 I'm Gem Bendell and with us this month is Dr Caroline Hickman and oh really well an academic and a psychotherapist who I whose thoughts and writings I follow closely so I'm very pleased that you're with us. The topic of how adults and young people engage with each other on the climate crisis is crucial complex emotive and sometimes triggering and so I think it's a really important topic and so I'm very pleased that Caroline Hickman who works with the University of Bath and is a member of the Climate Psychology Alliance Executive Committee is joining us at Caroline's research in children and young people's feelings about the climate and biodiversity and doing that work in the UK Maldives and Bangladesh and working with other Psychology Alliance members to offer therapeutic outreach for schools while also supporting school strikers and parent groups and also working with Greenpeace to develop alternative education for young people in response to the climate emergency but Caroline still has time to squeeze us in for the next hour so hello Caroline welcome to the deep adaptation Q&A. Hi Gem thank you and my house is a mess so you know yes I squeezed lots in but housework forget it. I certainly like the backdrop there. The research the research is for my doctorate so it's not written up so hopefully in another year I'll get there. Are you in that situation where there's so much to do in the world that hiding away to just type a thesis seems a bit painful? I have no idea how to make the space to type it up. So I want to dive straight in because the work that you're doing is it's always been important but wow right now with the young people's activism on climate being so much in the news that it's really important to explore this quite closely but we were chatting before and you told me that you'd actually come across quite some criticism of parents for supporting children who are in in striking on climate and I was wondering if we could start by you sharing some you know what is the nature of those criticisms what what do you think about them where's it coming from what can we learn about that? Absolutely. Some of the criticism is extreme and I think we've seen that in the media again this week with the arguments going on at Davos and the criticism particularly leveled at Greta Thunberg and the other youth climate strikers. I've had parents I also support a parent activist group in Bristol and they've told me stories of people on the streets accusing them of child abuse because they're supporting their children going on the climate strikes and certainly we've seen that language this week in the press with these arguments in I think an attempt to shame and silence parents because people are not succeeding in shaming and silencing children's voices so the adults are being attacked around them. I could talk forever on this so I would say just a couple of things I think we need to look at this at two levels one one level I think this is a projection and this is the terror that's being felt collectively by people and it's a defense and it's a denial and it's a way of trying to silence voices which are just causing so much dysregulation and anxiety children are saying things that people don't want to hear so they're trying to shut up the children so at one level we could interpret we could analyze we could look at psychologically and I think it's another level it's just making people just feel so afraid for themselves that instead of addressing that they're trying to just get everybody else to go away it also kind of exposes some of the kind of rather strange views that people have of children that children don't have agency children shouldn't be listened to children don't have their own views and opinions so there's a kind of patronizing belittling misogynistic silencing attitude as well that gets played out and people in particular don't like children speaking about truths. Yeah and what you've just described I've also seen leveled at some people like me who have been talking about the worst case climate scenarios yeah with adults but also with young people and being criticized there in terms of what what is this doing to the children even when it's the children or the young people who've been bringing this to their parents or to their schools themselves. Yeah sorry no no go on. I'm sorry I'll try not to be too over-enthusiastic but absolutely I think it's an attempt to shame people and attempt to frighten people into you know staying silent but I feel quite frustrated about that argument because it's turned into an argument about optimism versus pessimism about you know giving people hope versus doom mongering and actually you know at some level I think it's a smoke screen for trying to avoid and deflect against the things we should really be talking about which is the reality that we're facing and often the children are very clear-sighted that I speak with they're very empathetic they're very compassionate but they are no way near as frightened as a lot of the adults and the children are frustrated by this kind of patronizing discourse that says don't frighten the children well actually you know my response to us is always the children are already frightened. I go out to do these research interviews let me give you an example I went to do this research interview with a 10 year old boy just over a year ago and when I arrived his dad opened the door and said well he said I don't think he knows much about climate change and I said okay well we'll see and I encourage the parents to stick around and listen in and there's quite a process of you know talking this through and obviously my job is not about scaring children so I'm using a set of questions which enable the child to play with these painful frightening things but not get traumatized in the process and what I noticed was the child was relishing the opportunity to talk about this and the parent was horrified because the parent had no idea that his child was even thinking about these things let alone had this knowledge so at the end of it the parent was terrified and the child told his dad later that was the most fun he'd had in weeks right the child's being asked to imagine to connect relationally and being given permission in a space and an opportunity to talk about these things that this child is fully aware of at a very practical level they're online they're talking to each other they're very knowledgeable so they can be explore and get information quite quickly themselves on on these topics they're talking to each other about it but there's also another level I want to just touch on briefly which is you know if we kind of go to a psychological model of the collective unconscious I suspect we're all connecting with our fears about this and it you know the levels of denial and defense and disavowal means that maybe people aren't consciously aware of that all the time but children are so empathetically attuned into the natural world they're going to be feeling often the pain of what's going on not only with other children but other animals and other species around the planet and that's what they're often tuning into and in a way they're embodying I think some distress that frequently many adults and I'm generalizing so I apologize but I think many adults are more able to kind of step away from but children are not going to step away from this because they've got an intrinsic heartfelt understanding about things that are unfair I'd like to explore that a bit more in a moment but what you said earlier reminded me of one of the discussions that was triggered by when I released a film called Oscar's Quest about a 13 year old boy and a friend of his parents expressed that she was really deeply upset at how Oscar was sad and upset and really felt that perhaps the parents could have helped help him more which I realized that that really made it clear to me that yes as adults we sort of have the not only the potential to feel emotional pain because of how we sense the world is but then this this pain we we're reversed to our pain about a child's pain and and we sort of want to make that go away somehow or distract from it and so yeah there's some sort of pain aversion here which I mean children don't have that parental pain I was wondering what what do you think adults could learn from the ways in which children have been experiencing and expressing their emotions around climate loss of species loss of habitats what do we have to learn from the way that the way they're relating on this well I think we first and foremost have to learn to listen to them and that means listening to the child and accepting that your child may have an internal and an external world that you're not that familiar with that your child has you know their own imagination their own thoughts their own feelings and that kind of sometimes I think can feel quite daunting for parents because they've got this idea about what good parenting looks like you're absolutely right that parents often want to take away children's pain and so a lot of the time at the moment when I'm talking with parents about this I talk with them about how to parent differently in the light of the current crisis and emergency and the new parenting that's needed here which is not taking away your child's pain but standing alongside your child in that pain and in that discomfort and learning to tolerate your child's discomfort and soothe your child by being alongside them I talked with parents about you know you can't comfort your child by promising them that everything will be all right and everything will get better but you can promise them that you'll stand alongside them that you'll be there with them and that you will yourself develop that depth and that emotional capacity and that resilience that means that you can tolerate their pain and others pain and your own pain so what are the conditions for that to happen say that again what are the conditions for that to happen because you called it new parenting a different way of parenting so it is not would you say it's not common at the moment what you've just described well I think some parents would be very switched on to this so if you're parenting from a sort of relationship-based attachment parenting model then yes absolutely they will be switched on to that empathy and that compassion and being able to think of their children as you know you know their own people that they want to get to know rather than making assumptions about their children so of course some parents are going to be wonderful at that but I think collectively our school systems or education systems society doesn't generally support that approach to parenting so you find that culturally within groups but I think in terms of the kind of paradigm shift that's needed here in thinking differently that needs to go into schools that needs to go into society generally so we learn to listen to our children and learn to listen to the children's wisdom because they have a different kind of wisdom when I started doing a lot of this work I asked an eight-year-old how do I talk to you about these frightening things how do I talk to you about the climate emergency how do I talk to you about things like this without traumatizing you so I think that's an obvious way to start is you ask the child because they've got their own ideas and I want to tell you what she said because I think what she said was genius she said well she said you've got to tell me the truth she said because if you don't tell me the truth you're lying to me and if you don't tell me the truth and you're lying to me she said I won't trust you and I'll feel betrayed and I'll feel abandoned and I won't be able to talk to you about things that are frightening me in the future I mean it's complete wisdom isn't it it's just he's absolutely nailed exactly what it is we've got to do but I mean she said but she said don't tell me everything terrible all at once tell me some difficult things and then tell me some good things that are going on in the world she said and then let's talk about difficult things and then good things she said but don't lie to me she said because then I'll just feel like I'm on my own with this and I won't know where to go when I want to talk about these difficult things so I would listen to that eight-year-old. So that reminds me of how yes children can can feel an emotion fully and through feeling it and move on and maybe come back to it later but there's that sense of flow rather than getting stuck in a particular emotion. Yeah and in in your film the moment I mean there were lots of lovely moments in that film but there was a lovely moment towards the end when Oscar said it's okay to feel sad and I just thought well absolutely and how lovely that that child feels able to be with his feelings of sadness and feel contained and supported by his parents to be with those feelings and those feelings are not being disallowed they're not being ashamed he's not feeling that there's something wrong with those feelings and you know there's a lot of pathologization of feelings where you know we don't allow ourselves to feel anxious or sad or angry or afraid or guilty or ashamed because somehow those feelings are uncomfortable so I thought that was a beautiful moment and so back to this argument this point about you know what can we learn well you know that those feelings are completely natural and those feelings paradoxically can help us navigate a path or a way through some of what we need to face around the climate and biodiversity emergency which is not something we're going to fix is it so it's something that we need to embody and allow and move into a closer relationship with. Thank you so a couple of things have come to mind that if this sort of feels just a mature horizontal form of parenting in terms of the relating with children if that is still not really widely understood and practiced how do we do know of any massive projects to promote this way of relating and parenting in any country where you're doing work and if not how do we how do we get it started? That'd be my first question. Okay let's go for a small question shall we? I think a lot of education charities and a lot of schools are becoming aware of this and certainly the Clown Psychology Alliance we're being approached by schools all the time at the moment and education charities and teachers saying how can we start to do this differently because I think they're becoming aware of the need to do that and certainly the project that we've been involved in with Greenpeace and the Presencing Institute it's an international project and we spent last summer talking with groups of young people particularly young activists but not exclusively about what they needed from us as adults to help them in terms of education and help them in terms of you know the curriculum and and they they come out with some wonderful things so so the group in the UK that I met with said to me that they wanted lessons in boat building and they wanted lessons in house building and which plants they could grow and what was poisonous and what they could eat so the group in the Maldives said as well that they needed to know how to dispose of waste they wanted to know how to encourage all children to learn how to swim they wanted to know how to stay friends with fish and I love the fact that they hadn't got that kind of disconnected relationship with the natural world all the children talked to me about the need for using stories and narratives to help find a way forwards and find ways to educate not just themselves but their communities around the climate emergency because they were very aware that although they were happy talking about this their parents often weren't they also you might enjoy this they asked for lessons in how to lobby politicians and how to have difficult conversations with parents that just kept saying go back to school you need to be in school so they had lots of really good ideas about what they needed educationally but that means education not just practically but also emotionally so it's about building that emotional resilience and building that emotional intelligence which again I'm sorry if it's boring I'm going to have to say relational again because it's about how we form relational community with institutions but also with ourselves yeah thank you that's again I'm quite daunted by the how huge this is and of course it is I what is that it's about two and a half billion young people under the age of 18 in the world can I can I respond to that sure because yeah me too God yeah daunted absolutely um but what I do with that feeling of feeling daunted and overwhelmed and you know when you're talking about paradigm shift is I go back to listen to what children and young people are telling me because that brings me back to the emotion it brings me back to the feelings around that which have meaning and they make sense can I just give you a couple of quotes from young people that that they've been saying to me as I've been out there because this is where I go with that sense of this is enormous so so so this young person said to me the age for taking the environment for granted is long past this all now needs to be about the future you need to listen to us another one said why don't people care some people will have a funeral for a glacier this was children in the Maldives but why not have a funeral for us we're going to be underwater soon they've said if you would listen to children there may be our children will inherit a world in which they themselves can bear to bring their own children another one said we need to learn to accept that the environment matters as much as the economy okay so you get you get some inspiration from from these conversations I get inspiration but I also all right so I'm gonna say I also feel um held by this because they're speaking to in a very soulful way from their hearts about what matters most okay held in a spirit of love rather than other stories of hope it's more just is that right when you say hell yeah it's a simple truth that sort of soothes me in this it gives me something to relate back to that is meaningful so I stop worrying about the world and I just go back to okay what I was able to do was have this relationship with this young person to listen to them and take them seriously and that holds meaning and if I can then bring those stories back out into a bigger environment like this then that also that meaning and that containment can then be passed on so I have to come back to that I see yes that's good thank you that was really yeah that's uh I think I experienced something similar when I was talking to the young people when I made that film so just for those of those of the members of the deep adaptation forum on this q&a please do start sharing your questions in the chat box or posting them to Matthew because we'll come we'll be coming to you in about about five minutes but before then I want to explore some of the more sticky stuff um uh uh you you are in touch with some of the young climate activists and um that initial rush of excitement of cut media cut through and attention um is sort of changing a bit now I was wondering how are some of the young activists that you're engaging with feeling as coverage grows and nothing changes apart from adults and and their institutions trying to sort of cozy up to them and and sort of co-op them somehow um where where where's that going to go that that frustration uh you know you are being listened to and nothing's changing hmm yeah I think it it's a tough journey to for young people to deal with disillusionment and disappointment and despair well it's tough for us um and a lot of young people are feeling disillusioned because they invested a great deal of hope in science in facts and I think disillusionment uh is a painful process this idea that others that adults the authorities will somehow listen and respond because it's logical and it makes sense doesn't it um and I think that's a process of disillusionment we all have to go through in order to mature and in order to come to terms with the fact that this is a long-term process of change that we're talking about but that that disillusionment certainly what I say to them is that that disillusionment and depression and despair is an important part of that process of maturing and deepening down into this journey and um I don't want to call it a fight but it is a struggle maybe sometimes it is a fight what heck um and that what I certainly want to do is talk with them about the importance of that and support them in coming through it and the youth activists I've spoken with who've gone through that process of disillusionment and to spare and supported through that come out with a more sustainable anger and a more sustainable commitment and a more resolute passion about well we're carrying on doing this regardless of the outcome so they separate out their action from an investment in hope in a particular outcome and that gives meaning that brings meaning back emotionally and psychologically so if we can create meaning for young people in that journey then I think we can support them with that what we don't want is for them to go into the despair and disillusionment and crisis and feel abandoned and stuck there and left that somehow that's the end of the journey that's an important step in the journey but it's not the end point so certainly are you aware of are you aware of efforts both amongst young people themselves but also in support of them to help them as they reach that disillusionment and as they understandably feel resentment so that they don't get stuck in that place or is this more just sort of ad hoc and things that are a few conversations that happen here and there I think I think certainly the you know in the CPA the climate psychology alliance we're trying to really bring that narrative out particularly for example through podcasts and the work we're doing with these climate strikers I spoke at the local council of youth conference last year and I got up on stage and looked out and and everybody in the room was sort of under 21 and I thought well you know I need to speak differently right now to this large number of young people and I just stood there and said I'm really sorry you know I just stood saying sorry for quite some time that you know that we all adults have a culpability now we have a responsibility and we shouldn't be ducking that and we should say sorry that we're giving them this world to inherit and then we need to work alongside them and young people were coming up to me afterwards saying what a relief it was to hear me say that and that allowed them to actually let go of their blame and their anger and and towards adults they then said great now what are you going to do you know I want you to support me doing this or doing that I think I think there's a lot of pretend I'm going to sound a little bit sort of polyamorous optimistic now but my experience of talking with parents and young people and parents and children having those conversations together the potential for intergenerational healing here is phenomenal that's good to hear supporting them in having those conversations I think is healing both to the adults and to the young people so I know I sound really sort of idealistic there but the feedback I'm getting is phenomenal a parent and her teenage daughter came to a public tour I gave last year and they weren't talking normal parent teenage stuff but they came to the talk together and she mailed me after the mommy mailed me after and said they talked all the way home and the mom said sorry and the daughter said fine but what are you going to do and the parents said what do you want me to do and the parents said she wanted to move her extended project at school to talk about the climate emergency and the school weren't going to want to let her do this and she wanted her parents to come in and support us and the parent did and the school let her and it changed something in their relationship profoundly great not only healing I think that if we move beyond the framing that the simple framing of the adult generations in general have let down younger generations we move beyond that then activists of all ages can actually explore well what can we learn from centuries of adult generations generations past trying to struggle with injustice transform injustice transform unsustainability what's worked what hasn't worked why we've ended up in this crisis so I see that when the narrative of well the older generations have let down the younger generations that narrative can lead us away from an inquiry into how does change happen and the solidarity across generations against those that are trying to stop change yes it's a splitting narrative isn't it which others which I think we need to be wise to this and not fall for it and not get too caught up in you know we need to not scare children we need to blame adults we need to be very cautious of that because I think it can be used to divide and disempower all the voices away from what's most important here and and that that is what we need we need to not be distracted actually like that there's a bit of a smoke screen thank you so I'm going to hand it over now we're going to hear from we've got quite a few people on on the call and so I'm going to go to Amiel I don't know how to pronounce your name amiel or amiel um and please unmute yourself and uh you've got a a question I think maybe about developmental stages or at least the differences for people talking with young people of different ages yes hi can you hear me jem ah yeah yes could you speak up yes sure uh my question is based on the premise that kids of different ages will respond differently to what's happening in a world and therefore call for different forms of parenting and we've used the word kid or child I wondered if you could talk about how to parent differently say a five-year-old versus a 15 year old just to give pick out two sample ages thank you um just to say Caroline before you go anyone who's asking a question please only if you've got your video on because otherwise we don't get to see you and have that interaction thank you yeah I mean I think regardless of whether this is a five-year-old or a 15-year-old the first place I would start is talk to the child or young person about how to approach this with them um because they will have their own ideas what I've often done regardless of age is use that in relationship with the natural world with another animal another creature to begin that conversation because that means the child is able to move into talking about these things but without immediately talking about themselves they're able to move towards talking about worries about themselves by talking about for example koalas we ran a project with a mixed age group of children and these were children between the ages of five and eleven a few years ago by talking about the climate crisis by talking about the impact on whales in the ocean and we have the whales telling stories we have pictures we had lots of education about whales but we also allowed the children to personify their fears and their feelings about this through talking about the whales that meant that the children were able to engage with it it's a level that they felt comfortable with and they could do that separately so not all five-year-olds are the same are they and not all 15-year-olds are the same and some five-year-olds might be you know able to engage with things that maybe some 15-year-olds won't be able to engage with so we used a lot of creative methodologies we used a lot of storytelling we used a lot of visual arts and stories and songs and music and that meant that the child it softened the impact on the child and it allowed space for the child to be curious and to ask questions and to feel their way forwards developmentally I think we've got to be a little bit careful when children are bringing trauma into this because that personal trauma can be easily triggered by talking about collective trauma and collective anxiety but I mean I would again given that we given that this is all a bit of an unknown in that there are no blueprints for us about how to deal with this what I've done over the last five six years of doing this with different age groups of children is I've learned to listen to what children themselves say that works well for them so I think we've got to actually trust children in offering them these creative methodologies around education and psychology and tread gently but we've also got to listen to them because they kind of know what will work for them thank you we have a question from Gillian Sackett I think you probably know her she works on the climate climate psychology alliance as well Gillian hi thank you both so much for doing this I've been long following both of you so I am a steering member of the climate psychiatry alliance and also a child psychiatrist and a parent of three young kids who I am constantly fumbling on all of this because it's just so much and my biggest now my biggest question right now it changes is how do we admit to our kids that we're preparing them for the wrong future so meaning that school society right we're setting them up for the future that we we thought we had or that we had business as usual growth progress the myth of all of that and that's what schools keep keep teaching that's the curriculum that's what our societies keep teaching and kids are smarter than this they know that this is a an irony they they the kids who are aware which are so many are aware this isn't the future they're going to have so I don't know how I feel frozen in how to prepare my children moving forward without just pulling them out of society without just ripping them out of their school system which you know they're attached to their schools so I'm just asking I guess for advice on that on how to keep them in their society in their world and yet somehow prepare them for the real future that's coming not the one we wish was coming yeah it's I mean the first thing I wanted to say is it's just so difficult so there isn't a right and wrong here it's about how you navigate your way forwards with this so I think the the first thing I always say at this point is we need to support you and other adults in processing your feelings around this first and I think it's really really important that we take time to process our feelings around this in relation to our children because those should not be underestimated should they um I know that different professional groups are starting to address this and provide advice and guidelines and the Royal College of Psychiatrists is engaged in trying to do that at the moment as is the UK CP for psychotherapy because there's an awareness that we do need that containment from our professional bodies as well so at a professional level you know we're supporting that process from the climate psychology alliance this parenting group that I meet with in Bristol um I don't want to entirely speak for them but they get a lot of support from talking with each other on a regular basis about how to feel their way through this and they they often cry and say how awful it is and and then come up with creative solutions and say well I've tried this and I've tried that and we're doing a you know we've we're talking about koala bears and oh we're doing this and how do I deal with my child when they're waking in the night traumatized and crying so the parents really support each other in finding not just dealing with processing with their own feelings but then coming up with creative solutions for how to support their children through this so uh don't do it on your own would be you know my bottom line you know create community that will support this um but my you know my my heart goes out to you I think by asking the question you are clearly engaging with it and that's just the best thing you can be doing for your children but don't get frozen don't get stuck and when you are reach out because we need to be building communities around this and recognize that there is no completely simple right and wrong answer I had a young child say to me the other day you don't get it Caroline you know I'm growing up in a world where there will be no polar bears you didn't get that you thought there would be polar bears forever right and I just had to and it really got to me and I and I thought well you're absolutely right um and I actually have to say I don't know what that's like and you're absolutely right I don't know what that's like but let's find out together let's yeah it's an important thing I'm gonna I'm gonna um I want to we've got so many questions stacking up and only 20 minutes to go so what I'm gonna do is ask people to be quick in their questions and let's see how many we can get through is that okay or was there something was there something I I stopped you from saying just now no okay great so uh we're over to Anderson now please have your video on hi I'm here um I went with children and young people in the criminal justice system and um we're very closely with trauma recovery um adverse childhood experiences etc we're talking very much about anxiety we're talking about fear and trauma in this respect and one of the things is happening is that um those people who are climate change deniers um are using this as an attack to say you're not protecting these children from those things and as we know this attack from that side is coming what can we do to mitigate but that by having our preparedness in terms of the answer coherently and effective to be able to say this is what we are doing thank you I love your question um I think we need to sorry miss that um I suppose we covered that quite a bit before but not actually in terms of when when things start going wrong if you actually you know if you do start to see warning signs like how can you look at the risks as well there's a couple of things um I think it's great that you've raised the issue about protecting and protection um because you know traditionally we would protect children from many things but we also have a duty of care in terms of protecting children um and I know parents who are having fantasies about the only way to protect their child is to kill their child in the light of this crisis so we need to be able to have these painful difficult frightening conversations ourselves in order to make space to make that safe both for those parents and for those children in the future and those are parents who um thankfully have an understanding about the difference between fantasy and reality so they're not actually going to go off and act on that but certainly this argument about protection of children is I think something we need to be brave enough to have that conversation without being too terrified of it I also talk about in you'll be familiar I think probably with this idea of a trauma lens that we need to interpret a lot of what traumatized children and young people communicate around through the idea of this trauma lens and that everything they say needs to be understood through that lens one of the things I've started thinking about and talking about is how we need to develop a climate crisis lens or a social collapse lens so that we can find ways to interpret and hear through a lot of what's being communicated about and reinterpret and re-understand this in the light of collective anxiety and collective trauma um and that will give us a way to understand and make sense of some of these things that are being talked about without getting split into these kind of polarized um shocking conversations where people start leaping about saying oh you're not protecting children we are protecting children but maybe we need to learn to protect them differently and that means being brave enough to have these conversations yeah I'm hearing that there's there's so much there's so much work to be done and so much discussion between experts as well as people who've just with everyday experience of these issues and is there a section on the climate psychology alliance website about either parenting or being a teacher and some of the issues there will be next week okay we're working on it okay great at the moment there are a few conversation pieces there's lots of podcasts so I would sort of say head for our podcasts on this okay so I'll make sure that um in the education uh group of the professions network of the deep adaptation forum that we we link to that and also I'll make sure that the pda parenting facebook group has linked to that we have a question now from Katie um over to Katie thank you there's so much uncertainty in conversations about climate uh not just uncertainty of how the world will be in a year two years five years but also this sense of everything we thought we knew is becoming less certain and children are taught from a really early age in families and particularly in schools that their worth is contingent upon them being right and rightness is all about certainty um and we can't get over that you know children and adults reach out for something secure when they're feeling afraid so my question is how can adults get used to being with this not knowingness so that we can stay grounded and give children permission to be okay with it as well a brilliant question um the uncertainty is so painful isn't it um however I think it's been a bit of a sort of um illusion actually that we ever really had certainty but perhaps we were able to kind of uh you know trust in this idea that the were powerful others that created certainty I mean philosophically that certainty has always been a bit of an illusion but now what's being stripped away is the kind of illusion about that certainty we've never really had it we were just good at kidding ourselves that we had it so I'm sorry I'm being philosophical and kind of ripping away any sense that we ever had any we've always been highly dependent and hated our vulnerability generally speaking as human beings and we've created the kind of fantasies and stories to to reassure ourselves that we actually were in control of our environment and that's part of the reason we're in this mess in the first place so maybe all that's being stripped away is that kind of illusion um and then what we're doing is running into defences there the fight flight defense of can we rescue ourselves can we rescue others or are we abandoned or is you know the technology will save us or the government will save us or you know my particular favorites that aliens will descend and save us there is a group that believes that I love that group because I don't see that as any different to believing that the government will save us or technology will save us so the only place we can go I'm keeping talking the only place we can go is to create that internal certainty and internal security that whatever we're facing I will find ways to face it with others collectively and in relationship and that we can come back to that we can turn to for a sense of internal security external security no chance internal security absolutely on that question of of who's going to save us yeah the first time I heard about indigo children was I think in the year 2000 and that was when I was talking to a colleague at the UN about how awful everything was looking in terms of the environment and I was told oh yes but the children being bored today Gem are different and they will fix everything and I'm I'm hearing some similar sort of indigo child stories today as people look at these amazing young people uh challenging us uh to to wake up what are your thoughts on if that are you hearing that and could that be a problematic sort of twist in the tale of this this whole topic of this this this engagement with young people on on climate yeah yeah again it's that kind of projection out isn't it psychologically that somebody out there some other will hold this magical key this magical answer um it's um and it's a it's it's really a you know abandoning ourselves and abandoning our culpability and our responsibility I think until we face down into the depths of ourselves and look out in deeply about that interrelationship with the environment of which we're part and face into that deep and into that then you know we will continue to look outside for rescue and that's the kind of parental flight it's sort of that somehow this powerful other has got the key and got the answers well um I think it's you know we've got the answers actually but we just need to find them I'm afraid sorry oh keep talking about that and I want you to save me um so I'm going to hand over to no I mean I like I like hearing I'm gonna hand over now a question to Charlotte over to you Charlotte and you need to be unmuted and put your video one as well we don't hear you Charlotte I just see Charlotte D with no video and and we can't hear you uh it's an important question so I'm going to read it out for you okay Charlotte is a young adult in her early 20s and is having difficult thoughts with regards to the future do I want to have children with my partner how can I rest reconcile my maternal instincts while knowing how the climate and ecological emergency will affect them how can I deny mine and my partner's desires for having children whilst knowing the impacts that lay ahead and I think I just like to add then also I'm meeting young parents who are experiencing you know parental guilt if uh around having just had a child so yeah that topic in general as well yeah yeah I've I've had parents come up to me saying they wish they'd never had children I've had parents say that they don't know how to bear the guilt and the shame they don't know how to tolerate this that it feels like a selfish act uh and I've heard a lot of children and young adults say that they're choosing not to have children and I think we have to collectively uh allow all of these feelings to be validated they all have their place there is no right and wrong is the always the response that I would give and that it whilst it is an individual choice it's an individual choice that you're making within a collective uh crisis um if you choose to have children then I personally would say that you're choosing to have children consciously bringing them into this world knowing that there's a particular challenge to be faced both from parenting those children and for those children and be and be prepared to have those conversations with those children right from an early age and that's going to be really important and again it's that empathetic connection with those children so be mindful but there is no right and wrong so the choice that you make I think needs to be honoured collectively by us and for some people it will be right to have children and others not and there's but neither of those are the wrong decision at the moment but they're both painful actually yes thank you and if Charlotte's video or audio is working now you could just give your feedback or thoughts on that no I think not okay so we have time for another question we're going to go to Catherine Meisner please hi can you hear me okay yeah so my question part of it was asked earlier I think by Julia thank you so my question is how when kids have like a totally valid response of equal anxiety and also the need to prep um how can I respond how can we respond in a way that's not minimizing but also not all consuming and also when I have the same fears of how do I prepare um when so many different things can happen uh and like the real fear of like I've heard kids say like more teens but like I'm worried of starving to death with shortages or like dealing dying from whatever plague um and I'm not sure how to respond or how to help them prepare or if that's healthy or not thank you um it depends how you say this but I try to say I actually don't know how to respond either because I think that's an authentic emotional um genuine response which is we haven't got the answers but we can find out together and what I will promise you is that I will sort of get alongside you and be curious and we can go and find out so there's a there's a not abandoning the adult or the child in that moment but not pretending that there is a a simple answer I frequently you have to judge it but I often when people say you know I'm really anxious I often say well me too of course I am you know I feel despair I feel depression I feel anxiety and I try and make space for all of those feelings and one of those feelings on a regular basis and don't disallow any of those feelings because one of the things that can help me is having that emotional range and allowing all of those feelings to play their part in supporting me in navigating this finding a way through this creating maps and ways through this and it connects me emotionally uh collectively I'm going to just go global for a second with the hundreds and thousands and millions of people around the world who are starving today and who are struggling to survive today so you know and it's not about sort of doing a guilt trip and trying to go oh well we're okay you know and you shouldn't feel that way but it is about sort of having a moment of having a global sensibility about this that actually there are people dying now because of you know hunger and poverty and the fires and drowning um so it kind of cuts through a little bit of that kind of western northern industrial hemisphere narcissistic entitlement that says like why shouldn't we feel that way when half the rest of the population already feels that way yeah if you can do that without making somebody feel bad about themselves and kind of at the same time say yeah you know I'm scared and actually can we have a compassionate move to empathize collectively and globally with this and then come back to the personal then you know we've incarnated at this point in time maybe this is what we've got to learn how to tolerate I think you put your finger on it there Caroline about how do we we move from awareness of personal vulnerability like we've never sensed before perhaps in middle class western consumer lifestyles through to a sense of solidarity with those uh and an active solidarity actually doing something about those who are being affected right now uh through climate impacts uh and then also what I would like to start looking at is that also then move not just to that in terms of humanitarian action but also begin to sense into how I think it's for me the big absence in environmentalism as this uh widespread understanding how we have been oppressed by this system it's not that we were naturally um going to live separately from nature and want to grow forever and against natural limits there's there's a system that uh it started with colonialism or you could go further back than that but then it's become modern-day capitalism so I think actually then so moving from vulnerability to solidarity to some sort of project of liberation from these oppressive systems actually maybe it would be a very interesting conversation it does take you beyond prepping it doesn't mean that you don't want to look at how to live resiliently and more sustainably and grow local and not depend on these global supply chains for example but but it it certainly doesn't means that you don't just look at your own ability to survive the next three months if there's no food on the shelves um we've we've come to the end have you got a question that hasn't come up yet like or a thing that you think's really important in on this agenda Caroline uh before we close I'd like to sort of you know respond to what you just said jam about you know the sort of the climate crisis bringing um almost bringing opportunities to paradoxically start to deal with things that have needed to be dealt with um I want to quote another child um um this child said to me climate change is happening to rebalance something that was out of balance in the world and climate change is our opportunity to start to rebalance this okay well thank you for us nice way to end uh and then this feels this feels like a really um valuable conversation I think it's one that I will direct a lot of people to because yeah this carries a lot more emotional charge than than many of the conversations around climate so thank you for joining us today and thank you everyone else for all your questions sorry to those of you who we didn't get to include in this hour