No to Doom and Gloom in Climate Action

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Hi, I'm Christina.

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I'm from Prague.

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Hi, I'm Jen, and I'm from Canada.

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Hi, I'm Oladunji, and I'm from Nigeria.

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Hello, I'm Liki, and I live in Paris.

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Hi, I'm Brian, and I'm from New York.

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Welcome to Carbon Sessions.

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A podcast with Carbon Conversations

for every day with everyone

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from everywhere in the world.

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In our conversations, we share ideas,

perspectives, questions, and things we

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can actually do to make a difference.

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So don't be shy and join our Carbon

Sessions because it's not too late.

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Hi, this is Jen.

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Hi, this is Leki.

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Happy New Year, Leki!

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We're recording our first episode.

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I mean, it's the first time we're

recording an episode this year.

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Yeah.

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That's right.

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Yeah.

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So, my suggestion was to start

with something good to start off.

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Something I've heard on the radio

yesterday, I think, that made me

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very, very happy and enforces the

impression that I have that things

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are going to the right direction

in terms of renewable energy.

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So the thing that caught my attention was

that in Portugal in: 2023

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power demand was met by renewable energy.

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That's huge, isn't it?

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61%.

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That is amazing.

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Yes.

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So when we talk about renewable

energy, we talk about wind and sun,

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and Portugal has a lot of wind and

a lot of sun, and they managed to

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get 61 percent of the power demand.

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That's incredible.

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Wow.

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That is incredible.

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Um, I have, I have two things, and one

of them that I just thought of just now.

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Was I was watching something on

Netflix about Blue Zones, um, and

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it was a very interesting show.

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It had several parts and maybe you

can explain what Blue Zones are.

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Oh, Blue Zones are areas in

the world where people have the

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longest lifespan and people live

to 100 or close to it or past 100.

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And people have been fascinated as to

why there are such a high number of

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people living this length of life in

these particular places in the world.

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And one of them is in Okinawa,

um, there's, uh, a place in Loma

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Linda, California, there, there are

different places around the world.

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There's five.

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And in Crete as well.

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Yes.

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But one of the episodes was

talking about Singapore.

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Oh, and showed how people live in

Singapore and what an amazing place.

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I know nothing about it, but

this, this really opened my

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eyes to how forward thinking.

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The planning people of that

city are, they have made it

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ridiculously expensive to own a car.

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Yes.

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And so during rush hour, you know,

you'll see 12 cars on the road and

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it's because to own a car is going

to cost you as much as maybe a house.

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Yes.

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But their public transit system

is spectacular and you can

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get anywhere and everywhere.

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Another thing they have for health

is they have these little, uh, park

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like exercise places everywhere.

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And people are encouraged to exercise and

prevent illness by getting outside and

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walking and doing all of these things.

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Another thing that has been

created in the infrastructure

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and in the policy that they make.

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Is that you get benefits and

a bonus if your parents live

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near you or you live with them.

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And that's to look after people so

that you don't have people going

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into care facilities like here in

North America, which is super common.

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And, and so there were so many things,

I can't even say them all, but I just

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thought, wow, what an amazing society.

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And how healthy people seem to

be and how happy they seem to be

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and things like the pollution is

low because of the lack of cars.

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And anyway, I just, I knew

nothing about Singapore.

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I was kind of blown away.

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And I thought those are all

things that contribute to people

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living longer, healthier lives.

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And.

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What an example.

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That's fantastic.

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Yeah.

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So you said you had, you said, you

said you have, you had two examples.

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What's the other one?

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Yeah.

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The other example is that we, I live on

the west coast of Canada and we are very

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close to the Pacific ocean and we have

a, uh, a pod of resident killer whales.

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That hang around and, and go

past and do things around here.

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They're called J pod.

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There's different letter names for

different pods and on boxing day.

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Researchers spotted a brand new baby

killer whale calf on Boxing Day in J Pod,

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and there hasn't been a new baby born in

that pod since: 2021

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very positive sign because you always

want them to grow and to have some more.

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We were lucky enough to actually

see them a couple of summers ago.

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We were on a little gulf island

watching the sun go down on the beach.

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And all of a sudden we heard them

before they came around the corner

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and you could hear them, the spouts.

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And then we sat there, there were

probably 20 people sitting all along

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this beach and everyone was silent

as we watched the sun go down and

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these beautiful creatures go past.

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It was just fabulous.

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So those are my two exciting things.

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Wow.

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See, when we look for

exciting things, we find them.

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We do.

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Yes.

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And this reminds me of, of an article

I read a few days ago, um, of our past

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guest actually at the time when this

episode will be published, that will

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be our guest from last week, Hannah

Ritchie, who just published a book

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and, uh, who firmly believe that we,

I mean, she, she's obviously much

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younger than we are, I mean, not so

much, but younger than we are, has

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this very, very strong belief that is

that we might be the first generation

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to build a truly sustainable planet.

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This is an opportunity.

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The climate crisis is actually an

opportunity if we look at the bright side.

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And she is not like, you know, a

kind of guru because her position,

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her day job, is I think the lead

researcher of at, um, at a website,

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which is called a world in data.

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Uh, Hannah Richie is a data scientist and

she, she says, okay, look at the data.

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Um, and if we look at the data, actually

things are not as bad as we believe.

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And so if you haven't listened to

this episode with Hannah Richie.

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We can just pause and go back to listen

to episodes from last week, but, uh,

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what caught my attention today is one

of the articles, I think it was in the

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Guardian or something, in which she

explained that looking at the climate

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crisis as something doom and gloom

could be as bad as being climate deniers.

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And I thought, oh, that's a very

interesting idea, because And if we

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look at the doom and gloom, I think it's

somehow paralyzing, you know, you can

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think, oh, there's nothing we can do.

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So we just don't do anything, right?

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I mean, it could be the same result

as being a climate denier, if you say,

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okay, climate change doesn't exist.

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The result is that you

don't do anything as well.

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So what do you think of that?

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Well, it's an interesting idea.

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I mean, I tend to be an optimist.

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I am.

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I'm, I'm not a Pollyanna.

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I'm not.

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You know, everything

is peachy all the time.

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La la la.

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If you just think it, it'll be wonderful.

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You know, I'm not like that.

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I do believe in the need to know what's

happening and you know, there's a certain

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amount of of need in our lives to walk

through grief, to walk through sadness, to

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walk through hard stuff instead of shoving

it away or denying it or ignoring it.

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You can get stuck there and you can really

go into a downward spiral and you, you

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know, it's kind of like the algorithms

you can end up where that's all, you know,

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all you think about all you talk about.

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And that's because that's what gets fed

to you and that's what you're attuned to.

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But if we start to look for some

of the positive signs as well,

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we realize that there's an awful

lot of good stuff also happening.

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And it's often the bad stuff that's

getting, that's the scariest,

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that's the most dramatic and that's

getting highlighted, but there's

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all sorts of other things going on.

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People working their whole, you know,

their whole drive and existence is

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to help, and they're quiet about it.

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So they're not getting the press,

they're not getting, you know, we're

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not hearing about it as, as much.

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It's kind of like the news.

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We hear all the horrible, bad stuff.

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And we don't often, you know, see

that person who has been spending

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a huge chunk of their paycheck

putting together care packages

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for people who live on the street.

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You know, you don't hear about that.

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Yeah.

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It's happening.

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It's wonderful.

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There's somebody helping, but you

don't hear about it because it's

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not, you know, a sexy headline.

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Sensational.

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I've read somewhere, I think a long

time ago, I think I've read somewhere,

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uh, when I was at university, I

think it was Noam Chomsky or someone

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like, , you know, a researcher.

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Like him, , who say that, um, that the

news want us to, I mean, news tend to

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push the bad, the horrible, very scary

things because the media, uh, lives on

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ads and companies want us to be scared,

to stay at home, watch television.

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And buy stuff, buy stuff to equip

our house to make it more safe.

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Therefore, they have the television,

the media has to show you all the

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horrible things, the doom and gloom,

that it's very scary out there.

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Yeah.

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That's something I,

that I remember I read.

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Yeah.

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Well, it makes, it makes sense.

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It's what, what is the color of

the lens you're putting on today?

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Are you looking for things that

are, are good and that are positive

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and that are making progress?

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Are you putting on the lens of

everything's awful and I can't do this.

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And, and maybe some days you have one

on and some days you have another on.

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Right.

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And I think I don't know if I agree with

somebody who focuses on the doom and

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gloom is the same as a climate denier.

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I kind of don't think I would make that.

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I think it's more on the

result, the result, you know,

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the outcome of disbelief.

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So if, if you're in the mindset of,

it doesn't matter what I do, we're

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all going in the toilet anyway.

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So whatever.

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Yeah.

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Then, okay.

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I can see that.

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Then you wouldn't take

care and you wouldn't.

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Recycle and you wouldn't . Yeah.

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It's like, I don't dunno if you, you've

seen this movie and it was quite scary.

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The, the mini, the beginning

of this movie was quite scary.

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It was, uh, ready Player One.

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I don't know if you remember.

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I remember hearing about

it, but I didn't see it.

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Okay.

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You should watch it.

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It's Ready Player One.

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Okay.

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Yeah, it's um, the movie Thought in.

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in 2040 or 2050 something, or

: 2040

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okay, it's, I can't remember

exactly, but like, let's say: 2050

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And it's saying, okay, we are in 2050,

10 years after the world has given

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up on solving the climate crisis.

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Ooh.

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That is scary.

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And I mean, the movie is basically, you

know, kids don't live in the real world

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because the physical world is horrible.

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And they, they live and they play and

the whole plot is in the virtual world.

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So.

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I mean, you should, you

should really watch it.

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As an optimist, that

would give me nightmares.

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Yes, yes, it, it was really scary.

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So, you know, because, um, so when you

think of, oh, wow, when you believe that

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there's nothing we can do, just stop doing

things and, you know, it's horrible.

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One of the other things that kind of,

going back to this whole blue zone thing,

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and when you say people are living in the

virtual world, Um, one of the things that

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was very striking to me was the idea that

we used to do things manually physically.

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We used to do a lot more movement and

a lot of lifting and a lot of digging

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and a lot of walking and a lot of even

getting up to turn on a TV before remote

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controls, which is a long time ago.

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You know, you used to always have

to go get food if you wanted it.

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Now it can come right to you.

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And we're automating ourselves out of.

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Uh, health and into problems in many ways.

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Yeah.

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It's convenient.

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It's great.

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If you're not able to do certain

things, but it's interesting.

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It just kind of the visual that they

had on this, it was a diagram, a

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cartoon diagram of what people used

to do and then what they're doing now.

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And it was a lot of sitting around and

it just sort of hit me that diagram.

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And I thought, Oh my goodness.

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Um, there are still things we

can physically actually do.

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Yes.

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Instead of scrolling and

writing comments about it, we

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can actually do stuff about it.

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And, uh, but you agree that you, if you

believe that there's nothing we can do,

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the result is that we don't do anything.

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Thoughts and prayers.

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Don't you know, it's not enough . No, no.

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It's not enough people.

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Yeah, it's action.

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Action.

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Yeah.

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So it's the same thing as those

who believe that it doesn't

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exist because it doesn't exist.

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You don't do anything.

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So the result, the outcome is the same.

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That's kind of like putting your fingers

in your ears and going, eh, yes, totally.

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Yeah.

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. Ah, yeah.

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So what do we do?

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What do we do?

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Do we focus on some positive things?

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Do we take action still

and find some good news?

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Join people who are doing

good things to get us forward?

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Yes.

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And, uh, I think, yeah,

find people and also be more

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intentional in everything we do.

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Uh, we can meet people, organize,

but also change the way we're doing

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things, already doing things and

be more intentional, conscious.

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Yeah, conscious.

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I like that.

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Yeah.

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Excellent.

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Okay.

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Thank you.

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Happy New Year.

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Oh, yes.

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Happy New Year You've been listening

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experiences, connect, and take action.

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