73: Prelude to TED Countdown with Chris Anderson and Lindsay Levin

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Lindsay Levin (guest, CEO of Leaders' Quest): I think the other thing is we very much made this a big tent. We've got lots of people like you all, who've worked for decades on this subject. And then we've got other people who are typically not heard from or who come from different spaces because we do need everybody. And the other thing that's really shaped it is, when we set out on this, it was all about solutions. So what we're trying to present is how we solve this. And you have to start with the alarming science and the alarming state of the world, but then to move into kind of relentlessly pursuing solutions, I think has really energized people.

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: You've spent a long time now, particularly Lindsay, right in the weeds amongst the solutions, dwelling with that for months, right? What do you come out of that with? How do you feel about this great shared challenge that we're now facing, having dwelt with all of that risk and all of that opportunity and possibility?

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Lindsay Levin (guest, CEO of Leaders' Quest): Yeah, I mean, well, it evidently is very urgent, and it evidently is about changing pretty much everything we do and how we do it. And that is exceedingly daunting. So, you know, I'm under no illusions about that. But I do think that there's real movement going on. I mean, I think, you know, it's no accident here we are in 2020. We've got so many, so much evidence all around us that we need to live life differently. We need to organize ourselves differently. And so I have a great sense of possibility of people, ordinary citizens as well as people who are leading companies and leading cities and leading communities, recognizing that we really have to, you know, make substantial change. I think the other thing that's really striking is that because it is about, you know, changing how we do business, changing how we invent new products, et cetera, it does require collaboration on a level that we've not seen before. And I mean, I think this involves honing some new skills. It involves, you know, stepping up in ways that people typically don't. But there's a great willingness and there's all sorts of people coming together. And you can pick examples all over the world to illustrate that. And that's part of what we're trying to shine a light on.

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Christiana Figueres: So, my sense is, if we could step out of our day to day, which keeps us so busy with all these details, if we could step out and figuratively, if you will, sort of fly over the reality that we have right now and try to put words to what we are seeing, my sense is that tomorrow is going to be a real anchor in many shifts that are occurring at the same time. We are beginning to shift from looking at climate change as only a responsibility to looking at a responsibility undoubtedly, but also this huge, unbounded opportunity the contours of which we are only barely beginning to understand. So I think it is so exciting because if you look at this from a perspective of, call it the evolution of humankind, if you want to go to the largest, it's an incredible moment in time in which we're truly stepping up to a better self, isn't it?

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Chris Anderson (guest, head of TED): Yeah, I think it is. I think we owe a huge debt of gratitude to the youth of the world. You know, a year ago, every news report seemed to be about youth marching and determined to bring this issue to people's attention. I really think they did that. And I think even though any individual kid may not have that much power, they collectively changed a bunch of adults' minds, including the adults who run some of the world's biggest companies, who seem in the last year to have just collectively decided that enough of excuses, they just are going to have to recognize a new reality and adjust to it. And that is why I think it's possible to really believe that some of the solutions coming are real, that you've got this paradoxical situation where business is the problem. And probably business has to be a big part of the solution. I mean, that's where the bodies are, the money is, the power is to really make a change. And so seeing this journey whereby some of the world's worst polluters are either realizing they have to get their act together and change their business, or they're just being disrupted and shoved out of the way by people who are ready to do that. You know, that's an exciting process to see. And I think we've seen that happen again and again. There'll be stories tomorrow on exactly how that is happening in practice in some of the world's biggest companies. So that's a really cool thing. And I think the other thing that's really joyful is a growing understanding of just, you know, the role that nature can and must play in helping us win this battle. That instead of viewing nature as this exploitable resource that we make money of, it's actually, it's our home that we must treasure. And if we give it a chance, nature will play an absolutely crucial part in starting to, you know, absorb more carbon and make it possible to genuinely imagine a net zero world by before 2050. So there's lots of beautiful content about that, again, tomorrow, both from a scientific perspective, also to some extent from an artistic perspective. I mean, it's all about, it's about both showing people how this can happen and why they can embrace it with joy. And I think both those elements are there.

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Lindsay Levin (guest, CEO of Leaders' Quest): Yeah, it's very much about what it is to be human. And I think we're at an extraordinary moment. I would agree with you, Christiana, I do think we've needed a level shift in our consciousness, or in our awareness of who we are and how we're connected, and how we're connected to everything else. And in some ways, mother nature is conspiring to challenge us to do that right now. And in all sorts of ways, all the different things that are going on, be it health, be it pandemic, be it the sort of political stresses, be it these tensions between generations. And we got to meet the moment. And there is a real pride and joy in that. There is a huge sense of purpose. Anybody looking for purpose in life, well, now's your moment. No matter what you do, now's your moment.

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Christiana Figueres: Now is your moment to stand up and be counted.

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: And can you talk in a bit more detail about what individuals who are participating, who are watching, how they can get engaged, what we're asking them to do? Because, I mean, we talked a lot in our book about the fact that we can't solve this without individual engagement, and it's really been the missing piece, and this is a big opportunity. So how are you going to engage the individual to be in sustained action on this issue?

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Lindsay Levin (guest, CEO of Leaders' Quest): Yeah, I mean, two things. One is we really want people to accompany one another on the journey to the UN conference next year. So there is a piece about being really aware of what's at stake. And the fact that the conference got moved out a year, on the one hand, is a disappointment, and we don't have a year to lose. But actually, the year is being very, very well used in terms of upping ambitions. So there's something about people being engaged with what is happening globally and with what all of our politicians need to drive. But the other thing is that that's been very exciting is early on, we started to look around at what was happening in terms of citizens movement, citizens engagement, equipping individuals with what they can do, with what every one of us, depending on our different lifestyle and where we live and how we live, what it is we can do. And we've ended up coming together with a group of others, a whole bunch of different organizations who will each individually working towards a plan to activate citizens. And tomorrow we will launch that plan together as one big unified campaign, with 16 different steps that people can take with a way of counting your steps, with a way of choosing your steps, with a way of seeing how the changes I make in my life add up to a difference, the way the changes that my community makes can add up to a difference. So a way for people to individually engage, and we're super excited about that. And it's the product of a huge effort across organizations where people came together and said, look, we can't have competing initiatives here. We actually need one, and we've got to be super bold about it. And that launches tomorrow.

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Chris Anderson (guest, head of TED): Amazing. I think it's a day for people to gather their loved ones together. And watch together, if you possibly can. I mean, it's a lot of time, and we all are sick of virtual experience. But I mean, this is the most important issue of our lives. And I really think this has the chance to be a transformational day. If, for example, you could gather family, watch together. Because so much of the elements of change have actually happened by being intergenerational, for example. And yes, as the two key pieces are one deeper understanding, but then what do you do with that? And there's actually far more that people can do than simply the way that they control their own lifestyle, their own spending, for example. And we'll be pointing to some of those things tomorrow. But think, for example, of yourself, perhaps, as an employee. And imagine what a group of organized employees could do in a company. They have already. There's so much more that could happen there. Imagine what you could do as a citizen of your town or city. There's so much exciting happening there. So it's all about connecting the dots from, here is a way forward, to here's how we could connect with each other and make something truly amazing happen.

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Christiana Figueres: We all play so many different roles in life, right? Depending on who we're interacting with, whether it's family up or down the generations, or across to partners, or whether it's in our professional lives, or political engagement. We play so many different roles. And the point is that we can actually use every single one of those roles to exert our influence for change. And by doing that, we're actually exponentializing, if that word exists, exponentializing what can actually be done. And that is so exciting, because somehow we tend to think, oh, well, I'm only one little person, and what can I do? And I think tomorrow is going to be so exciting, because all of... It's a huge... Yes, it's about learning about climate. It's learning about all of the sectors. But more than anything, it's about learning what each of us can do, sitting right there in the roles that we are each playing. How do we exponentialize our impact in order to be able to make the transformation that we need to make in a timely fashion? Because there is that little thing about timing, right? We can make changes, but we have to make them within the timeframe that science demands, or otherwise it's for naught.

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Yeah. Now, speaking of exponentializing, I mean, it's going to be amazing, and it's kind of a beginning, right? Because it's both the end of the first period, but it's the beginning of the next phase all the way through to COP. So we have a question we always like to ask our guests at the end. But just before we do, I wonder if you could just tell us what happens next after tomorrow?

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Lindsay Levin (guest, CEO of Leaders' Quest): Sure. Maybe I'll kick off. So this is phase one, and so far we have two more phases. I don't know whether there'll be more after that. But phase two is really between now and next fall, the COP meeting. When we're working very closely actually with a lot of the folk in the COP team and beyond to try to accelerate what people call the race to zero. So can we help get many, many more companies signed up at an accelerated rate? Small companies, large companies, committing to science-based targets to transform their businesses to become net zero. Can we do the same with cities? Can we do the same with communities? So we're really getting behind all of the amazing initiatives that others are already driving and trying to give voice to that and help accelerate that. So that's one piece and that also involves some detailed work in certain sectors where innovations needed at a faster rate, where we need to scale at a faster rate. So a big effort to get behind the work on the road to COP. Then next October, we will have a summit supplemented by hundreds, in fact, I hope thousands of TEDx events. And I'll let Chris describe that.

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Chris Anderson (guest, head of TED): Well, one of the most amazing things about TED over the last few years has been seeing 3000 teams around the world wanting to do their own, build their own communities, share ideas and so forth. And many of them are so motivated by this issue, by climate. And so, yes, they're finding lots of ways to engage with local communities, with local city mayors, with local initiatives and to share those and build support locally. And I'd add just that the key to this notion overall is trying to break people out of their silos. There are initiatives that you can dream of that will move faster. If the politicians and the business leaders and the policy makers and so forth are all talking to each other. One of the things we've talked about a lot is how to accelerate the end of the internal combustion engine. You can press politicians to do that, but how much more powerful would it be if you also had a bunch of people, perhaps inspired by YouTube videos, saying, I won't ever buy an internal combustion engine. If you have other innovators showing a greater pace of innovation, you maybe have a couple of business leaders saying that they will take the lead, and so on and so forth. Those connecting dots can create a virtuous cycle that builds belief that we can just bring that forward five or 10 years earlier than it would otherwise happen. That five or 10 years makes a huge difference. I think in lots of different areas, there's a chance to do something like that. We don't want people to think of Countdown as something new. It's an attempt to connect dots. It's an attempt to just create a platform that lots and lots of people who have been doing this work for years and years can be part of, to find a way of recognizing their work and amplifying it, and making connections so that there's a catalytic effect.

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Christiana Figueres: Well, you know, Lindsay and Chris, we usually end our episodes with asking our guests, are you outraged or optimistic or anywhere in between? Because we do see that these two actually are connected and helpful to each other. So we already know that you're very optimistic, but I would love to hear in your own words, how do you explain where your feelings are now, just on the eve of the exciting announcements of tomorrow? And not just vis-à-vis tomorrow as a day, but vis-à-vis what you know is possible over the next short period and medium period of time.

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Lindsay Levin (guest, CEO of Leaders' Quest): Who's first, Chris?

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Chris Anderson (guest, head of TED): I was offering you the first. I can go if you want.

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Lindsay Levin (guest, CEO of Leaders' Quest): How am I feeling? You know, I'm not particularly feeling outraged. I kind of accept the world as it is. You know, it's very complicated and there's an awful lot of things to feel sad about. There's an awful lot of things to feel depressed about. And in fact, I'm really struck that a lot of people are depressed about many things, including climate, and that, you know, mental well-being, emotional well-being, I would say spiritual well-being is a huge priority. So personally, I'm not sort of dwelling in outrage or even in sadness. I'm just hugely determined and hugely motivated. And I'm also very thoughtful about spending time with people who give me energy and where I can give them energy. There's something about tapping into one another's energy and forming community, otherwise we actually can't do it. Our good friend Nigel Topping, you know, he's got a lovely way of describing despair, you know. First of all, it's no fun, and secondly, it's useless. And I echo that. We've got this incredible blessing of being alive. We live on this stunningly beautiful planet, which is why we're also motivated to do something about taking care of it. And we love one another, you know, we have beautiful relationships with people. So I'm struck by the need to connect, and perhaps the fact that connecting physically has become so difficult for the last many months as further accentuates that. And yeah, I'm just really determined. I think we're capable of doing this, and I think we must.

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Chris Anderson (guest, head of TED): The word optimism is such a strange word. People often use that word as if, you know, the future is hidden from us, but it already exists. There already is. Someone has written a script. There is a future there that is going to happen. And the optimist is someone who thinks that that future is going to be a nice one, you know, cake for everyone. A pessimist is someone who thinks it's going to be bloody awful. I think that's just actually completely the wrong view of the world. I think the right view of the world is that the future is as yet completely undetermined. There literally isn't a script. It does not exist. If you were to reassemble the atoms of the universe in this moment and relaunch them, the future could turn out any of a number of ways. It's literally not yet determined. And the amazing thing about being humans is that we can determine, we can play a role in determining that future. So for me, an optimist, all you have to be to be an optimist, you don't have to believe anything. You don't have to have a feeling of hope necessarily. You have to believe that there is a possible pathway to a better future. Yeah. And you have to be determined to do what you can to contribute to walking that pathway and to making it real. And so in that sense, even though I'm outraged by so many things about what are happening, I'm very much an optimist. I'm ready to roll up sleeves and assemble whatever we can do to join an incredible group of millions of people around the world who are doing the same, to rise up and try and make this future real. And the joyful thing is that the same future which avoids climate crisis is just a much better future, as you've said on this podcast many times. It's cleaner, it's sexier, it's more fun, it has more amazing technology, it has healthier lifestyles. It's worth believing in and fighting for with every ounce we have. So in that sense, optimism, count me in.

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Christiana Figueres: How delightful. Well, how wonderful. How wonderful to have you both. How exciting to be on the eve of tomorrow already. And to our listeners, in case you don't know what you're going to be doing tomorrow, I think now you do. You could just type in TED Countdown, or you can go directly to countdown.ted.com. And as Chris and Lindsay have said, do gather your family and send out little invitations to everyone you know, because it is going to be truly transformational, exciting. You will be talking about these presentations for days to come. So, very, very exciting weeks to come, indeed. And hopefully not just talking about the presentations, but actually joining everyone who is going to be activated and willing to be counted in to contribute to the global solution. So, thank you very, very much to both of you, not just for this conversation today, but, Chris, to you first for having this truly different vision of what TED can do, not just spreading ideas, but seeding action is what you're doing here. And Lindsay, thank you so much for having been for a full year and counting the motor behind all of this. It's just been a total joy to be working with both of you and Tom and I are looking forward to continuing the partnership.

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Lindsay Levin (guest, CEO of Leaders' Quest): Thank you both.

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Chris Anderson (guest, head of TED): Thank you both for your inspiration too. Thank you.

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UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER — please verify (likely Chris Anderson or Lindsay Levin signing off, mistagged): Bye.

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Bye. What an amazing conversation with Lindsay Levin and Chris Anderson, two remarkable leaders who have just brought so much to this climate debate and discussion, incredibly thoughtful. What they have put together in TED Countdown is just amazing. We would really encourage you to join us if you're listening to this on the day of launch, then tomorrow, the 10th of October will be the day that you can tune in live on the YouTube homepage. Anytime after that, please find all the recordings at countdown.ted.com. Now, as ever, we have an amazing piece of music for you today. And today is really something special. And it's from Cosmo Sheldrake. He's a multi-instrumentalist musician, a producer and a composer. He released his first single in 2014, but he is really kind of engaged with music in a really creative way and used it as a manner to direct people's attention to nature, to what we're doing and to how we can improve it. He actually provided the responses to the questions that we sent him in audio form. So we're going to cut directly to Cosmo replying to those. I feel incredibly old. I know Cosmo's dad, Rupert Sheldrake, is a super thoughtful and amazing scientist who has written an incredible book with these amazing titles, like things like Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home. He's one of the most thoughtful and creative scientists I've ever come across. And his son is clearly just the same. So here's Cosmo explaining the motivations behind this music. And then we'll go after that to his beautiful track Cuckoo. Hope you enjoy it. Hope you enjoyed this week's episode. We'll see you next week.

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Cosmo Sheldrake (musician guest): I think that art has an enormous role to play during a climate crisis. I think often it's the role of art and artists and musicians to try and create embodied experiences or things that can transcend mere regurgitation of facts and figures and connect people on a spiritual and emotional, physical and intellectual level to the reality of what's actually happening. I think people can often just be overwhelmed into a kind of state of apathy. And art and music I think can help snap people out of that state. Although I think art's not just there to help communicate the science or reflect other ideas. I think it is also fully capable of making meaningful and valid statements about the nature of reality itself. Like science, it's a method of communication and investigation and inquiry. I think there's also many places in which arts and sciences can collaborate and overlap. For example, there's a team of bioacousticians headed by a man named Steve Simpson at Exeter University that have discovered that when you play a recording of a healthy reef back to a dying coral reef or to a degraded reef, as they've been doing in Indonesia, the sound of the healthy reef can help attract the fish back to the reef, which then in turn start grazing on the algae and bring the reef back into a healthier state. So by engaging with the acoustic landscape that we inhabit in creative and imaginative ways, I think we can enter into a kind of multi-species conversation that can have genuinely positive outcomes for the health of ecosystems. In this way, I think there's a role for art and artists to engage in, not just speaking about the world or describing it, but also speaking with the world and engaging with it. One of the probably just sort of romantic fantasy, but some of the aims or hopes that I had while composing some of these wake-up calls from endangered bird recordings was that by performing them back in the places that had recorded some of the sounds, that it might help to encourage some of these species to return. So I think arts and artists and musicians have a role, not only to help communicate some of the issues that we're all facing, but also to do something about them in a practical and constructive way. This song is actually written by Benjamin Britten, but I decided to make a version of it. One, because I just thought it was a stunningly beautiful song, but second, because it fit into... I've been making an album called Wake Up Calls, which is out on the 17th of September, composed almost entirely out of recordings of Endangered British Birdsong as a way to try and, I guess, bring attention to some of this beauty that we're often unconsciously losing. For example, the cuckoo populations have declined by 50% in the last 15 years in the UK. It just felt like a good way of shining a light on one of the aspects of this mass extinction which we're currently living through. And to attempt to try and make something that could engage people with this crisis, but without triggering some of the apathy and kind of shutdown mechanisms that happens often if people get lectured to or just overwhelmed by facts and figures.

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Clay (podcast producer): Hey, everyone, it's Clay, producer of the podcast. I'm back and feeling rested. Thank you to Nolan for filling in while I was gone. I got to spend a couple weeks with my family, drinking horchata on the beach, eating burritos, trying to keep my 10-month-old son from eating sand. We had a good time. Good to be back. So there you go, another episode of Outrage and Optimism. The track you just heard was Cuckoo Song by Cosmo Sheldrake, which is a wonderfully reimagined version of the song Cuckoo by Benjamin Britten. So I hope you gave that song a listen on some nice speakers or headphones because there are some serious bass notes in there that, you know, will shake a room if you have the right equipment. So if you just listen on computer speakers or just through your iPhone, I can't stress this enough. Please go back and listen to that song on some nice sound equipment. You'll thank me later. As Cosmo mentioned, this song is part of his album Wake Up Calls. Fantastic album. Can't recommend it enough. I actually sent it to my mom because she loves birds. And one of the cool things about the record is that Cosmo used recordings of bird songs featured on the red and amber lists of endangered British birds, with the exception of a robin and blackbird. And that's important to note because birders know their bird calls, and they will let you know via strongly worded long emails if you misidentify or overgeneralize. Anywho, the album is Wake Up Calls, the artist is Cosmo Sheldrake. Give it a spin and buy the record. Link in the show notes. Outrage and Optimism is a Global Optimism production and is executive produced by Marina Mancilia German and produced by Clay Carnell. That's me. I didn't miss working, but I missed the team. Sarah Law, Katie Bradford, Laura Richardson, Sophie McDonald, Fran Newman, Sarah Thomas, Sharon Johnson, and John Ward. Our hosts are Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac, and Paul Dickinson. Special thanks this week to May Gong from Leaders' Quest, and Jake Erlich and Sheila Orfano from the TED team. Nowadays, I only get to meet these wonderful people over email, and I hope one day we can meet in a pub somewhere. And thank you to our guests, Lindsay Levin and Chris Anderson. All right, let's talk about TED Countdown. I'm texting my friends, family, and everyone to invite them to watch with me, and I'm also telling all of you. The live event begins October 10th at 11 a.m. Eastern. That's 4 p.m. London time. Be counted in. All of us at Global Optimism will be watching. Join us. Speaking of online activity, you can follow us at Global Optimism on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and yes, LinkedIn, where unemployment goes to die. And you can rate us and review us on Apple podcasts. Five stars takes five seconds, and we read every single review. So thank you. Okay, that is everything. We'll see you at TED Countdown, and of course, we'll see you right back here next week.

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Tom Rivett-Carnac: Bye.