78: Adrenaline, Stamina and Joy with Xiye Bastida

Paul Dickinson: [00:05:53] Oh, we got film? You've got film?

Christiana Figueres: [00:05:57] And he puts it out on the social media. I have lost all my decorum in the public eye.

Paul Dickinson: [00:06:04] Not so. Not so. This is very decorous thing to do.

Christiana Figueres: [00:06:07] And so many people have seen me jumping up and down and screaming. Thank you, Tom Carnaco.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:06:14] You're very welcome. Well, I couldn't resist it because it was such a moment of joy. And I have to say, I think I was entirely justified in doing it because I have a modest number of followers on Twitter, I don't consider myself to be a social media expert, but this one I just kind of put out on a whim and it had, let's see, over one hundred and sixty thousand people have watched this.

Paul Dickinson: [00:06:34] So that's a little bit of your decorum down, Christiana. But you're cool is rising. Rising.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:06:48] We're still waiting for Paul's opinion.

Paul Dickinson: [00:06:52] So what happened? We've got new politics. We got old politics going out. I know like Joe Biden isn't like, you know, thirty. But the point is we've got a new politics under a new president. And I think this is where the youth point comes in and I'm so looking forward actually, to talking to Xiye later, because, you know, frankly, I think youth have been discriminated against and that's what inaction on climate change is all about. And she's brought together, you know, along with a whole bunch of other people, the young have kind of captured the zeitgeist behind all of this. They can kind of express to us all the sort of truth of this crisis. And I think that they've had a pivotal role in this election. I hope that the global youth movement is going to continue to have a pivotal role and usher in new politics. So we do things in new and fascinating ways.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:07:42] So I think it's such a great point. But there's one other thing, and maybe we'll bring up Xiye as well. When we had Ben Rhodes on the other week, he pointed out that Trump had sort of unified everybody collectively against him. And we all know how that works. Right? I mean, you know, I remember in the years before the Paris agreement, that single-pointed focus with a timeline was the key magic piece, right, Christiana, that drew everybody in together in terms of wanting to come together and collectively achieve this, which was a major part of the success. And you could argue the same was true around this election, around Trump, whatever else people wanted, and, you know, admitting that there's a lot of people that did vote for him. But in the climate movement, the unifying feature was we've got to move beyond this president and get someone who believes in science. But now, if you take the example of what happened after the Paris agreement, you enter into a multipolar world where there's different priorities. People want to push at different speeds with different agendas. It requires a slightly different skill set and a slightly different approach to continue to be effective once you've had a victory. It's quite interesting that. What do you think about that, Christiana, as a campaigner who's worked on many of these things, how do you do that? How do you pivot from sort of opposing something to getting what you want and continuing to hold things together?

Christiana Figueres: [00:09:00] Yeah, I think it's the difference between adrenaline and stamina. The campaign requires adrenaline and unleashes adrenaline in everyone. And all of a sudden you find yourself not just walking or running. You find yourself truly galloping towards the ultimate goal. But then once you get to the finish line, then there is the next race. And that race is much more difficult because you don't necessarily have that adrenaline of the moment that has a short-term finish line that everyone is just sprinting for. It's a different energy, as you say. It's a different skill set. But equally as important, or I would say actually even more important. Because if after the adrenaline rush, you just sort of throw yourself on the couch and become a couch potato. Then everything that you worked for during the campaign is down to naught. So you have to be able to take a rest. Everybody take a rest. Have you finished resting yet? And then pick up and you know, and then we have to kick in with stamina because this is not a sprint. This is definitely a long, long marathon. And in fact, it's even going to go beyond Biden's four years. So we have to get prepared for that and we have to get prepared mentally. We have to get prepared also in the systems. Systemically in which some of us have to take up our baton and hand it over to those who are coming with much more energy than we are at this point in life. And that's what I think is so exciting about the youth activists out there, that they are really picking up the baton and being much more demanding. Much, much more. Their expectations of what we should be doing are beyond our own expectations. Thank God for that.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:11:00] But just to go back to that point, you made, Christiana, about stamina and adrenaline. I think it's such a great point because so many of us live from adrenaline rush to adrenaline rush. Right? We sort of we run at something. We succeed, hopefully. We collapse. And then something else needs to be run at. And actually, people who work in climate can genuinely be quite exhausted. And I think that that can be one of the reasons why. The adrenaline is both exhausting and addictive and actually that maturing in that realizing that you need to keep going at something with a slightly different skill set. The other thing about the adrenaline and the sprint is the focus brings everybody together in and of itself. You have less conversations about what you want. There's more of an assumed agreement around what you want. But then afterwards, when you're in the stamina, you have a different energy but you also need to, you know, stakeholder management becomes important, working out how everybody agrees, how you get together and determine priorities. That stuff that is less sort of front of mind when you're sprinting at something actually becomes that sort of patient facilitation of that becomes such a magical skill to actually hold everybody to make sure that the sum of the parts continues to be more than the individual pieces.

Christiana Figueres: [00:12:13] Yeah, and it's so challenging. Because everyone begins to act and engage from a different gate, let's say. We all leave from a different gate and then we start thinking perhaps more deeply about, well what do I really want and how do I want to reach that? And then differences bubble up much quicker than they do when you're in the adrenaline stage, when everybody's just rushing to the finish line and it doesn't terribly matter how you get there, you just have to get there. But then when the focus changes to how are we going to do it, especially because we have now understood that it is not just about decarbonizing, which is where we were, frankly, 10 years ago. Now, we have understood that this is a much more complex issue and that everything is intertwined and that social inequalities and biodiversity and human health and ocean and land, our health and productivity, all of that is intertwined. And so when you stop to think about it, I mean as though climate change on its own, we're not complex enough. Now we have understood oh, my goodness, the universe of issues that are woven together into this tapestry is almost infinite. And yet we have to move forward. And so when you have that as a challenge and you have so many different points of views and interests and priorities, even if we can all agree that all of this is intertwined and interwoven, we don't always agree on what the priority is. And everybody has their own priority.

Paul Dickinson: [00:14:05] But just one little point I want to make, Christiana, is I think it does, in a sense, become more complex when you include all of those different points. But, if we're clever, it may also become easier because we recognize that it's the union that makes the force and you can combine those themes, they come together and prevail in a way you couldn't on just one.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:14:24] So we're going to go to the interview in just a moment. But just before we do, Christiana, you've said many times and we agree that the amazing thing about the youth movement is just the in part from their energy, their strategy is amazing. I mean, their ability to make the right strategic calls again and again based on intuition and knowledge is just astonishing. So not suggesting for a minute that they won't be more than equal to this challenge. But as somebody who's been through these cycles before, it might just be interesting to hear what's your advice for people who move from those states, from a state of adrenalin to one of stamina? What would you say you've learned works in making that transition well?

Christiana Figueres: [00:15:07] Oh, what a good question Tom. I'm not sure that I can give a very thoughtful answer on the spur of the moment. Thank you for putting me there.

Paul Dickinson: [00:15:14] Why not? You're brilliant. We have a brilliant question. We have a brilliant person. Why don't we get a brilliant answer? I don't understand.

Christiana Figueres: [00:15:20] Well, I'll try. What came up for me while you were putting that question forward, Tom, is the shift from head to heart, because the head dictates many very, very fast decisions that are consistent with the adrenaline type energy and decision making and pace that we need during that stage of the challenge. But then it's not like we disengage our head, but we have to go dig deeper into a deeper energy, a much more grounded energy that A, has to be wiser than our head, has to be better fed than our head and certainly has to be longer-lasting and more open than the energies that it takes for the adrenaline phase. And it's a very different type of approach. It's more mature, if you will. It's a deeper engagement and broader engagement than the wedge opening engagement that you need in the adrenaline phase. It's when you connect head to heart and are able to use both to continue moving forward in a space that has become more complex and much wider. Because if you think about it, the adrenaline takes us to one tiny little point, win the election. And it's a binary point in our experience, yes or no. But then we open a huge fan of different issues and different challenges that is just, as I say, an infinite fan of issues. And to deal with that requires a much deeper and wiser and I think more patient and more listening engagement.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:17:32] It's so interesting how so many of us are going to go through our lives without having had taken a deliberate step to learn how we pivot between those two different things. But actually, it's just a core skill, isn't it, to kind of have an impact? And I mean, I know that all of us feel enormous amounts of faith in the youth movement, that they'll do this brilliantly, and of course, it's not on them. We're all trying to make this pivot in our own ways, but just their movement is so impressive. Now, we have a brilliant, brilliant person for you to hear from today. Somebody that we have loved for a long time and respected. Xiye Bastida is a Mexican Chilean climate activist and a member of the indigenous Mexican Otomi-Toltec Nation. She is one of the major organizers of Friday's For Future and of the school strikes and climate activism based in New York City and has been a leading voice for indigenous and immigrant visibility on climate activism. She recently gave a brilliant TED talk called If Adults Won't Save the World, We Will, which I would thoroughly recommend. But here's the interview and we will be back afterwards for more conversation and then music. It's Xiye Bastida.

Christiana Figueres: [00:18:44] Ok, Paul and Tom, what we didn't tell you is that this interview is going to be in Spanish, so.

Paul Dickinson: [00:18:49] Better. Better. Better.

Christiana Figueres: [00:18:49] Right, Xiye, hola, hola, hola. How delightful to have you on our Outrage and Optimism podcast. You and I have done, I can't even remember how many events together, but it seems to me that every time that there is a sunray that comes into an event, that means that you are there. So thank you very much for everything that you have contributed to, to those events that I have been at, but to many, many, many, many others. And congratulations for the leadership that you continue to display. Now, Xiye you are a Mexican Chilean climate activist. If my math is correct, you're 18 years old. Is that correct? Isn't that correct?

Xiye Bastida: [00:19:41] Yes.

Christiana Figueres: [00:19:42] Yes, OK, good. I got that one right. And you are a proud member of the indigenous Mexican Otomi-Toltec nation. Speak to us a little bit. Now you're in the United States as a student with a student visa and we'll get to that in a moment. But first, could we just have a quick glance back? What is it like for you to be able to stand today in the public's eye as a member of the Otomi-Toltec Nation, very proudly displaying your indigenous origins? And how did you go from there to being active on climate change?

Xiye Bastida: [00:20:24] Well, thank you, first of all, so much for having me today. I'm really excited. And I think that both my indigenous origin and also how I've become part of the climate movement go hand in hand. I don't think I can separate the two. A lot of times people ask me, how did you get started? And for me, it wasn't one event or one thing that really led me to become part of the movement. It was really a culmination of my upbringing, my ideology, and what I was seeing in the world. So for me, my indigenous background and philosophy really is that I grew up with this mentality of reciprocity, this mentality of what we receive from the earth we have to give back. There's no such thing as natural resources it's sacred elements that we have to take care of because they take care of us. So it's a very different relationship to what I started seeing when I started getting older. So that's basically how my parents raised me with a very attuned sense of what our role as humans is. And I saw, for example, my grandfather going every day to protect his ejido. In Mexico, there's this concept of communal ownership of land and there were companies trying to come in and buy it off and he would go every single day up until midnight. Sit there, like literally physically sit there and protect it, so there were a lot of things like that that when you grow up, you think that everybody has the same thinking.

Xiye Bastida: [00:22:05] You think that everybody sees the world the way you do. And the way I saw the world is this beautiful thing that everybody loved and everybody took care of. So when I started seeing that disconnect, when I started seeing that in my own town, there was waste from factories. In my own town, there were the sighting of obnoxious facilities. In my own town, the river that my dad bathed in was completely polluted. You couldn't even walk by there without having to, like, run away as fast as he could. So to see that disconnect between what it's supposed to be and what it actually is gradually, I guess, woke me up into the realities of our disconnect with the planet. And a turning point really was when my hometown suffered from flooding the day before I moved to New York City and we were already supposed to move to New York City. My parents had gotten a job at the Center for Earth Ethics, but I left my hometown of forever, of 13 years, without knowing if my community had recovered, how it had recovered, what services had been allocated to it, and turns out that it was close to none. And when you think about not only the climate crisis already happening but affecting communities who are the most vulnerable and considering that those communities are the ones with the least resources to deal with the effects of the climate crisis.

Christiana Figueres: [00:23:30] And with the least responsibility for having caused it.

Xiye Bastida: [00:23:33] The least responsibility of having cost it, and also have to deal with the pollution of the institutions that perpetuate it. So for me, it was like everything came together, everything connected. And my dad has been in the climate movement since 1992, since the first Earth Summit, that's where he met my mom. So that's actually where my parents met. My dad represented youth from Mexico, my mom, represented youth from Chile. They met there, they met again in Ecuador. So how could I not?

Christiana Figueres: [00:24:03] You know, there is a club of those who connect through climate or through COPs. So we have to introduce your parents to this club. An increasing number of people are meeting their partners there. I'm sorry I interrupted you when you're talking about your parents, how they met because they were both climate activists.

Xiye Bastida: [00:24:21] Yeah. So basically, my dad was representing indigenous people from Mexico, youth from Mexico, and he didn't know English so my mom translated for him and that's how they connected. That's how they eventually ended up together. So I've seen my dad give speeches forever. I think that's how I learn to give speeches, not by actually learning or anything, just by absorbing all of my dad's wisdom. My first ever event was in Malaysia for the World Urban Forum. My dad was supposed to go and he couldn't so he sent me at fifteen years old across the world by myself now and that's the first time I gave a speech in front of adults. And I saw that somebody that their same age was saying was not resonating the same way that if a youth was saying it and it's because of the intergenerational nature of the climate crisis. So that's when I decided that I had to step up as a youth and I couldn't wait to grow older to be that person.

Christiana Figueres: [00:25:21] Wow.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:25:22] So Xiye so amazing to hear your personal story and where you came from. And we on this podcast have such respect for you and for the youth movement and the way that you have really changed the whole narrative and we're very grateful for everything you've done and continue to do our bit, we hope, to kind of move that message forward. I'm curious, it's been such a critical role in the last few years for youth to stand out there and say this is what we actually need. This is not sort of like kept in the idea of what might be feasible or what's politically possible or economic. But this is what's necessary to actually solve the climate crisis. And that has enabled you and others to have a profound moral authority as you stand sort of in counterpoint, particularly to a president who doesn't understand science, and there's been that real tension which has driven such amazing participation and now young turnout in the US election. But just specifically on the US, I'm curious on your thoughts around now that the presidency has shifted to somebody who does understand science and does have climate as a priority. What does that do to your strategy? What's the role of youth now in that new context? And what do you think is the best way for you to continue to be effective in this much changed and improved world that we will have when Biden's in the White House?

Xiye Bastida: [00:26:43] Well, I think that you know, there's a lot of things that we have to think about. Of course, we are really happy that we have somebody who understands and wants to listen to the science in the White House. We can't forget the impact that the Trump administration had rolling back like literally dozens and dozens of environmental regulations. And one of these regulations actually was that you couldn't undo the work that he did. So there's going to be a lot more work to reinstate everything. And keeping in mind that those regulations that he rolled back, that the administration rolled back, were not even enough to meet our basic human goals. So we have to do a lot of work and then do a lot of work on top of that and through our justice lens. So I think that there are a lot of challenges coming up. But I am really confident that a Biden administration is going to be able to deal with all of those challenges. But we do have to ground ourselves and not get too excited because Trump is not in the White House anymore. We have to realize that rejoining the Paris agreement is the bare minimum. That's what Biden said he was going to do. And that is the bare minimum. We know that the Paris agreement is an internationally, Christiana engineered it, love.

Xiye Bastida: [00:28:09] We know that the Paris agreement is the only international framework that is actually bringing countries together towards a common goal and the fact that the United States is not part of it right now is heartbreaking. But at the same time, that cannot be it. You cannot just join the Paris agreement and said that you did your climate work. So we really want to push Biden a lot, lot further so that he's not only looking well when it comes to other countries looking at what the US is doing but also addressing what is going on locally and also the impact that the US is having globally with its own policies and emissions and all of that. So we know that Biden is not going to give us everything we want, but we at least can push him to do so. We know that the Senate might not be Democratic, so we don't know how far we can get. But he does have a lot of executive order authority over what happens with a lot of environmental regulations. So it is our job to keep pushing and not be complacent and really use our activisms now more than ever, because at least there is somebody listening.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:29:22] Hmm. It's so interesting, we had Ben Rhodes on the podcast last week, formerly worked with President Obama, and he talked about the fact that now there's going to be so many different priorities for Biden, as you say, in a divided administration. And the importance of keeping up that pressure actually is kind of almost going to become more important now, right? Because there's going to be competing priorities and an opportunity to breakthrough. But it's also true that one of the things inadvertently that Trump did was he kind of unified everybody against him, everybody who cares about science, and what we'll find now is we've got more chance of progress, but it'll be more multipolar. We'll have to balance priorities in that way. Have you given any thought to how the movement can can can do that?

Xiye Bastida: [00:30:03] I mean, I think that that is a good thing because we have been pushing for intersectionality for a long time. It's not only about addressing race and then addressing jobs and then addressing climate. It's about addressing all of them. And I think that the climate crisis is our opportunity to do that constructively to that intersectionality. And it also lives up to all the challenges that the United States has to address when it comes to social coercivity. And also right now I feel like youth feel a lot more hurt because I think this is one of the first elections where we were all told, your voice matters a lot. You have to vote. Even though I couldn't vote, I helped a lot of my friends to vote. So at least I did like my part. But it was so exciting to see that my friends were excited to vote. That it wasn't a burden, you know, like, oh, I have class, like, oh. Like, actually, let's go vote. Let's march to the polls. We even had a march in New York City to march to the polls on the first day of early voting. So I think that the excitement around that and you're right, Trump did unify us against him, which is a little odd, but we can't forget that half the country is not with us. So it's also about that, about how do we because we're basically talking like from coast to coast and forgetting everything that goes in the middle. And it's also about addressing that. How do we address the fact that our over globalization is meaning that a lot of people are not having good jobs in the Midwest, addressing the fact that we may have food insecurity if our global providers don't live up to what the United States needs in terms of food, especially with the climate crisis and how that is creating more food instability. So it is about becoming more local but becoming more interconnected internationally. So it's this sweet spot of globalization and using your own resources.

Christiana Figueres: [00:32:12] Yes, there is a very urgent need to unite around all of these issues that we know that are intertwined with each other, your intersectionality point. But I'm also interested in the fact that your Pinned Tweet on your Twitter account speaks about the need for the youth movement to unite. And so that would tell me that that is a challenge and that there are perhaps different views among the youth movement, among youth activists as to how to move forward. Now with a new US administration, will that challenge of the youth movement, I'm assuming that you're talking about the youth movement worldwide. Do you see that there is more space for the youth movement to unite and to speak with more similar voices or the opposite?

Xiye Bastida: [00:33:08] Well, that's actually a really interesting point that you bring up because I actually forgot that that's my pinned tweet. So it's a good reminder, but it basically happened after a conflict of people saying that a lot of youth activists were doing this work performatively. So they aren't actually doing activism. They're just pretending they are or they're just youth doing social media activism. And I think that the youth climate movement and the climate movement, in general, is special because everybody brings so many different skills to the table. So we need graphic designers. We need people who do podcasts, people who do speeches, people who organize, people who write books. And that is what makes us strong. That is what makes us special. Diversity of tactics, perspectives, ambition, skills. So that was my attempt to actually, like all the youth who were kind of, not fighting but having a little bit of tension and conflict, of saying, OK, maybe this person is not organizing as much as they were, but they are doing something else right now. So we have to appreciate that. We have to appreciate what everybody has to bring to the table. And I think that Covid really showed us that the youth movement was excluding a lot of people in some sense because not everybody can strike.

Xiye Bastida: [00:34:29] There's countries where people cannot strike at all because it's illegal. There is people with disabilities who can't go out. So I think that we saw Covid and everything that came with it as an opportunity to diversify the movement and diversify our tactics even further. And that's why I started Re-Earth Initiative, my organization, my global organization that has members from Costa Rica, Argentina, Australia, Ireland, India, Mexico, the United States. And we're really trying to make it global because as you pointed out, Christiana, the youth movement in Europe is really strong. But it's not that there aren't climate activists all around the world, it's that they don't have the same platforms. So I started Re-Earth initiative because I wanted the youth global climate movement to be perceived as it actually is, as this massive wave of youth from all backgrounds who do care and who want to do the work. So, yeah, that's my view on a youth movement and I think that there's a lot of things that we have to work on. But at the same time, I think that we kind of are working on it, like constantly and constructively.

Paul Dickinson: [00:35:45] Well, let me pick up on that Xiye. Just one thing I want to say how inspiring it is to hear you use some just little phrases. I never heard natural resources reclassified as sacred elements. That's profound. That just completely changes the perspective. I've heard you before. You were talking a little bit about food, but I heard you use the phrase food sovereignty, and that's another phrase I've not heard before and this notion of intersectionality in the youth movement is super interesting. So as we think about the youth movement, do you see it as an issue of discrimination, that younger people are being discriminated against because of inaction on climate change? And we have a lot of people listening to the podcast, and it would be great if you can give some guidance to them about how to contribute to this youth movement because it's clearly a new political force but we're only just beginning to come to understand it.

Xiye Bastida: [00:36:44] Yeah, so I think that your first question is really interesting because I do think that youth are definitely being discriminated against and not only us as much as my children and my grandchildren, because like what I see companies doing and saying is we want gains right now. We don't really care about what happens later. It is not our role to deal with social consequences. Our role is to help the economy. Our role is to keep the economy going. We don't have the need to be socially responsible. And for me, when you say that, you're basically saying that the bio-cultural diversity of my community doesn't matter, that the bio-cultural heritage of my community doesn't matter, that everything that I come in contact with and will come in contact with doesn't matter. And for me, like, I think that the world right now is engineered in such a way that countries are forced to fall into neoliberal policies because of the World Trade Organization. So basically, the World Trade Organization and the World Bank, and others are saying, I'll give you money if you open up your borders to companies. And now we are seeing mines, for example, in Mexico that are completely devastating communities. One of the case studies that I looked at is the Penas-Quito mine that uses 13 million gallons of water a year out of an aquifer that only holds 10 million gallons of water a year. So it's completely depleting all of our sacred elements and resources. So when I think of that, like, yes, the economy is important, but when you look at the economy, you're basically seeing how the two percent of the richest Americans are handling their stocks.

Xiye Bastida: [00:38:41] You're not really seeing how people are. You're not really seeing how people are feeling, what they are doing, what they're going to teach their children, and how safe and healthy they are. So we need a complete paradigm shift. And I think that we are capable of doing that. But the fact that you are saying that you don't care about the planet means that you're saying you don't care about your kids and your kids kids. And we are the ones who have to inherit this. So I feel like we have kind of done like a tiptoe on if it's discrimination or not. And it definitely is a hundred percent because it is about our futures and it's about the future and integrity of the planet. It is about dignity. I heard one of my very good friends, activist, you know, she said the climate movement is ultimately about joy. How can we get the most joy to people? How can people be happy with where they are, why they're doing, what they're working on? And I think that is it, you know what I mean? We're doing all of this because we want to be happy, we're doing all of this because we want our kids to enjoy the planet. We're doing all of this because we want to feel replenished

Paul Dickinson: [00:39:58] For generations into the future.

Xiye Bastida: [00:39:59] Exactly. So I don't care if you like, couldn't make as much coal this year because the community was blockading your thing. Right? They're doing it because they want to preserve their joy. And so I think that we just need to reframe what the planet means to us, what our relationship with it is and also like keep that indigenous thinking in mind of we have to think of seven generations past and seven generations after.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:40:31] Amazing.

Christiana Figueres: [00:40:35] Xiye, very briefly, in the lead-up to Paris, I had a recurring dream of seven pairs of eyes that looked back at me and asked me, what did you do? And after I had it many times, I understood that those were not seven children. They were seven generations. So that image is a powerful image for me, so thank you very much for sharing that with us. Honestly, all three of us would love to talk to you for three more hours.

Paul Dickinson: [00:41:10] Yeah, got millions of questions here.

Christiana Figueres: [00:41:14] But sadly, our podcast, this episode has to come to a close. And Xiye would you now with the reality that we're facing today and from your perspective in New York City all the way from home, do you feel more outraged about what we have not done yet, the delays still in the system? Or are you feeling more optimistic that we have more wins in our sail?

Xiye Bastida: [00:41:49] Well, honestly, I think that. I think that optimism is a character, you know what I mean? It's an outlook of life. So I am always optimistic. That's how I live.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:42:02] Very good marks for that here. That's very popular here.

Christiana Figueres: [00:42:06] You get very good marks. You've come to the right place.

Paul Dickinson: [00:42:08] Maybe we get good marks. Maybe you're giving us good marks.

Christiana Figueres: [00:42:13] We get good marks from Xiye, that right.

Paul Dickinson: [00:42:15] We give them to each other.

Xiye Bastida: [00:42:18] Yeah, but I think that outrage and it's like, I think that we need a form of outrage, which I think is impatience like we need to be impatient. We need to say we want this now and we are going to do everything. We want to get it. Everything we can to get it. So I don't like negative feelings because I think that I sometimes lose a lot of time with climate grief, which I think it's important to make space for. But at the same time, I think that it is more constructive if we keep going, give ourselves time to rest, be regenerative, but do like process all the feelings moving forward.

Christiana Figueres: [00:42:56] Nicely put. Xiye, thank you so much. Thank you very much for sharing some thoughts with us. I have this visual image of you with your feet firmly grounded in San Pedro Tultepec and with your eyes on the stars. And I can't think of a better image to describe you. Thank you so, so much for joining us and we hope to see you in the streets marching all of us together very soon again.

Paul Dickinson: [00:43:25] Thank you for your leadership.

Xiye Bastida: [00:43:27] Thank you for having me.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:43:35] So, as ever, with Outrage and Optimism, we get such a privileged opportunity to speak to some of the most brilliant people on this planet and I would absolutely put Xiye right up there in that category. What do you guys leave that conversation with?

Paul Dickinson: [00:43:48] I'm just going to jump in with one thing which is indigenous wisdom, and when I hear her talk about sacred elements and not natural resources I can tell I'm learning, you know, the idea that the Earth looks after you and you look after the Earth, these basic lessons and, you know, a mentality of reciprocity with the planet kind of sounds obvious. It's like my atheist proof of God. You know, I come from the earth, the earth is my God. But here's the thing, it's not just us kind of mumbling about this. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in their fifth assessment report, working group two, and I am quoting, they say, indigenous, local, and traditional forms of knowledge are a major resource for adapting to climate change. Brackett's robust evidence, high agreement, natural resource-dependent communities, including indigenous people, have a long history of adapting to highly variable and changing social and ecological conditions. So just to sort of say that you know, the wisest scientists and their white coats, combined with the kind of the basic part of me that knows right from wrong, has a lot of time for that learning.

Christiana Figueres: [00:45:01] Paul, I'm struck by your term indigenous wisdom and struck on two levels. The first is, I totally agree with you that we have for hundreds of years completely denied and the best of cases underestimated or ignored the wisdom of the first dwellers of this planet. And we have to remember that when economics or the economy was in their hands, we had a much more stable planet than we do right now. And so we have actually not progressed at all in that respect, with progress on some other things. But we haven't progressed in our stewardship of the stability and the health of this planet and had we been more respectful and more learning from their wisdom and their experience and their attitude toward nature, we would be in a better place. The other thing was that at least one-third of the standing primary forests are in the hands of indigenous people. And having understood that we totally really need those primary forests to continue to stand. What better than to ensure that those indigenous people have everything that they need to ensure that those forests are there not just for them, but for everyone? And the deforestation, current deforestation in the Amazon being the first very painful example of what not to do. But the third level that I was reacting to, Paul, when you said indigenous wisdom is to realize that, yes, there is a lot of wisdom in the indigenous peoples that, as I said, we haven't paid attention to and we should rescue. But that also there is a lot of wisdom that is indigenous to us, to each one of us, and that because the world throws so much at us, so many stimuli and so much news, whether it's fake news or real news or whatever, because of the pace of our life, we tend to close ourselves off to our own indigenous wisdom, which frankly is probably not very far away from the wisdom of indigenous people. And if we take a moment to listen and to nurture that wisdom that is inside of us, we also would be doing much better out there in the stability of the planet.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:47:55] That's an amazing point. And I think that you're right that our tendency to other things, to see them as other and outside of ourselves is so fundamental to this crisis. You know, nature is something out there. It's not us. Indigenous wisdom is something others have. And actually, you're right. Sort of like, bringing yourself into that, can actually make it much more a participatory thing rather than an intellectual exercise. That's a really nice reminder, Christiana.

Christiana Figueres: [00:48:20] I actually lately, sorry, not just because you say other Tom I have to jump in. I've lately been playing in my head with changing the concept of I quote the other. We are so much into that. The other, the other person, the other sector, the other organizations, the other country, the other government, whatever. The other, the other. And therefore we put this very high wall between us and whoever we put on the other side of that wall. And if we could as an attitudinal shift, substitute the term the other for the term each other, we would make a huge shift in how we treat all human beings, all living beings on this planet, in fact, even how we treat ourselves, and it's just a little substitutable word, but it's a huge mental shift and attitudinal shift that brings down that wall that is built by the other. And if we understand that as we move forward, the only way to move forward is to be very, very conscious of each other and to understand that every one of our interactions needs to keep that in mind that we are each other, that we are responsible for each other. Very, very different shift to the other.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:49:57] It's very different. I love that. And that's got so much resonance in me, not to go too far into this, but there's the wonderful framing of power by Adam Keohane that some listeners may know where he talks about the difference between, you know, in your relationship with power. Do you exercise power over others or power with others or power within? And actually those types of power, it's all about power. But are you exerting power to push someone else down or to lift them up and achieve something collectively in the world? And what you just put your finger on there and I am sort of playing with, there's probably a similar different type of othering, to collective othering to something that's separate from you. But not to go too far into this but I love that concept, Christiana. That's beautiful. And I would just say, you know, in terms of the conversation with Xiye, it's slightly stating the obvious but I just get blown away by how deeply impressive these young women are that are leading this climate movement. I mean, on all levels, I mean, emotional maturity, strategic insight, deep amounts of knowledge. I mean, on all of those different areas I just find it so wonderful and encouraging and inspiring that there are people who are really putting their work to that. And of course, that's not to say in any way that we need to leave the work to them. This is on us to do everything we can at this moment. But that level of dedication and deep dedication and deep competence through knowledge and emotion and strategy is just really something that you rarely find in people three times her age. So age is clearly no indicator.

Christiana Figueres: [00:51:33] And how delightful that so many of those youth leaders are women.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:51:37] Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Paul Dickinson: [00:51:38] Well, I don't entirely think it's surprising, actually. The world has a massive preponderance or over-preponderance of men in positions of power, you know, ridiculous, like sort of 90, 95 percent of the heads of large corporations and the rest of it are all men. And, you know, there just seems to be a maturity in women, which is just fundamentally lacking from the way the world is run. And we need to balance those boards because, you know, ultimately, there's a sort of empathetic quality to female leadership that the world just desperately needs.

Tom Rivett-Carnac: [00:52:12] So, speaking of brilliant women, we now have the work of another brilliant woman to bring you today. Millie Turner is a singer-songwriter. And today we're going to bring you an acoustic version of her song Underwater. Now, Millie also is amazingly thoughtful on a whole range of issues. We wrote to her and asked about her motivation for this particular song, and she said that Underwater was actually the very first song she wrote. And she wrote it when she was 16 and had entered the studio for the very first time. She wrote the song on the day after Trump's election, in the midst of the anger and frustration. And she says in her 16-year-old head, she wanted to just escape it all and go underwater, where you're reminded of the enormity of the planet, the power and steadiness of the ocean in comparison to the unstable and power-hungry events that were going on. For her it was a song that symbolized hope in a chaotic time. We also asked her about the role of the artist during the climate emergency and what she said was that she thinks that artists are the communicators and expression is their tool to survival. They have so much power to create things that communicate these issues. They say that political movements are for intellect, but actually, art is necessary for movements. Art can inspire and create a sense of belonging, especially in something so urgent, like the climate crisis, which is what artists are meant to do, to communicate and to inspire. This is Millie Turner, Underwater. Hope you enjoy it, we'll see you next week.

Christiana Figueres: [00:53:41] Bye. 

Paul Dickinson: [00:53:41] Bye.

Clay Carnill: [00:57:37] So there you go. Another episode of Outrage and Optimism. That was Millie Turner performing her song Underwater. I just want to take a second and just appreciate how talented Millie is. I mean, I know you know, because you just heard her sing. But, guys, it's a bit surreal that we get to have artists like her on the podcast. I mean, the level of talent and musical discipline, it's just amazing. Her voice is so pure. Links to check out her music video for Underwater and Stream and buy her music are in the show notes. So go check it out. Outrage and Optimism is a global optimism production produced by Clay Carnill, and executive produced by Marina Mansilla-Hermann. Global Optimism is do you have this memorized yet? Say it with me. Sara Lau, Katie Bradford, Lara Richardson, Sophie MacDonald, Freya Newman, Sarah Thomas, Sharon Johnson, and John Ward. I almost got you there. And our hosts are Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson. Special thanks to our guests this week, Xiye Bastida. OK, I'm looking at what I'm putting in the show notes here and I'm going to just check with you on this. Did you catch her latest TED talk? OK, I got you. Did you see Xiye host Ted Countdown with Jane Fonda? I got you. Have you organized or took action with her organization Re-Earth Initiative? I have got it all in the show notes so go check it out. Xiye is out here doing it. You can find us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn @Global Optimism. That's us. We're posting every day all of the amazing things happening in climate. And I guarantee there are things we are posting that you want to know about. So join us online. And if you're enjoying the podcast, it means everything. If you could read us five stars and write us a review. Thank you. OK, so that's a wrap on this week's episode. Hit subscribe so you don't miss us right back here next week. We'll see you then.