174: These are Powerful Times

Christiana: [00:32:54] Conceptually from accepting that the tragedy of the Commons has to continue, if that continues, we will write a very destructive history of the Anthropocene. If we are able to change that, to realize the necessity of the commons, which I think we're starting to get there. And the SDG is certainly were the first step as well as the Paris Agreement. And I hope that we can now at COP 15 get to a global biodiversity framework with 30 by 30. But it stems from a very different concept of why are we here and what do we need to change in order to continue as a human race to be here and and to be a part of the web of life on this planet? So the move from the tragedy of the commons to the necessity of the Commons would love to hear your reaction to that.

Isabel Cavelier: [00:33:55] Christiana, it brings me home because I have been deeply, trying to deeply understand the very source, the most upstream source of the situation we're in. It's not it's not emissions. Emissions is the output, right? Emissions is the output. And no matter how much we try to mitigate, we will never, never solve the situation if we don't go upstream to the very source of the situation. That is the paradigm upon which our entire civilization is based and it is the paradigm of separation. We need to move away from that or rather reverse that into a paradigm of integration. And I'll talk more about that. But coming to COP 15 and COP 27, I used to be this is this is interesting. I used to be one of those negotiators. When you're deep into that weed and you're like, Oh, how do you how can you possibly imagine that you can merge some complex things that it's just going to make that worse? It's just going to make both world world's worst, right? That used to be me. I'm like, Oh, keep it separate. Please don't let it almost like contaminate. Don't, don't let it pollute each other. And nowadays, I am heartened to see that more and more we can understand that biodiversity and climate change, you know, matters is just one and the same thing. And that integration is not only important, it's necessary that we need to understand the two as two angles to address the same situation, that without solving one, we won't solve the other, that 30 by 30 is essential to solve climate, and that solving climate is essential to solving biodiversity.

Isabel Cavelier: [00:35:38] And I, I almost have like a little discomfort when I say solving X or Y because it's also a very mechanistic approach. We need to and when you say how do we move from the tragedy of the commons to the necessity of the commons? My answer is we need to be to we need to be it to emerge that culture, be that culture. And what does that mean if you're a negotiator going to COP 15 or to COP 27, or if you're a lawyer working in an oil and gas company, or if you simply are a potter in your studio, in all of those situations, you can start being the culture of integration and think, okay, how how do I integrate climate and biodiversity in either COP? How does that look systemically in the two regimes? Can we build deeper integration in the in the in the in the regimes? Structurally, I think we can we've been afraid of doing it, But I think we need to we need to do it. How can we do more science together? IPBS and IPCC. We feel a little bit, you know, doubtful we should I think we shouldn't be afraid of moving towards more integration. And so I am more an advocate of integration nowadays. And yes, I'm hoping 30 by 30 is agreed at COP 15. It's a necessity. But I also hope that in both COP's, I think it started already last year with COP 26, but I think it can get much deeper. I hope political messaging in both COP's moves towards integration, even structurally. Even architecturally.

Christiana: [00:37:15] Yeah. So, so interesting. So for listeners when we say 30 by 30, just quick explanation, what we need mean is that there is the intent, although not just approved in the global biodiversity negotiations, to get to an agreement to protect 30% of our planet's surface, which includes land and ocean by 2030. So the shorthand for that is 30 by 30, and that is currently being supported by about a little bit over 100 countries, but will be put to the test at COP 15 that takes place in Montreal in early December. But that just as as a little parenthesis to what we're talking about here to come back to your journey is I will I am so with you on that journey. I remember when I was trying to separate and keep things separate because it's too complicated and yes, please, you know, it's it's more it's difficult enough. Please don't come get it for them. And I have come full swing, full swing to the other side to understand, as you say, that these are two sides of of the same issue and that just like a piece of paper has two sides of the paper. And you cannot divide if you just try to divide a piece of paper and you can't.

Isabel Cavelier: [00:38:38] I would even say it's two of the many sides, right? That is not just two. And we in the climate community tend to feel climate as the primary angle even.

Christiana: [00:38:53] Yes.

Isabel Cavelier: [00:38:53] And even those of us who are very like nature oriented, we think of these two angles and it's just two of the many. And so that is we must start thinking our complex reality in a complex way and understand that climate is one of the angles. Biodiversity one of the angles, equity, social equity, one of the angles, right?

Christiana: [00:39:17] Gender, racism, patriarchy.

Isabel Cavelier: [00:39:20] And it's exactly justice.

Christiana: [00:39:23] And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, totally. And what is interesting, what is odd, Isabelle, is that it is our little brain, right in our infinite wisdom that has separated these into concepts so that we can deal with them. But now that we have understood them as separate issues, now the time has come to reintegrate them. Because when you look out there into nature and into society, nature doesn't separate this right. For nature, it's nature must be laughing at us going, ha ha ha. They think that oceans and land and and biodiversity and, you know, our human dependence on this land are all separate issues. They're not so, so. So yes, we have shied away from, from a what we think is a complexity. And actually it's not a complexity. It is much more a reflection of the reality.

Isabel Cavelier: [00:40:15] Isn't it fun? Christiana We still refer to nature as something there that thinks about us.

Christiana: [00:40:20] Yes, as if it.

Isabel Cavelier: [00:40:21] Were outside of it like we are.

Christiana: [00:40:23] Yes, we are.

Isabel Cavelier: [00:40:24] We are. Which means we can be integrated and integrative as nature is, because that's we are. We are that we are it.

Christiana: [00:40:33] Yeah. Exactly. Inter-being, inter-being. So that brings me, Isabel to your amazing award that I would like to congratulate you for. You have recently been awarded the Climate Breakthrough Award. One of the most distinguished and and truly. groundbreaking awards in the field. And it's it's very, very inspiring what you have said that you would like to do with this award. On the on the one hand, well, I don't want to put actually, why don't you explain it? Because I was going to say there are two pillars, I think, from from what you want to do with this award, which is a a a huge one of the largest actually monetary awards in the field and has to be put to good use. My sense is that you have two pillars. But why don't I let you discuss? Because it's very related to what we've just been talking about. But please do share with us what you're planning to do with your Climate Breakthrough Award.

Isabel Cavelier: [00:41:46] Thank you, Christiana, and thank you very much for for for referring to that. Yeah, it's been a very long journey and I want to say that that it wouldn't have been possible at all to to be where we are and to have received that award. That is humbling, really. If it were not for the beautiful work that I've done with other brilliant women, and I want to mention them by name, including Andrea Guerrero and Maria Laura Rojas, with whom years ago. We've been working together and with whom we years ago we founded a think tank in Colombia called Transforma. That is that is flourishing. And and it's it's it's been really humbling working with them together. But yeah it's it's it's been a very interesting journey to think about what would what it would do or what what I do with this what we because it will be collective like anything that can emerge wisely needs to be collective. Because, at first our prompt was you, you can think about anything that reduces a lot of emissions in ten years. And so we went into thinking, how do we reduce a lot of emissions? Is this the real problem to what I was saying earlier, what is causing this? And we went all the way upstream to what are the paradigms upon which our civilization is based that is causing this problem? And there are many paradigms, but the probably the two that we came most upstream was one separation. So let's reverse that to integration. And two, because we separate, we can be extractive stick. Is that a word in English? We can extract from?

Christiana: [00:43:29]  It is now!

Isabel Cavelier: [00:43:30] From otherness, right? If something is other than me that I can extract. So separation to integration and extractivism to care to a civilization that is based on care is what we need. And so how do we do that? I thought we need to stop talking about it. We need to be that we need to be the change of culture to shift the culture.

Christiana: [00:43:54] Back to Mahatma Gandhi.

Isabel Cavelier: [00:43:56] Yes, exactly.

Christiana: [00:43:58] Be the change that you want to see.

Isabel Cavelier: [00:43:59] And so the place to land was let's be a system of care for those who are in the front of the of the action to reduce emissions. And that is mostly not only but it's many women who are out there who feel probably the need to be connected and cared for and who can who are already doing amazing things and whose power can be unleashed at scale just by being better connected and better cared for. So what we will do is to precisely design a prototype and then a pilot, and then ideally as sort of worldwide wide scale up of a care system that can be basically deployed anywhere in any project through any kind of of of of initiative. My vision is that in the future, any project, just as we think about, you know, what's going to be your monitoring and evaluation module or, or or or what's going to be your KPI for this project, its end, what's going to be your system of care for this project so that any time an initiative is pursued, there is a system of care that includes embodied restoration of our nervous system, that includes the system, the network, the support network that gets you connected to others in your field that are working on it. That includes the building of the capacity you need to do whatever you are aiming at in contributing to to solving the climate crisis. That includes a better access to the resources, including the financial resources that you need for your initiative. And that also includes personal security, because in many parts of the world, and I cannot be blind to the fact that I live in the country where it's probably the most dangerous country to be a climate activist in the world. So we need to care for each other.

Christiana: [00:46:03] In fact, environmental activists in general, not just climate.

Isabel Cavelier: [00:46:06] Not just criminal. Yeah, and social, not just climate. It's all the same. It's all the same. So. And so in doing that, that we start seeing a culture of care that in turn becomes the norm. And that in doing that, obviously we I want to design a system that captures all of the culture that we are being and puts it out in the world, hopefully in Spanish and other languages, not just in English. We're so Anglophone in this community, but there's so much happening in in other in other languages that that I want to be able to contribute to. And ideally that spreads and becomes becomes what we are a culture and a civilization that is based on care and integration and not one that is based on separation and extraction. In a nutshell.

Christiana: [00:46:58] So, so beautifully said. I couldn't agree with you more. I often think how much energy we put into addressing drought because we see drought happening and we see desertification happening, but we don't put enough attention or equal attention to our inner drought. Yes. And so many of us are experiencing or have experienced inner drought because the work that we do is very, very tough. And if we do not care for ourselves in each other, we shrivel up, we burn out, we burn down. And and so that inner taking care of that inner drought and becoming inwardly as resilient as we want our planet to be is definitely the the way to go here. And I truly celebrate that you are focusing on that because we're not going to get to planetary resilience unless we go through inner resilience. And and those two are so interrelated.

Isabel Cavelier: [00:48:07] So much and Christina, when you think about it, we have been reproducing in the way we work and in the way we relate to each other and in the way we address the problem, we've been reproducing those very same patterns. So when we relate to, let's say, the fossil fuel devil, quote unquote, we do it in separation, we forget it's human beings behind those. Yeah, those companies. And yes, they need to change. And yes, we need to sort of completely reverse the entire economic system that is based on that. Yes. And it will be hard. Yes. But it's the people, right? It's the beings. It's the plants, is the animals, is the water is the and we all are collectively wise to be in the world in a different way. So we need to, as a community, start by being ourselves in a different way, in caring for ourselves differently, in saying, yeah, we don't need to burn out, we don't need to work seven days a week, 24 hours a day, We can do this at a rhythm that is our natural rhythm. And I think as we do that magic will happen. We will start emerging it. There is no other way. If we repeat the patterns, we will only re-entrench the situation. So that's why,

Christiana: [00:49:25] So agree with you. 

Isabel Cavelier: [00:49:27] Is let's change it. So agree we can do it now to.

Christiana: [00:49:29] Change the way we do it now.

Isabel Cavelier: [00:49:30] Yes, we can do it now in everything we do.

Christiana: [00:49:33] Well, Isabel, I would obviously could continue this conversation endlessly with you. And we can let's do that off all off the podcast. But sadly, we have to come to an end and we have a little tradition and Outrage + Optimism that we ask all our guests at the end what what makes you still outraged, but also what makes you hopeful and optimistic?

Isabel Cavelier: [00:50:04] Injustice still makes me outraged. Every day. Our human capacity for being unjust and for harming others. Human and more than human, makes me very outraged. And what makes me optimistic is that I see I see blooming seeds all around the world of a new culture where humans and more than humans, all species are truly ready to collaborate, to emerge something new. And it's very powerful to feel that I can see that and that we can be a part of it. That makes me completely optimistic. And I stopped being anxious about our ecological situation. I started being thrilled and inspired and full of energy to create, to be the emergence artistically, but also intellectually, emotionally and also intuitively and rationally. And with my hands in the soil and in the in the clay.

Christiana: [00:51:27] Well, I won't show you my fingernails because I've just spent many days in the soil and having a lot of fun with that. Isabel, Thank you. It was lovely to have this conversation with you. I think our listeners are going to be thrilled. Thank you so.

Isabel Cavelier: [00:51:44] I'm humbled, thank you.

Christiana: [00:51:46] And I will be in touch with you. In fact, right after we stop recording, because I want to make a proposal to you, but off camera. So thank you very much for this. Thank you. Thanks very much.

Christiana: [00:52:01] And I will talk to you very soon.

Christiana: [00:52:12] So what a beautiful conversation with Isabel. As I said before, I shared the conversation with listeners. I am so taken by the fact that Isabel and her colleagues have recognized the urgent need to take care of ourselves, to take care of others. If there is something that is prevalent among all of us who are working in the climate space and the biodiversity space, in the gender space, in any of the injustices and the crisis that we are witnessing right now, it is burnout. Because these are huge issues and we're bringing our entire selves to it and we are so motivated and so passionate about the work that we do that we completely devote ourselves to the topic. And we tend to address the topic from a technical point of view. If it's climate change, we look at emissions, if it's desertification, we look at drought, if it's biodiversity, we look at species that we are losing on and on. But we do it first, focusing on the issue from our head. And, not complimenting it from our heart. And, also we are so outside focused on the work that has to be done there that we tend to forget that it is equally important to tend to ourselves inside. And that's why I brought that out.

Christiana: [00:53:49] That message that the Dalai Lama shared with colleagues and friends who were there with him, because he also reminds us that we have to tend to our inner garden if we want to create a regenerated garden out of the planet. And those two things have to go hand in hand. Yes, we need bold leadership. Yes, we need to go out there and make the changes that are necessary, but we have to be able to take care of ourselves and take care of others. So that combination of being out there and doing the tough, tough work that needs to be done, but also being able to step inside and ensure that we are replenishing ourselves, that we're not causing inner drought as we're working on the outer drought. That we're not causing inner loss as we're working on the outer loss. It is such an important balance to reach and so difficult, so difficult to reach because we're always feel like we don't deserve this. We feel even guilty about taking time to think about ourselves. But I think more and more people are coming around to the realization that this is not a sprint, this is a marathon, and we have to take care of ourselves and of others if we actually want to run the race to its final goal.

Christiana: [00:55:24] So how wonderful to see that Isabel has decided to make that one of her main aims with the award, the monetary award that she and her colleagues have received. And how wonderful to see that there is more and more realization around the world about that. So with those thoughts, I would like to bring this episode to a close, thanking again, Abi for her work, thanking Isabel for her amazing leadership. Excited for the future that both of them are stepping into. Thank you so much to Tom and Paul for allowing a completely female cast this week. We are all three of us will be back together for a pre-COP 27 episode next week. We will be looking at the Brazilian election. We will be doing a quick catch up on the prospects for the midterm elections in the United States and of course, bringing you an update on what we are seeing as we enter into the first week of the COP 27 negotiations. So folks, that's it for this week. And do stay on for a track from the group Penelope Isles entitled Underwater Record Store. See you next week. Bye.

Lily: [00:56:58] Hi. This is Lily from Penelope Isles. The song we have chosen to record live for you guys is a song called Underwater Record Store, which is from our first album, Until the Tide Creeps In. You may have guessed by those titles, that Jack and I are big fans of the sea, and we're very lucky to have been brought up on the Isle of Man and go to uni in Cornwall and Brighton, and we love surfing and sea creatures. It felt right to choose this song purely on the title as it is about an underwater record store inspired by a dream, but potentially could be our future if we carry on going the way we're going, which is terribly pessimistic of me, but something that needs to be talked about. So thank you guys for making this podcast. Enjoy the tune. Lots of love.

Clay: [01:01:46] So there you go. Another episode of Outrage + Optimism. The track you just heard was Underwater Record Store by Penelope Isles. Penelope Isles. I just watched their KEXP performance and their audio tree performance on YouTube. What a talented duo. Jack and Lily Wolter are, and they interview them kind of halfway through. They're so genuinely they're such genuinely nice people. Lily is who you heard introduced herself, the band and the song Underwater Record Store at the beginning. Thank you to Penelope Isles for letting us spin your track and thank you for actually for recording this special version that we can play on the podcast. How amazing is that? It's kind of like our own little KEXP, Audio Tree just for you. In the spirit of more live music, you can watch those two performances. I mentioned KEXP and Audio Tree in the show notes of this episode just an absolute masterclass in alt-rock and psychedelic live music making. They really do a fantastic job of highlighting the human music, making potential in a track performance driven world. So this would be a fantastic band to go see live. Penelope Isles, everyone. Penelope Isles. Well, hello friends. I'm Clay, producer of this podcast and I love music. It's such a joy to have music on the podcast. I hope you're all enjoying the music as much as we are. And okay, let's roll into the rest of the credits here.

Clay: [01:03:21] This week we have a very special, exciting opportunity with limited availability for Outrage + Optimism listeners. So you listeners are invited to join a new free program run by our friends at Crossing Borders Education. It's called the COP 27 Civic Imagination Lab. It's been developed in partnership with Cisco, Purdue University and UNESCO's Education for Sustainable Development. Let me explain just a little bit about what it is and what does taking part in it look like. So the Civic Imagination Lab is part of COP 27. It's this global virtual community building initiative focused on climate action. Now it offers a new interactive way to explore climate solutions, creating much needed space for dialogue through authentic storytelling. If you want to take part in this program, it's three online sessions. You will experience empathetic dialogue, intercultural communication and storytelling activities in smaller groups of about 4 to 12 people, and that will model how to connect deeply and engage actively within a virtual international community. So if you've been listening to this podcast for a while and been looking for a way to engage in a climate solution, here it is. The sessions will draw on media content from Outrage + Optimism, The TED Climate Countdown and National Geographic. So I know I said it before, but there's only a few spots, so make sure you get over there. Hopefully this is piqued your interest. You can register by the 31st of October.

Clay: [01:05:03] That's this upcoming Monday. Here's the website. CrossingBorders.Education/Professionals. Now bespoke URLs are a dime a dozen. So just go to the show notes here for this episode. Click on the link there. And actually, I was thinking about it. I don't really know why they have professionals at the end. Don't let that intimidate you in any way. When you arrive on the site after clicking the link, you'll see a trailer for the program. You can watch the trailer. At the bottom of the page is the button to register. Again. It's free and there are only a few spots. I think that's the third time I've said this, so please go before the end of October 31st on Monday, register up, check it out. And if you do this right into me, let me know how it was. Sounds really cool. So I'd be interested to hear what your experience was. Great. Thank you to our guests this week, Abigael Kima and Isabela Cavelier. Be sure to check out their social links below Abi's podcast, of course, and stay up to date with Isabela's socials to hear more about [01:06:13] Mundo Komen. [01:06:15] Oh, and this Friday, tomorrow we're publishing an episode of Hali Hewa, which is Abi's podcast right here on our feed. So stay tuned for that and go subscribe to her show. Check it out. She's going to be posting throughout COP 27, the title of the podcast.

Clay: [01:06:32] Again, Hali Hewa, wherever you get your podcasts. Links in the show notes. Always got you on that. All right. Let me grab my phone real quick. Speaking of badass women, I have right here a voice note from our very own Freya long awaited by listeners. I'm very excited about this, long awaited by listeners around the world, and I can't wait to play it for you. But real quick, let me catch up any listeners on this saga who have forgotten the full story because it's been a minute since this all started. So Freya finished her master's and her master's research got published in Nature Communications. The link to that published research hit the Global Optimism Group chat. Several team members like myself attempted to read it, but it being very scientific, I got lost in what some would call air quotes here, "big words". The title you ask 'Nocturnal plant respiration is under strong non temperature control'. So I invited Freya onto the podcast to explain in less than 60 seconds. Or she could nominate one Canadian citizen to explain it because as we found out on their podcast, Canadians have this unique ability to speak plainly and normally about scientific findings. Anyway, Freya without hesitation, nominated Justin Trudeau. That's that happened then. This voice note appears on my phone, so I'm just going to. Let's just listen. I'm going to play it for you. Here we go.

Freya: [01:08:07] Okay. So the headline is, we have been modeling plant respiration wrong our entire lives. And if anybody is still listening at this point, they're probably thinking, so what? But plant respiration is a really important process that moves carbon throughout Earth's system. And it's important because it determines how much carbon is stored in our terrestrial ecosystems and our forests. So we need to be able to model plant respiration in order to accurately predict future climate change. So the overall application of the study is cool and pretty important. But yeah, I basically became nocturnal and collected all these crazy measurements from sunset to sunrise and use those to develop a new formula for plant respiration that we can put into models and yeah, better model the carbon cycle and predict future climate change. And there you go. I'm sorry, I couldn't get Justin Trudeau.

Clay: [01:09:03] Okay. Wow. There it is. The conclusion. Freya, Thank you. It makes perfect sense. Totally worth the wait on that update. I hope listeners will join me in forgiving you for not being able to get Justin Trudeau on the podcast. But hey, great job. Thank you, Freya. And listeners, now that you know this, I've got a link to the research in the show notes. Please send to your favorite scientist. You've got this in your back pocket. I know it's going to come in handy at some point. Can't wait to see where this research goes from here. Thank you, Freya. Okay, that's it. Thanks for listening. Tomorrow, you'll hear an episode of Hali Hewa here on the podcast feed. And we'll be back next Thursday for regularly scheduled programming. Cop 27 is, oh, I just realized November is next week. Wow. Cop 27 is in less than two weeks. It's right around the corner. So hit subscribe and we'll be right here in your podcast feed. I have emails to send. I got to go. Bye.