avatar on the screen. Will will be what everybody sees. So won't be like for people with walking frames. It'll be for young, amazing things appearing on the screen. But it's amazing. It's just an they've got a new album out. kind of amazing. I just thought Oh, here we go again. I'm just, I'm just seeking it's time to dust off my hairbrush again. I do love it. I'm a bit of I'm a fan. I'm not ashamed to say it. It's Yeah, love. Okay. Yep. What else? Anyone else? I've got a serious one to finish off with. Oh, there are there were two before you do that. The other one that seems to be sitting in the headlines which, which? You know, it New Zealand supermarket terrorist stabbing? Yeah, I haven't read up about that. But yeah, yeah, apparently. Uh, no. I love comedy right now. Sorry. No, no, it was a real one. There's no company and probably the best I've read. But. But that. I mean, that's, to be fair, that's local news. Although it's hitting international headlines for some reason, possibly, possibly, because New Zealand seems to be this sort of place to be in case of any horrible place and so possibly people are putting that up. But when there's 1000s in terror, in other places, I do find what do we what do we talk about? So I guess if you're on New Zealand, you definitely want to know about that. But the one thing that is is not really getting I'm not seeing so much of a Paralympics. Yeah. And, and so, you know, I'm seeing that Singaporean swimmer. And the backstroke retained gold in the 250 meters, which is amazing. That's your pin to ensue. She's, she's picked up two golden Oh, yeah. That was a second goal. But she retained the title for that backstroke, which is awesome in Tokyo. But yeah, I'm not. I'm not. I guess it's the way the Paralympics has always been. In that we get the odd really amazing story, but we don't follow it as much as the other one, which is a bit sad, but so great.
All right. So the bit of us I was I was expecting one of you guys to bring it up is the Texas six six week abortion ruling? I don't know if you guys have been reading about that. definitely have
a look at it. I didn't see and it's one of those ones. I don't have words that I could share on family television. Yes.
Well, yeah. It's it's please read up on what I'm going to share on the weekend in my weekend reads it's it's totally infuriating. And we need to be aware of it around the world because like, I don't see a lot of countries in Asia sort of adopting or following these. I think they do leave their women to make those decisions, and not get involved in that side of things. Not obviously, all countries in Asia, but it's something I've always admired about most of the countries in Asia women get on with it. The problem I find with this ruling is it's so insidious. So basically anyone who anyone who reports on people giving or getting abortions can get a pretty significant financial reward. I think it's about 10,000 US dollars. So there's this incentive for Yeah, it's pathetic, but one of my friends Jeanette, Denise char, who's one of my smart smarty pants, friends who's in the US, she put put up a picture and she called it the Texas Taliban. And I just was like, yep, you know, if people don't get the connection between controlling women and women's rights, and this ruling, then really, I'm quite concerned for the future of America.
But tell me what the ruling is. Again, the ruling is
a woman is not allowed to get an abortion after six weeks and obviously most women don't even know that they're pregnant by six Week. So for any reason, including rape or incest, so if you take aside opinions on abortion, it's, it's it to me a woman, a woman should be able to choose what she does with her body. And of course, the big thing about it all is we're amending the equation, because there's two parties get in that pregnancy, right, and there's no punishment towards men. So it's just another way of controlling women. And it makes me it makes me feel sick that American women have to deal with this. And the far right religious far right are on the move. And there have been for decades to get this sort of legislation in place. But Biden said he's allowed to stop it. So let's see what they do. But the Supreme Court didn't get involved in the decision. So let's say New York allow abortion up to term. Now, no country allows abortion up to 10. That's what I thought New York does. No, no. And that's, that's part of the propaganda that goes around that all these countries, even New Zealand was put out as one of those countries that allows up to 14 full term is murder. It's up to 22 weeks is about normal, but beyond 22 weeks is if there's a physical disability and the baby's incapable of surviving up to up to term. There's there's reasons but it's up to 22 weeks, which is the normal terms in just every country on earth. And I I don't know any country that allows full term.
Well, we're gonna we just saw really basically what happens because of all the misinformation because that map, that idea was being put out by the far right, and it was quoted and it was sent out. And then a lot of people sincerely believe that that was the case. And that is that somewhere in the world, that's where it happens and how, and we don't want that kind of thing. So it's the boogeyman kind of thing to doing.
They basically came came up with a time when a baby can viably exist outside the womb. Yeah, he's the type that is, from that point, you are not able to have an abortion. And that is consistent. And I'm very happy to see evidence otherwise, but every piece of evidence anyone's ever sent me hasn't been wrong. It hasn't been right. It's been part of the propaganda. So anyway, infuriating. So that's my final happy piece of news. But one of the things before we head off is we wanted to talk about the concept of achieving consensus. So we've talked about this a lot. In the last three weeks, how do we get people to listen? How do we get people to cooperate to work together for the common good for all of mankind, not just for ourselves around communities. And it's obviously a big, big challenge. So one of the things that I've noticed is, when I speak to people who are vaccine hesitant, so I'm not talking about people who are never going to get the vaccine, just the people who are hesitant. Every time. They say to me, I'm just I'm just so confused. I get so much information, I don't know where to look, I don't know where to go for the right information. But whether it's COVID. And you know, I think we agree that vaccination is the way forward, we've got it. I think globally, there's the percentage of the population, if we're going from a democratic demick critic perspective, percentage of the population is vaccine sort of positive, right? We're always gonna have people who are against it, but we need a consensus if we're going to overcome it. Same for the climate crisis, right. So what can we do? How can we how can we work harder to build consensus within our communities, versus the rage division? That that is the only thing that we seem to be achieving right now? What do you guys think? What are your thoughts? And that you understand? Well,
there's a thing that I, that I, I've been working on as an idea, but it's always been controversial, right? I mean, I, I really think too much of the world suffers from too much democracy. And that's, that's really it, the we are we are, we're losing, I think, the battle on a lot of things, because we value something which in the long term isn't as much of a thing that, you know, it's not as important really, because, like, if we look back at this time, where we look back and say, Oh, we conquered COVID, or along the way we trampled our rights, and I didn't get to decide certain things. I mean, you know, it's, we save the million lives. But we didn't get we didn't all get to choose whether we had a vaccine. I mean, you know, it's one of those things that we look back on, we'll we won't value as much. But, I mean, it's one of the ideas that I that I that I, you know, I always hate finding the good ideas from the side, I consider the bad side. So while listening some of these right wing conversations, I've had an idea that we are, we're suffering now from being too woke, we are working too hard and being woke. And some of these ideas have to be, you know, like democracy itself, making sure that everybody is is in on the agreement. I think consensus as as it is as well, is something which can really Stop things that need to be done quickly from getting done. Just because someone in the back of the bus goes, I'm not so sure about this. And there is something to be said about leadership about taking a step forward and doing the thing, you know, just to do it and get something done. And sometimes here, things are gonna get, I've got to be wrong, but most times, it's only when things are done that something does happen.
Yeah, I totally agree with you. And I'm glad you brought it up use it's something I've been thinking about for a long time. But like you said, it's not a popular thing, especially in western countries where we hold on to democracy so tight, but is it really is democracy the answer to a, you know, problems that we all happy we have any good time, right? And then, in the case of a global pandemic, and the climate crisis, what you know, are we going to have to look at something because if we don't all do the right thing, I think we are going to have to look at doing something. And so trying to get to consensus, before we're forced to do something, I think, you know, maybe maybe we won't have as much backlash, but we don't seem to get that message that we're part of a community and we have to move together forward, or we're not going to make it
you know, this thing about like, you know, I look at this way, right, when when, when someone when it's time to prepare a meal, you know, we don't go to every single person in the household and go, Okay, everybody has time to cook. And we all get together and cook because of the people who are, who are good at doing the cooking. And we try and get them to do it. And we hope that they will do a good job. That that's the kind of thing that I feel that should be done a lot of things and when it comes to decision making, or policymaking and stuff like that, this whole thing about trying to get everybody's point of view across, I mean, I I'm guilty of doing that I'm the person who actually wants to hear all of that. But really, when it comes to, to, to, to policy, it has to be it has to be someone taking the wheel, like that's why when you mentioned the whole thing about Singapore and how Singaporeans felt about climate change. The thought that came to mind was that, but the good thing is, it's kind of irrelevant, because the government's decided to do something about it. And they're going to continue and that they've done it and they're going to be investing in it. And even if the Athenian isn't that significantly, significantly behind that, I think it'll get done here as well. So that kind of thing is, I think, what we need more of
what we do need Singaporeans to stop the trash to stop the consumerism to stop feeling those those islands of landfill with with with rubbish, right. But the other the other issue, of course, on the table is trust. And in a country like Singapore there is is very, very high trust measured in the government to do the right thing by the citizens. So they do the right thing for the majority of people most of the time. And it's a reason I admire the government. But that's obviously not attractive to countries like Australia or America. But trust is it's been eroding for decades. And we that's to me is the focus area, all governments, all institutions, businesses, charities all need to turn around and say, how do we get trust back and then do it. And it's complete transparency, you know, the secrecy, the hidden conversations, we need to be completely transparent. If there's any chance of getting trust back.
My, the challenge is, we can't be completely transparent all the time. And because because the reality is that there's a lot of covert operations going on, we can't be completely transparent with military, we can't be completely transparent with national security. We can't be completely transparent with a bunch of stuff. So what point are we going well, this is okay to be completely transparent. And this I mean, as a leader, when you're a leader as well, you can't be completely transparent all the time, even though you want to be when when I get told by, by, by this is when I was working in corporate I got, you know, tapped on the shoulder and said, No, we're going to have to make 15% of the people redundant. And then the people are going, Oh, we got to be made redundant. I can't be completely transparent, because we can't tell them until we've sorted out everything that's going to happen in August or something rather. And that's three months away at the time. It was like I couldn't be so we've got so there's so we've got to equip people with being able to understand that there's bad stuff coming, but how do I communicate with my people? And how do I at least take care of them? How do I how do I want How do they know that I've got their back even if it's bad news coming? Yeah, because that's what I tried to do with my with with those that I could that were that that I could mention, look, you might want to start preparing something or you I had to do something with some of them. That was it was it the hardest thing you've ever had to do is make a bunch of people redundant. And, you know, so So, you know, there's like three months vacation, you will plan On a blank leave for Well, you don't want paying for it. The
the comment about security and stuff, I totally agree, right? You just things you can't. But you know, when your country's underwater or it's too hot to live in, you no longer have a nation, those sort of those sort of issues aren't really relevant anymore. And we're sort of hurtling towards that. So I think I think a lot of the time, and we were talking about this last week, where our thinking always goes back to how it was, but the thinking forward needs to be how it's going to be, and how it's going to be, you know, when you look at the maps of the world in it, you know, so I looked at 2100, where, where humans will be able to leave. And I actually think that timeframe is much less than 2100. The nations that we're all part of today will no longer exist, and there'll be clusters of us in various parts around the world, probably forming new nations. So I think we've got to start thinking in that way. Because
I think, I think it's a it's a concept, so it's too much change. That's, that feels like redefining national boundaries. Seems like it's too much.
I think what we need is time and travel. I mean, and I say that, in this context, what we're where we are right now. And one of the ways that I've I've, I've heard that it's been very has been very effective for people to get a sense of how other people live, is the use of VR. And when it's when it's done really well. You can be immersed in that situation where somebody would be the concept that I've heard of was, I think, I think in New York, they had an exhibition to help people experience Syria. And when when they were immersed in that experience, that when they came out of it, they really had a sense of the day, they understood the situation much more. The problem with the future right now it's too abstract as in like the imaginations of most people are not big enough to understand how bad it's going to be. And I think it should be left to artists and people who can who can create that impression and that experience and that sort of thing, and bring it forward in time for people now to experience in a meaningful way. So I think there's a need flat and I always talk about this, that there's there's a need for corporate benevolence, private benevolence, you need somebody who really, really needs to do this and has the means as well, to get behind that, and you need this huge. I see it as a huge art project, where you want to bring the what is inevitable if we don't change anything to the present, let people experience that, and have that moment, you know, that that Christmas carol? experience, it's profound. But you really do get that I think once you once you really, really see what tomorrow is like, and you can you can feel that and go like, Oh, that's this is really where I don't want to go, then you start doing something about that. Otherwise, it's just the abstract thing, you know, you just you just think, okay, my, well, yeah, it's some something there, it's sort of hazy, it's not real, you know, it's this associative
all of that, but I do like it but my, my, it it's, for me, it kind of still needs to be any small thing that we do, as individuals feels irrelevant, without enough people with with big enough influential support to make a decision that is monumentally population shifting. So for example, I keep going back to the government, and leaders a big business, in particular, everybody else can mess together, and which is I guess, where everybody's sort of coming from those people are championing it kind of some of the stuff we're talking about, go out there and make a difference. It still needs the in the buy in, of the, the big guys and gals, that the people who are running countries and the people who are running businesses, that can make the big difference. Because, you know, I was vegetarian for a while. It didn't say one animal recycling, the problems getting worse. I mean, it's, it's, it's like, well, what's the point? So it gets to the what's the point level until somebody goes, we're doing this and our entire organization is not going to run off grid of wind power. And and it's just like, Oh my gosh, now it's starting to it's not it's starting to shift. Now is that because I was recycling? I don't think so. I think it's but it's because the noise was getting, let that the print the the social pressure was starting to go I'm going to deal with you. And I'm not going to deal with you because of this. That said, I'm still buying stuff, probably from people who are doing crappy stuff, the environment. And I'm still getting in a car that's pumping, that's using fossil fuel. Because that's the cab that shows up. You know, it's, it's, so I'm, I'm feeling frustrated, because I feel that one person trying isn't moving the needle. So what do we do to get the needle really moved.
So you know, that's that metal experiment, blue eyes, blue eyes, brown eyes and the name of it. But it's been shown to be one of the most disturbing and also most effective ways to have people be placed in that situation, and to really feel something. So it's about that. And it's something that is tied to what I talked about last week in hypnosis, when you try to link and make the make the connection between what you're doing and that, and that outcome much more real. So if I think we need to approach it, in those ways, you if you rely on people to just arrive at that point, it's just not going to happen. There's no there's no way that that's going to happen. I mean, problems with race have been around for the longest time. And it took so long for something to come along, like the blue eyes, brown eyes experiment, for that to become something that people could really now understand and feel and get even a greater sense of, and it still hasn't been fixed the problem, but it really was a way for them to feel what it was like to be other just because of something that you couldn't control. So this this thing about the connection, that's why it's an artistic challenge. That's why it's something where you're going to try and say how do I, how do I make this real for someone? How can I? How can I create maybe a virtual experience, whatever it is, that allows my actions today to show up? In 30 years where I can, I can realize that hey, this was me. You know, I think that would be powerful. And and it needs to be a movement, it can't be just about the try and visualize this and talk it out and say to somebody else, it's just not going to work. Well, there they are human imagination as much as it is capable of a lot of things. Isn't that good? You know, there's people can't really imagine that people really can't feel it. So I think we do what we do, because we can justify it to ourselves, because we think things are going to be bad, but because like yeah, it's not that bad. So I'm still gonna get into my car, it's okay. But it will become so real that every time you get into the car, you feel the destruction, that's, that's happening because of it, it's gonna make it much that much harder for you to do. Yeah, you know,
I think whenever you move across from because part of the catch 22 is we can take individual actions, but quite a vast part of the system is outside our ability to directly influence. So let what would be wonderful, and like, if we're thinking about some really practical things, anybody here listen to this show. If you can work with any of the transport provision companies, you know, in Singapore, you know, the grab the grabs the go jacks, or Uber or Lyft, or any other ones around the world, so that you can actually say, I want an electric car, I don't want a fossil fossil car, then that would give us as individuals have the ability to demonstrate and express our preference, you know, to Tim's point, so sometimes it's as as individuals in a business, you know, we can have conversations with other people that help these twits show up so we can, okay, actually there is there is movement, there is opportunity, there is reason to, to move and create, rather than just to be stuck in status quo. Because that one level is part of the frustration of feeling like I'm trying, but I'm not seeing any difference. And the more businesses organizations create that opportunity, I mean, like one of the reasons why Tim and I have been so big on v one g one for so long. As I know, for myself, they gave me the ability to start going like I'm doing this, I want to make sure that there's other good that's coming out of what I'm doing. And I can see it and I don't have to be a multibillion dollar organization. I know that over the last decade, there is over a million, there's 1,400,000 days of water that had been made available because of actions that my organization has done. And that's, you know, empowering. It's exactly it's like okay, all the things that I've done in my life may not have had the impact I want. But I do know that that's greater than impact and impact beyond me and beyond organizations, I serve as created a bigger one out in the world. So
what what what this is, is the choir that is doing its singing, and it's doing really well it's got a song, it's got everything right now, right? What we need to do is do the Carolinian right, which is to get the other people so that we can we can we can see Let's hear it and get the spirit of Christmas, you know, sort of remember that. That's the problem. The problem is you have the people who care, they're still the minority. They're doing this stuff. And because they are minority, it's not having enough of an impact, and they're just frustrated trying to have more people be like them. But that the tool?
I don't think we're, I don't think it's a minority. I think when it comes to the climates, we're definitely past the tipping point of knowledge and awareness and concern. Yeah. If you just you answer all golf.
Oh, it's the point of which we can't know it's not a point of return. That's the point. We can't go back. It's the pod in, in bed. When the car went past there, he's gonna go off the cliff,
when there's enough of us care and are committed to a course of action. Anyway, what Joe said about the artists, I absolutely agree, but I think when you use the word artists in people's mind, it narrows, I think it's creative people who are capable of communicating in whatever form they can communicate, who believe in the crisis that the world is facing, in whatever way shape or form, they're communicating and embracing that chance. So one of my things on achieving consensus is intelligent participation on social media, sharing knowledge, you know, in a way that is not judgmental, is not patronizing. It's just Look, guys, you know, when you see the data coming in, that supports the point of view that you want to share, you just gently show up when you keep sharing it. And over time people start paying attention. And I know that's true, because that's what I've been trying to do for a very long time. So really getting the people on on social media, in bracing the opportunity to be a voice in too many smart people and not on social media because they can't stand the trolls. And they can't stand isn't Narcissus, and they can't stand all the ugliness of social media, well, we can drown them out. If enough of us get on, get on board. The other thing, especially when it comes to COVID, if you think you're right, and they think they're right, well, no one's listening to each other. So if you want to change someone's mind, you've got to be gentle, you've got to listen to their point of view without attacking them. You know, if you start getting emotional with somebody, just pause the conversation and go back when you both come down. Because you're not going to change anyone's mind from that point of view. So I think the people who have got the ability to be calm, rather than get emotional and angry and frustrated, if you can be calm, I think we can do a lot more but just keep keep sharing, keep sharing knowledge from from really good sources. There's a lot of good information out there. People are confused, they don't know where to look, show them where to look. help them find the good stuff.
Yeah, I like that. And I and I think it's, I think it's important to be it's important to sharpen social media, as all aspects of yourself. This may be this may be a lot of people may disagree because they're using it just as a marketing platform. I think you need to show up as a human being. I think people want to want to want to know who you are and what you think. And if they don't do business with you for that, then so what I mean, yeah, if I know that, that for some people, that's gonna be a big deal. And the mock homes people are gonna know everything through means to me.
We're all popping on and out. Alright, so right, let's wrap it up because we've been going for longer than normal. And we keep promising now, but we never do because there's a lot a lot going on in the world. Tim will be back with us in a minute. What have you guys been watching this week as a distraction from from the news and the events? Anything caught your attention?
Well, I've been bingeing on a podcast which has been the theme of it is their their that she's a therapist to atypicals and that
can you can you talk like Joe seems to you know, Joe's Joe and to Maria at the same time must be something in Singapore. What have you been watching anything? Oh, everybody.
Yeah, we're good. Okay, so so Joe's been on the podcast? Me I tend I tend to I'm a reader rather than a listener. So the book that I've been reading this week is this one the future we choose the stubborn optimist guide to the climate crisis. Which I which I've actually really, really enjoyed. Just because because there's a different angle and perspective on what might be possible.
Well, I watched I watched the day the levees broke, again by Spike Lee. We on TV on DVD. It's that old, but I don't know when the 16th anniversary came up. I felt compelled to watch it and was horrified and new and how badly those people were treated. Tim and Joe Have we got you both back? You both went haywire. there for a bit. You watching anything?
Well, I said this this what I what I've been bingeing on is a podcast called the bright sessions, the bright sessions. is a fictional work based on a therapist that that works to help people with? With superpowers? Basically, they have their strange, abnormal, abnormal powers. What's really nice about the show is that it has, I think it helps. It helps terrifies people who will actually listening in just as as human beings, you hear some things and you pick up some things and some ideas. So if you're looking for something that's interesting, both as a work of fiction as well as something that is positive for mental health, check it out. It's the bright sessions,
the bright sessions. I like the idea of that team. Anything got your imagination?
minds mind stupid. Stupid, good. You want stupid? Yeah. All right. Well, I've been I've been bingeing a little bit on a Facebook group called the Punnett. Attention it the pun attention, airy panic. I'm seeing here.
I've seen you commenting on our science humor page. So yeah, you look like you've been pretty active, actually.
I mean, I've just come to the conclusion that a plateau is the highest form of flattery. You know, for example. I just Yeah, I know. They're all dead jokes. But that, but it's been fantastic. So it's great. Because if you're in living in a house with somebody who is full of dead jokes, you can send them there. And they will respond and get that out of their system so that they can actually be a normal person at the dinner table.
Okay. All right. That's a good tip. All right. So let's wrap it up. Thank you for joining us. You know, we're going a bit longer, but hopefully, it's just sort of in the background of keeping your company hearing our lovely voices. And I thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you for having me. It's been absolutely fabulous to be in.
I'm sure that you are going to be joining the no show in the future. But yeah, thanks so much. Joe, team, you guys rock. You want to say goodbye?
Yeah, I want to say goodbye. Now. I just say hello, as well to Jennifer Thurman, who's just joined us on the live stream as we go up to say goodbye. So thank you for joining us.
And thanks for coming. GLORIA Mila, we also heard you as well. Conversation had moved on a little bit by the time I'd seen your comment about public schools, but thank you for participating. Thanks, Anna. Thanks, Andrea, once again for bringing it all together and making it happen. Thanks. Bye. See you next. See. All right. All right.