On the 11th March I gave a talk to a group of students from across the University of Exeter as part of a careers in sustainability & environment week. In many ways, this was a long time coming. I’ve been giving public lectures, seminars, talks about climate change for over a decade now. It’s easy to overwhelm audiences because, well, the situation is so very bad. One of my constant frustrations is how little of this gets communicated in mass media. Coverage of climate change is limited to reporting on extreme weather, once a year during COPs and perhaps when Donald Trump or some other politician says something particularly ignorant. There is hardly any consideration of the systemic drivers of climate change, the amount of risk we are in, and why previous decarbonisation approaches have failed.
The problem of course, is that if I bang on about that for an hour, then you leave people in a potentially very dark place. Over the years I’ve tried to temper this with more discussion after a talk, more sign posting during the talk. But I was never very satisfied. This week I tried to directly address this by talking about hope, meaning, and purpose. I often tell people that I can’t see anything more important to do with my life than trying to build a more safe and more just world. This ended up with me offering 11 pieces of (unsolicited) advice. I’ve uploaded an export of the slides in PDF format below. A recording was done of the talk. Once that’s online, I will put a link to it here.
I will try and write more about this in the future. In the meantime here are the 12 (steps?!)j to not just finding, but creating meaning, hope, and purpose.
- 1 Stop doomscrolling
- 2 You are not the problem
- 3 The system is the problem & systems can change
- 4 Don’t be alone, join others
- 5 Work collectively (strengthen democracy)
- 6 Reach out to people (across divides)
- 7 Use tools to hand (start where you are)
- 8 Walk the talk (people notice actions)
- 9 Use your privilege to find your Ikigai
- 10 Start today
- 11 Respect your moral compass
- 12 Never give up
That last step is the most important – for me at least – for two reasons. First, those that want to delay the transition to a safer, more fairer and just world would like nothing more for us to give up. Second, we find hope, meaning, and purpose from within. It comes from our core values and beliefs, and so what matters most to us. Giving up on finding it would mean giving up on ourselves.