Hello friends,
I’ll keep my check-in this week pretty short. Just wanted to share with you all that my talk at TEDx San Diego has been officially published.
It’s quite the timing. We’re about to wrap up a month that will have been the hottest month in recorded history.
Last night, I watched nearly an hour’s worth of climate coverage from my hotel room. The fact that the news is dedicating this much time to it is both a testament to how severe the crisis is, as well as fairly recent improvements in how climate change is being handled by major media outlets. The latter is the effect of public pressure. That said… there’s still more work to be done!
Most of the people interviewed by the journalists were heads of state, United Nations officials, and high-ranking scientists. We didn’t hear from farmers. Day workers. People who’ve had to move due to the impact of climate change where they live. We also didn’t hear from anyone who demonstrated enthusiasm around a particular solution.
Instead, we saw the familiar images of upticking graphs and highlighted reports.
What happens when this is the way we talk about climate change?
Distance and despair.
It is absurd that the voices of people from the most climate vulnerable countries are often excluded from these conversations and stories. It makes us only think of climate impacts and actions in a top-down manner. In my experience, the most exciting and promising shifts have been at the local community level, led from the bottom-up.
Our flow of information, however, keeps us at a distance from both empathy and enthusiasm.
At the same time, it makes us feel like we can’t do anything. It’s great that climate can command an hour of coverage, but what isn’t great is that zero minutes were solutions-focused. At the end of the program, you’re left feeling pretty fatalistic. Like nothing can be done to stop living through this year after year.
That’s exactly how the major polluters would want you to feel. That feeling enables the pollution to keep happening.
My talk is a call for storytellers to show up. For institutions to invest in storytelling. Ethical storytelling. Solutions-focused storytelling. Powerfully creative storytelling.
Thanks for watching my TED Talk.
Now if you could also please blast that thing with likes, comments, and shares… that would really help get the message out there!