Episode 72
Having Conversations About Climate Change AfricaNXT in Nigeria, Planting Seeds and Beyond
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Don’t Take Our Word For It, Look It Up!
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Featuring Carbon Almanac Contributors Olabanji Stephen Jenn Swanson, Leekei Tang, Rob Slater and Kristina Horning
Olabanji is from Lagos Nigeria, he’s a Creative Director and visual designer that helps brands gain clarity, deliver meaningful experiences and build tribes through Design & Strategy. He founded Jorney - a community designed to help people stay productive, accountable, and do their best work.
From Langley in British Columbia, Canada, Jenn is a Minister, Coach, Writer and Community Connector, helping people help themselves.
Leekei is a fashion business founder, a business coach, an international development expert and podcaster from Paris, France.
Kristina is working on design theory and using design process in everything. With a background in architecture, civil engineering and education, she loves research, play and co-creating. Currently in Prague (that it is where she is originally from) and her base is US
Rob is from Birmingham in the UK, he is an orthodontist, triathlete, coach and podcaster.
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The CarbonSessions Podcast is produced and edited by Leekei Tang, Steve Heatherington and Rob Slater.
Transcript
Hi, I'm Ima.
Speaker:I live in Scotland.
Speaker:Hi, I'm Jen and I'm from Canada.
Speaker:Hi, I'm Ola Vanji and I'm from Nigeria.
Speaker:Hello, I'm Leaky and I live in Paris.
Speaker:Hey, I'm Rod.
Speaker:I'm from Peru.
Speaker:Welcome to Carbon Sessions.
Speaker:A podcast with carbon conversations for every day with everyone
Speaker:from everywhere in the world.
Speaker:In our conversations, we share ideas, perspectives, questions, and things we
Speaker:can actually do to make a difference.
Speaker:So don't be shy.
Speaker:Join our carbon sessions because it's not too late.
Speaker:Hi, I'm Dan.
Speaker:Hi.
Speaker:I am leaky.
Speaker:Hi, I'm Christina.
Speaker:Hi, I'm Rob.
Speaker:hi.
Speaker:I'm Aji and today we have lots of us on this call, which is fantastic and we
Speaker:are very excited because Aji is in the hot seat, as it were, . He has come back
Speaker:from doing a presentation, um, about carbon at Africa, N X T and Ola Bji.
Speaker:Can you tell us what that.
Speaker:and then we'll get into how it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:, it's good to be back.
Speaker:I remember being on the hot seat before before, before the
Speaker:presentation, and it was total fun.
Speaker:So, um, I'm super excited now because, you know, there's,
Speaker:there's not as much pressure.
Speaker:I mean, the presentation is done, so , , yeah.
Speaker:But African NXT is.
Speaker:Is the largest gathering of innovators in Africa and the diaspora.
Speaker:So it's probably one of Africa's biggest events as far as technology
Speaker:networking, um, you know, and, and stuff like that goes.
Speaker:So yeah, that's, that's what it's about.
Speaker:So it, it runs for a period of five days.
Speaker:Um, and over that five day period there, there's a ton of sessions.
Speaker:Some of the, you know, brightest minds in the country across the
Speaker:continent come to, you know, lead conversations and talk about stuff.
Speaker:Um, and, and yeah, that's, that's where, that's where I went.
Speaker:. And can you tell us a little bit about your session and then
Speaker:people, people have question.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:\ , so the interesting thing is, and I may not be completely right, but when it comes to
Speaker:this particular event, there's probably, uh, maybe in and out of the place for
Speaker:five days, probably 25, 30,000 people.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Um, and, and I'm just saying this because I mean, it's almost
Speaker:like a place of pilgrimage.
Speaker:If, if that , if that makes any sense.
Speaker:There's a lot of people, it used to be social media week and you know,
Speaker:it's like a lot of young people.
Speaker:There's like a lot of celebrities coming there.
Speaker:So, you know, it's definitely, uh, a good number of people.
Speaker:So in and out of the place for, you know, the entire period is probably
Speaker:30,000 people, but this year there.
Speaker:, you know, the event was pushing against the odds, and that's
Speaker:for a number of reasons.
Speaker:Um, there's fuel scarcity in Nigeria currently, so it's
Speaker:difficult for people to move.
Speaker:And then the government has just, you know, redesigned the naira, which is, you
Speaker:know, the currency that we spend here.
Speaker:And the new notes have not circulated whilst the old notes.
Speaker:Has a deadline to, you know, to be in a legal tender.
Speaker:Um, and so that has also caused some chaos in, in the country.
Speaker:Uh, so the event came and made a lot of instability, um, that
Speaker:that particular period in time.
Speaker:So it was quite hard for people to get to the venue of the.
Speaker:Um, so the attendance dropped by a very significant number.
Speaker:Perhaps maybe 80, 85% of people were not able to make it there.
Speaker:Um, and that was very, very huge.
Speaker:So we didn't get the turnout that we were expecting as much as, you know, as like,
Speaker:you know, but, but it was a beautiful event, you know, after all, um, I remember
Speaker:my session starting and, um, Part of the, some, a member of the team went
Speaker:ahead to, you know, get people to come.
Speaker:to the class.
Speaker:Um, and so we started seeing people coming into the class and like, oh,
Speaker:you're talking about climate change?
Speaker:Um, okay, well there's not much happening around, so maybe I might just
Speaker:stick around and, you know, listen.
Speaker:And so what happened is all the people, most of the people that
Speaker:registered for the class initial.
Speaker:We're not able to make it down there.
Speaker:And so the bulk of people that showed up at the class or you know, during
Speaker:the session were not people that were entirely ready for the class, which
Speaker:made it a bit more interesting for me.
Speaker:Cause like, I'm like, okay, you guys didn't know you were coming to, um,
Speaker:So a class about climate change, like, uh, yeah, that's, that's a thing.
Speaker:Um, but, but it was interesting eventually, you know, because the idea
Speaker:was not to just like teach the idea was to have a conversation with these people.
Speaker:Um, and so the short way to answer the question is that the class was engaging.
Speaker:It was interesting and.
Speaker:For a lot of people, perhaps everyone that attended the class was eye-opening, you
Speaker:know, because they started to meet with statistics that they've not seen before.
Speaker:Um, they started to see illustrations that they've not,
Speaker:you know, seen as well before.
Speaker:And then what perhaps the most, the best part of it for me was to see.
Speaker:About climate change, just developing them within the 90 minute session.
Speaker:They were like, oh yeah, this is actually a thing.
Speaker:Um, and, and that was, that was a really, really great
Speaker:part of, of the session for me.
Speaker:So, yeah, it, it was great.
Speaker:It was interesting.
Speaker:It was engaging and, and I'm grateful that, that I got to,
Speaker:you know, lead the conversation.
Speaker:I have a question, uh, before we go into more details, into, you know, the,
Speaker:your interaction with your audience.
Speaker:There's something I don't understand and I wanna, I meant to ask you
Speaker:the question since you mentioned it.
Speaker:You say that the attendance dropped by 80% for two reasons.
Speaker:One is the, uh, is the currency and the other one is.
Speaker:, it's increase of the fuel price in Nigeria, and that's something I don't
Speaker:understand because Nigeria is a great.
Speaker:, um, oil exporter, oil exporting country, so mm-hmm.
Speaker:, how is that?
Speaker:So that the price has increased.
Speaker:So it's increasing everywhere.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:That's, that's, we know, but yeah.
Speaker:Why in, in Nigeria, , but it shouldn't increase in Nigeria.
Speaker:That's, that's the logical thing, you know, because, I mean, if
Speaker:you have all the oil, so to say, why should oil be expensive?
Speaker:Since you have a lot of it, but, uh, well, I think one, one thing
Speaker:I've heard is that there is competition problems aren't there.
Speaker:So it means that somebody can't sell fuel to one place at one price and
Speaker:to another price and, and elsewhere would, is that, is that something
Speaker:to do with it, do you think?
Speaker:Aji.
Speaker:. Yeah, that's, that's, uh, that's a tiny part of it.
Speaker:But from, from what we have now, the major reason would be that the
Speaker:apex refining body stopped refining, and so the retailers didn't have
Speaker:a place to buy, and so they had to result to private, um, refineries.
Speaker:Which are, you know, owned in small buckets in different places.
Speaker:And then there's, there's not a lot of them, but now that they
Speaker:have to go, they have to go buy from the private, uh, refineries.
Speaker:They sell at the price that they want to sell.
Speaker:Um, and it's more expensive for them to refine because,
Speaker:I mean, they don't have the.
Speaker:As much of, you know, the facility and the way, you know, just they
Speaker:can't do it as cheap as the apex, you know, refining body will do it.
Speaker:Uh, so that's the actual problem that that's, that's the major reason that
Speaker:they've given so far for the scarcity.
Speaker:So now, there's now competition, just like you said, between.
Speaker:Um, the retailers, and that's all based on the price that they are getting the fuel.
Speaker:Um, so they are selling at, you know, whatever price pretty much suits them.
Speaker:Um, so yeah, that's, that's, uh, that's the reason I heard this
Speaker:morning that, um, our prices are, are really high, a dollar 84 a liter.
Speaker:I don't know how that t.
Speaker:And I heard this morning that our Canadian oil production, we have a
Speaker:lot of oil here, um, had their most profitable, profitable year ever.
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:In 2022.
Speaker:It's like, yeah.
Speaker:No kidding.
Speaker:. Oh.
Speaker:So, so, so that impacted how many people came to the conference overall by 80%.
Speaker:But you still had a good, pretty good turnout, is that right?
Speaker:Uh, yeah.
Speaker:So I had a pretty good turnout, although it was quite difficult to get a hold on
Speaker:the actual number because people were coming in and out of the class, um, for.
Speaker:For many, many reasons because there were like, uh, a number
Speaker:of classes running concurrently.
Speaker:Um, and, and that's how the conference works there.
Speaker:There's probably, maybe.
Speaker:, I don't know, maybe more than a hundred classes that go on
Speaker:within the period of five days.
Speaker:Um, some are panel sessions, some are keynote sessions, some are, you know,
Speaker:workshops and, you know, and on and on.
Speaker:But, uh, yeah, based on the, the actual number of people that were at the
Speaker:conference, it was, was a fairly good.
Speaker:did it affect the speaker attendance that much?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Even, even some of the speakers weren't able to make it anymore because
Speaker:it was also hard for them to move.
Speaker:Um, and the price of, you know, the cost of transportation had, you know,
Speaker:quadrupled, , uh, um, actually more than quadrupled in some, in some cases.
Speaker:And, and that was not, That wasn't the only thing.
Speaker:The other part was, I mean, even if you have the money to pay, it was hard for you
Speaker:to get, uh, an Uber or you know, a boat or you know, a car service to come get you.
Speaker:So, cause they were struggling to buy fuel, so, um, it was
Speaker:just, it was just a thing.
Speaker:I have a question, Ji, you said at one point that in the
Speaker:90 it was a 90 minute present.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:90.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Is that what you said?
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:And that's a big long presentation.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:90.
Speaker:And you said p you saw people transform.
Speaker:What, what was, what was their biggest aha?
Speaker:What did you, what did you hear?
Speaker:Um, so the, there were lots of moments where, um, I think the
Speaker:very first moment where people were like, oh, this is interesting,
Speaker:was, I mean, I, it wasn't even.
Speaker:I, I think it was the part where we started talking about the natural sources
Speaker:of carbon and, and then I was like, okay, so now that we've talked about the natural
Speaker:sources of carbon, what are some of the unnatural sources of carbon that you know?
Speaker:And they started talking about all the unnatural resources.
Speaker:it just kept going.
Speaker:The list kept growing.
Speaker:It kept growing.
Speaker:And then it wasn't so hard for for them to say, oh, we actually have a problem
Speaker:if we have just this natural sauces.
Speaker:I mean, that's about four natural sources.
Speaker:I think there's, uh, there's Vulcan, uh, volcanic eruption.
Speaker:There is, um, there is.
Speaker:You know, breathing, respiration and, you know, some, two others.
Speaker:Um, and then we started looking at all the unnatural sources,
Speaker:cars, you know, transportation and a lot of, all that stuff.
Speaker:And they were like, oh, wow.
Speaker:If we're doing this much to the environment, then, then
Speaker:there's actually problem.
Speaker:So, yeah, that, that was one of the, that was one of the.
Speaker:Biggest part.
Speaker:The other one would be when, uh, there's a page in, in the
Speaker:Almanac that has 10, 10,000 dots.
Speaker:And we also went through that illustration about how if one more dots, if we hit one
Speaker:more dots, the entire human civilization as we know it might actually be wiped out.
Speaker:and they were like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker:Gimme a break.
Speaker:When, when is that going to happen?
Speaker:I'm like, well, , it shouldn't if, if we prevent it.
Speaker:Uh, yeah.
Speaker:Cause you're like, well, you know, it sounded like we have just one lifeline.
Speaker:Uh, and uh, yeah.
Speaker:Christina has a question for you, Avanti.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:, could you take questions during your presentation?
Speaker:Yeah, I did.
Speaker:Oh, great.
Speaker:So what was your favorite, like the one that stood out, I'm curious.
Speaker:Hmm.
Speaker:Uh, what questions stood out?
Speaker:Uh, I think it was about beef.
Speaker:Um, yeah.
Speaker:Where a lady who is a lover of beef, um, She wasn't enjoying the conversation until
Speaker:we started to talk about beef, and then I saw the discomfort in her face and I
Speaker:was like, , do you have something to say?
Speaker:? Oh, . And she went and she went, no, no, no.
Speaker:I can do every other thing, but there's no way I'm, I'm , I'm
Speaker:going to stop eating, you know?
Speaker:Well, they're, they're about, I mean, and, and I started to explain how methane
Speaker:is a very dangerous gas and how we might actually be, you know, 84 times
Speaker:worse in the atmosphere than carbon.
Speaker:So she was actually struggling at that point, like, uh, like, okay,
Speaker:I want beef, but I don't want the.
Speaker:The bad part of cows as well.
Speaker:So, and she was like, what do we do?
Speaker:I'm like, well, don't, don't eat beef or at least eat it
Speaker:less . You can start from there.
Speaker:Yeah, I mean, she didn't care about concrete.
Speaker:She was like, uh, I don't care, like combustion.
Speaker:Well, you know, we can manage that.
Speaker:And then it was like, call, but the moment we talked about cow,
Speaker:she was like, Nope, don't go there.
Speaker:don't, don't go there.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What would be her consumption like, does she eat it every day or what do you think?
Speaker:More, more like she eats it every day, actually, so.
Speaker:Oh, okay.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:More like she eats it every day.
Speaker:So there are these guys in Nigeria that make roasted beef, and they,
Speaker:they're always out at night.
Speaker:It's, we call them sweeta spots.
Speaker:It's, it's called suya.
Speaker:It's, uh, roasted beef and, um, pepper, some, you know, some sort.
Speaker:It is very, very tasty.
Speaker:Uh, oh.
Speaker:And I, I don't know.
Speaker:There are probably only a handful of Nigerians that do not eat Soya
Speaker:because I mean, it's just culturally ingrained, you know, in a way.
Speaker:And so just getting her to think about the fact that she might
Speaker:not be eating soya was, Hmm.
Speaker:Oh, well, yeah, you're, you're striking a chord.
Speaker:. Let's talk about other stuff.
Speaker:No, not, not cows, but yeah.
Speaker:It has been a couple of days, uh, since you've done this presentation, so I'm
Speaker:wondering if you have, uh, had any feedback and or interaction with the
Speaker:people who attended your, your talk, or people that have, um, you know, if there's
Speaker:any follow up action that have, um, taken.
Speaker:Uh, so the, as far as feedback goes, I, I think the one.
Speaker:Um, that I stood out the most was a man whose daughter is, um, a climate
Speaker:change activist, and he has reached out ever since for more resources on.
Speaker:, um, learning, you know, more resources to help him learn about climate change
Speaker:and also get his daughter to, to, to understand it more and, you know,
Speaker:start taking action in, in line.
Speaker:Um, but besides that, I haven't gotten.
Speaker:That much, um, feedback directly from the audience, but some of them, some
Speaker:of them had go, uh, they went, I had to feel, um, to feel a form about, um, to
Speaker:feel a form about, you know, what we, our views were, which was very interesting.
Speaker:Um, I, I think I can pull that up if, if it's here.
Speaker:Yeah, it'd be interesting to hear.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But yeah, as far as feedback goes, That's the one that I remember the most.
Speaker:And that's the one that actually came directly cuz he took my phone
Speaker:number and it was like, yeah, I, I wanna learn more about it.
Speaker:Um, I also had a few people, you know, reach out, not as, not which that much
Speaker:intensity, but what I did was try to send everyone as much resource, um,
Speaker:you know, as many resources as I could.
Speaker:Um, we should be Theo's guy, the kids book, the photo book.
Speaker:Um, um, yeah.
Speaker:You know, the, yeah.
Speaker:And, and everything.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I guess it's, uh, uh, , if it's new information for people, it's a lot to
Speaker:digest and I remember, yeah, it is the first time I came across this realization.
Speaker:I mean, I realized that wow, climate change is all the damages and bad
Speaker:consequences of climate change.
Speaker:Yeah, I had a very weird, um, reaction.
Speaker:I felt very bad, and then I felt very guilty.
Speaker:I mean, it's, it's like, you know, the different stages of grief
Speaker:somehow I I went through very, very stages of emotions before Hmm.
Speaker:Actually thinking, okay, there's something I can do, but, so I'm
Speaker:not surprised that they, uh, you only heard from just a handful of.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, and I'm, I'm, I mean, I can read the statistics of some of the questions that
Speaker:I asked, um, and the feedback that I got.
Speaker:If, if you want to hear that.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Okay, so, so the first question says, are you a lover of nature?
Speaker:Um, 60% said yes.
Speaker:40% said somewhat.
Speaker:So it was either yes, somewhat, or no.
Speaker:So nobody said no, but 60% of the people that answered said
Speaker:yeah, and then 40% said somewhat.
Speaker:Um, the next question was, do you think that climate change is real?
Speaker:And everybody said, yes.
Speaker:The third one was, are you worried about what might happen if we
Speaker:don't solve our climate problems?
Speaker:And everybody said, yes, I'm worried.
Speaker:The fourth question was, on a scale of one to five, how passionate about the
Speaker:climate about climate change are you?
Speaker:Um, and 60% said three 20% chose four.
Speaker:20% chose five.
Speaker:So most people are just about in the middle as far as being
Speaker:passionate about climate change goes.
Speaker:And then the last question was, if you could do something to combat the current
Speaker:climate issues, would you, and 80% of the people that answered said yes they would.
Speaker:Only 20% said 20%.
Speaker:80% said yes, and I will even get others to join me.
Speaker:Um, 20% said just yes.
Speaker:So the, the options were about five, the highest being, uh, one of
Speaker:them being yes, with all my hearts.
Speaker:The other was, yes, and I would get others to join me.
Speaker:Um, the third option was, I might try the fourth one was, I would like to understand
Speaker:climate change more before I decide.
Speaker:And then the last one is, well, I'm not interested, but
Speaker:most people seem to say yes.
Speaker:I mean, everyone said yes.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Did you have a strong call to action at the end?
Speaker:Did you have something you asked them to do specifically?
Speaker:Uh, no.
Speaker:So the, the call to action actually came, um, with, with each.
Speaker:Um, lesson that we, we went through and probably that's what I should have done.
Speaker:Maybe put one call to action at the end, but all the call to
Speaker:actions were actually in between.
Speaker:Uh, yeah.
Speaker:Oh, I remember the, the big call to action was actually to.
Speaker:Have more conversations like this, especially to drive systemic change.
Speaker:Um, interestingly, one of the attendees of the class had been in the House
Speaker:of Assembly, which is, you know, with the lawmakers and she's been there.
Speaker:Um, one time they were having a conversation about climate change and
Speaker:it was interesting to find out from her.
Speaker:They, they actually were in having the conversation as per, this is something
Speaker:that is urgent that we need to solve.
Speaker:It was just one of the issues they were discussing, and they were, they were
Speaker:almost quick to move on to the next.
Speaker:Um, and, and that was quite interesting.
Speaker:And so the, the call to action, which is what the conversation
Speaker:dwelled most on, was actually to.
Speaker:, uh, get into spaces that have high tendencies of igniting systemic
Speaker:change and then influencing things at that level or in, in those spaces.
Speaker:But the rest call to action just simply came as we were moving
Speaker:through, uh, the presentation.
Speaker:Were there any government officials.
Speaker:Place.
Speaker:Do you know by any chance?
Speaker:Uh, in my session?
Speaker:No, not in my session.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Uh, but I met, I met someone from, uh, a government agency just after my session.
Speaker:And, uh, we had an interesting chat about it as well.
Speaker:Um, although she didn't have much to say and they were quick to
Speaker:leave, uh, the venue of the event.
Speaker:I think I planted, I planted some, a good seed in her, you know, as part
Speaker:this is something you might want to consider, um, in your, in your agency.
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:Yeah, I have a very big question.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:What is your personal follow up of this, uh, event?
Speaker:So what's you, what's you are planning to do?
Speaker:Or, or you think you've done your job and that's it, you'll move on to next thing?
Speaker:Or you have, um, you want to organize or, or start other
Speaker:initiatives, uh, in Nigeria?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I, I do, I do.
Speaker:So I, I met, I met, um, I met someone who.
Speaker:Has, you know, pretty much connections with, um, bodies and organizations
Speaker:that, um, that, that make conversations like this go, you know, round and he
Speaker:was willing to, you know, Engage some of them and, you know, connect us to
Speaker:have more conversations like this.
Speaker:I actually have been thinking about that a lot, and I want to have more conversations
Speaker:like this even in like smaller buckets.
Speaker:Um, and with, with people that most likely have not heard or do not
Speaker:know much about climate change, um, and yeah, I, I, I wanna do that.
Speaker:I've not figured out how that'll work out yet, but that's definitely something
Speaker:that I want to do going forward.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:If you need any help, we here, you know, you have a very mighty
Speaker:team with you, so Absolutely.
Speaker:lots of ideas.
Speaker:Thank you, Rob.
Speaker:I'm wondering if you've got, uh, any burning questions.
Speaker:For what you're about to do, . Um, I think the, um, sometimes at conferences
Speaker:like this, people choose to come and see you speak because they already
Speaker:have a feel for climate change.
Speaker:So you are, you are speaking to the converted, and I just wondered to
Speaker:what extent you felt that the, the drop-in numbers actually helped to, um,
Speaker:put you in front of an audience that wasn't necessarily already converted.
Speaker:I just wondered what your thoughts were on that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That, that was.
Speaker:That was a blessing in disguise.
Speaker:Um, because, um, it just really had to be a conversation, you know, because
Speaker:when you're talking with people that you know are a bit more into
Speaker:it, they're like, okay, what's new?
Speaker:What do you know what's, uh, another statistics?
Speaker:Or like you.
Speaker:What's the big thing, but like everyone that was there was like, you know what?
Speaker:We really don't know.
Speaker:We, we know nothing about this, so you might as well start from the
Speaker:A, b, C of what climate change is.
Speaker:And, and I think that was great because it also got me to, you know, simplify
Speaker:the conversation as much as possible and not have it from a point of.
Speaker:Like not having from a point of, what's the word?
Speaker:Not from the point of like, you know about this and I know about this and we're just
Speaker:talking about something that we know.
Speaker:Um, it was totally from a point, yeah, from a point of authority.
Speaker:Not from a point of authority.
Speaker:We're just talking about it from, you know, just a.
Speaker:Conversation as simple as possible.
Speaker:Like, Hey, climate change is this, and you know, this is how we got here.
Speaker:You know, also seeing the surprise on their faces was like, oh, you
Speaker:guys really didn't know this.
Speaker:Um, and, and that was interesting.
Speaker:And I think, and I think that was great.
Speaker:. So you had to shift your presentation on the fly a little bit then?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Although the presentation was originally designed to, you know,
Speaker:not be so intellectual, just, just a lot of pictures and statistics
Speaker:and you know, and all that stuff.
Speaker:But it even had to get more simple.
Speaker:Um, at the point of delivering the presentation.
Speaker:Um, okay.
Speaker:I have a question, um, which is related to very big cliche, so you
Speaker:have to, to excuse me in advance.
Speaker:Um, I'm wondering if you have any reaction, uh, from people
Speaker:who say that we are not, um, responsible for climate change.
Speaker:Because, uh, we are not the biggest contributing the previous
Speaker:contributor to carbon emission.
Speaker:Uh, greenhouse gas is emission.
Speaker:Therefore, we don't want to do anything.
Speaker:It's not our job.
Speaker:So that's a big cliche, but it's, uh, it's just a uh a question.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Uh, I, I didn't have pushback.
Speaker:From that set of people, which was surprising because, um, but I think one
Speaker:of the things I was helpful with that was also establishing that very early
Speaker:on in my presentation, like, Hey, well we know that Africa is not the largest
Speaker:contributor to greenhouse gases, but well, you can sit back and say, we're not the
Speaker:largest contributor or, You can say, well, this is where we are, and if we don't do
Speaker:something about it, we're probably going to be the ones to suffer it the most, or
Speaker:probably the most vulnerable continent.
Speaker:So it doesn't matter what.
Speaker:You know, who the blame should be on what matters is the
Speaker:future that we actually want.
Speaker:So I think I kind of established that very early on in the presentation.
Speaker:And, and, you know, they, they, they agreed to that fact as well.
Speaker:So I didn't get much pushback from, from, uh, from the cliche guys.
Speaker:I think Rob.
Speaker:A couple of weeks or a couple of months will be, we'll be
Speaker:doing something quite similar.
Speaker:Uh, maybe Rob wants to say a few words and maybe, uh, Benji could,
Speaker:uh, provide some recommendations.
Speaker:Yeah, I, well, I'm, I'm quite, I'm interested to, I've been
Speaker:re interested to just listen to what Aban has been saying really.
Speaker:Um, one of the things that I've noticed is that when having discuss.
Speaker:because people's perception of things tends to be led by newsreel.
Speaker:Most arguments tend to be rather polarized, don't they?
Speaker:And so I, I feel nervous about standing in front of an audience and, um, who are
Speaker:working in, uh, profession and starting to talk to them or lecture them, uh,
Speaker:about the things that I've done to.
Speaker:So I, I've, I've decided to start off by showing a slide where two people
Speaker:are rather extreme men's and how conversations can become polarized
Speaker:just so that I can almost demonstrate that we're all on a path of some kind.
Speaker:Um, and some of us have perhaps further up the path than, than others, but
Speaker:most of us, and I think it's about 80%, isn't it, have some ideal about improv.
Speaker:Ourselves in regard to the, uh, uh, climate and climate change.
Speaker:But we only think that a few of us in reality, um, are, are interested.
Speaker:So it's almost like the Pareto principle where you think, um, I'm interested
Speaker:in it, but only 20 or 30% of the population are, whereas in reality,
Speaker:80% of us are actually interested.
Speaker:So I, I'm, I'm, I'm wondering how best to.
Speaker:The conversation off on that footing rather than trying to, you
Speaker:know, go, go in lecturing and, uh, telling people, um, what I've done.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, I, I think one of the things that actually helped me a lot was getting
Speaker:to know the people that I was having this conversation with first start.
Speaker:So I don't know what the size, what's the size of your,
Speaker:what's the likely size of your.
Speaker:It's probably only gonna be about 50 people.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Um, I think it might be useful to get some of them to talk ahead.
Speaker:Probably like, Hey, what's your name?
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:. Um, what do you do?
Speaker:Um, , you know, and then you know, you have to also talk about yourself and
Speaker:say, Hey, I'm Ji, this is what I do.
Speaker:And in my case I was like, Hey, I'm a creative director, I'm a designer.
Speaker:Um, but you know, I also kind of work in climate change and that's
Speaker:because I'm passionate about it.
Speaker:And this is why I saw that we're heading for possible doom and.
Speaker:, it's not too late to get us, you know, to turn back from that route and like, oh,
Speaker:well if you are this and that and you are into climate change, then perhaps that's
Speaker:something that I should be into as well.
Speaker:Um, so I think that was useful as, as a nice breaker.
Speaker:Um, and then, We started to, I also started by asking, tell me one thing
Speaker:that you know about climate change.
Speaker:And I went first.
Speaker:I'm like, well, um, this is what I know about climate change.
Speaker:Climate change is real.
Speaker:I didn't know it was real, but now I know that it's real.
Speaker:Um, and then people started talking about what they knew about climate change.
Speaker:So that might also give you a fair bit of knowledge about you.
Speaker:What the level of knowledge, what level of knowledge the audience
Speaker:has about the conversation that you're about to have with them.
Speaker:And it's, I think it's also okay to pick up the conversation from one of
Speaker:the comments that anybody makes and then that makes it more like a conversation.
Speaker:So for example, um, when I said, , tell me one thing that
Speaker:you know about climate change.
Speaker:Um, a lady, that was when I discovered that a lady had even been in the house
Speaker:of Assembly where they were having conversations about climate change.
Speaker:Um, and although my.
Speaker:According to my presentation, talking about systemic change was somewhere
Speaker:in the end of the presentation.
Speaker:I just brought it forward and like, well, if you are there, that's where
Speaker:we can actually make systemic change.
Speaker:Um, and this is why.
Speaker:And so, you know, kind of scattered the presentation for a bit, but it was
Speaker:very good for the conversation part.
Speaker:So yeah, I, I think, I think that might be helpful.
Speaker:Yeah, that's really good.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:and the pictures were very, very handy.
Speaker:Um, and, and, and I know we chatted a bit about that even before I, I went in for
Speaker:the presentations, uh, and, and I'm, I'm so thankful that I had a lot more pictures
Speaker:in there than I had words, because for the most part, it wasn't necessary to.
Speaker:Read the slides or go through the presentation, per se, when they saw the
Speaker:pictures, they just knew what it meant and then we, we could talk about it.
Speaker:So it reminds me of the Ted Talk, uh, talk nerdy to me.
Speaker:And, uh, it's, uh, the, this, uh, person, she's, she talks about, uh, she's an, um,
Speaker:interested in, uh, listening to people talk about engineering in this case.
Speaker:But, um, she talks in the presentation about how people tend to put bullet points
Speaker:and bullet points, kill presentations, and it, I think that what you are saying
Speaker:about how you've made your presentation into a conversation really fits in well
Speaker:with doing a presentation like that.
Speaker:Because you can have slides up and then you can just, you can
Speaker:riff on various different things.
Speaker:Have conversations with the audience so much more easily than if you've just
Speaker:presenting lots of figures, can't you?
Speaker:Yeah, that's, that's true.
Speaker:Still true.
Speaker:You're building a rapport as well, it sounds like, at the beginning,
Speaker:which makes a huge difference.
Speaker:Christina had a question for you.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Uh, did you have any questions about priorities?
Speaker:Like, uh, kind of, well, look, yeah.
Speaker:Climate change is there, but I have much more I.
Speaker:, uh, things to deal with, like safety and food and all that stuff.
Speaker:Did she come across of that kind of, not, not that much actually.
Speaker:So I would say that the audience are, they're fairly, I mean,
Speaker:they're educated people.
Speaker:They also.
Speaker:I don't think I, I didn't get much as far as like, well we have other
Speaker:things to think about and talk about.
Speaker:And that's actually, I think one of the reasons for that was because I also put
Speaker:that forward like, well, I know that where Nigeria, Nigeria is a country in
Speaker:Africa and there's a lot of like, we should be talking about a lot of things.
Speaker:Um, and they pretty much agreed with that.
Speaker:I'm like, well, yeah, we should be talking about good governance.
Speaker:We should be talking about, um, there's a lot of, so many conversations
Speaker:we should be having, so why, why is climate change one of them?
Speaker:And, and that was also one of the things that I put forward.
Speaker:I'm like, well, just in case you are thinking about that,
Speaker:this is, you know, here is why.
Speaker:And I think that.
Speaker:You know, settled the, um, because I, I probably just sort of thought
Speaker:about what were the likely pushbacks to people receiving the idea and,
Speaker:you know, making it their own.
Speaker:And that was one of the things that I thought about.
Speaker:And so I just put it forward at, you know, at the early stage of the, the present.
Speaker:That sounds great.
Speaker:So in the presentation I've been thinking about how to present these
Speaker:things to others and to have clear direction and also kind of note that
Speaker:yes, they are other problems, and in this moment we're gonna talk about.
Speaker:To get somewhere.
Speaker:That's brilliant.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:So when is your next presentation?
Speaker:Uh, . I, I don't, I don't know yet.
Speaker:There's no.
Speaker:There's no fixed date yet, but I'm really hoping to do this very, very soon.
Speaker:I'm really hoping to do this again soon.
Speaker:I mean, I enjoyed it.
Speaker:It was good to kind of bring people up to speed as, as far as what's
Speaker:going on with the climate goes.
Speaker:Um, so I, yeah, I, I wanna do this again as soon as possible.
Speaker:I think you should , we'll cheer you on.
Speaker:Thank you, . Thank you.
Speaker:Yes, . All right.
Speaker:Well thanks for sharing this with us.
Speaker:Um, it's been very informative and inspiring.
Speaker:It, it makes me wanna do a presentation, so too
Speaker:So thanks for, uh, thanks for sharing your learnings.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you as well.
Speaker:Thanks.
Speaker:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker:And Rob, we'll cheer you on . Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Good luck.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Rob, go, go, go, go, go.
Speaker:let you know how I get on.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker:Let's keep having conversations, . Thanks everybody.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Thank you.
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