How to talk with your family about climate change - GMPOOG - 04

A Rational Fear

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SHOW NOTES

Here is the latest Greatest Moral Podcast of Our Generation featuring two great brains to help you deal with talking about climate change with your family at Christmas, Sarah Wilson and Dr. Rebecca Huntley.

If you think there's even the slightest chance you'll have to talk about emissions reduction schemes with an uncle that listens only to 2GB, or feel like you may have to tell a cousin that “baseload power” isn't a thing, or tell your sister in law that a “gas led recovery” isn't going to make electricity cheaper, then this is the podcast you'll want to listen to.

Both Sarah and Rebecca give great insights into how to talk to people about climate change, and you on turn can take action yourself.

Also in this podcast Linh Do and I rip into the month of climate news, and there is a lot of it.

AND — DON'T FORGET TO GET TICKETS TO OUR LIVE SHOW!

We're turning 100! Which means we're updating our will, and we'll add you to it if you come to our 100th episode live show. It's going to be a 90 minute celebration of the little satirical comedy podcast that could. Featuring some new and old friends of A Rational Fear.

Alice Fraser (The Bugle, The Last Post)
Sami Shah (ABC Melbourne)
Gabbi Bolt (TikTok)
Lewis Hobba (Tony Martin Look-a-like)
Dan Ilic (Romper Room)

+ 2-3 Special (big name) guests we will book at the last minute.

WHERE?: Giant Dwarf
WHEN?: February 10th, 7:30pm-9pm
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TRANSCRIPTION FROM OTTER.AI:

Unknown Speaker 0:00
This podcast is supported in part by the birth of foundation.

Dan Ilic 0:04
Hello, rational fearlessness is the fourth greatest moral podcast of our generation. These are long form conversations with climate leaders that come out monthly on this very feed. And joining me is co host and fellow birth or fellow lindo gaylin.

Linh Do 0:18
Hey, hey, Dan, what's

Unknown Speaker 0:20
going on? Now? I

Dan Ilic 0:21
know something's going on your life. You suffered a major life milestone this week. Congratulations on enduring life to reach 30 years old. Well done.

Linh Do 0:28
Thank you. I feel like I have finally evolved into a fully fledged human. I think this is when I begin my adult use. This is just how it works.

Dan Ilic 0:36
Yeah, well, you will you and I were meant to start many years ago, but I only became an adult when I turned 36. So that's different.

Linh Do 0:42
Oh, I've got six years to go then that's that's pretty good. I'm really enjoying this extended youthful years and just trying to proclaim that I am young at heart if not in actuality anymore.

Dan Ilic 0:52
Well, I don't want to put any kind of climate things in context for your age. But by the time many of the nations who have committed to net zero by 2050 reach those targets, you'll be 60 How do you feel about that?

Linh Do 1:04
Off devastating but you know, when I started doing climate stuff, everyone was talking about 2020 and you know, all of the ambition that was needed by Ben, and someone surfaced up a video clip of me in my you know, teenage years saying in 2020 I'll be 30 and hopefully climate change anyway, it's like very, very clear. It's awful.

Dan Ilic 1:22
That sentence reminds me that there were so many Greta tunberg before Greta turn Berg and you were just one of them.

Linh Do 1:27
Just one of them. Yeah. And you know, I think I just didn't have a catchy enough name. And I didn't do anything as bold as striking from school. I'm still very diligent, I think Had I known then what I know now maybe I should have started striking a little bit earlier and we wouldn't have to be talking about 2015 when we're 60.

Dan Ilic 1:44
Well, people who are on this journey with us include new Patreon supporters, including Carl Christopher appears and someone called Grandmaster to sweet Thank you Grand Master to sweet. I'm recording my end of irrational fear on gadigal land in the urination lane, whose land Are you recording on?

Linh Do 1:58
I'm on the land of the will run through people.

Dan Ilic 2:00
sovereignty was never stated we need a treaty. Let's

Unknown Speaker 2:02
start the show. Despite global warming. Rational fear is adding a little more hot air with long form discussions with climate leaders. Good. This is called Don't be frightened. The heat waves and drought greatest mass extinction Morrow we're facing a man made disaster podcast ration all of this with global warming and a lot of it's a hoax. But write a small podcast about generation. For short,

Dan Ilic 2:41
yes. And this week, or rather, this month we speak to two giants of the Australian writing community on how to have difficult conversations with your family and friends about climate change. It's a it's a pretty good time of year for this episode to come out when you say Lynne

Linh Do 2:54
totally I think the holiday season is gonna be great initially because we have seen people Jitta COVID lockdowns and whatnot. But after a couple of hours, you'd be like, Oh, right. That's my Uncle Ben, here's maybe a bit of a climate denier. Is that my cousin who doesn't believe in vaccines? How do I broach some of these topics? And I find it's been a hard one to talk about for years. Well,

Dan Ilic 3:14
let me tell you, the two guests we have on the show today are going to be able to help us through those tricky conversations. We've got Sarah Wilson, and Dr. Rebecca Huntley, and they, the conversations are great. I had a really good time with them. But first, Lynn, let's Miss rip into this month's climate news. There has been a metric shit tonne of climate news this month. Incidentally, a metric shit tonne was all the carbon that Chevron managed to capture and store the golden planet wi this year. Climate nice climate jog for everyone. Are you overwhelmed by how much climate news has come out in November?

Linh Do 3:48
I think like in November, but honestly this entire year as well, I think second to COVID surely climate has sort of been really up there in terms of things are constantly being announced both like good and bad, which is great, but very overwhelming and very surprising.

Dan Ilic 4:02
First up, the treasurer isn't happy that financial institutions are deserting fossil fuels. So there's only one thing a treasurer can do launch an inquiry. According to the nine papers, federal Treasurer Josh frydenberg, has thrown his support behind a proposed inquiry that will grill financial regulators and banks over plans to pull back on lending or insuring on mining projects because of climate change. This is a this is a weird story. It's like the treasurer isn't noticing what's happening around the world.

Linh Do 4:30
Yeah, he's not at all about the macro trends. It's only about the micro and only about what's happening in his own backyard.

Dan Ilic 4:36
Should we be so surprised that a government has spent the entire pandemic trying to sell expensive gas to Australians and trying to sell coal to China who are refusing it? Is it any surprise that a government that's racked up the largest debt and living memory is giving away billions and gas royalties that they can't do the maths on fossil fuel investment?

Linh Do 4:53
Not at all. I don't think we're ever getting back in the black and you know, and even though I'm 30 now still a millennial at heart and it's so Sometimes can feel like it's much harder to get a loan for a mortgage than it is to get a loan for a big coal project. So it feels like if I just changed a couple of words in an application and be like, Hey, here's the money like go right ahead. So it's really disappointing that the government tried to make that all the more easy. Yeah,

Dan Ilic 5:14
you shouldn't be but you shouldn't be trying to buy a house where you only own the first six inches of soil. You need to be digging underneath.

Linh Do 5:22
Yes, gotta gotta dig dig, but uh, just go big ol Gerhard.

Dan Ilic 5:26
It's kind of interesting. Like, it's so funny how, you know, if the government can't get their way on something like this, they have to go, Oh, we need an inquiry. an inquiry we should get an inquiry going? Because it seems like the science and financial markets are wrong again.

Linh Do 5:40
Yep. everywhere around the world, and even like from some different state governments as well, it just does not seem to make any logical sense at all, which, I guess is not surprising when it comes to our government.

Dan Ilic 5:50
Well, it's certainly not surprising that Australia wasn't invited to speak at the UN Climate ambition summit last week. Was that something that caught you by surprise at all?

Linh Do 5:59
It didn't catch me by surprise, but it was definitely a bit of a gleeful moment, I could not believe that of all people that we were snubbed by it was Boris Johnson. I don't know what that says about skarmory. But that is not that's not something I'd want to be known for

Dan Ilic 6:11
was really interesting, because Boris Johnson, of course, is hosting cop 26 next year, so he's got to kind of be on the front foot, he's got to look like he's acting on climate change, because everyone around him is coming to the party next year, to be part of it next, next November. So he's got to actually, you know, be one of the leaders. And so that really puts you in an odd position. I think it's so funny how, you know, Scott Morrison, two weeks out from the climate ambition summit said he's not going to use Kyoto credits anymore when trying to kind of meet the Paris targets. And that would have been a good enough thing for him to allow him to speak at the climate.

Linh Do 6:45
told the reaction, right, like such unrealistic and unmatchable, like expectations are really big tantrum. And then at the very last minute be like, okay, maybe I'll concede maybe I'll do this. And like lots of people like, hey, that's great. But it's like, but was it really?

Dan Ilic 7:01
Yeah, the whole the whole conference is called the climate ambition summit. There's nothing ambitious about not cheating. Like, that's not ambitious. That's the bare minimum. It's so interesting.

Linh Do 7:13
I'm not doping.

Dan Ilic 7:14
Here's some of the things that are announced on that climate ambition summit, the UK announced they'll cut emissions by 68% of 1990 levels by 2030. That's a further 10% increase in ambition, the EU committed to the new target to 55% of carbon emissions compared to 1990. By 2030. Israel and Pakistan have committed to not building any new coal plants. I'm sure that's harder for Pakistan than Israel to do. But China also has committed to a quarter of energy consumption to come from non fossil fuels by 20 3015 countries committed to much stronger NDC or nationally determined contributions. Lean for people who don't speak climate, what is an NDC?

Linh Do 7:52
So when the NDC I can't believe it. Wow, sorry. I was just so eager to add to that, because I clearly do speak climate and climate walk the crime that doesn't get invited around to dinner party. That's right. So one of the big things that came out of the Paris Agreement was that every country agreed to an end deseo to this nationally determined contribution. And the whole idea is rather than listening to that big global world order and doing things that might not fit for your country, governments could consider what their domestic obligations were, what other issues I had going on all those sorts of things, and determine how they were going to reduce their emissions by how much and went by. And one of the things that I think is a really great feature of this, like whole MDC acronym business is the idea is, you don't just lock in your goal, once you actually lock in your goal. And then every couple of years, you revisit it, and you re assess based on how well you've been able to do. So if you like smashed it, right, let's go a little bit harder and keep pushing for an even better personal best, essentially,

Dan Ilic 8:45
is this what they call the ratchet mechanism. Lin.

Linh Do 8:49
Yes, I don't even know if ratchet is a real word. I have honestly looked it up in the dictionary before be like, is this a hatchet ratchet? What am I saying? But it's just this whole idea that we are ratcheting up so ratcheting I think means increasing. Again. I don't know if it's actually that in the dictionary, but it's how climate people use it.

Dan Ilic 9:06
Right. Excellent. I believe it's a old school like it's an old school tool, like it's a ratchet. It's like a spanner you kind of pull it and pulling mechanical, mechanical thing. Also, at the climate ambition summit, the UK, France and Sweden will stop financial support of international fossil fuel projects. It's not just Australia just writing Berg. Also net zero targets have moved forward from 2050 by Finland, Austria and Sweden. Also the small island states coalition committed to net zero by 2030. And there is going to be a tonne more money from for the Green Climate Fund support developing countries to skip the whole fossil fuel part of their industry. 500 million euros from Germany, 1 billion euros from France. Now when you compare all of those incredible announcements to Australia going, you know what, you know, we have been shading the last 20 years to meet our climate emissions. You know, tell you what we We're not going to shoot anymore since 1997. We've been filthy little cheats, but we're not going to do it anymore. Do you think that is a good enough thing to put on this put on stage in front of the world?

Linh Do 10:10
It's so embarrassing. And I really hope people continue to mistake me as being from Australia rather than Australia without, you know, some of their recent new announcements, happy to move to Vietnam.

Dan Ilic 10:21
A couple of other things quickly just seemed odd, done declared a climate emergency for New Zealand. Does it have any kind of real world implications? Lynn?

Linh Do 10:29
I mean, yes, and no, I think it's one of those things where we love to stab some politicians. And just Cinder is like definitely one that those of us in Australia really love. So he caught me by surprise that Greta toon Burg was a bit critical of that, but I think it's right like can you really stand a politician? Can you really do that while still holding them to account?

Dan Ilic 10:47
Yeah, a couple of other things quickly. One sad thing and one happy thing. The sad thing is more than $3 million dollars of the Australian future fund has been invested in the Carmichael mine, the Adani Carmichael mine, the 60 wishes, that is a quite, that's a $3 million isn't a lot of money. But it is our money that's being invested in this dog of a project

Linh Do 11:09
that might not even get up and when I say might not even highly unlikely to get out. I don't know how many years we've been talking about this. Now no one will finance this project. There's no viability for it. But we're still pouring money literally down the drain.

Dan Ilic 11:21
It was discovered by Ravana Ross, who is a human rights lawyer for the Australian Centre for International Justice. And basically she did fly on where the money was going, he was going into this project. Because a Danny has strong links to the Myanmar military regime and supplying them with logistics and support for their military, which of course has huge human rights implications because of the treatment of the Rohingya population. So that is pretty interesting, like, not only is Australia committing their own human rights, but they're indirectly supporting a Danny's support of Myanmar's human rights problems,

Linh Do 11:58
the company we keep increasingly becomes more and more depressing both on climate and human rights issues.

Dan Ilic 12:04
Let's wrap This news segment with something a bit more hopeful South Australia's liberal state government predicts that the state could boast more than 500% renewable energy by 2050. This is the Liberal government in South Australia saying South Australia is going to become a net exporter by 2050, up to 500 times their own capacity of renewable energy. Isn't

Linh Do 12:26
that incredible? It really is. And these are the big numbers that you want to hear. You know, on top of Tasmania being powered by 100% renewable energy South Australia leading the way, it's really clear that like liberal governments can do something just maybe not at the federal level right now.

Dan Ilic 12:40
It's just head butting Li crazy that the federal government can't even jump on board with any kind of climate action because they've pinned themselves into this corner where it would be politically impossible to do they've done their anger.

Linh Do 12:53
They really, really have, it feels like the Liberal Party needs a little bit of help talking about climate change within their own regs, because clearly, they're quite divided on just how we should tackle this issue.

Dan Ilic 13:04
That's it, I'm going to start a new company, rational fee is going to pivot to helping solely the Liberal Party communicate about climate change

Linh Do 13:11
with one another, like let's just stop it because it feels like there's some good eggs in that cap. And like, you know, we've heard from a few of them on this podcast. So how can we spread that good message?

Dan Ilic 13:20
I haven't got that little party money yet, so please donate to the Patreon. Still, it's really required. Anyway, let's get cracking into the interview. First up is Dr. Rebecca Huntley. She and I discuss the ins and outs of communicating climate change and climate science with basically anyone her book is called How to talk about climate change in a way that makes a difference. And you'll find out by listening to her that there is, there is a couple of things that can help you with your dinner party conversations.

Unknown Speaker 13:49
You're listening to the greatest moral podcast about generation. First of all,

Dan Ilic 13:55
I'm a big fan. So thank you for doing this.

Rebecca Huntley 13:57
I'm a big fan of you. It's a mutual fan Association Appreciation Society.

Dan Ilic 14:03
I just remember seeing on stage years ago, a guy and you're talking about something and I just thought she's the funniest person I don't know.

Rebecca Huntley 14:11
Well, I wouldn't describe myself as Australia's funniest market research. Which I, which is a claim that I can back up having been to many market research conferences in my time.

Dan Ilic 14:23
That's what we do in irrational fear. We bring the biggest brains with the biggest laughs to the programme. So it's great that you're you're joining us. And you've written a book about how to talk about climate change in a way that makes a difference. In fact, that is the title of the book. Yes, yes. That's right. You're You're now on a podcast called the greatest moral podcast of our generation. So I'm familiar with wordy titles. I thought it'd be great to get you on to talk about exactly what your book talks about. Because in the lead up to Christmas, people are going to be hanging around their lunch tables with relatives who may not agree with them on climate change. And I thought this could be a great primer for Christmas lunch. had a bit of a testy kind of moment last Christmas talking about energy and climate with one of my cousins. And thankfully, a lot of other my other my cousins are lawyers, and they came to buy defence at Christmas lunch. But it was a very interesting, it was interesting conversations. We're talking about renewables. And I was just saying, well, it's, you know, this government was saying that this government needs to invest more in renewables and really make a market incentive to have less coal. And I think my cousin at the time, probably still is a big TGV listener and said, Well, absolutely crazy that he went down the baseload power route, or the write down about all these kind of talking points that the carbon lobby have. Yeah. And then, thankfully, I've got some cousins who have done some extreme reading around energy. They're like, Well, actually, so we're having this fact often buddy

Rebecca Huntley 15:44
mentioned you killer, which put nuclear in the mix? That's always a bit of a indication of

Dan Ilic 15:49
No, no, no, no mention of nuclear. I wonder why? I don't know. Yeah, no mention of nuclear. Got a bit testy there around lunchtime. And I thought we're heading into Christmas. Maybe there's a better way to handle this conversation. Yeah, let's talk Rebecca has written a whole book about it. But the very virtue that you've written a book may not mean that you you'll have much success at your own Christmas lunch?

Rebecca Huntley 16:12
Well, look, it's interesting, I suppose the first thing I need to say is that this year, more than any other year, people are, probably people's tanks are pretty low. And they're probably feeling pretty stretched emotionally because of the year and a level of uncertainty. So I would approach these conversations with loved ones with even greater trepidation, empathy and understanding. That being said, we aren't we don't have the luxury of not talking about hard things, because people are tense, because people are going to continue to be tense. And of course, Christmases are always going to be a trigger point. But people are tired. So I think you approach it with that kind of perspective. I think what's really difficult, and I think a lot about this in writing the book. And even more since writing the book is now my whole life is the climate movement and working with people in the climate movement more broadly, is that you need to also think about your own sense of self care. Where is the best place to put my energies, one of the things I see a lot of is burnout in the movement, and people feeling like they're just such at such a low ebb. They want to walk on the streets, grabbing people by the shop, shaking the world, what are you doing? What are we doing? So my sense is unless you really want unless you've got the energy, and you feel like your relationships are close enough, you know, to try this out at the dinner table, I think the first thing to really talk about is just really understand why people feel the way they do. And for your cousin who just listens to 2g Bay, my first question is, are is GGB, the main place to get your information about climate. And for me, one of the most powerful things and I do this every now and then on Twitter, and I think the reaction that I get on Twitter is a bit of an indication of how effective this is. So sometimes when people have a doubt me about renewables, not being able to, you know, meet our energy needs, one of the things I really enjoy doing is retweeting stories about that already happening. So what's already happened, like we've just had a, we've just had it mixed, you know, some achievements in Tasmania, in South Australia, the kinds of projects that were lampooned by TJ Bay a couple of years ago, and now making enormous amounts of money. One of my favourite examples is, is the tomato, the soul powered tomato farm and Porter gusta, which is creating jobs for people who had actually been in a town that had been abandoned by the fossil fuel industry. So there are tonnes of examples all around Australia that we don't champion that gives us a sense of what is possible, right, right now and in the near future in relation to renewables.

Dan Ilic 18:49
So sitting down to Christmas lunch, the first question is to my cousin is, Oh, that's interesting. Where do you get your climate information from? Right.

Rebecca Huntley 18:58
And then I think part of it is also recognising that we get it to a lot from you know, the guardian or the rest of it. And, and, and Rebecca Holly's Twitter feed. And, look, it's really difficult. And in the end, I think one of the things that we save from the research that we do, and the search I'm doing at the moment, which which segments Australian communities around climate and how they feel is that you don't always have to convince people about the climate science to convince people about the solutions and broadly about 90% of the population thinks wants renewable energy to provide our energy needs and understand that coal and gas there are well, there might amplify the amount of jobs that the coal and gas industry can produce domestically, but they're not naive about for example, the fact that the coal industry contributes to pollution significantly, which contributes to health and things like coal seam gas, even even Alan Jones can agree that coal seam gas is not a good solution. To our energy needs, because of the consequences, it has on a whole range of things, including, you know, food security and farmers. So there are ways I think I'm always looking at ways to not to sidestep but negotiate through conversations to keep those conversations going, as part of an ongoing challenge that we all have to head towards the solutions as

Dan Ilic 20:23
quickly as this is a very easy thing for a beggar hunter researcher, who is researching all of Australia's climate values and segmenting people into demographics. If you're not Rebecca hoppy, should you read up on the latest IPCC report? Oh, going into Christmas?

Rebecca Huntley 20:39
Well, that's a really, really good point. One of the things that's fascinating in the work that we do on people who are alarmed about climate change, which is definitely on me. So when we ask people, what's their biggest, the biggest challenge they face the biggest obstacle to talking more about climate change or doing more is they feel they don't know enough about the climate science. And to tell you the truth, you don't need to know that much. You only and and you only need to know enough to help you have that conversation. And in fact, in the work that we do, which segments that community, the only segment that feel like they absolutely under the sun, understand the climate science and a really confident are talking about it. What segment is that? You could give nerds deny the only group that genuinely feel like I know all the climate science, I'm across it, right? And I'm really confident talking about it is 9% of the population that denies all the rest of us feel like we can't talk about it. Why? Because we actually respect the expertise that sits behind the climate science. We know that if pretty much every single scientist in Australia with a PhD says this is happening and it's a serious problem. We need to believe them. Because for whatever reason, and I'm I've thought about this, we just we just Australians generally respect, expertise. It says there's exclusive exclusions to that. But in general, when we say Where should we be getting our information, the CSR, the Bureau of Radiology, we trust them,

Dan Ilic 22:13
nothing kind of highlights that more than the crisis of COVID-19. I think like when you compare Australia to America, like watching Australians fall in line with the cops is more interesting than watching Americans try to grapple with their freedoms of not wearing a mask.

Rebecca Huntley 22:29
That's exactly right. And well paid Evans can get and get a certain way. There is a point where everybody goes, No, I'm sorry.

Dan Ilic 22:37
Yeah. He kind of lucky that on the rational fear, we have been making fun of those outliers, because they are so funny on Twitter and their social media is hysterical.

Rebecca Huntley 22:46
I think making fun of them is the best way forward. But we do need to be vigilant, because one of the things that's really clear is that is that the more they get an opportunity to circulate these blatant untruths, the more people assume them have followers. So once again, the research has shown this time and again, when you ask people who believe in climate change how many deniers around the community, they always put it at 20 25%. It's 9%. So we add, those views are amplified. And as a result, we think they're more widespread than they actually are.

Dan Ilic 23:20
I totally agree like talking with Matt cane the other day on irrational fear. I was like, man, what's up with your party? Why? Why are they full of climate deniers? He's like, well, Dan, I would say majority of liberals believe in climate science. And one climate action is just that we've got a few people in the federal level, who making all the noise. I think that's, that's so interesting.

Rebecca Huntley 23:41
I'm a more prepared to accept that there'll be people in the community who are climate deniers, and their job is not to run the country. You know what I mean? Their accountants, their teachers, it doesn't matter. And in the end, I think banging our head against a war to convince them is a waste of time. However, if you're in Parliament, you have a larger responsibility,

Dan Ilic 24:00
while you're saying is there a six climate deniers you need to change the minds? Well,

Rebecca Huntley 24:05
we're not going to change their mind, we need to change the mind of the people who elected them to say, they deserve better representation that's happened in Moringa. And I won't be surprised the next election you'll get a lot of those climate deniers have a significant scare certainly in the lower house. I mean, it's one thing to and this is the thing that that that in the book on tonight and the chapter on denial, I say this, there were times where I fantasise about being a climate tonight because my wife would be a lot easier. I mean, I could I could give up what I'm doing now and and pursue my love of making jam for a living or whatever, or designing you know, designing a modernist dog houses, I could do whatever I wanted to do, you know, I would be released of this kind of jewel, passion fear that I have around climate change and feeling I need to do something about it. So I get why people denied I get why people want To push back on the reality, but I cannot guess that people who represent the community empowerment cannot see the opportunity that we have right now the economic and other and broader opportunities we have on acting on climate, because for the first time in a long time, we don't have to turn ourselves into knots to make a case for renewable energy bank, something that's going to be good for people for jobs for pollution. We don't have to make that case that case has been made, which is why people like Matt cane can make that case and the Liberal Party. So that's what I don't get.

Dan Ilic 25:38
There's an insane amount of money to be made.

Rebecca Huntley 25:40
There isn't a lot of money to be made. There is a lot of benefits to communities to be made. I see it all the time. They were the most

Dan Ilic 25:47
infamous or famous versions that is that the Daylesford community yeah with their with their one wind turbine chapter two wind turbines now they're an exporter. Yeah. of electricity.

Rebecca Huntley 25:57
And the original investors are making money. That's great. Yeah. I mean, it just can't clear it's just I mean it all you need to do is add Labrador puppies and it's the most wonderful story. Almost unmitigated, wonderful story. I'm

Dan Ilic 26:12
saying the same here. You invest in renewables for your community, then you can go and make bottlenose dogs.

Unknown Speaker 26:19
Right for those Labrador puppies.

Dan Ilic 26:21
What's interesting about your book is that it's kind of like when you look at the chapter list, it kind of reads like a therapy session. Yeah. guilt, fear, anger, denial, despair, hope, lost love. Why don't you just call it a cold love? That would have been?

Rebecca Huntley 26:39
Well, look, it's interesting, because some I used to be talking to Sarah Wilson, and we've been friends for a long time. I think she and all of my friends who were very focused on emotion in their lives think it's quite funny because I'm the ultimate rationalist. right a lot of great PhD. They're constantly tase me because I'm not spiritual. I'm not emotional with a warm you know, I'm, I'm not particularly emotional. I think I can count the times I've cried in the last 10 years, probably on one hand.

Dan Ilic 27:05
I think you and Sarah have written companion books, in many respects. Your book is kind of raiza it's it is

Rebecca Huntley 27:14
it still may it's still I'm still doing the research. Oh, yeah.

Dan Ilic 27:17
So the research I but it's like it's it's a different kind of book to Sarah Sarah's is very spiritual in a, in a kind of journey, yours is, is very different based on lots of other kind of aspects. Do you think you need kind of both in your world,

Rebecca Huntley 27:32
we need 10s of 1000s of voices. And Sarah is one voice that will appeal to certain groups of people who might pick up my book and not like it other people, it will be Sarah's will be too spiritual. And they'll want to kind of understand the science. But there is an overlap, in that Sarah is actually interested in the research, like she's not a complete, she's not a paid Evans,

Dan Ilic 27:54
she's not completely distracted, our distance from her books got a lot of science,

Rebecca Huntley 27:59
it has a lot of science in it. And we have those conversations. And for me, there's a emotional personal story in it that I wouldn't have normally put in my work. But it was important to be able to acknowledge that because it's what drives my climate activism. And it's part of my climate story. And that's what we need more people developing a climate story, whatever that might look like.

Dan Ilic 28:22
And to clarify that up you what you're talking about is your kids. I mean, you're you talk about the beginning of your book about how you kind of got into this, you kind of acknowledged a little bit earlier on in our chat that you're kind of a Johnny come lately, the climate? Yeah. How does it feel to kind of come late to the climate saying, Do climate activists look at you and go, where have you been? Like,

Rebecca Huntley 28:43
I'm very, I'm very gentle in what I when I identify what have been some of the perhaps the tactical mistakes made? Because I wasn't around You don't? That whole Adani convoy, that was a big mistake. Well, I mean, I'm very careful about that site like that, by

Dan Ilic 28:59
the way, that's gonna sound bad in the trans

Rebecca Huntley 29:02
if it's pulled out, because I never doubt that what people are trying to do is get to a goal that's bigger than it is right. So I know and I know there's so much pain and suffering and genuine love in the in the climate movement. And also there is just okay, what's going to work it's one of one of the things that fascinated me about the climate move when COVID here is when COVID hit every other sector that I was involved in all other workplaces just kind of froze in the headlights. Everybody knew in the climate movement was like, Okay, what do we do now? Like they were just part of that they just had such get up and go on with it. So it's like, how do we take what we were going to do? Understand COVID and keep going and actually it sustained me in so I've, I feel like I'm getting so much from being involved with people and also there's a willingness and hunger for some new People who are prepared to spend their time helping in a collaborative sense. So it does feel like I've come light with. But I would say this one occasion when I feel guilty that is that I have spent 15 years understanding how Australians feel about everything else. And how they feel about climate change is connected to that if you're economically anxious, you're living in regional Queensland, and you always feel like government is letting you down. When you talk to somebody about climate change, they're not responding to the science, they're responding to all of that. Right, if you live in the inner city, like me, in you behind the tumeric latte curtain here, particular views about particular values about Mr. Evans tear down this wall. And then that's it. So I think in a way, it's been a circuitous path towards climate change. But all understanding and knowledge that I've got from that I've worked for years with the superannuation industry. So understanding the role that it can play now, in climate change is actually important. I've spent years working with the big supermarkets and understanding that that's going to help us well, you have spent this time doing this, what

Dan Ilic 31:10
do you think are the things that connect all those elements together?

Rebecca Huntley 31:14
Look, I think the first thing we have to we have to get is that there has been a consistent and a consistent and very effective campaign to make climate change, a question of cultural identity politics, and unravelling that is near difficult in the time that we have available. So we have to understand where people come culturally and socially to the issue in order to address it. Yeah, that's the first thing I would argue. This is why somebody like Matt Kane, and that has to inform our tactics.

Dan Ilic 31:52
Yes, it is so strange, too. I am not a liberal voter I've ever been voted liberal for a very long time, if ever, and it's one of those things where seeing Matt Cain operate at the level he's operating, and making the noises on renewables is genuinely exciting to me. Oh, it's

Rebecca Huntley 32:10
so excited, like,

Dan Ilic 32:11
Oh my god,

Rebecca Huntley 32:13
I didn't know it was outside.

Dan Ilic 32:14
That is the champion we need. I feel like there's a champion in those circles to change them.

Rebecca Huntley 32:20
In fact, when he first started talking, I remember just looking at me thinking it was like, you probably too young to remember this. It's like when you're watching Funniest Home Videos, and there's a father doing something, and you're like with his kids, and you're like, at some moment, he's going to be kicked in the nuts. And I just don't know how I tell I felt looking at Matt Cain, I thought what's gonna out there?

Dan Ilic 32:42
That was my question. My question is, are you going to be assassinate?

Rebecca Huntley 32:47
Really, I really was. She was that same? That same moment of kind of nervous tension laughter about when he was gonna be whacked, but he hasn't.

Dan Ilic 32:58
As someone who worked on Funniest Home Videos, Rebecca, how

Rebecca Huntley 33:00
did it change, the

Dan Ilic 33:01
lexicon is growing hit always the greatest growing hits,

Rebecca Huntley 33:05
I was waiting for a God Almighty growing here, and it hasn't come. And in fact, it's unlikely to come just because of what happened what they managed to push through Parliament, New South Wales Parliament last week, which is that they're just going to be creating best putting those building blocks in. And once that happens, once a community starts to see the benefit, they don't turn back, they don't turn back when they know that those things are going to work. So no, absolutely. And in fact, one of the big insights coming out of this book was the importance of in the same way that the voices of deniers have been amplified. We need to amplify the voices that that I suppose. And pique or surprise people, this person cares about climate. That's why I was so interested in farmers for climate action, around a lot of a lot about faith leaders talking about climate, from the point of view of their faith, and conservatives of all kinds really, critically important. It's important because different people have to see themselves as having as people like them talking about climate and talking about the benefits, or we don't make that connection.

Dan Ilic 34:18
One of the things you can suggest in your book is to not use catastrophic language. Yeah. This podcast is called irrational fear. It's, it's a it's kind of a joke. Oh, yeah. I'm using catastrophic language. And Rebecca using catastrophic language is fun. Yeah, absolutely. I know if you know that. So like, but why shouldn't we be doing that?

Rebecca Huntley 34:40
Well, I mean, again, it's all horses for courses for some. And this is why understanding who you're talking to, and where they are now and where you might be able to shift them is critically important. All right, if you even five or six years ago, when I was when I was concerned about climate, but it wasn't the main part of my life. I actually did have some friends in my Who would just would use this language and I would just kind of, you know, shrink away, I'm gonna be, again, you might be too young for this. I remember years ago, when Bob Carr was premiere on on New Year's Day, he released this statement about climate change. And I remember thinking about what was at stake for the environment, and I'm thinking, he's gone mad. I just couldn't understand it. Now you look back at it. And he's obviously reading the climate science. You know, it's all you know, many things you want about Bob Carr, he genuinely cares about the environment. And I wasn't receptive at that moment for that, but something happened. And now I raised the uninhabitable Earth and other things, and listen to some of the climate science and which I do every now. And then I don't do it all the time. But it's important to keep my eyes focused on the task. So I'm receptive to it. It's absolutely clear that there are other audiences that are completely unreceptive and may never grow to be receptive. We need to think about how can we shift them political behaviour, consumer behaviour, you know, bit for other reasons, right. We need to inject a sense of urgency for them that isn't about walls and fire and all the rest of it is about something else. So you distil it's all about? I'm not saying never use it, I'm saying understand the impact that it's going to have so understand the audience, why are using it and what you want to get them to do for me, I would dip into something like the uninhabitable Earth maybe once a month, or I'd tune into her site I just the other day, I was listening to some of the latest science, just about the challenge of not just reducing emissions, but drawdown like dramatic like drop when I started thinking, because every all of my work moment, is completely focused on renewables and emissions. And then I started thinking, that's just one side of the problem. Yeah, just thinking. And I started, and my friend, he was also on the zoom texted me and she said, Are you are you? Are you having a panic attack too? And I said, Yep. And badly. It was important because I walked away thinking I actually need to start doing more research on the jewel language around drawdown and emissions reduction, I have to get my head around it.

Dan Ilic 37:16
This is probably a good place to mention that you can look up the carbon emissions from your car with a go neutral sticker for $90 going to show for offset 3.5 tonnes of your carbon from your car and you can put a sticker on the back of a car, you know, I just did this Yeah, then check out the link in the show notes. And five bucks of that comes to us.

Rebecca Huntley 37:35
Now this is f this sounds like it sounds like completely fake. But actually, I did this week go.

Dan Ilic 37:43
Oh, so you got my cast away from listening to our podcast,

Rebecca Huntley 37:47
not from your podcast, sadly, bash, but I saw them on Instagram, I thought because so I'm in the situation where I want to get a Navy, but I've probably about three or four years away from getting one yeah. And you know, in a bit of a you know, COVID is meant I bless my marriage. So I don't know if huge amounts of money. So I thought this is a really good bridge between what my car is now and when I'm going to get a Navy. I mean,

Dan Ilic 38:12
it really doesn't do anything except for purchasing with other people that you're a good person, but that's

Rebecca Huntley 38:16
not a bad bet in this area. And I'm deep behind the chimeric lotto circle. It's all about the virtue signalling. I can't shame people. I have a gun. The sticker on my car. I have so many. I mean, here, you could get beaten with a Hessian bag if you walk around with a plastic bag.

Dan Ilic 38:35
Thank you so much, Rebecca, you for coming on irrational fear. I just want to maybe do a quick roleplay with you Sure. Let's pretend we're sitting down Christmas lunch. I'll be my cousin. Okay. And you can talk me around climate as

Rebecca Huntley 38:51
well look in these kinds of environments, just ending with a conversation that doesn't end in turfing, some kind of, you know, bread roll at the table isn't success, but

Dan Ilic 39:02
let's go. Okay. Well, you know, the problem with renewables is just another baseload power to to power the country. That's what we need baseload power. Why do you think that? Oh, just see everything I've read.

Rebecca Huntley 39:15
With some way

Dan Ilic 39:16
I've written in the Daily Telegraph, Andrew bolt, right headlight tells me all the time on TV, basically power. I've also done some reading on some great blogs. I can't remember the name. I've probably never be able to find a rice

Rebecca Huntley 39:28
book. Alright. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 39:30
Well, I think I think, look, there is

Rebecca Huntley 39:32
definitely issues we need to make sure for people to really embrace renewables, we really have to know that they can feel confident that it can deal with whatever happens. But you know, one of the things that's really interesting is the CSI or the chief scientist, they say that stuff is already happening like in places like South Australia and Tasmania. This is already happening. So I'm not that worried about baseload power

Dan Ilic 39:54
windows that give people cancer.

Rebecca Huntley 39:56
Yeah, I don't think that that's a thing but I am I mean, I'd be interested if you want to share that material with me. I'd really like to have a look at it. I sent

Dan Ilic 40:04
a Facebook post about people got ringing in their ears from windmills.

Rebecca Huntley 40:08
Yeah, no, I think look, I think that would probably have to put that to one side at the moment, I'd get it again. Some people like the look of windmills, some people don't. But the other day I was writing just in the Hunter Valley. Okay, so the Esma rate for children in New South Wales general generally is at about 12%. In the Hunter Valley, it's 18%. And it's all about the Open, open, you know, open pit coal mines,

Dan Ilic 40:35
where those people go to work, they can't work in windmills.

Rebecca Huntley 40:38
Well, the other thing, why should they can they can evil energy. But I suppose the other thing that we constantly do, and it's understandable, because, you know, none of us, none of us are economists at this table. Especially, you know, jobs in that sector in the hunter, getting less and less and less over time, over time, their project pretty much to disappear. You know, lots of the big renewable in lots of the big GM fossil fuel in areas want to get out of the Hunter Valley. There's lots of other opportunities in the Hunter Valley for jobs, especially if the government gets really good about investing.

Dan Ilic 41:14
Even coal is such a big exporter for us, you know, we basically run a whole country on on fossil fuels leaving the country

Rebecca Huntley 41:22
we have and that's been such an important driver to prosperity in Australia. I get that. I think one of the things that really worries me is a lot of the people that are buying that call are massively investing in renewables made real commitments to reducing emissions. And so we're going to start to say, a lot of that decline over time. We've got to be ready for what happens when it falls off.

Dan Ilic 41:42
China is building 10,000 new coal mine coal power plants a day.

Rebecca Huntley 41:48
Wow, gosh, really?

Dan Ilic 41:51
Did 10,000 a day?

Rebecca Huntley 41:54
I don't know if that's true place. Yeah. Again, look, can you send the stuff about the email and cancer stuff? Can you also send this stuff about the 10,000 coal mines? I'd really like to have a look anyway. We definitely. Do you want some chicken? I would love to have another conversation with you about this next Christmas. Anyway, you said that next week series called The Crown apparently it's really good. I don't know what it's about. So

Dan Ilic 42:17
whatever that is, you're a coward. Rebecca, a coward. You could have had me on the ropes. Gonna slandered me. It's really hard to have these conversations with people that are in your family isn't there?

Rebecca Huntley 42:29
But you know what the other thing in the book and I'm a big fan of Anna rose and worked really closely with her I once asked him should you ever argue with a climate denier? And she said only if other people around prepared to listen, overhearing the conversation?

Dan Ilic 42:44
That is a wonderful aros thing to say.

Rebecca Huntley 42:48
And I think it's true. So such great strategy. It is. So what I wasn't going to change your mind there. Bash anybody at the table, who doesn't want to talk about climate change has seen two things, ask be able to have a conversation which didn't deteriorate into name calling to there was lots of different bits of information that I throw in there, one of which is going to spark some kind of attention. But if people walk away from that conversation, thinking that two people on completely different ends of the spectrum can have an evidence kind of evidence. conversation about something that they normally see is a completely resolvable issue, then that itself is a tiny, you know, when one conversation is not going to turn people around, but a series of productive I'm not talking about respectful necessarily, because it wasn't necessarily being respectful because you caught up till by the end of it. I was over. And didn't was like yes, well, there we go. That's part of it. You know, that is so that for me, that isn't for me, the fact that I didn't lose it and say, Listen, you, knuckle bowgun shop, this is a great achievement given I've already had two glasses of champagne, and it's been a try. Yeah,

Dan Ilic 44:04
I mean, it's hard to say that and take you seriously when you've got a paper crown on your head.

Rebecca Huntley 44:12
That's exactly right. Yeah, exactly. Right. So there we go. It is hard. And I and look, there are times where I've failed miserably. And there have been times there was one time recently where one of my daughter's friends started doing all these weird things with plastic bottles and not putting them in recycling. And I said Listen, do you know that your body is awash with a million tiny bits of micro plastic? And he looked at me absolutely terrified and ran away. And my my, my daughter said to me, Mom, like everybody knows you like like your environment, climate change, but please don't scare my friend. I'm like, Okay, okay, but it would drive me nuts. He was like doing all these weird things with plastic and putting them in the wrong place. And I went nuts. So even even the people who write books get it wrong.

Dan Ilic 44:58
You just especially 40 minutes telling me how what a rational person you are.

Rebecca Huntley 45:07
That's true. Even even the most rational people lose it. We even the most rational people.

Dan Ilic 45:14
Well, Rebecca, I'm thankful that we have less modernise dog houses in this preserve in our life, because we've got your brain to think about these problems.

Rebecca Huntley 45:23
Thank you very much. And we got your podcast, too.

Dan Ilic 45:26
Yeah. Well, that's right. That's it. You wanted more conversation? In your book, you say more people talking about climate change. So I started a podcast. Thanks, Rebecca.

Unknown Speaker 45:35
Thank you.

Dan Ilic 45:37
And that was Rebecca Hunley, she's pretty funny for a market researcher would be silent.

Linh Do 45:40
It really is. And I learned so much turns out the best way to communicate about climate change isn't just screaming at all of your relatives and friends and neighbours.

Unknown Speaker 45:49
Now you've worked with Rebecca in the past?

Linh Do 45:51
Yeah, I have worked with Rebecca, before we met through Climate Reality. And once I learned that she was working on this book about, you know, how do you speak on climate change? I think I ended up being a really great resource for her because I've made so many of these mistakes, I was able to detail, top 100 failures, that time that I spoke to the bus driver about it that time I spoke to a school teacher about it. So here are all of the things I went and did wrong

Dan Ilic 46:13
that time because all of this time you had to speak to Al Gore about it.

Linh Do 46:17
Yeah, and I like to use the word I mean, so complicated. But I think you know, given her understanding of what the actual Australian public is, like, her ability to still figure out how climate messaging resonates, regardless of political alignment, regardless of like other values, alignment, I think is really powerful. And I would definitely recommend skimming through the book, or gifting it to a couple of people over the holidays.

Dan Ilic 46:43
Next up is Sarah Wilson, we had a great chat about her book, this one wild and precious life. Pretty interesting book. It's not too dissimilar to Rebecca's in that it kind of delves into climate anxiety, and kind of tries to help you with how to have conversations with people how to deal with climate anxiety on your own. But it's much more inwardly facing and kind of is about everything. It's about the whole gamut of Sarah's climate anxiety experience. And she kind of goes on this big rambley journey all around the world to kind of talk to experts and understand nature and humans in context with nature. And it's some it's really fascinating. Here's our chat.

Unknown Speaker 47:21
You're listening to the greatest tomorrow podcast about generation.

Dan Ilic 47:26
Let me start by asking you, how's your heart at this moment?

Sarah Wilson 47:33
Thank you for reading my book that closely to quote lines back at me. My heart is in. You know what it's actually in a really solid place. This often happens after I finished writing a book, my books that taught self help tools, and they take me to a place where I have to get vigilant and real about the shit I share with everyone. You know, when you write a book about quitting sugar, you can't walk down the street eating a magnum for instance. And so when you write a book about waking up to this one wild and precious life, you've got to do exactly that. So

Dan Ilic 48:06
I was actually experiment. I was actually curious as to why he didn't call the book I quit car, but

Sarah Wilson 48:11
it doesn't. It's not evocative. It really, is it I mean, I think sort of an ex ABC journalist or a scientist in Australia Institute thought, you know, sort of consultant would write a book with that title.

Dan Ilic 48:25
I found the book, I think I tweeted the first few pages as I was reading the book, I like to think I tweeted at you I think this book is an extraordinary artefact for someone in the future to discover, because it feels like it captures a real contemporary anxiety of the moment. Is that why you wrote the book?

Sarah Wilson 48:43
Yes. Although I had to write it in real time, because it was due before the Australian bushfires, and then before COVID, and then before the Black Lives Matters, issue, reared its head, all of which is related, of course, it's the same, what I call each that kind of dready, kind of anx de cringy itch that we're all feeling. But um, I came off the back of writing. First, we make the base beautiful, which is that internal journey to understand, you know, well, for me, it was to understand my bipolar and kind of general weakness, and to share that story with people who felt the same. But then, you know, as I was doing publicity for that, and moving around the world, and also keeping up my work as a climate activist, I realised that the anxiety was now global and collective. And it was way bigger than our own personal stuff, which was a relief in many ways, because I think a lot of our anxiety that we feel is about the fact that we should be attending to something bigger than ourselves right now, this time in history. So yes, I was watching listening angsting going into really deep despairing holes. And then I thought I better write a book about this, and really try to find A hopeful path and I struggled. As you know, Dan, because you saw me in the process, you know, around Bondi, well, I

Dan Ilic 50:06
know you are very competitive. You're a very compelling leader as well, like, you know, I did see around bonda. And you would, you would you would berate me for not going to protests and stuff like that. And then, you know, eventually ended up going to those protests

Sarah Wilson 50:19
in the book.

Dan Ilic 50:20
Am I? Yeah.

Sarah Wilson 50:21
You probably didn't identify it. I mentioned those protests the September, remember? Yeah. Yeah. The September 2019, climate protests. And there was seven people that I targeted on the morning of the protest. And you were one of them. And all of you went? Yeah, I mentioned in the book.

Dan Ilic 50:39
Yeah. Because I saw you were in a cafe and you said, Are you going to the protest, as I thought about it, just really busy. And I ended up just calling my fiance and say, let's get out of work and go to the protest. And that's exactly what we did.

Sarah Wilson 50:49
And all of you I saw within 48 hours of the protest, some I saw that night celebrating or having a cocktail to celebrate the fact that they'd got engaged in it. And all of you I saw within 48 hours, and I went into a dark place when I came across all these people I thought were engaged to weren't rising to this opportunity, right, that was being laid out in front of you. And then every, every one of you went and brought people along, and then got back to me and told me that you went and said, It was awesome. Oh, I cried. I really, I cried with joy. And it was just a reminder of how awesome humans can be.

Dan Ilic 51:26
It's also a reminder of the leadership abilities that Sarah Wilson can activate me to do six,

Unknown Speaker 51:32
seven people at a time. Yeah,

Dan Ilic 51:34
well, let's talk about that. I mean, that is one of the things about your book is intense, intensely personal. But it also talks about how we all have the power in ourselves to affect change. And so people who consider themselves as powerless people, that's not true. Everybody has an iota of power. How do you help those people realise that how they have through this book? And how do you encourage them to use that power?

Sarah Wilson 51:59
Well, it's a seductive combination of statistics, right, that are backed by sort of many white lab coats, so people go must be legit, as well as sort of metaphor and story and reminders of what's happened in the past, which I think also helps people to realise that this is not humanity's first rodeo, you know, with this kind of things, a great high back colour

Dan Ilic 52:20
t shirt pandemic of the late 90s. We survived that I think we can survive it. Oh,

Sarah Wilson 52:24
I mean, yeah, human hardship, we've done it. I think one of the statistics that people really resonate with and get fired up about is the 3.5% figure of hope, as I call it. So Erica Chenoweth, scientist at Harvard, decided to look deeply into what activated change and she looked at all the peaceful protests from 1900 to 2004. and analyse each and every one of them and found that were three and a half percent of any given population, whether it's a school, a town, a village, whatever, a country, get together, and activate and unite peacefully, the change happens, three and a half percent is not a lot. And I think a lot of people find that really activating. And it's everyday people just getting behind a movement and turning up.

Dan Ilic 53:09
This is not just a community, like a nation, but they could be considered to be community like a workplace

Sarah Wilson 53:13
or school, a school. Yeah, exactly. So whatever change that you want to happen, that's going to actually take humanity forward, you only need three and a half percent. So that's one thing I'll say to anyone who feels like what's the point? How is my little bit going to make a difference? The second thing that I try to use is these sort of various metaphors. And the way that humans work is we galvanise at an exponential rate, right? So change or care begets care, action begets action, exponentially. And I'll use the example as we like to in this sports, crazy country of the footy match, or the baseball match, or whatever it is the baseball game, where the losing side is down by three points, or whatever. And there's 30 seconds left in the game, and everybody's kind of going, Oh, god, this is all over. And then out of nowhere, the losing side kind of galvanises, this Kamikaze spirit, I call it Kamikaze. Like where they toss out all the normal rules, and just go for it. And as it's kind of groups, soul movement, or moment, and way too many games in history have gone down with that sort of final try and the last 1.5 seconds or the final, you know, fucking home run or whatever. And so this is what we do. We rise to the occasion in this exponential Kamikaze way when we give a shit when we care enough about something

Dan Ilic 54:35
I certainly know through university days that you know, when I know I've got a deadline coming that it really makes me work hard. I have to say that that metaphor really resonates with me, particularly when we were running the TV show tonight lay when we knew we were ending the show and we had six weeks left on air. We threw the whole wrote rulebook out and we made some of the most incredible memorable things. People actually started turning up to the show wanting to come and watch The show

Sarah Wilson 55:00
magic happens. I call it magic.

Dan Ilic 55:02
It is Yeah, it is a strange period. And I do feel I feel so on board with you at this moment, I feel like this is the moment now that everybody needs to be pulling in the same direction and aligned. And this is anybody who's not could be left behind. And we need to encourage them to come along with us.

Sarah Wilson 55:21
Yeah, I haven't, I guess the third element that I put to all of this, and this is something that Miss is missing from the climate movement and has been for as long as I've been on this planet. It's the fact that we haven't actually shown how joyful and charming this can be. And I think I've mentioned this to you before then that I went into a dark place trying to find the hopeful path forward three clusters. And I almost gave up, you know, was about to tell my us and my Australian publishers can't do this. Haven't got an answer, sorry, somebody else will have to come up with one. And my meditation teacher sat me down. And he said, Sarah, the thing is, you love living this way. You've got to show us how this can be charming. You've got to show us how this is better than the status quo, make it look sexy and fun. And I realised what he was getting that and, and that shifted the whole dynamic of my book and where I went with it. Like I was like, absolutely, that's how humans work. This has got to be such charming, it's got to be something that we go, game on, this resonates. This is beautiful. This is wild. And that's where that wild and precious notion came into play. Our nature is to give a shit, our nature is to care and to rise to bigger things than ourselves. And we haven't had that dialogue, particularly in Australia for the last 30 years of economic opulence, you know, continued growth, we haven't had that dialogue of going to our edge firing up caring at a level where we overextend ourselves, and, but yet, that is our nature. That is where we rise to our best selves. That's when we're happiest and we're most vibrant, and we're fending and we're creating, and we're resilient, we become resilient. And so that's, that was sort of my aim. So I think that's the third element to selling this, you know, I give a final kind of message to people who have become, you know, overwhelmed and numb, is that, hey, this is awesomely vibrant, and enlivening. And, you know, like, I live minimally, and I ride a bike everywhere. And I don't do it because I'm trying to be a marshal. I do it because I love it like living any other way gives me this, like Hideki feeling, you know, I'd much rather ride a bike somewhere, and smell the air and run into people along the way. Like not literally, but and, you know, live and breathe and see things and being engaged. Because otherwise why are we here?

Dan Ilic 57:49
Yeah, the book is interesting. There's one wild and precious life is really interesting, because his journey itself, I feel like it's, it's rambley Not only is it rambley, literally because you go on a little walks, but it also figuratively, was that on purpose?

Sarah Wilson 58:05
Yeah, you might remember the bit where my father refers to the book on the family. What that

Dan Ilic 58:10
is, is a big chunk of everything. Yeah, his

Sarah Wilson 58:12
book of everything, right, because somebody was, you know, my family, my family aren't known for reading my books. So they generally rely on dad to kind of read it and do a summary. So he just referred to a series book of everything. Look, everything got us into this mess, and everything is going to be required to get us out of it. And it is overwhelming. So the way I do it, I think, you know, I do these little tiny mini chapters, some of them are a paragraph long, some of them maybe up to three pages long. And the topic requires swapping from science to philosophy to spirituality to my own personal kind of reflections on it, so that it humanises it and makes it you know, gives a bit of a pause for people to sort of absorb it at a human level. So I am unapologetic about it and I wrote first we make the beast beautiful in a similar way because anxiety requires an outlet and then analysis of all those factors as well. And so I do dance between them all. And we shouldn't try to kind of bring it all in together into a into a seamless conclusion because the complexities of life don't operate that I do ramble. And they go off over here and, and part of it was to get people comfortable with that itself, with the uncertainty and the lack of order and the chaos because that is what we're in. Right.

Dan Ilic 59:30
Did it help you with your climate anxiety or your eco anxiety? Yeah,

Sarah Wilson 59:35
it did. 100% That sounds very emphatic. But I actually I actually did, I couldn't write this book until I did have that path of hope. Until I believed it and really owned it and, and kind of stepped into it and and and felt that it was going to be the guiding sort of force for me going forward in the second half of my life. I was down, I was really struggling to see the point of my existence halfway through writing this book. And really the the struggled as I tried to grapple with ways of solving this that I share in the book. were real. I was writing it in real time. So but I do you can feel it.

Dan Ilic 1:00:20
Yeah, you can feel it, you can feel like the ups and downs of your of what is a very personal journey.

Sarah Wilson 1:00:26
And I think a lot of people are going through that, but they don't necessarily articulate it because we don't have a forum for it. Everything sort of says, This is too much influx, and there's not enough discernment going on, right. So, but I did have to get deliberate about all the shit that I was telling people to do in my book. So, you know, I do have to leave out the practices. Like I said, I can't walk down the street with eating a magnum anymore. Well, I have to be

Dan Ilic 1:00:51
one of your friends who lives in your Southern I can't walk down the street with a paper cup of coffee. Dude, Wilson says, Man,

Sarah Wilson 1:01:00
I know that's true. That became a bit of a theme in the book didn't that, but it's actually just one of those. I mean, people go, Oh, you know, one more takeaway coffee cups not going to make a difference? Yep. Sure. That's absolutely right. And in fact, recycling and cutting out plastics isn't even the tip of the iceberg. It's all climate change, we've got to accept that. And so that happens at a policy level and industry and the big, big end of town, but it's the optics, right? It's the care begets care, we need to see more imagery of people giving a shit, this has got to be the dominant discourse, otherwise, we will feel hopeless, and particularly for, dare I say it, white middle class men, they are the demographic missing from the climate debate in the climate, activism space. It's it's white men that are we need to get on board. So when I whenever I see a white man in bondo, with a takeaway coffee cup, I will go out of my way and suggest that they get a key cup.

Dan Ilic 1:02:01
Well, if they're a white man in bondo, they've probably also got a podcast. So you go.

Sarah Wilson 1:02:07
Go me sitting here in your lounge room right now?

Dan Ilic 1:02:11
Well, let's talk about that a little bit. Because I think that is interesting. I feel like everyone is so busy with their lives that climate change, it sits on the back burner for a little bit. Now, I'm in the luxury of disposition, where I'm being supported by fellowship, and I can correct credits podcast and talk to great climate thinkers like you and other people. And I get to kind of use my power to kind of have some sort of discourse about climate change, and encourage others to apply pressure on those in power to do something with climate action through this medium, but if you're just a bloke who's got a job at a construction company, or what Look, what do you say to them?

Sarah Wilson 1:02:53
Well, I actually have a dialogue with a white bloke in a construction company in the book, if you remember, who walked around with a takeaway coffee cup in a cafe while seated at the cafe. And he becomes a bit of a thread in the story. What do I say to them? Well, I say to anyone, and this is not my idea comes from the American Buddhist nun Premachandran, she said, start where you are. So if you're a nurse, working nights, if you're a busy parent with three kids, juggling, whatever, that's your starting point. And I use the example in the book of someone who lives around the corner from me and she's a mom of two kids. Pretty much what you're describing doesn't feels powerless, hasn't got a forum. And she just said, so again, it was the strikes the other protests in September in 2019. And she was like, Oh, look, all the mums at my school. The parents are just going it's too hard to get into the city at that time of day with a kid. And she said, maybe, maybe I could all get a minibus. And I said, do it and I get to get on the Eventbrite set it up as a thing, you know, you can charge the tickets. Anyway, it's sold out within an hour, she'd upgraded to a coach, she ended up upgrading to two coaches, and she got over 150 people to that protest. She started where she was, as a sort of fed up Mum, with with access to Eventbrite and Mary's coaches, you know, so I thought that was a great example. And then I shared that on my social media feed. And then I know that a number of people around the country did exactly the same thing at the last minute and it managed to get a coach load of parents and students who otherwise wouldn't have gone to that rally.

Dan Ilic 1:04:36
I think starting where you are is the perfect place because in your own sphere, you have influence over other people, your peers, your friends, your family. Yeah. And that is that is completely

Sarah Wilson 1:04:49
and once you start as you know, and this is why I focus on keep cups right? Once you start once you buy a KitKat bite my friend, Kate's husband, Adam, he went and got himself a KitKat He was so proud of himself, right, you know, thought he was doing. And then he started taking a real interest in recycling and the recycling laws in the in the area. And then it started to grow further and further. So as I said before, actual care begets action and care. And so it generally grows, and then you feel empowered, you feel hopeful, the best remedy for hopelessness and despair is to actually just get engaged in whatever form possible even if it's just listening to the news an hour a day, you feel like you're part of it.

Dan Ilic 1:05:33
Yeah. As a comedian who puts on shows about climate change, I've recycled so many jokes, it makes me feel so good. I'm doing something for

Sarah Wilson 1:05:42
keep doing more and more of it. Exactly.

Dan Ilic 1:05:45
Do you get people pushing you back on your climate credentials?

Sarah Wilson 1:05:48
I'm not so much, I think because nobody? Well, most of the world struggles to understand the climate science and to be an expert in it. I think what we've worked out and I think climate scientists are wonderful at this, I interviewed, I interviewed 14 different climate scientists, three of whom were involved in the IPCC report. And they are very good at admitting they're not the best communicators. So one of them, actually Joelle. And I forgotten her surname now, but she was a lead scientist on the paper. She said to me, Listen, our work is done. The science is in. And now we need to hand the baton to people like you, Sarah, who can communicate it.

Dan Ilic 1:06:33
I have to say that was one of the biggest eye opening moments of the book, reading a book. I was like, Oh, yeah, shit, yeah. Why are we even trying to convince people? It's real anymore. We're pushing on powerful people to make change. That's right, because the science has done. Everything else needs a rollover, those who don't believe can forget it. It's about effecting change right at the top and getting that change in place.

Sarah Wilson 1:06:55
Yeah, the scientists have been working in this realm for ages, the activists have been working, and just tirelessly. And so often, I was speaking to activists who are saying something similar. They were saying, we have been going at this for 30 years, and we are exhausted. All we need you to do is come and join us. You know, don't start up a new climate movement. We've got them all here. We've got the data, blah, blah, blah. Just help us out, you know, and so, yeah, I don't get it as much in this climate space, because I don't think that there's too many people. Well, I think everybody feels a little bit, we're scared of it. We most people can't actually digest all the information and feel that they've got a really good handle on it, to be able to give me a hard time about what I'm saying.

Dan Ilic 1:07:40
Well, that's true. But also you've got a huge audience. Like, I feel like the Sarah Wilson radar consumer fan. Did you feel like you were bringing them along to a whole new topic that they haven't thought much about?

Sarah Wilson 1:07:51
Yeah, and I have a technique for that. Um, you know, I've come from MSM

Dan Ilic 1:07:56
based media. Yeah, I trust mainstream media contrast,

Sarah Wilson 1:07:59
no, no, no, that I thought he probably can trust somebody who comes from mainstream media, and has come out the other side knows the dark side, I'm gonna we're not gonna trust mainstream media, who are we going to trust at least they actually has a very good

Dan Ilic 1:08:13
page that I follow called climate sucks.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:18
A lot of good information.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:19
He was pandemic.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:21
I tried to find it, I couldn't find it.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:25
That's it. That's it.

Sarah Wilson 1:08:27
I what my technique and for anyone out there who's wanting to replicate this technique, is I tend to seed things with my audience. So I'll start talking about this writing about it in quite gentle ways, asking questions, like genuine questions, because I'm wanting to find out where people are at where their pain points at. And I actually held wine and chat groups. As I was writing this book, trying to get from people what it is that they were really struggling with, what aspect of the science, what aspect of the movement, you know, where where were they getting stuck. So I do that, and I start the conversation about three years before the book comes out. And so I do blog posts, I start to, you know, really start to build momentum. So by the time it comes out, people are already 80% onboard. They're signed on for the journey. They're signed on for the journey, they trust me, they know that I've been working this round, and they go, Oh, this is where it all went to. So it's a great marketing tool, but it's in terms of coalescing people around an idea. I think it's gonna work this way. You know, it slowly sort of start where you are. I started as somebody who could blog about this and share Instagram pictures and things and I copped the blowback back then and to answer your earlier question, I think I've spread the blowback out over about three years, and now people just accept I am where I am.

Dan Ilic 1:09:50
I think that's changed for anybody. It's painful and growing is hard.

Sarah Wilson 1:09:56
That's right. I actually don't mind Dan, I think you've probably worked that out about I try to moderate it, I kind of be the nice girl. And then I come out with something that really shifts people. And then I go into the comments and just time it all down. Well Hang on, you know, it is a sport. And I try not to get too upset about it or too invested in it. Because it's not about me, it's about people's fears. And then, and we've got to bear that in mind.

Dan Ilic 1:10:20
And so to relate this back to people who might be listening to this, who, whose own sphere of influence is probably a lot smaller than Sarah Wilson's is what you recommend they do like in the lead up to Christmas, just send a couple of text messages and say, Hey, we know we should do we shouldn't use plastic plates for Christmas. Well, I would and then come Christmas lunch, let's sign this petition like

Unknown Speaker 1:10:40
I do much.

Sarah Wilson 1:10:42
Look, what a warm up. As you know, as a comedian, you need the warm up, you need to get people's laughing muscles activated. I think that the best thing that you can do is the best place to start is where you are with yourself the most convincing and to go back to that sort of turning point in the writing of my book. I had to live and breathe it as somebody who believed my own message and did find this way of living, fun, exciting, dynamic, life affirming, because that is the most powerful way to get a message across. So anyone who's about to go and face recalcitrant relatives over Christmas, just freakin strap on your conviction. Pack your keep cup and build

Unknown Speaker 1:11:25
yourself up with charm.

Sarah Wilson 1:11:27
It really is all about with charm. And yeah, and and just be your message.

Dan Ilic 1:11:31
Yeah. Be your message. That's pretty nice. Yeah, I like that. When you're thinking about projects like this? Do you have a ultimate goal in mind? Like an ultimate outcome? What's the best possible outcome for writing a book like this for you? does it stop at the book? No. Again,

Sarah Wilson 1:11:49
this is my marketing background, my MSN background. For listeners who are wondering who the hell I am, and, and why I'm here, or how I got to be here, I was the editor of cosmopolitan. So I sort of learned how to do marketing and to take an idea out in all kinds of monetizing directions. So I generally see that a books with my books, I generally have a life in them of a couple of years. So I try to ensure the message goes further in the conversation from my point of view goes further because I write books because I'm curious. And while I do do a lot of research in the lead up to it, and then I write it. Part of it is also a little bit of a kind of poking life and wanting to see what comes back afterwards. And then that will then probably direct me into my next project. But in this case, yeah, I always knew that this was going to be a complex conversation. It's a book about everything, as my dad said, I needed to get it out there. And then I needed to go and have the conversation with people in a in a way that made everybody feel safe to discuss this stuff, and to show them how to have this discussion out in their communities. So I'm doing a tour with Live Nation, which works to this effect. It's like a giant add on. I mentioned the add on in my Borger. It's a West bengalese sub tradition of talking about complex issues, over hours and hours of cups of tea in large community settings. So that's what I'm going to be doing. But then I also have these book clubs, I've drawn up a book club, sort of schedule sheets that people can use. And then they can use that to go and discuss some of these complex issues with friends and family. So it's like

Dan Ilic 1:13:28
a training tool slash info bomb slash. And I

Sarah Wilson 1:13:31
just keep going and going. And I often don't know exactly where it needs to go. So I have a few structures in place. And then you know, and then I I just see what comes forward, but I will keep the momentum going. I don't see it stopping at a book and then I move on to something else. It's it's almost the starting point, the launchpad for the bigger discussion.

Dan Ilic 1:13:51
Do you think this climate discussion will roll into your next big project as well?

Unknown Speaker 1:13:55
Yeah,

Sarah Wilson 1:13:56
I'm not quite sure what that is. It's starting to like it always takes me six months after writing a book, to start to get the energy to go get fired up about my next thing. And it's starting to percolate, I kind of have a feeling of where it's heading, but it'll probably segue off this into bigger and deeper and Wilder, but chairs your question about where do I want this book to take people like what was my aim? The initial working title for the book, really, up until very close to publishing was Wait, you know, five years up. And essentially that is what I'm wanting people to do. Um, for selfish reasons. I wouldn't mind you know, completing my allotted 85 years on this planet in some kind of comfort.

Dan Ilic 1:14:41
And books are the kind of title do very well and just

Sarah Wilson 1:14:44
say, Do you have the word Paris and then your work? Yeah, let me just be really brutally honest. I want people to find the cup do everything they can. I want to galvanise I want us all to rally together have a wild time saving this one wild and precious life. That's what I'm after.

Dan Ilic 1:15:01
And start where you are,

Sarah Wilson 1:15:02
start where you are.

Dan Ilic 1:15:03
I think that's a great place to end.

Sarah Wilson 1:15:05
where we started. Yeah.

Dan Ilic 1:15:08
I'm Sarah Wilson, thank you for coming on the greatest moral podcast of our generation.

Sarah Wilson 1:15:13
I feel very, very privileged.

Unknown Speaker 1:15:18
GM, great, a small podcast

Dan Ilic 1:15:20
of our generation. That was the wonderful, great and dare I say famous Sara Wilson's great to have her on the podcast always like famous people in

Linh Do 1:15:29
Yeah, they're the best and nice joke there. I quit sugar, I quit carbon. I mean, it all rolls really well. Thank

Dan Ilic 1:15:36
you. Thank you very much. Um, do you read her book?

Linh Do 1:15:39
I have read her book, actually. And I have to admit, you know, as someone who already speaks climate, none of these climate books are for me, when I read them. I'm always like, no, but you should be doing more. And I was like, I don't think anyone wants to read the book that would be written for me. I think one of my big takeaways about, you know, Sarah Wilson's workflow is she's had such a fascinating life. And I just really love how she's really not just trying to tackle climate change, but like, fundamentally changed the relationship that she has with capitalism, consumerism, and how all of that interlinks with all of these other like C word things, you know, she talks about COVID, of course. And I think if you can go from like hosting Mastership, to being an advocate for climate champion, I think there's hard for all of us to figure out how we can make climate an integral part of our identities.

Dan Ilic 1:16:21
Absolutely. How can you be a climate champion as well? That's the big question for you listening to this? Well, what I do is I make a podcast when I don't know about you.

Linh Do 1:16:31
You know, I just like live and breathe in and get a little bit angry and have to remember to read hot tips on how to talk about freaking others.

Dan Ilic 1:16:39
That's the problem with climate change becomes your job and is your hobby and is also an existential crisis for you.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:44
Yeah.

Linh Do 1:16:46
Yeah. That's why no one's writing books for me, because like I am, it's a nice, it's a nice place to be. And speaking of

Dan Ilic 1:16:53
see words, Christmas is coming up next week, and we do have a special Rupert Degas who does all of the comedy voices for all the sketches of irrational fear will be joining us to go through the years best sketches we've made on the show. So I can't wait to hear how that comes about. But that's about it for greatest moral podcasts of our generation. Thank you, Lynn.

Linh Do 1:17:12
Thank you, Jan. Can't wait to be doing this again with you next year in 2021.

Dan Ilic 1:17:16
Yeah, a big thanks to rode mics, the birther Foundation, go nutro Our Patreon supporters. Also Big thanks to Jacob round on tepanyaki timeline also big thank you to Dr. Rebecca Huntley, and the wonderful Sarah Wilson. Until next week, there's always something to be scared of good night.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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