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Hi.
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Welcome to what we do in these powerful times, my name is David bent.
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And I've been working in the field of sustainability and climate change for some 20 years, it feels like the need for climate need for change even is growing faster than the impact we're delivering. So I'm wondering what I can do next that is useful. Speaking with others, they have that same challenge, which is why I'm doing this interview series. In 30 minute bites, I asked some brilliant people what they're doing now and why, or to inspire and enable the audience which may just turn out to be me through stories grounded in experience. And today's guest is Rupert Reed. He is the professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of East Anglia and most importantly, the co director of the climate majority project, which I'm sure we'll get into. Hello, Rupert. Good morning, David. What are you doing now? And how did you get here?
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Well, so as implied by your intro, I'm now an emeritus professor sounds incredibly grand. What it basically means is I've retired, retired early. And the reason I've done that is so that I can focus for heartedly for the first time ever really, on Well, my life's purpose on the work I've found to do on primarily, this time in my life, the climate of maturity project, which I'm sure as you say, we'll get into, in great detail. But yeah, that's the centre of my activity. Now, I co direct this new project, we've got some funding, it's extremely ambitious. So it occupies pretty much all of my time i There's various other bits and pieces I do on the side, including not least, I've just really been working this morning. In our garden, we haven't little tiny holding third of an acre, I've just been collecting and spreading some leaves, leaf mould, leaf mulch, and that is something very practical and, and well, beautiful, and also kind of atomic, that I do. And it also helps to, to focus the mind a little bit on the on the challenge and the upsides of the challenge of trying to grow some of our own food and trying to become a little bit more self reliant, which is kind of also relevant to the to the times where Yes, indeed. So you've just found that the climate majority or co founder the climate majority project, having been a university professor, and the green counsellor, so just give us a potted history of you say, climate action on climate change is your life's work and purpose. Clara Britton, rejoice because it doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from 2030 years worth of work and in this area. So what have you been up to up until now? Yeah, so anyone wanting to kind of dive deeper into this history of mine and how I got here, I'd recommend to read my book. Do you want to know the truth, the surprising rewards of climate honesty, which tells this story, but a very brief version would be that I became an academic gradually over the years, my work moved more and more into environmental and political philosophy. But that wasn't enough. I've always been someone who took activism seriously, had various kinds of dabblings in nonviolent direct action in the past. And then as you say, for quite a while, a key focus of mine became the Green Party in attempting to find an electoral route, if you will, to college ism, had some success under under that banner was a two term council or elected in in Norwich, for example, was instrumental in kissing speed limits reduced around the city of Norwich. But changed direction really, in a more accentuated way, roundabout 2015. When it became clear to me in this phrase that I've helped to make a little bit famous, this civilization is finished that well, this civilization as we know it is coming to an end, and that we need to up our game a bit in terms of the level of honesty about this. And in terms of what we do about it. So started giving talks with the title of this civilization is finished, got a lot of positive feedback, even though the message that I was delivering was so seemingly negative so much so that at first I was very hesitant to give it at all. And that led me into a confluence with the people who were putting together extinction rebellion in 2018. And I helped launch extinction rebellion for two wonderful years was a the strategist and spokesperson in XR. You can read about that, if you like in my book, extinction, rebellion insights from the inside.
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In 2020, it became clear to me that x had reached a kind of a ceiling. And that something else was needed something with much wider appeal, something that could actually deliver on the promise of extinction rebellion, to go beyond party politics to go beyond ideology, to not name and shame and blame, and really deliver that promise and be a welcoming climate movement. So I started talking about the need for a new, moderate flank in climate and ecological action that eventually became the climate majority project, which now has a decent amount of funding alone, we can always use a lot more if anyone's listening with. No, absolutely. No joke, and very unapologetically keen to make that kind of pitch.
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Yeah. And yeah, so that's one reason I've been able to retire because I'm getting some income now, from the climate majority project. So yeah, that's a short version of how I got to where I am now.
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Cool. And folks are interested, I'll put links into all those books into the show notes. And another past episode of powerful times was with with Claire Farrell, who was one of the cofounders of extinction rebellion and has a parallel stories to one that Rupert was just talking about.
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So let's, let's talk about the climate majority project. I've been reading the book, the book of there was no what would it be if you were doing a charade? The book was the movement. The book was the and I'm very impressed, but it'd be great to his, what it does lay out in there, and I'm sure you can give us now is, you've already given a little bit of that, why we need this, we need a moderate flank. But there's also some fundamental assumptions you have about what needs to go into the activities and the strands of work that make up creating that moderate plank, so and also, where you think a lot of people in the UK and the Western world are right now. And I think we're good to unpack. What's our situation when it comes to citizen views?
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And how does the clear majority project try to bounce off of that into the kind of action you think is needed? Yeah, lovely.
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Lots of get our teeth into there. But let me start with a little step back into what's our situation geopolitically, biologically, ecologically. And I think it's increasingly clear at the start of 2020, for that, in those terms, our situation is profoundly desperate. Most people haven't really understood this yet, not just because they haven't understood the full gravity of the way we're crashing through all sorts of planetary boundaries, not least the climate boundary. But in particular, because most people haven't yet really twigged just how bad is the acceleration in overheating that's been taking place for the last several months. So basically, what's been happening is that is that world temperature records are falling like nine pins, it's really accelerated over the last several months. And in fact, according to some databases, the global average overheating from 2023 was above 1.5 degrees centigrade, which is supposed to be the absolute maximum safe guardrail, which we weren't supposed to be getting anywhere near till the 2030s or something like that. So the situation is really dire. And probably a key reason for that. It's not just the El Nino global weather system that we're getting now.
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And that will carry on for at least another year or so. It's also highly likely to be that the aerosols blanketing the earth the pollution, basically, the air pollution, has been significantly reduced over the last few years. This is a lot less well studies than the greenhouse effect and other aspects of the climate conundrum. And that's a mistake.
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We need to study it more because it looks like what some of us have been warning about for a long time, that when this global dimming, sometimes called started to to be removed when we started to reduce the the crippling blanket of air pollution, which of course kills millions of people every year around the planet, that among the effects of that would be a sudden acceleration overheating, and lo and behold, we're finally getting it and this is chickens really coming home to roost. So 2024 is very likely to be a year of absolutely unprecedented further temperature records and probably storms and such as well. So buckle up everybody.
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Now, what are the implications of that? Does that mean that we all have to get more radical?
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Well, I think not the the slightly paradoxical but quite fundamental insight that's at the basis of the Climate Majority Project is that when there is some kind of prompt, some kind of cause for a lot more people to be waking up to what's happening. And that's what's happening right now, you know, the weather, if you will is, is always our greatest recruiters. When that's happening, what we need to be ready to do is to welcome new people into the movement and most of these people who are going to be coming our way, they're not going to be activists, let alone radicals, and many of them are not going to be willing to become activists. So what does it mean then that they'll be willing to enter the movement, what it means is that then looking for ways, that means something to them, that makes sense to them, that they can get active and serious in their lives, that will actually rise to the scale of the challenge that they're starting to realise is upon us.
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And well, that goes to the heart of what the climate majority project is trying to offer, ways of doing just that ways of people taking action, in their lives, in business in the institutions that they're in, in their profession, perhaps, or in their local community, or in their role as a parent, perhaps, ways that they are, if you will, able and willing to identify as part of the response the collective response to the climate conundrum. But as I say, not necessarily the brand, probably, in fact, not part of the existing climate movement.
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As such, we need to offer something new, more encompassing, more welcoming, we need to offer pathways to action, for people to take action, as lawyers, as teachers, as parents, and so on and so forth. And that's what we tried to do in the climate majority project. Now, just saying one more thing about this, in response to the the geophysical and ecological situation that we are in, I said that the situation is getting more grim.
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But that is only true, if you look at it from the perspective of the geophysics and the biology and so forth alone. If you look at it in a more encompassing perspective, which includes humanity, which includes our responsiveness to the situation, then in some ways, the situation is less grim now than it was six years ago, before the formation of extinction rebellion before Greta came along, and so on, because we are now finally getting a response and mass response from people from citizens. And that's what we in the client majority project are trying to name and network and support and help to grow. It's already happening. The responses already happening in organisations like climate Emergency Centres like transformative adaptation and community climate action.
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Lawyers for Net Zero purpose disruptors, in advertising, MP watch, wildcard, all of these new organisations, some of them springing from the back of extinction, rebellion, others quite independent, that are that are springing up spontaneously across these kinds of domains that I've been naming of the various ways that people have potential power in their lives, to undertake action that responds to the crisis and doesn't involve them having to whatever blew themselves to the end 25. So, to sum it up, the geophysical situation is grim.
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But that leads in a kind of dialectical way, if you like, or in the way that Karl Polanyi call the double movement, things get worse, and then things get better that leads spontaneously to a human response to a kind of awakening to a readiness for for action of a new kind of a new scale. And that is exactly what we are trying to bring into support. And that is the sense in which the situation exactly as it gets more grim. Also, in a certain sense, gets more hopeful. It gets more exciting, and and gets us into the the nitty gritty of a huge, tremendous new opportunity. Yes.
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And I think it's worth I'll put into the show notes. I've tried to find all of those organisations you mentioned, and also try to put where some scientists or others in the scientists who are in public online, there's a great debate going on about what the causes are of this current.
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Yes, I'm up as you say, we've had a series of the warmest days ever, it seems utterly incredible. Where it may turn out there are more than one factor but it certainly is grim and we are having even though last year was the warmest year for a long time, warmest year.
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And breaching this 1.5 degrees which we as you say weren't supposed to breach until 2030.
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We've all of us already had the coldest year we're gonna experience it's like the warmest year for last 250 years and the coldest year for the next 250 years. And this is one of the things which we need to get done. On top of, and I think one of the things which you're very strong in the book is that respecting the achievements and the breakthroughs which were made because of extinction, rebellion, and Greta, tunberg, and so on. But now the need to go beyond that and reach into people who aren't prepared, and I can't be as radical and put themselves as much risk of that.
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So, I'd like to come back to how you tried to create a container for such a variety of starting positions. But I know the clear majority project has these four mutually reinforcing strands, which I think be great for people to hear out those strands and how they work together.
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Yeah, great. Well, let me outline the four strands indeed. So the first strand, the place where many of us although not all of us begin is with truthfulness. And of course, we're inheriting this quote directly from XR and from the school climate strikers clarity about how bad the situation is not triggering the pill, not engaging in so called stubborn optimism, but engaging in what I call toxic positivity, which is forcing everybody to look on the bright side, even when what they're actually looking at, is very dark. Because unless we are able to face up to Climate Reality, to look the truth in the eye, we will never do what is commensurate with it. Now, truthfulness is not enough, right? If you just give people these kind of dark and difficult to your physical excetera truths, then there's a chance that they'll go up into a ball, become desperate, get stuck in depression, et
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cetera, or just or just reject what you're saying, because they can't Yes,
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indeed, denial is an easy option. And it's still an option, which some people incredibly are taking up, but in a way, you're not so incredibly, as you say. So the second strand of our four strand theory of change, which as you say, we outline in the client majority project book, is handling the truth together, building a shared culture of resilience, doing the inner work that is necessary to handle these, these grim realities and to stop them being turned dialectically into something very different.
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Because this is the wonderful thing that is deeply true about the difficult climate, emotions, climate, anger, climate, grief.
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Climate, anxiety, of course, is that they are a form of energy, and they all have the capacity to turn into something strong and new and exciting and into action. And that is the third strand of theory of change.
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providing people with signposts to meaningful actions that they can take along with others, it's always going to have to be fundamentally collective meaningful action response to these kinds of profound problems are more than problems that we are now in the grip of. So individual actions such as you yourself deciding to eat less meat, or to fly less, you know, that's all well and good. But we know that these things are not going to be enough. People need to change their lives, when I say people need to change their lives. Well, I don't mean that they need necessarily to quit their jobs or you know, that is an option. That is what I have eventually done. What I mean is that either they have to do something like that, or they have to find a way of operating within the life that they have, that actually points along with others in this new direction. So let me give a couple examples of what that might mean. One of our incubatees is an organisation called Lloyd financiera will actually they just changed their name to General Counsel, sustainability leader. So these are senior corporate lawyers, who are trying to do the right thing in their firms on climate in nature. Now, these are very unusual suspects, you know, when you think of people who are trying to do the right thing in terms of changing the future and addressing dangerous climate change, your mind doesn't immediately go to senior corporate lawyers, but they are out there and and they are working, I went to a meeting of these folk a little while ago was a fly on the wall. In it, it was very interesting, it was very pragmatic, very practical terms of steps been taken within these firms to start to try to push them in the right direction to reconsider their reliance on fossil fuels, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So, you know, that's a really surprising example. One way of putting it might be that if senior corporate lawyers can start to do the right thing on climate, then perhaps pretty much anybody. That is exactly what we think that pretty much anybody there there is a place for everybody in this room. that, that when you think about journalists, or teachers, or civil servants or people involved in, in food growing, or many other walks of life, it's not that difficult to see how people can turn their life and their, their working life and their labour in the right direction. Now, for some people that's going to be more difficult to do that, or for some people, it's going to be irrelevant if they are disabled or a carer or what have you care for intimate family member?
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Right. So what's the what's the pathway first for somebody like that in relation to climate which we should project? Well, another thing we think is that, look, everybody is a member of a geographic community, everybody lives somewhere. And one of the absolutely key challenges of our time is to find ways of living together in ways that are more resilient to what to what's coming. And one of the great advantages of building resilience in that way. Because not only are you then more resilient to not only are there are there collateral benefits in terms of reducing your cost of living and so forth. But also, you're providing an example to other people, when you engage along with others in say, creating community orchard, which is what we're doing in my village right now. Or creating more local water storage, or growing food and whatever kind together. And of course, there are many other examples, we could talk about community, renewable energy, etc. When you do that, it makes the thing real to people to other people, right, it makes it for yourselves as well, but to other people, it makes it visible and real to other people. This is why I think that adaptation is so important now that climate adaptation is a crucial part of what we need. There's been such a focus within the climate movement for so long on mitigation, which can seem very remote and abstract to people.
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It's about 2035, or 2050. It's about faraway countries in which we know little, it's about our great grandchildren, these things are all terribly important. I've written about them in the past in Britain about how we need to grow their importance. But if we want to reach out more to the mass of people, if you want to reach out more, for example, to working class people, to rural people, to conservative minded people, and these are all things, these are all central ambitions of the majority project, then we're going to take adaptation or more seriously. So what I'm saying is that for anyone who's kind of not sure how they can contribute in the kind of way that I've been sketching here, it's highly likely that there's a way you can contribute through your community. And that's what community climate action is.
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That's what transformative adaptation is. And that's going to be a big focus of our work and of my work this year, building up the focus on transformative and strategic adaptation. So that's the third, and obviously, absolutely vital, strand meaningful pathways to collective action. That's, that's an essential feature of the new moderate flank. And the fourth and final strand, which kind of ties all these together, truthfulness, handling the truth together, taking action that's commensurate with the truth. The fourth and final strand that ties all of these together is a shared understanding of all of this, and in particular, a shared understanding that this is essential that this is already starting to happen. And that you can be part of it and that people like you are already being part of it or want to be a part of it, which by the way, the audience research that we've done shows there's there's a huge potential audience beyond the usual suspects for the kind of thing that we're trying to bring here. Among the demographic categories, for example, known as civic pragmatists, and established liberals, also those known actually as loyal nationals, patriotic type people who are concerned about the uncertain future that we're moving into.
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So that's the fourth strand sensemaking, building a shared understanding, which begins with realising in a very kind of energising way that this is already happening, but there's bound to be more of it. And well come aboard with it. Yeah.
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All right, well, wonderful. And just because there's just so much in there, I'll say back those four strands so that everyone has them in mind as they're listening. So firstly, a narrative shift towards truthfulness. Secondly, creating cultures of awareness and resilience. Thirdly, tangible pragmatic action, which you locate in either people's places of work and or in their communities. And then finally, building that shared understanding collectively. And that last one, in particular reminds me is this this story about Kennedy walking around?
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President Kennedy walking around some NASA installation and asking a janitor what he was doing when he was cleaning a room and the janitor said, I'm taking a man to the moon.
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There's a sense of which every small and there's another kinda story about people when they're making cathedrals in mediaeval times, they may be contributing to a stone, which is going to the foundations, the cathedral won't be there for another 150 200 years. But still, they see themselves as part of a bigger project. And I think that's what you're, that's what I read in what you're trying to create the climate majority project, people, in and of ourselves, our individual actions are not going to be enough to do something, yes. But collectively, and in an aligned way, where we are building the cathedral together, taking a man to the moon together, we can be contributing to something larger, which feels meaningful, and therefore, we are not discouraged from taking action, which we would otherwise think is too puny in the face of this seemingly overwhelming challenge. Absolutely.
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But what a lot of people feel is, what can I do?
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What should I do? I don't know, I feel a bit hopeless. I don't feel like there's anyone else really doing anything much. And the problem is so overwhelmingly vast, and our responses, yeah, the problem is overwhelmingly vast. But guess what, when you start to see yourself as part of a huge coming wave of action, and you start to feel yourself as part of that, then it's exciting and energising you no longer feels so puny, or hopeless. And you also come to realise that whether or not we succeed, it's going to be worthwhile to take part in this, firstly, because you can be proud of what you're doing whether or not it actually ends up working. And secondly, because every little helps in the sense that for example, a bit of harm reduction here, bit of adaptation, building and resilience there all makes whatever is coming a bit easier to to get through, and to take in the best possible way. So yes, as you say, we need to be thinking about this on a global basis and on a long term basis.
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And we need to connect that with the, with the shorter term and a more local closer at hand, or sometimes conventional activism has not been as good at that's why in the book, we sometimes talk about this as going on a journey as leading people on a journey is taking people on a journey with us to going on that journey with them. And that journey starts where we are right here and now along with others say, in a church or in your local community or in your workplace, and is part of something far, far bigger and something which has the capacity to do something completely unprecedented and extraordinary.
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And isn't that a wonderful thing to aim at and to make our lives meaningful at a time when so many people are struggling to understand what the meaning of their lives is?
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Absolutely, I mean, it does occur to me, and particularly that local adaptation and resilience strand or sub strand within the third of the action strand. That also speaks to people recovering a sense of dynamism and pride in their own place, which sits behind a lot of the populist movements as people feel like they, their place has been lost in that sort of globalising soup. And there's nothing they can do about that as well. So I think there's a great contribution and spill over there. I want to come back.
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And that if I could just add to that another as you
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Well, then that was gonna be my next know, David, and another important part of our DNA is depolarization. Seeking to make this endeavour one which can appeal as I've been seeking to say, across classes, across political orientations, across identities, to be a broad project, which is going to involve huge swathes of society, which is essential in relation to the climate, because this is not the kind of more than a problem, which can be effectively dealt with by some technocratic elite or whatever.
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it saturates everything that we do and is saturated by pretty much everything that we do. That means that it requires mass buy in. So for that reason, we regard depolarization as absolutely essential. And part of what that means is we are interested in reaching out to people who who do feel left behind we are serious about making an appeal, which often the climate movement hasn't been very good at. So people who are poor or people from the working classes, we are absolutely intent upon trying to ensure that those who are being attracted by conspiracy theories, etc. Instead, get grounded in reality, get to feel the authentic power of the truth get to feel the authentic power of building community along with others in tackling it. That's why for example, when I went on Nigel Farage his show a few months ago, on on GPUs, I handled him and I think he had a rather different way from the way that grid and find inclined To handle someone like him, often he's mocked or people get get angry, etc, etc. And you know, I understand all that perfectly well, I've felt maybe those feelings myself, but I took a really different approach. We are interested in building bridges to the audience of someone like him, and well, it's starting to work. Yeah.
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question, which is, how to how, practically in, in sort of your own behaviour as a leader of the climate majority project? How are you building a container which can contain such a width of political views won in this depot in this very polarised time? And secondly, because of course, you are coming your history is of one part of that spectrum. For instance, with extinction rebellion, being involved in that so strongly, what have you had to do yourself to be able to engage across that with and what are the what's the majority project doing structurally to make sure that it's remained keeps to that
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Yeah, great question. So I'll start with promise?
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myself, and then I'll move to the more structural stuff. So yeah, sure, I come from a particular kind of background that we've talked about. But I have gone on a journey myself, right. And we we touched on that, in the book, a number of us obviously, have, I've come to see the limits of, if you will, conventional environmentalism, I have spoken out on some of the serious mistakes, that extinction rebellion made, for example, that Canning Town on the on the tube trains back in October 2019. And the serious missteps made by others in the radical flank since such as instilling Britain and just a boil at times. And I have come to change my view, and come to think that actually, what we need is something which is a new, moderate flank, which does meaningfully address and seek to involve the climate majority, and not just a very small minority. And I hope that that kind of change of view. And also, as I've been, as I was saying a minute ago, in relation to Farage, etc, the way in which I've sought to be very, very serious in terms of making my tone, if you will, suitable for addressing and potentially bringing on site all sorts of different people. I hope that is pointing in the right direction, structurally. So one of the things that we're doing in the climate majority project is engaging in a series of depolarizing dialogues, we're engaging in a series of considerations, sometimes, privately, sometimes publicly, of difficult questions that have faced the movement at large, if you will, questions such as growth, technology, divisive questions, such as immigration, trying to look at these kinds of issues in a way which does not just take a rigorous, dogmatic, exclusive, pissed, progressive stance, and it says, No, the attitude of kind of, we're going to cancel on you unless you agree with us. 100% is not an attitude that is conducive to growing a genuinely huge depolarized wave of action. On climate, that's going to continue, we, we try to make sure that the way we speak into the space on social media etc, is not just coded as, as progressive is not just coded as green, but has a much more accessible appeal. And we're going to be doing work over the next year. More work on our audience research and on dialogue with left behind groups, from rural areas, for instance, which, which points further in this direction, plus finance day that some of our incubatees we selected them to to incubate it precisely because this is the kind of thing they're trying to do. Yeah, so community climate action are based primarily in rural sort of Brexit voting areas and try to involve the populace at large in those areas. And PD watch is very critical. That's why it was created of climate denial and climate delaying Members of Parliament, but it's seeking to involve the residents at large in a kind of cross party, non party kind of way, reaching out to residents and informing them in such a way as to seek to generate a kind of critical mass, which isn't yet Just taking up a very particular political activist or ideological stance. Great.
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And that's the second time you've mentioned incubatees. So one is worth explaining. One of the ways the current majority project is working is to have an incubator.
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What what is that? You mentioned somebody incubatees already, but what's its purpose within the whole of the project?
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Yeah, so we're a small, young organisation, compared to others in the space, we're a minnow, we don't have nearly the financial resources of big nongovernmental organisations that everyone will have heard of. But despite that, we decided from the beginning to pump some of our resources into seed funding the most prominent elements of this new modern flank, we the climate majority project are not going to be a kind of huge thing ever, which is a huge members of membership organisation that tries to do everything ourselves, what we try to do is to is to network something and midwife something and support something, provide a kind of an umbrella. So incubation means that we that we seek to fund and advise and, and consult with organisations that are getting going in the space, which we think are particularly promising or exciting examples of the kind of spirit that we've recognised and that we're trying to bring. That will be you and I've been talking about here.
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David, our newest incubator, it is cadence roundtable, we are going to be their first funder, which is the normal situation for those who choose to incubate but they haven't gotten any funding at such before. And cadence roundtable are one of the very few organisations which are really getting serious already in the space of a truth based approach to adaptation and resilience building in the UK.
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And we're very excited to be working with them in 20 and 24.
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Wonderful.
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And just the last question in this little part is question I asked you of everybody who's got a book or a proposition that they're pulling together, which is, what are the strongest good faith arguments against the Climate Majority project? Where is it that somebody has a critique? Would you go, that's not just somebody making trouble? That's actually an insight, which we have to pay attention to?
00:37:23.210 --> 00:37:47.630
Yeah, so I can name a few. One that is sometimes made is well, haven't we tried all this before? Look at Friends of the Earth, look at the transition towns movement, look at the various initiatives such as Forum for the Future, etc, etc, in relation to business?
00:37:43.219 --> 00:38:48.710
Our answer to that? Well, it's quite, it takes quite a while to answer it fully. But the basic heart of the answer is, well, we are seeking to bring stuff that we don't really think has, by and large, been been explored before. We're different from Friends of the Earth, because we're not a membership organisation. We're not an activist organisation, we're trying to go way beyond the activist bubble, as discussed in the last chapter of the client majority project book, in terms of the difference from organisations in the business space. Something that we're bringing, which is being surprisingly rare in the business space, is a strong emphasis on the need for businesses themselves, to lobby for stronger regulations on climate and nature, we argue that there is no way that business gets to do the right thing, simply through businesses trying to produce better products and, and do what's called ESG and CSR and so forth.
00:38:43.460 --> 00:39:13.849
Businesses, no business people know that they're never going to be able to do the right thing enough, unless they are regulated strongly and incentivize strongly by governments to do the right thing. But the only way that's going to happen is if businesses themselves lobbied to make that happen. So that's at the heart of our key campaign in this area between 24 which is called regulators. So that's our response that that's an outline of our response to the claim that hasn't already been tried.
00:39:14.750 --> 00:39:24.110
Another objection, which is sometimes made is isn't it too late? To which our answer is a little more straightforward?
00:39:24.500 --> 00:40:17.869
Firstly, you don't know it's too late and till you know, it's too late. You should carry on trying and acting and secondly, too late for what? Yes, we've, we think it's definitely too late to stay below 1.5 degrees, which means all sorts of bad things are gonna happen. But it's probably not too late to stay below two degrees, where all sorts of much worse things still would happen. Yes, it's too late for a smooth transition and for everything to come up smelling of roses, but no, it's not too late for things to improve dressed Berkeley in all sorts of ways, including through people getting more meaning in their lives through people having more food that's grown in their local area, being a part of that building community, etc, etc, all kinds of ways in which things could get better precisely in the face of the the underlying geophysical reality.
00:40:18.710 --> 00:40:31.460
Getting worse. So the it's it's too late to kind of objection, which comes from a place of, of understandable emotional difficulty. We think we've got very strong responses to
00:40:31.820 --> 00:40:52.969
Yeah. And I mean, I don't know summarise some very nuanced thinking with just one phrase when there's a sort of sense of the perfect is the enemy of the good. And yes, and for those who say, 1.5, all or nothing. Yes, I, I would say to them, have you really thought about what nothing really mean?
00:40:53.809 --> 00:41:09.920
Absolutely. Mainly, we're highly pragmatic, we but we think that now is a time for great pragmatism in the service of really kind of strong, determined, reality based objectives.
00:41:10.130 --> 00:41:29.510
And so in that sense, they're looking forward into the future if the climate majority project is being success, successful, and therefore, there is a lively, dynamic, impactful action from citizens and businesses and so on. What's the future you're trying to create? What would what would we What are you aiming for in that future? Yeah,
00:41:30.170 --> 00:41:33.019
that's a question.
00:41:30.170 --> 00:41:49.010
So the future I need to create is, will be one where something like transformative or strategic adaptation is much more essential to the whole basis of the nation. And eventually, of course, obviously, we want to work abroad or collaborate with other like minded folks abroad.
00:41:49.010 --> 00:44:11.119
And this needs to be a truly worldwide agenda. But we're trying to prove concept initially, primarily, in the UK, so a far more adapted and resilient country, which is going to be essential in what's coming. We hope ultimately, to change the whole political culture of the country. We think that most people are looking for shortcuts, the radical flank look for a certain kind of shortcut, which is, I think, now being shown to be completely unavailable, you know, this government are not going to just stop boiler nor are the next government. There is no, there is no tech fix. That's, that's an illusion. Revolution is, is an illusion. We're interested in the future which does not, it's not based on illusion, interested in the future, which involves a transformation over time, it's going to take the time of political culture. A nice kind of fictional example of this can be found in Steven Marquis, amazing book, The deluge, which I'm recommending to everybody at the moment, which, which, which goes through quite a kind of plausible history of the next 20 years and shows how things are going to get really very grim. But how this will produce a response that over time could come to transform the systems under which we operate. So what we're looking for is a future in which say, 10 years from now, we finally get a government which is adequate to the situation, or perhaps things change. And it's not just a question of government leading, but genuinely a question of citizens leading of the deliberative democratic institutions being far more important, etc. You know, we don't have a blueprint for the future. We think that's non plausible. But that's the kind of direction of travel that we have in mind. It's a medium term, and ultimately, a long term strategy starting from from here, and not relying on magical thinking that there's going to be wonderful shortcuts that are going to make everything fine, which again, is just toxic positivity. Yeah.
00:44:11.510 --> 00:44:18.679
And you've already mentioned some of the priorities for this year regulators. What are your priorities for the next few years? Yeah,
00:44:18.679 --> 00:44:38.389
so regulate us is going to be a big campaign for this year, and I'm sure after that, so is the adaptation campaign that I am leading, it's called strategic adaptation for emergency resilience, which abbreviates to safer, which is what we need to become done.
00:44:34.579 --> 00:44:38.389
There we
00:44:39.500 --> 00:44:41.480
go. I see what you've done there.
00:44:41.929 --> 00:45:36.829
Yes, yes. And then there's a campaign that we lead doing along with others on resourcing climate distress. So going back to our second strand handling the difficult truth together, you know, in the unnatural world which our species our civilization has now put related. Climate distress is completely natural. It needs to be de stigmatise it needs to be resourced, which means, for instance, when it occurs in an educational setting that needs to be understood as likely to happen and it needs to be prepared for and people need to be helped to deal with the distress that's likely to arise when they get taught the grim geophysical realities. So those are core activities of us in the client majority project, then, of course, there's the whole panoply of the of the related activities that have been undertaken by our incubatees.
00:45:36.860 --> 00:45:39.409
And our collaborators.
00:45:39.710 --> 00:45:42.619
Cool.
00:45:39.710 --> 00:45:49.369
Wonderful. So and then next question, if someone was inspired to follow those priorities to follow a majority project, what should they do next?
00:45:50.360 --> 00:47:33.469
Yeah, so the great thing about the client majority project is, as we discussed, it's very much we hope has something in it for everyone. So part of what our mission is, is to help people find out what their mission is, or if you will, how their specific mission fits into the more global mission. Yeah. So what's your work to do to play your maximum part in this transformation in this in this struggle? Is it by joining some existing organisation, perhaps one of these that we've mentioned on this call today? Is it by founding along with others, a new organisation and how to do that in your particular local area or your profession or, or whatever it might be? Well, the way I sometimes put this to people is used to find your superpower. And I really do mean that in an almost literal way, I believe that all of us have the capacity to do something extraordinary along with others, and to find our place to do that, in this emerging ecosystem of activities, and organisations. For some people, maybe more obvious than others what that is, but I think that if everybody is there, so spend some time I would say to people, spend some time, if you haven't already figured it out, figuring out what your actual potential superpower is, to play an extraordinary role as as one small part of this huge, beautiful emerging tapestry, with, as
00:47:33.469 --> 00:47:53.300
we talked about already, like, there's the need to address climate change is so suffused in all aspects of society, that wherever you are, there is always something to be done. And you can start as small as you need to start. And that can start with us something as small as a conversation with your family or your very
00:47:53.300 --> 00:47:57.260
valuable conversation. Conversations hugely valuable.
00:47:57.289 --> 00:48:14.900
Wonder that firsthand, and you can move into what you can do in your work on what you can do in your community. And I'll put in the show notes, links to current GA projects, I'm sure that people will find more stuff from there, taking a step back. If your younger self was starting their career now what advice would you give them?
00:48:16.159 --> 00:48:26.659
Go for it? My I've been having a great life. And I have a lot, a lot more of it.
00:48:22.880 --> 00:50:43.250
Medical luck and the state of the world permitting. I suppose the the one thing I might say to me younger selves is maybe move a bit quicker in the direction that I've ended up moving in, I sometimes wonder if I should have retired from uni a few years earlier, for instance. And I guess the the crucial thing here, for me, and it might be the same for others I think is I would advise my younger self spend, allow yourself a bit more time figuring out what your theory of change is, if you will. And that kind of thinking could be helped by the discussion, obviously, that we have of this in our climate majority project book. People need to have some kind of idea of how what they are doing or what they could be, instead be doing really realistically could be part of leading to some significantly better outcome that is worth spending some time reflecting upon. So questions like Am I being honest with myself about what this could add up to? Have I reflected enough about the different possible ways in which this could or this could succeed or fail in in contributing to the wave that we actually need? And if I were advising As a young person, one piece of advice I would give is, consider whether there is some way that you can help someone who you would like to regard as a mentor to yourself, which could be somebody in your local community or someone on the national scene or whatever you don't know. Because if you're a younger person, and you're thinking, Yeah, I'm really not sure yet, you know, where my area of contribution is, one of the best ways you might have of figuring that out, is to attach yourself to somebody who you admire who you think is bringing something important in getting the space and through being attached to them and helping them and you may be able to figure out better, what your work to do is, yeah.
00:50:43.969 --> 00:50:46.699
Wonderful.
00:50:43.969 --> 00:50:49.250
Who would you nominate to answer these questions because you admire what they're doing?
00:50:50.710 --> 00:50:55.059
I'd love you to have a conversation with Steven Markley, David, the author of The Deluge
00:50:56.969 --> 00:51:04.170
Great, I will add him to the list. Is there anything else important?
00:51:00.989 --> 00:51:04.170
You would like to say?
00:51:05.519 --> 00:51:31.739
Well, not really, I think they cover things beautifully. I would like to say that I've enjoyed this. I appreciate the work that you're doing, David. And yeah, I very much hope that people will, if they haven't already done so, go through some of the sorts of processes that that I've been talking about here on this on this podcast with you. Because there is nothing more important.
00:51:29.130 --> 00:51:31.739
And
00:51:31.739 --> 00:52:23.550
it really strikes me you were talking right at the start about the sort of the dialectic, the call response between how the geophysical situation is getting worse, but the human response is also accelerating. And we're in this kind of, for a better metaphor in a race between how the physical side turns out and how quickly respond and how deeply now fundamentally, and I'd say that of all the things that I can see going on one of the things that is the human response, one of the ones which I'm most excited about, is the climate majority of project because it's possibility of getting beyond the small ish number who are most active at the moment and truly making this a, a societal effort on the transition that we need. So I'm, I'm very excited for your work.
00:52:23.550 --> 00:52:25.920
And I hope you have luck with doing it.
00:52:26.579 --> 00:53:13.829
Daily. Thank you so much. That is a splendid vote of confidence. Naturally hit review, you know, we've thought about this carefully, very carefully, very deeply, for quite a long time. We're now kind of bringing it into interaction. It's kind of happening, we're getting some resonance, we're getting some support, things are going reasonably well. When we get into the, into the media, we've got promising funding leads to grow further. It's all very, very positive and exciting. It's all happening in quite an organic way. And there really is a place in it for everybody. And yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. It is so essential that we get beyond that we grow beyond the usual suspects. And we think we're offering a framework which could enable that to happen.
00:53:14.099 --> 00:53:14.489
Wonderful.
00:53:14.489 --> 00:53:30.090
And with that, we will say thank you very much to Reed, co director of the home majority project you've been listening to what can we do in these powerful times, daily bent. Thank you for listening, all the way to the end. And I'm sure I'll speak to you soon
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Hi.
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Welcome to what we do in these powerful times, my name is David bent.
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And I've been working in the field of sustainability and climate change for some 20 years, it feels like the need for climate need for change even is growing faster than the impact we're delivering. So I'm wondering what I can do next that is useful. Speaking with others, they have that same challenge, which is why I'm doing this interview series. In 30 minute bites, I asked some brilliant people what they're doing now and why, or to inspire and enable the audience which may just turn out to be me through stories grounded in experience. And today's guest is Rupert Reed. He is the professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of East Anglia and most importantly, the co director of the climate majority project, which I'm sure we'll get into. Hello, Rupert. Good morning, David. What are you doing now? And how did you get here?
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Well, so as implied by your intro, I'm now an emeritus professor sounds incredibly grand. What it basically means is I've retired, retired early. And the reason I've done that is so that I can focus for heartedly for the first time ever really, on Well, my life's purpose on the work I've found to do on primarily, this time in my life, the climate of maturity project, which I'm sure as you say, we'll get into, in great detail. But yeah, that's the centre of my activity. Now, I co direct this new project, we've got some funding, it's extremely ambitious. So it occupies pretty much all of my time i There's various other bits and pieces I do on the side, including not least, I've just really been working this morning. In our garden, we haven't little tiny holding third of an acre, I've just been collecting and spreading some leaves, leaf mould, leaf mulch, and that is something very practical and, and well, beautiful, and also kind of atomic, that I do. And it also helps to, to focus the mind a little bit on the on the challenge and the upsides of the challenge of trying to grow some of our own food and trying to become a little bit more self reliant, which is kind of also relevant to the to the times where Yes, indeed. So you've just found that the climate majority or co founder the climate majority project, having been a university professor, and the green counsellor, so just give us a potted history of you say, climate action on climate change is your life's work and purpose. Clara Britton, rejoice because it doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from 2030 years worth of work and in this area. So what have you been up to up until now? Yeah, so anyone wanting to kind of dive deeper into this history of mine and how I got here, I'd recommend to read my book. Do you want to know the truth, the surprising rewards of climate honesty, which tells this story, but a very brief version would be that I became an academic gradually over the years, my work moved more and more into environmental and political philosophy. But that wasn't enough. I've always been someone who took activism seriously, had various kinds of dabblings in nonviolent direct action in the past. And then as you say, for quite a while, a key focus of mine became the Green Party in attempting to find an electoral route, if you will, to college ism, had some success under under that banner was a two term council or elected in in Norwich, for example, was instrumental in kissing speed limits reduced around the city of Norwich. But changed direction really, in a more accentuated way, roundabout 2015. When it became clear to me in this phrase that I've helped to make a little bit famous, this civilization is finished that well, this civilization as we know it is coming to an end, and that we need to up our game a bit in terms of the level of honesty about this. And in terms of what we do about it. So started giving talks with the title of this civilization is finished, got a lot of positive feedback, even though the message that I was delivering was so seemingly negative so much so that at first I was very hesitant to give it at all. And that led me into a confluence with the people who were putting together extinction rebellion in 2018. And I helped launch extinction rebellion for two wonderful years was a the strategist and spokesperson in XR. You can read about that, if you like in my book, extinction, rebellion insights from the inside.
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In 2020, it became clear to me that x had reached a kind of a ceiling. And that something else was needed something with much wider appeal, something that could actually deliver on the promise of extinction rebellion, to go beyond party politics to go beyond ideology, to not name and shame and blame, and really deliver that promise and be a welcoming climate movement. So I started talking about the need for a new, moderate flank in climate and ecological action that eventually became the climate majority project, which now has a decent amount of funding alone, we can always use a lot more if anyone's listening with. No, absolutely. No joke, and very unapologetically keen to make that kind of pitch.
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Yeah. And yeah, so that's one reason I've been able to retire because I'm getting some income now, from the climate majority project. So yeah, that's a short version of how I got to where I am now.
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Cool. And folks are interested, I'll put links into all those books into the show notes. And another past episode of powerful times was with with Claire Farrell, who was one of the cofounders of extinction rebellion and has a parallel stories to one that Rupert was just talking about.
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So let's, let's talk about the climate majority project. I've been reading the book, the book of there was no what would it be if you were doing a charade? The book was the movement. The book was the and I'm very impressed, but it'd be great to his, what it does lay out in there, and I'm sure you can give us now is, you've already given a little bit of that, why we need this, we need a moderate flank. But there's also some fundamental assumptions you have about what needs to go into the activities and the strands of work that make up creating that moderate plank, so and also, where you think a lot of people in the UK and the Western world are right now. And I think we're good to unpack. What's our situation when it comes to citizen views?
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And how does the clear majority project try to bounce off of that into the kind of action you think is needed? Yeah, lovely.
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Lots of get our teeth into there. But let me start with a little step back into what's our situation geopolitically, biologically, ecologically. And I think it's increasingly clear at the start of 2020, for that, in those terms, our situation is profoundly desperate. Most people haven't really understood this yet, not just because they haven't understood the full gravity of the way we're crashing through all sorts of planetary boundaries, not least the climate boundary. But in particular, because most people haven't yet really twigged just how bad is the acceleration in overheating that's been taking place for the last several months. So basically, what's been happening is that is that world temperature records are falling like nine pins, it's really accelerated over the last several months. And in fact, according to some databases, the global average overheating from 2023 was above 1.5 degrees centigrade, which is supposed to be the absolute maximum safe guardrail, which we weren't supposed to be getting anywhere near till the 2030s or something like that. So the situation is really dire. And probably a key reason for that. It's not just the El Nino global weather system that we're getting now.
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And that will carry on for at least another year or so. It's also highly likely to be that the aerosols blanketing the earth the pollution, basically, the air pollution, has been significantly reduced over the last few years. This is a lot less well studies than the greenhouse effect and other aspects of the climate conundrum. And that's a mistake.
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We need to study it more because it looks like what some of us have been warning about for a long time, that when this global dimming, sometimes called started to to be removed when we started to reduce the the crippling blanket of air pollution, which of course kills millions of people every year around the planet, that among the effects of that would be a sudden acceleration overheating, and lo and behold, we're finally getting it and this is chickens really coming home to roost. So 2024 is very likely to be a year of absolutely unprecedented further temperature records and probably storms and such as well. So buckle up everybody.
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Now, what are the implications of that? Does that mean that we all have to get more radical?
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Well, I think not the the slightly paradoxical but quite fundamental insight that's at the basis of the Climate Majority Project is that when there is some kind of prompt, some kind of cause for a lot more people to be waking up to what's happening. And that's what's happening right now, you know, the weather, if you will is, is always our greatest recruiters. When that's happening, what we need to be ready to do is to welcome new people into the movement and most of these people who are going to be coming our way, they're not going to be activists, let alone radicals, and many of them are not going to be willing to become activists. So what does it mean then that they'll be willing to enter the movement, what it means is that then looking for ways, that means something to them, that makes sense to them, that they can get active and serious in their lives, that will actually rise to the scale of the challenge that they're starting to realise is upon us.
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And well, that goes to the heart of what the climate majority project is trying to offer, ways of doing just that ways of people taking action, in their lives, in business in the institutions that they're in, in their profession, perhaps, or in their local community, or in their role as a parent, perhaps, ways that they are, if you will, able and willing to identify as part of the response the collective response to the climate conundrum. But as I say, not necessarily the brand, probably, in fact, not part of the existing climate movement.
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As such, we need to offer something new, more encompassing, more welcoming, we need to offer pathways to action, for people to take action, as lawyers, as teachers, as parents, and so on and so forth. And that's what we tried to do in the climate majority project. Now, just saying one more thing about this, in response to the the geophysical and ecological situation that we are in, I said that the situation is getting more grim.
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But that is only true, if you look at it from the perspective of the geophysics and the biology and so forth alone. If you look at it in a more encompassing perspective, which includes humanity, which includes our responsiveness to the situation, then in some ways, the situation is less grim now than it was six years ago, before the formation of extinction rebellion before Greta came along, and so on, because we are now finally getting a response and mass response from people from citizens. And that's what we in the client majority project are trying to name and network and support and help to grow. It's already happening. The responses already happening in organisations like climate Emergency Centres like transformative adaptation and community climate action.
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Lawyers for Net Zero purpose disruptors, in advertising, MP watch, wildcard, all of these new organisations, some of them springing from the back of extinction, rebellion, others quite independent, that are that are springing up spontaneously across these kinds of domains that I've been naming of the various ways that people have potential power in their lives, to undertake action that responds to the crisis and doesn't involve them having to whatever blew themselves to the end 25. So, to sum it up, the geophysical situation is grim.
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But that leads in a kind of dialectical way, if you like, or in the way that Karl Polanyi call the double movement, things get worse, and then things get better that leads spontaneously to a human response to a kind of awakening to a readiness for for action of a new kind of a new scale. And that is exactly what we are trying to bring into support. And that is the sense in which the situation exactly as it gets more grim. Also, in a certain sense, gets more hopeful. It gets more exciting, and and gets us into the the nitty gritty of a huge, tremendous new opportunity. Yes.
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And I think it's worth I'll put into the show notes. I've tried to find all of those organisations you mentioned, and also try to put where some scientists or others in the scientists who are in public online, there's a great debate going on about what the causes are of this current.
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Yes, I'm up as you say, we've had a series of the warmest days ever, it seems utterly incredible. Where it may turn out there are more than one factor but it certainly is grim and we are having even though last year was the warmest year for a long time, warmest year.
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And breaching this 1.5 degrees which we as you say weren't supposed to breach until 2030.
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We've all of us already had the coldest year we're gonna experience it's like the warmest year for last 250 years and the coldest year for the next 250 years. And this is one of the things which we need to get done. On top of, and I think one of the things which you're very strong in the book is that respecting the achievements and the breakthroughs which were made because of extinction, rebellion, and Greta, tunberg, and so on. But now the need to go beyond that and reach into people who aren't prepared, and I can't be as radical and put themselves as much risk of that.
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So, I'd like to come back to how you tried to create a container for such a variety of starting positions. But I know the clear majority project has these four mutually reinforcing strands, which I think be great for people to hear out those strands and how they work together.
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Yeah, great. Well, let me outline the four strands indeed. So the first strand, the place where many of us although not all of us begin is with truthfulness. And of course, we're inheriting this quote directly from XR and from the school climate strikers clarity about how bad the situation is not triggering the pill, not engaging in so called stubborn optimism, but engaging in what I call toxic positivity, which is forcing everybody to look on the bright side, even when what they're actually looking at, is very dark. Because unless we are able to face up to Climate Reality, to look the truth in the eye, we will never do what is commensurate with it. Now, truthfulness is not enough, right? If you just give people these kind of dark and difficult to your physical excetera truths, then there's a chance that they'll go up into a ball, become desperate, get stuck in depression, et
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cetera, or just or just reject what you're saying, because they can't Yes,
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indeed, denial is an easy option. And it's still an option, which some people incredibly are taking up, but in a way, you're not so incredibly, as you say. So the second strand of our four strand theory of change, which as you say, we outline in the client majority project book, is handling the truth together, building a shared culture of resilience, doing the inner work that is necessary to handle these, these grim realities and to stop them being turned dialectically into something very different.
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Because this is the wonderful thing that is deeply true about the difficult climate, emotions, climate, anger, climate, grief.
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Climate, anxiety, of course, is that they are a form of energy, and they all have the capacity to turn into something strong and new and exciting and into action. And that is the third strand of theory of change.
00:17:49.440 --> 00:20:36.420
providing people with signposts to meaningful actions that they can take along with others, it's always going to have to be fundamentally collective meaningful action response to these kinds of profound problems are more than problems that we are now in the grip of. So individual actions such as you yourself deciding to eat less meat, or to fly less, you know, that's all well and good. But we know that these things are not going to be enough. People need to change their lives, when I say people need to change their lives. Well, I don't mean that they need necessarily to quit their jobs or you know, that is an option. That is what I have eventually done. What I mean is that either they have to do something like that, or they have to find a way of operating within the life that they have, that actually points along with others in this new direction. So let me give a couple examples of what that might mean. One of our incubatees is an organisation called Lloyd financiera will actually they just changed their name to General Counsel, sustainability leader. So these are senior corporate lawyers, who are trying to do the right thing in their firms on climate in nature. Now, these are very unusual suspects, you know, when you think of people who are trying to do the right thing in terms of changing the future and addressing dangerous climate change, your mind doesn't immediately go to senior corporate lawyers, but they are out there and and they are working, I went to a meeting of these folk a little while ago was a fly on the wall. In it, it was very interesting, it was very pragmatic, very practical terms of steps been taken within these firms to start to try to push them in the right direction to reconsider their reliance on fossil fuels, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. So, you know, that's a really surprising example. One way of putting it might be that if senior corporate lawyers can start to do the right thing on climate, then perhaps pretty much anybody. That is exactly what we think that pretty much anybody there there is a place for everybody in this room. that, that when you think about journalists, or teachers, or civil servants or people involved in, in food growing, or many other walks of life, it's not that difficult to see how people can turn their life and their, their working life and their labour in the right direction. Now, for some people that's going to be more difficult to do that, or for some people, it's going to be irrelevant if they are disabled or a carer or what have you care for intimate family member?
00:20:32.490 --> 00:22:03.720
Right. So what's the what's the pathway first for somebody like that in relation to climate which we should project? Well, another thing we think is that, look, everybody is a member of a geographic community, everybody lives somewhere. And one of the absolutely key challenges of our time is to find ways of living together in ways that are more resilient to what to what's coming. And one of the great advantages of building resilience in that way. Because not only are you then more resilient to not only are there are there collateral benefits in terms of reducing your cost of living and so forth. But also, you're providing an example to other people, when you engage along with others in say, creating community orchard, which is what we're doing in my village right now. Or creating more local water storage, or growing food and whatever kind together. And of course, there are many other examples, we could talk about community, renewable energy, etc. When you do that, it makes the thing real to people to other people, right, it makes it for yourselves as well, but to other people, it makes it visible and real to other people. This is why I think that adaptation is so important now that climate adaptation is a crucial part of what we need. There's been such a focus within the climate movement for so long on mitigation, which can seem very remote and abstract to people.
00:21:58.829 --> 00:22:41.940
It's about 2035, or 2050. It's about faraway countries in which we know little, it's about our great grandchildren, these things are all terribly important. I've written about them in the past in Britain about how we need to grow their importance. But if we want to reach out more to the mass of people, if you want to reach out more, for example, to working class people, to rural people, to conservative minded people, and these are all things, these are all central ambitions of the majority project, then we're going to take adaptation or more seriously. So what I'm saying is that for anyone who's kind of not sure how they can contribute in the kind of way that I've been sketching here, it's highly likely that there's a way you can contribute through your community. And that's what community climate action is.
00:22:41.940 --> 00:23:58.140
That's what transformative adaptation is. And that's going to be a big focus of our work and of my work this year, building up the focus on transformative and strategic adaptation. So that's the third, and obviously, absolutely vital, strand meaningful pathways to collective action. That's, that's an essential feature of the new moderate flank. And the fourth and final strand, which kind of ties all these together, truthfulness, handling the truth together, taking action that's commensurate with the truth. The fourth and final strand that ties all of these together is a shared understanding of all of this, and in particular, a shared understanding that this is essential that this is already starting to happen. And that you can be part of it and that people like you are already being part of it or want to be a part of it, which by the way, the audience research that we've done shows there's there's a huge potential audience beyond the usual suspects for the kind of thing that we're trying to bring here. Among the demographic categories, for example, known as civic pragmatists, and established liberals, also those known actually as loyal nationals, patriotic type people who are concerned about the uncertain future that we're moving into.
00:23:58.140 --> 00:24:12.539
So that's the fourth strand sensemaking, building a shared understanding, which begins with realising in a very kind of energising way that this is already happening, but there's bound to be more of it. And well come aboard with it. Yeah.
00:24:13.380 --> 00:24:46.079
All right, well, wonderful. And just because there's just so much in there, I'll say back those four strands so that everyone has them in mind as they're listening. So firstly, a narrative shift towards truthfulness. Secondly, creating cultures of awareness and resilience. Thirdly, tangible pragmatic action, which you locate in either people's places of work and or in their communities. And then finally, building that shared understanding collectively. And that last one, in particular reminds me is this this story about Kennedy walking around?
00:24:46.859 --> 00:24:56.309
President Kennedy walking around some NASA installation and asking a janitor what he was doing when he was cleaning a room and the janitor said, I'm taking a man to the moon.
00:24:56.369 --> 00:25:46.890
There's a sense of which every small and there's another kinda story about people when they're making cathedrals in mediaeval times, they may be contributing to a stone, which is going to the foundations, the cathedral won't be there for another 150 200 years. But still, they see themselves as part of a bigger project. And I think that's what you're, that's what I read in what you're trying to create the climate majority project, people, in and of ourselves, our individual actions are not going to be enough to do something, yes. But collectively, and in an aligned way, where we are building the cathedral together, taking a man to the moon together, we can be contributing to something larger, which feels meaningful, and therefore, we are not discouraged from taking action, which we would otherwise think is too puny in the face of this seemingly overwhelming challenge. Absolutely.
00:25:46.890 --> 00:25:50.579
But what a lot of people feel is, what can I do?
00:25:50.579 --> 00:26:53.640
What should I do? I don't know, I feel a bit hopeless. I don't feel like there's anyone else really doing anything much. And the problem is so overwhelmingly vast, and our responses, yeah, the problem is overwhelmingly vast. But guess what, when you start to see yourself as part of a huge coming wave of action, and you start to feel yourself as part of that, then it's exciting and energising you no longer feels so puny, or hopeless. And you also come to realise that whether or not we succeed, it's going to be worthwhile to take part in this, firstly, because you can be proud of what you're doing whether or not it actually ends up working. And secondly, because every little helps in the sense that for example, a bit of harm reduction here, bit of adaptation, building and resilience there all makes whatever is coming a bit easier to to get through, and to take in the best possible way. So yes, as you say, we need to be thinking about this on a global basis and on a long term basis.
00:26:49.829 --> 00:27:33.269
And we need to connect that with the, with the shorter term and a more local closer at hand, or sometimes conventional activism has not been as good at that's why in the book, we sometimes talk about this as going on a journey as leading people on a journey is taking people on a journey with us to going on that journey with them. And that journey starts where we are right here and now along with others say, in a church or in your local community or in your workplace, and is part of something far, far bigger and something which has the capacity to do something completely unprecedented and extraordinary.
00:27:29.910 --> 00:27:40.200
And isn't that a wonderful thing to aim at and to make our lives meaningful at a time when so many people are struggling to understand what the meaning of their lives is?
00:27:40.559 --> 00:28:10.680
Absolutely, I mean, it does occur to me, and particularly that local adaptation and resilience strand or sub strand within the third of the action strand. That also speaks to people recovering a sense of dynamism and pride in their own place, which sits behind a lot of the populist movements as people feel like they, their place has been lost in that sort of globalising soup. And there's nothing they can do about that as well. So I think there's a great contribution and spill over there. I want to come back.
00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:14.019
And that if I could just add to that another as you
00:28:10.000 --> 00:28:48.819
Well, then that was gonna be my next know, David, and another important part of our DNA is depolarization. Seeking to make this endeavour one which can appeal as I've been seeking to say, across classes, across political orientations, across identities, to be a broad project, which is going to involve huge swathes of society, which is essential in relation to the climate, because this is not the kind of more than a problem, which can be effectively dealt with by some technocratic elite or whatever.
00:28:49.390 --> 00:30:24.640
it saturates everything that we do and is saturated by pretty much everything that we do. That means that it requires mass buy in. So for that reason, we regard depolarization as absolutely essential. And part of what that means is we are interested in reaching out to people who who do feel left behind we are serious about making an appeal, which often the climate movement hasn't been very good at. So people who are poor or people from the working classes, we are absolutely intent upon trying to ensure that those who are being attracted by conspiracy theories, etc. Instead, get grounded in reality, get to feel the authentic power of the truth get to feel the authentic power of building community along with others in tackling it. That's why for example, when I went on Nigel Farage his show a few months ago, on on GPUs, I handled him and I think he had a rather different way from the way that grid and find inclined To handle someone like him, often he's mocked or people get get angry, etc, etc. And you know, I understand all that perfectly well, I've felt maybe those feelings myself, but I took a really different approach. We are interested in building bridges to the audience of someone like him, and well, it's starting to work. Yeah.
00:30:26.650 --> 00:31:05.319
question, which is, how to how, practically in, in sort of your own behaviour as a leader of the climate majority project? How are you building a container which can contain such a width of political views won in this depot in this very polarised time? And secondly, because of course, you are coming your history is of one part of that spectrum. For instance, with extinction rebellion, being involved in that so strongly, what have you had to do yourself to be able to engage across that with and what are the what's the majority project doing structurally to make sure that it's remained keeps to that
00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:05.950
Yeah, great question. So I'll start with promise?
00:31:08.299 --> 00:35:06.889
myself, and then I'll move to the more structural stuff. So yeah, sure, I come from a particular kind of background that we've talked about. But I have gone on a journey myself, right. And we we touched on that, in the book, a number of us obviously, have, I've come to see the limits of, if you will, conventional environmentalism, I have spoken out on some of the serious mistakes, that extinction rebellion made, for example, that Canning Town on the on the tube trains back in October 2019. And the serious missteps made by others in the radical flank since such as instilling Britain and just a boil at times. And I have come to change my view, and come to think that actually, what we need is something which is a new, moderate flank, which does meaningfully address and seek to involve the climate majority, and not just a very small minority. And I hope that that kind of change of view. And also, as I've been, as I was saying a minute ago, in relation to Farage, etc, the way in which I've sought to be very, very serious in terms of making my tone, if you will, suitable for addressing and potentially bringing on site all sorts of different people. I hope that is pointing in the right direction, structurally. So one of the things that we're doing in the climate majority project is engaging in a series of depolarizing dialogues, we're engaging in a series of considerations, sometimes, privately, sometimes publicly, of difficult questions that have faced the movement at large, if you will, questions such as growth, technology, divisive questions, such as immigration, trying to look at these kinds of issues in a way which does not just take a rigorous, dogmatic, exclusive, pissed, progressive stance, and it says, No, the attitude of kind of, we're going to cancel on you unless you agree with us. 100% is not an attitude that is conducive to growing a genuinely huge depolarized wave of action. On climate, that's going to continue, we, we try to make sure that the way we speak into the space on social media etc, is not just coded as, as progressive is not just coded as green, but has a much more accessible appeal. And we're going to be doing work over the next year. More work on our audience research and on dialogue with left behind groups, from rural areas, for instance, which, which points further in this direction, plus finance day that some of our incubatees we selected them to to incubate it precisely because this is the kind of thing they're trying to do. Yeah, so community climate action are based primarily in rural sort of Brexit voting areas and try to involve the populace at large in those areas. And PD watch is very critical. That's why it was created of climate denial and climate delaying Members of Parliament, but it's seeking to involve the residents at large in a kind of cross party, non party kind of way, reaching out to residents and informing them in such a way as to seek to generate a kind of critical mass, which isn't yet Just taking up a very particular political activist or ideological stance. Great.
00:35:07.610 --> 00:35:16.010
And that's the second time you've mentioned incubatees. So one is worth explaining. One of the ways the current majority project is working is to have an incubator.
00:35:16.039 --> 00:35:23.900
What what is that? You mentioned somebody incubatees already, but what's its purpose within the whole of the project?
00:35:24.590 --> 00:36:26.840
Yeah, so we're a small, young organisation, compared to others in the space, we're a minnow, we don't have nearly the financial resources of big nongovernmental organisations that everyone will have heard of. But despite that, we decided from the beginning to pump some of our resources into seed funding the most prominent elements of this new modern flank, we the climate majority project are not going to be a kind of huge thing ever, which is a huge members of membership organisation that tries to do everything ourselves, what we try to do is to is to network something and midwife something and support something, provide a kind of an umbrella. So incubation means that we that we seek to fund and advise and, and consult with organisations that are getting going in the space, which we think are particularly promising or exciting examples of the kind of spirit that we've recognised and that we're trying to bring. That will be you and I've been talking about here.
00:36:27.500 --> 00:36:57.289
David, our newest incubator, it is cadence roundtable, we are going to be their first funder, which is the normal situation for those who choose to incubate but they haven't gotten any funding at such before. And cadence roundtable are one of the very few organisations which are really getting serious already in the space of a truth based approach to adaptation and resilience building in the UK.
00:36:53.059 --> 00:36:59.570
And we're very excited to be working with them in 20 and 24.
00:37:00.380 --> 00:37:03.019
Wonderful.
00:37:00.380 --> 00:37:21.829
And just the last question in this little part is question I asked you of everybody who's got a book or a proposition that they're pulling together, which is, what are the strongest good faith arguments against the Climate Majority project? Where is it that somebody has a critique? Would you go, that's not just somebody making trouble? That's actually an insight, which we have to pay attention to?
00:37:23.210 --> 00:37:47.630
Yeah, so I can name a few. One that is sometimes made is well, haven't we tried all this before? Look at Friends of the Earth, look at the transition towns movement, look at the various initiatives such as Forum for the Future, etc, etc, in relation to business?
00:37:43.219 --> 00:38:48.710
Our answer to that? Well, it's quite, it takes quite a while to answer it fully. But the basic heart of the answer is, well, we are seeking to bring stuff that we don't really think has, by and large, been been explored before. We're different from Friends of the Earth, because we're not a membership organisation. We're not an activist organisation, we're trying to go way beyond the activist bubble, as discussed in the last chapter of the client majority project book, in terms of the difference from organisations in the business space. Something that we're bringing, which is being surprisingly rare in the business space, is a strong emphasis on the need for businesses themselves, to lobby for stronger regulations on climate and nature, we argue that there is no way that business gets to do the right thing, simply through businesses trying to produce better products and, and do what's called ESG and CSR and so forth.
00:38:43.460 --> 00:39:13.849
Businesses, no business people know that they're never going to be able to do the right thing enough, unless they are regulated strongly and incentivize strongly by governments to do the right thing. But the only way that's going to happen is if businesses themselves lobbied to make that happen. So that's at the heart of our key campaign in this area between 24 which is called regulators. So that's our response that that's an outline of our response to the claim that hasn't already been tried.
00:39:14.750 --> 00:39:24.110
Another objection, which is sometimes made is isn't it too late? To which our answer is a little more straightforward?
00:39:24.500 --> 00:40:17.869
Firstly, you don't know it's too late and till you know, it's too late. You should carry on trying and acting and secondly, too late for what? Yes, we've, we think it's definitely too late to stay below 1.5 degrees, which means all sorts of bad things are gonna happen. But it's probably not too late to stay below two degrees, where all sorts of much worse things still would happen. Yes, it's too late for a smooth transition and for everything to come up smelling of roses, but no, it's not too late for things to improve dressed Berkeley in all sorts of ways, including through people getting more meaning in their lives through people having more food that's grown in their local area, being a part of that building community, etc, etc, all kinds of ways in which things could get better precisely in the face of the the underlying geophysical reality.
00:40:18.710 --> 00:40:31.460
Getting worse. So the it's it's too late to kind of objection, which comes from a place of, of understandable emotional difficulty. We think we've got very strong responses to
00:40:31.820 --> 00:40:52.969
Yeah. And I mean, I don't know summarise some very nuanced thinking with just one phrase when there's a sort of sense of the perfect is the enemy of the good. And yes, and for those who say, 1.5, all or nothing. Yes, I, I would say to them, have you really thought about what nothing really mean?
00:40:53.809 --> 00:41:09.920
Absolutely. Mainly, we're highly pragmatic, we but we think that now is a time for great pragmatism in the service of really kind of strong, determined, reality based objectives.
00:41:10.130 --> 00:41:29.510
And so in that sense, they're looking forward into the future if the climate majority project is being success, successful, and therefore, there is a lively, dynamic, impactful action from citizens and businesses and so on. What's the future you're trying to create? What would what would we What are you aiming for in that future? Yeah,
00:41:30.170 --> 00:41:33.019
that's a question.
00:41:30.170 --> 00:41:49.010
So the future I need to create is, will be one where something like transformative or strategic adaptation is much more essential to the whole basis of the nation. And eventually, of course, obviously, we want to work abroad or collaborate with other like minded folks abroad.
00:41:49.010 --> 00:44:11.119
And this needs to be a truly worldwide agenda. But we're trying to prove concept initially, primarily, in the UK, so a far more adapted and resilient country, which is going to be essential in what's coming. We hope ultimately, to change the whole political culture of the country. We think that most people are looking for shortcuts, the radical flank look for a certain kind of shortcut, which is, I think, now being shown to be completely unavailable, you know, this government are not going to just stop boiler nor are the next government. There is no, there is no tech fix. That's, that's an illusion. Revolution is, is an illusion. We're interested in the future which does not, it's not based on illusion, interested in the future, which involves a transformation over time, it's going to take the time of political culture. A nice kind of fictional example of this can be found in Steven Marquis, amazing book, The deluge, which I'm recommending to everybody at the moment, which, which, which goes through quite a kind of plausible history of the next 20 years and shows how things are going to get really very grim. But how this will produce a response that over time could come to transform the systems under which we operate. So what we're looking for is a future in which say, 10 years from now, we finally get a government which is adequate to the situation, or perhaps things change. And it's not just a question of government leading, but genuinely a question of citizens leading of the deliberative democratic institutions being far more important, etc. You know, we don't have a blueprint for the future. We think that's non plausible. But that's the kind of direction of travel that we have in mind. It's a medium term, and ultimately, a long term strategy starting from from here, and not relying on magical thinking that there's going to be wonderful shortcuts that are going to make everything fine, which again, is just toxic positivity. Yeah.
00:44:11.510 --> 00:44:18.679
And you've already mentioned some of the priorities for this year regulators. What are your priorities for the next few years? Yeah,
00:44:18.679 --> 00:44:38.389
so regulate us is going to be a big campaign for this year, and I'm sure after that, so is the adaptation campaign that I am leading, it's called strategic adaptation for emergency resilience, which abbreviates to safer, which is what we need to become done.
00:44:34.579 --> 00:44:38.389
There we
00:44:39.500 --> 00:44:41.480
go. I see what you've done there.
00:44:41.929 --> 00:45:36.829
Yes, yes. And then there's a campaign that we lead doing along with others on resourcing climate distress. So going back to our second strand handling the difficult truth together, you know, in the unnatural world which our species our civilization has now put related. Climate distress is completely natural. It needs to be de stigmatise it needs to be resourced, which means, for instance, when it occurs in an educational setting that needs to be understood as likely to happen and it needs to be prepared for and people need to be helped to deal with the distress that's likely to arise when they get taught the grim geophysical realities. So those are core activities of us in the client majority project, then, of course, there's the whole panoply of the of the related activities that have been undertaken by our incubatees.
00:45:36.860 --> 00:45:39.409
And our collaborators.
00:45:39.710 --> 00:45:42.619
Cool.
00:45:39.710 --> 00:45:49.369
Wonderful. So and then next question, if someone was inspired to follow those priorities to follow a majority project, what should they do next?
00:45:50.360 --> 00:47:33.469
Yeah, so the great thing about the client majority project is, as we discussed, it's very much we hope has something in it for everyone. So part of what our mission is, is to help people find out what their mission is, or if you will, how their specific mission fits into the more global mission. Yeah. So what's your work to do to play your maximum part in this transformation in this in this struggle? Is it by joining some existing organisation, perhaps one of these that we've mentioned on this call today? Is it by founding along with others, a new organisation and how to do that in your particular local area or your profession or, or whatever it might be? Well, the way I sometimes put this to people is used to find your superpower. And I really do mean that in an almost literal way, I believe that all of us have the capacity to do something extraordinary along with others, and to find our place to do that, in this emerging ecosystem of activities, and organisations. For some people, maybe more obvious than others what that is, but I think that if everybody is there, so spend some time I would say to people, spend some time, if you haven't already figured it out, figuring out what your actual potential superpower is, to play an extraordinary role as as one small part of this huge, beautiful emerging tapestry, with, as
00:47:33.469 --> 00:47:53.300
we talked about already, like, there's the need to address climate change is so suffused in all aspects of society, that wherever you are, there is always something to be done. And you can start as small as you need to start. And that can start with us something as small as a conversation with your family or your very
00:47:53.300 --> 00:47:57.260
valuable conversation. Conversations hugely valuable.
00:47:57.289 --> 00:48:14.900
Wonder that firsthand, and you can move into what you can do in your work on what you can do in your community. And I'll put in the show notes, links to current GA projects, I'm sure that people will find more stuff from there, taking a step back. If your younger self was starting their career now what advice would you give them?
00:48:16.159 --> 00:48:26.659
Go for it? My I've been having a great life. And I have a lot, a lot more of it.
00:48:22.880 --> 00:50:43.250
Medical luck and the state of the world permitting. I suppose the the one thing I might say to me younger selves is maybe move a bit quicker in the direction that I've ended up moving in, I sometimes wonder if I should have retired from uni a few years earlier, for instance. And I guess the the crucial thing here, for me, and it might be the same for others I think is I would advise my younger self spend, allow yourself a bit more time figuring out what your theory of change is, if you will. And that kind of thinking could be helped by the discussion, obviously, that we have of this in our climate majority project book. People need to have some kind of idea of how what they are doing or what they could be, instead be doing really realistically could be part of leading to some significantly better outcome that is worth spending some time reflecting upon. So questions like Am I being honest with myself about what this could add up to? Have I reflected enough about the different possible ways in which this could or this could succeed or fail in in contributing to the wave that we actually need? And if I were advising As a young person, one piece of advice I would give is, consider whether there is some way that you can help someone who you would like to regard as a mentor to yourself, which could be somebody in your local community or someone on the national scene or whatever you don't know. Because if you're a younger person, and you're thinking, Yeah, I'm really not sure yet, you know, where my area of contribution is, one of the best ways you might have of figuring that out, is to attach yourself to somebody who you admire who you think is bringing something important in getting the space and through being attached to them and helping them and you may be able to figure out better, what your work to do is, yeah.
00:50:43.969 --> 00:50:46.699
Wonderful.
00:50:43.969 --> 00:50:49.250
Who would you nominate to answer these questions because you admire what they're doing?
00:50:50.710 --> 00:50:55.059
I'd love you to have a conversation with Steven Markley, David, the author of The Deluge
00:50:56.969 --> 00:51:04.170
Great, I will add him to the list. Is there anything else important?
00:51:00.989 --> 00:51:04.170
You would like to say?
00:51:05.519 --> 00:51:31.739
Well, not really, I think they cover things beautifully. I would like to say that I've enjoyed this. I appreciate the work that you're doing, David. And yeah, I very much hope that people will, if they haven't already done so, go through some of the sorts of processes that that I've been talking about here on this on this podcast with you. Because there is nothing more important.
00:51:29.130 --> 00:51:31.739
And
00:51:31.739 --> 00:52:23.550
it really strikes me you were talking right at the start about the sort of the dialectic, the call response between how the geophysical situation is getting worse, but the human response is also accelerating. And we're in this kind of, for a better metaphor in a race between how the physical side turns out and how quickly respond and how deeply now fundamentally, and I'd say that of all the things that I can see going on one of the things that is the human response, one of the ones which I'm most excited about, is the climate majority of project because it's possibility of getting beyond the small ish number who are most active at the moment and truly making this a, a societal effort on the transition that we need. So I'm, I'm very excited for your work.
00:52:23.550 --> 00:52:25.920
And I hope you have luck with doing it.
00:52:26.579 --> 00:53:13.829
Daily. Thank you so much. That is a splendid vote of confidence. Naturally hit review, you know, we've thought about this carefully, very carefully, very deeply, for quite a long time. We're now kind of bringing it into interaction. It's kind of happening, we're getting some resonance, we're getting some support, things are going reasonably well. When we get into the, into the media, we've got promising funding leads to grow further. It's all very, very positive and exciting. It's all happening in quite an organic way. And there really is a place in it for everybody. And yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. It is so essential that we get beyond that we grow beyond the usual suspects. And we think we're offering a framework which could enable that to happen.
00:53:14.099 --> 00:53:14.489
Wonderful.
00:53:14.489 --> 00:53:30.090
And with that, we will say thank you very much to Reed, co director of the home majority project you've been listening to what can we do in these powerful times, daily bent. Thank you for listening, all the way to the end. And I'm sure I'll speak to you soon
