 Um today I just want to invite you uh just to take a moment and just take a breath with me uh to put your feet on the ground and just to really like get yourself on a comfortable spot we're going to be talking about climate impacts which carry emotions of sadness and grief devastation and joy community and sorrow hope and resilience loss grief so I just want to invite you to breathe with me for a moment and so I'm really excited to get to join together today with some colleagues and friends who I deeply respect for our session uh and so today we'll get to be working on repairing and resisting learning about how people are organizing uh after and around climate impacts and so uh on the docket for today we've got three speakers um so Jacinta uh who's uh coming to us from 350 she's one of my colleagues with the Pacific Climate Warriors she can introduce herself more about sort of her context and where she's coming from uh but someone who I've had gotten a lot of respect for and Jennifer is coming from 350 Canada so excited that there's so many Canadians on this call as well to to share in the lessons that she's been bringing about uh dealing with uh some of the recent uh climate impacts happening in Canada and so bringing that story and then Derek is joining us from the Philippines and we're hoping the tech is going to work out right now um the Philippines are having a typhoon this is not a this is a more common experience that's happening now uh in the Philippines and so uh she's working off on her own battery and so hopefully uh we're hoping that the the the zoom energy will work out and she'll be able to join us successfully for the whole thing um and I it we we just couldn't go too far without acknowledging uh that um sorry my screen share didn't work here but I just I we can't go too far without just acknowledging right off the back um that uh right now one of the major climate impacts I think one of the largest we've ever seen is happening right now in Pakistan um and so some of our colleagues who have been working right now in Pakistan and working in Southeast Asia on on that crisis right now um they're all sleeping right now and we're delighted that they're sleeping they did join us for a call earlier to to share with us some of the the things that they've wanted to to have expressed and so forth during this time but it's it's important to mark this is a phenomenal flood if you have not tracked um its size has been absolutely catastrophic um and so one in seven people have been directly impacted by this uh this flood there have been tens of thousands of deaths they're they're still tracking the numbers um and it's very much I think part of what brings us to this session which is these climate impacts are coming for more and more of us if we have not experienced them directly uh we will beginning to have more and more and more direct experiences and those of us who are experiencing them already they are likely to continue to increase in their uh extremity that's the reality of of what the what climate change is bringing so that kicks up I think fear of what may come as well as other feelings and so during this section we want to um honor and support uh in terms of what people are asking for with our colleagues in Pakistan in a moment we'll paste um some links uh that people have asked us to share both places for just giving money if that's a you know a thing that you have available uh for folks on the ground um but also uh dealing with um centering what the problem is here which is this isn't just a humanitarian crisis it is that but it's also a crisis of of an injustice which is a country that has spent very little amount of carbon is suffering greatly and this is the issue that we're dealing with this is this is why we're here today because of the injustice that's happening and so um so we'll be facing some resources but but just centering back that this is caused by the fossil fuel industry this has been very much directly related to that and so I just I I very much want to honor Dawood thank you for joining us um uh from Pakistan at this moment and so I just I really want to honor the the feelings the expressions of solidarity and to hopefully this can be a spot a space for inspiration and and support so I'll be post the pasting those links in just a moment um but I do just want to express our heartfelt um connection to all of that and um I think I want to want to just open it up pretty quickly for us to go and hear from Derek because Derek has been um also facing a phenomenal crisis and so Derek I want to just bring you in to talk about what you've been doing Derek's worked in the Philippines and she'll tell her own story I don't need to give an introduction about that but she's a community organizer she knows what it looks like to do on the ground organizing she's been based in a region the baton that's been facing coal and nuclear and so she's been part of an organization that's been pushing particularly coal which is Philippines is one of the one of the biggest coal they're still producing and and and adding more power plants all the time to to try to expand their energy sources that way and so um so she's coming bringing her story about how both how we deal with climate impacts uh in the moment and what are the lessons about how we organize even in that moment even in the devastation so thank you so much uh for joining us Derek and if you want to come off mute and hopefully our internet will hold uh for your presentation thank you oh sorry I just wanted to say one more thing which is if people have questions along the way please just go ahead and paste them in uh write them onto the chat uh or the question answer and we'll try to respond as many as much as we can people have been using it as a chance to organize other the Canadians have been doing good good at that early sessions and so please continue to uh use that as a spot for connection and um uh and if you have questions for any of the panelists I'll try to make sure to also get that to them as well so with that please go ahead Derek thank you thank you thank you it's uh early morning here in the Philippines and I'm I also want to uh say my solidarity our solidarity in behalf of our organization we we send our solidarity with our uh fellow human beings in Pakistan who are undergoing and experiencing a very very um uh sad experience on having the impact of climate change so thank you Daniel and thank you everyone for inviting me here um as as as you can see there is no power here now because of the typhoon so I'm just gonna uh share my story very very in a short uh I hope this would be short so I'm I'm a community organizer uh our our community that I am organizing at the moment he has a 4 000 megawatts of a coal-fired power plants and there is a an expansion of um of um uh fossil gas and uh there is also plans to to construct the waste energy sources and the plans to deal with the under clear power plant to rehabilitate so I think uh this would give you an idea of the community that I am organizing at the moment but before I discuss that I would like to share the story of my myself and my family and how do we uh continue um uh fighting and in solidarity with other other Filipino citizens who are who have been uh experiencing the impacts of climate change so I think as humanitarian actors and community organizers I know you have seen many phases of you know desperation like like what is happening in Pakistan right now and what it can do to people in most cases people forget about their dignity as human beings and thus they they become even more vulnerable and defenseless this is the kind of situation that many vulnerable communities are forced to live with every time a disaster event would take place or would strike this was how typhoon on doi or ketsana has made me realize when it hit our country in 2009 which which I think more than 700 people have died during that time my family was one of the thousands that were caught up by the typhoon and as flood waters um rose up to 18 meter high they huddled together on the rooftop of our two-story house as the flood water swept past with bodies can you imagine that animals and even a coffin because our neighbor was you know uh having his way at the time when the typhoon strikes it was like a horror-saving movie only that you cannot turn off the button if the scene gets too terrifying for you to watch so this happened in real life although I wasn't there as an eyewitness I was as I was too stranded in another place with my youngest sister but on the other hand my sister was updating us and describing every scenario through text messages the fact that my whole family were trapped up in a life and death situation and I have no idea on on how to help them what's the worst nightmare I have ever imagined or I I have ever experienced in my life I believe disasters fueled by climate change have illuminated our vulnerabilities and powerlessness I remember how scared I was at the time I tried calling all the persons I know whom I thought has the power or influence to rescue my family trapped at the rooftop of our home but you know they cannot go because it's it's flooded and I think no government has been competent enough to stop the evolving disaster at the time you know in my experience uh climate change how it's affecting our communities I can only imagine the situation would go from bad to worse and from worse to worse believe me I feel weird that I have to share this bad news to you now in fact I am really angry I am angry about the earth situation and I cannot just accept our fate we can't just be statistics of climate change that is the fact that we should not accept maybe some of you have yet to see the impacts of climate change but this is why we are here right now to share the stories of people who are at round zero of climate impacts their stories are our stories because it is only a matter of time it is only a matter of time until every one of us would suffer the same impacts of climate change if we do not act now likewise we are not here just share our stories but I hope that the stories would also ignite and inspire everyone to take action let's encourage everyone to take action I believe positive reforms happen only because we fought for it you know we fought for it as a collective community and the only and the only way to realize this is if we try to get our acts together despite the difficult situations or difficult challenges so we should take part and start doing our share in rebuilding our lives but not only our lives but also our communities while we rebuild ourselves we should be also at the forefront of the fight to make this big fossil fuel corporations accountable for their disregard to human rights and the welfare of the planet let us confront this system that fuels climate change and perpetuates injustice this very system that prioritizes profit over the right and welfare of the people and the planet lastly let us strive to improve ourselves like we should strive to better ourselves and the community so that the communities will engage or reorganize would be ignited also and be inspired to take action with us so that together we would work for a better society in our planet because only the system changed nothing short of systemic change could only save us from this from this ongoing climate crisis so with that I'd like to end my sharing for you I hope that I have encouraged you it inspired you enough to really move on to the challenges and take it as you know as take it as a challenge to move again and join the global movement join the people's solidarity to change the system and for social and climate justice thank you so much again Thank you Derek and one question that I someone asked was and we've talked about this was conditions don't mean that people get what caused something because I experience a hardship it doesn't mean that I know what caused it I just know I experienced a hardship but I may not then connect it to climate change and so one of one of the previous speakers talked about the importance of political conscientization the idea of bringing people along with their own story and that's something that you do can you bring us into how do you especially when someone's just experienced a hardship it can be such a challenging time because I just need help I don't need a lecture on science and climate but how do you bring people into that because just because I've experienced climate change doesn't mean that I know that I've experienced climate change well in my experience it is it is the it is the hope that people should not undergo the same experiences that I had experienced in the past I do not want them to to experience the same you know having your own family in in in a matter of life and death so when I talk to the people in the communities I organize I am saying to them that imagine if your family and your loved ones are in a matter of life and death situation what would you do you do not have the power alone you do not have the power so this should be a matter of prevention rather than pure so it's like we should act together now now now because we still have time and we cannot just blame ourselves when there is no more time so until until we are not you know it's unless we are experiencing the impacts right now of course people are are you know just just you know they just go with your emotions but you know it's different when you're when you're the survivor we have to transform our grief our sadness we have to transform our our emotions right now into positive energy that can deliver changes that can deliver reforms and we can only do that if we are together we can only do that if we are organized because as an individual we can only let do a little in effect a little of change but if we are a community we can do so much it's like policies we can reform that's why I I I always believe that the people they have the numbers that's why the people the power always resides with us because we have the number thank you I don't know if I answered that correctly yeah no I think that's beautiful reminding us that that the the moment of hardship is a moment where people can feel so alone and so reminding people of the connection being being that connection to both a global community or just a neighbor that's what helps bring us together and so in those moments of loss and sadness it's a moment to say let's come together and so it's togetherness that gives us power and so that's what I hear you urging us onwards for and one last thing before you have to go is you've also then organized people to then use people power in order to make this kind of change and do you have any practices that you would advise for us that combination of both being an activist who's working on a structural issue and someone who's working on supporting people just right where they are in immediate needs do you have any tips about how to do both of those things next to each other well yeah um first we should not think of ourselves like a hero because there is no hero in primary change because this this problem is a collective problem so uh every every individual counts every action let us even it is like it counts so we have to remind we have to remind ourselves of that because there is no you know bigger bigger role but we have a role every one of us so uh we we should do this because this is our contribution to to to better the society to better the planet this is our share and we should not um I think um for me we should address the press recognize the present emotion the present need the the and if we respond to that as also as humanitarian actors we should we should consider our intervention like what kind of intervention are we you know uh doing is it is it for is it helping is it helping the communities that we are organizing or is it for the benefit of our program or for our mandate you know just to say that we have been we have been helping them so we should express factor also our interventions ask the name ask the realities of the people that we are organizing and that's how we can we you know we can move on because there's so much emotions that we need to share it we need to have some people who would listen to us and that's what people are needing during times of disaster or even after they need to talk they need to be listened at because these are the problem the people the the people in power usually doesn't listen doesn't know how are suffering that's why we should not we should not duplicate that that uh that situation we should be on the other way we should be the ally of our organ of our communities that we organize I think that's how I see it thank you Derek there's a lot of wisdom there and I appreciate the reminder uh none of us are heroes we're just part of a collective of a community and I think especially for those of us from from global north I'm looking at you Canada and users that for those of us from the global north how much that needs to be reminded again and again so um I'm just really appreciative of your sharing that way um so thank you Derek uh I think we we got your wisdom and thank you so much I'm glad that the tech holds and best of luck as you weather the weather thank you Derek um thank you thank you Daniel and thank you excellent excellent Derek um and so I want to turn it over next to Jennifer um uh who's coming from 350 Canada and so Jennifer uh has a presentation that's been crafted uh to talk about some of the work that they've been doing uh so I'm very excited to take it away Jennifer everyone my name is Jennifer and I'm a senior digital campaigner and organized server 350.org Canada I'm just going to take a moment to share my screen with you so I can get the presentation up can you see my screen okay yeah perfect okay so um yeah I um I'm really humbled um in honor to be sharing this space with all of you and my fellow presenters to reflect on how we organize after climate impacts um before I begin I do want to acknowledge the traditional and ancestral territories I'm presenting from in so-called Canada I'm calling from the unceded and ancestral territories of the Sioux Okanagan First Nation from so-called Okanagan British Columbia and before I begin I also want to yeah talk about the heaviness that's on my heart with yeah what's happening you know like Derek in the Philippines experiencing a typhoon while presenting the devastation that's unfolding in Pakistan and yeah as I'm presenting my uh sky like my view is covered in wildfire smoke because that's the normal for us here in British Columbia and across Canada is wildfires are very common and getting worse and more frequent in Canada so I just want to share that anxiety and that heaviness that we're all coming into in this space and so I appreciate all of you taking the time to hear from me today um and so yeah today I'll be presenting on one way that we organized after climate impacts and I want to emphasize that this is just one way that we organized because there's many ways we need to organize after climate impacts we have had organizing partners support and organize direct mutual aid relief and efforts after climate impacts we've had partners focus on adaptation supporting communities experiencing climate impacts and how we alleviate those impacts in the future and what I'll be speaking to today is one way that we organized which Derek and Daniel touched on a little bit earlier but how do we take people who have experienced a climate impact and kind of politicize them contextualize the current moment acknowledge what's happening and then yeah organize for change so let's dive in so I'm going to share my story with you this is probably one of the most severe climate impacts that I've experienced in Canada being in the global north I feel like we have been shielded from fossil fuel extraction driven climate impacts that the global south has experienced for decades and for years but last year in 2021 I was on maternity leave me and my husband run a small farm and so I was it was very common for me to be out in the field with my then eight month old son and husband farming planting our crops and it was kind of approaching summer and we always have a lot of fear and anxiety before we get into the summer because wildfires are becoming more common in our area and across Canada and that always impacts our livelihood my husband has really severe asthma so to be a farmer working out in this kind of smoke that we even have today is always really stressful and hard on his health and so yeah at the end of June we had one of the worst climate disasters in our in Canadian history which was the 2021 heat dome it was the deadliest weather event in our history and yeah I just remember working in this extreme heat we got what was the heat dome a heat wave of 40 plus degree temperatures for a sustained period of six to seven days so we were out in the in the field in these extreme temperatures because we like many workers were didn't have a choice but to be outdoors in these conditions despite you know our government saying be indoors stay safe it's not it's not that simple and so I remember being out in the field in this insane heat where I felt like it was in a I was in a pot of boiling water I'd never experienced anything like this it was difficult to breathe and I was away from my baby and the anxiety that that brought it kind of yeah it just brings me right back it was a really difficult time and so I think my story is just one of thousands of stories across Canada and my story had a happy ending in that I didn't lose anybody that I loved there are over 600 people that lost their lives during this this yeah tragic climate disaster so it's clear in this moment and in Canada and around the world that no community is safe from climate impacts anymore here in North America like I mentioned we've been shielded for so long from the devastation that fossil fuel billionaires and their political accomplices here in the north have caused to communities around the world and especially in the global south and every year climate impacts in Canada and the world are getting more frequent and severe and they're disproportionately impacting the global south and in this moment you know the the heat dome was a huge wake up call for many like I mentioned it was the deadliest weather related disaster in our history and wildfires and states of emergency are now just the new normal for summers here in Canada and flood and extreme storms are becoming more of a risk and becoming more frequent meanwhile our government here in Canada continues to sleepwalk critical climate action and delay their promises they can and they do this by continuing to hand out billions of dollars to the fossil fuel companies um delaying their climate promises uh like the just transition act which in Canada is this promise to put in critical supports for workers and communities as we prioritize and accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels to meet the scale and urgency of this crisis and it's also very clear that it's communities who are bearing the brunt of of our federal government continuing to pop up the fossil fuel industry in Canada so what does this moment mean for our movement so as a team we kind of got together and we identified that it's becoming clear that wildfires and heat are climate impacts that people especially in Canada feel the most and by that what we mean is people make the connection between a wildfire or heat event to climate change more than any impact we feel regularly in Canada and the the heat dome that I talked about was um one of the worst impacts to date in our history um and we know that these kinds of extreme heat and wildfire events will only continue to get worse and more frequent um and we knew that it was important to mark the anniversary one year anniversary of this heat dome this year and more importantly to hold our politicians accountable for climate disasters like this and that it's a direct result of them continuing to delay and deny the stakes of the crises we're facing and it also has become clear that impacts can be trigger moments or as Daniel said an opportunity to contextualize an impact a community has experienced and tie it to the climate crisis we've seen in the past with events like Hurricane Sandy and wildfires these can be moments if organizers respond in a timely sensitive and effective way on opportunity to build power and hold those accountable responsible um and so one of the ways that we responded to the heat dome and climate disasters that have followed since uh was just to allow people to share their personal stories um and uh mark the anniversary of the heat dome um and uh yeah one of the ways we did that was through a digital storytelling portal which i'm going to tell you a little bit more about um and the reason why stories are so important um is because it gives people a space and a place to share uh their experience to commemorate um talk about what's been lost and sort of build our community after climate impacts and this can be an important way to sort of move people to build and organize and see our power as a collective and also that change is needed and it is possible um and it's also an important moment to reflect you know especially with the heat dome and leading up to the anniversary um we were seeing the news and the media report this as statistics and numbers and lives lost but the devastation that follows the climate impact is more than just numbers it's people it's their lived realities it's collective experiences it's entire communities displaced so it's important to take a moment to reflect on on what's what's being lost because of the climate emergency to share a prayer to share intentions to connect and find ways to uplift and support direct mutual aid networks who are supporting communities directly and we know that stories can speak more to people and mobilize people than facts ever can uh everyone has the power to tell their story everyone has a story to share and stories to share of their community so stories have that ability to connect us to inspire us and to drive us to take action um so that was the reason why we decided that it was really critical in this moment leading up to this anniversary to allow people to just to share their stories and politicize them to action um so we we launched the living through climate delay our stories portal um and uh it was a way for people to kind of uh go beyond what the media and our politicians were seeing and just create a space for people to come together to take action um and to commemorate the lives lost due to worsening fire and heat seasons um so in June during the one-year anniversary of the heat dome that week we organized a day of action with partners and our communities uh where communities across Canada came together to commemorate the lives lost um a whole lot of politicians accountable directly for their delay in continuing to prop up the fossil fuel industry um and a lot of incredibly powerful and moving stories came out of this day of action um and then we launched the digital storytelling portal as a space for people across Canada to continue to share their stories and build that power and what it's like living through a climate disaster um so I wanted to share one of those many submissions that we got um this is a story from Jane who lost her sister in the 2021 heat dome um and was part of the Victoria action in British Columbia um so this was her first time ever speaking in front of a crowd and doing anything like this so I'm gonna share Jane's story with you all if tech is on my side here won't let me click it one second I promise it was working earlier my sister Tracy MacMillie and she passed away last year she's particularly vulnerable because she had schizophrenia and bipolar disorder there's very vulnerable people who we need to look out for right and help them and I spoke to her on the phone during the heat dome and she said she was coping she was okay and I should have gone there we need to run in the direction of doing something and making our governments represent the people and not represent corporations because their interest is not sometimes I don't know what to do this is my first public gathering it's like we need to do something be proactive and stop being complacent so we can sign petitions and we can take action we can meet with people we've got to do something yeah hearing Jane's story always makes me a little emotional um but yeah it was one of many powerful submissions that people shared during the day of action when this portal came active um and uh the portal not only uplifted these stories but it also highlighted the incredible mutual aid and organizing communities that have been directly impacted um what they were doing that are governments and those in power actually need to take leadership from communities made it clear that they aren't leading around while governments delay and deny the stakes of this crisis but they're they're acting they're they're they're moving they're mobilizing and they won't stop fighting and holding our elected leaders accountable to these worsening disasters and that they're directly responsible for um so people uh when they entered this portal could make those connections and find ways to directly support any mutual aid efforts for current climate impacts um and another way um that we sort of amplified those stories was connecting them to a wider audience um so uh we transformed some of the submissions of course all of this with permission from those who shared their stories on this portal uh into shareable content um we get wide reach on instagram reels and tiktok here for our organizing um and it's a community and a space where people are already showing sharing their stories and building community and this allowed the stories on the portal to get a lot more connection engagement and encouraged people to share their own story through the portal um and find ways to take action so i wanted to share this one story i'll just read it out loud really briefly um if folks don't know liton is one of the communities uh last year uh got uh really one of the worst wildfires um it was right after the heat don't worry had those like insane temperatures and the community just like burnt to the ground and so someone from that community shared their story uh so i'll quickly read it i lost my home in the liton fire of june 2021 both my current home and my childhood home before that i didn't really realize the urgency of climate change it always felt like a problem we'd be dealing with in a couple of decades 2021 really illustrated to me that climate change is here it's not a distant threat it is already affecting us um and yeah and so when people were sharing their stories they were also already politicizing themselves and saying that this isn't normal we can't accept this as our new normal and we need to hold those in power responsible so what were the key sort of learnings for us in doing this um storytelling portal and what the power of storytelling and action is after a climate impact so one of the lessons that we learned was that climate impacts do drive public attention to the climate emergency people may not know when um an election is happening or when a really critical climate summit is happening but they definitely notice from the world around them is on fire underwater experiencing a disaster so it's important to define that moment for people and give people a pathway to build the movement and to build collective action we're in an emergency so act like it it's not just our politicians who need to act like we're in an emergency when responding to climate disasters everything that we say that we do needs to scream this is an emergency we need to act this is not normal um so when putting this portal together and the day of action together everything we chose from the imagery to the content to um yeah the platforms be utilized to get people's stories communicated a sense of urgency a sense of justice um and yeah what Daniel spoke to earlier like contextualizing for people that disasters are because of the climate or because of climate change our politicians are accountable we need to take action lesson three for us was the best antidote to despair is action climate impacts can offer a powerful opening to humanize the crisis and mobilize the public we can be immensely impactful if we can find a way to treat these disasters as a mass movement building moment we saw this last year after the heat dome and the record-breaking wildfire season thousands of people came together to share their stories and organize the day of action and we saw it again this June when communities across canada came together to organize the one-year anniversary day of action for the 2021 heat dome to directly hold our politicians accountable for their delay on critical climate action and then telling their stories to make this message more clear and more loud um timeliness is everything so it's critical to act while the emotional weight of a moment people can still feel it and it's still resonating with them and a lot is we saw with these this digital storytelling portal a lot is possible in a short period of time when there's a clear time sensitive motive to act so you know from the day of action to watching this digital storytelling portal it was to it was right at the anniversary of the heat dome it was the an opportunity where people were looking for community a place to share their stories uh to to push for change to a way to take action and uh because of the timing like it happening in the peak of summer when climate disasters are kind of and wildfires are the worst in canada um a lot of people took action because they were looking for that space to take action and come together um and as a digital organizer i'm constantly thinking about engagement onions and engagement pyramids whatever you want to call it um but i think what i want to stress here is it's really important to offer a variety of pathways to people to engage build community and share their stories we met our base in our community where they were and we gave them various ways to engage um in this project and then escalate them further so um you know whether it was through seeing a story on social media from someone who are participating in this day of action we took every opportunity to engage them and move them to the next level um of yeah escalating their action uh and holding our politicians accountable for it and the last lesson i want to share with all of you um is personal stories we've learned need to be part of a bigger campaign to give people and show people a pathway for change um so uh when we started to think about this day of action and this digital storytelling portal we showed our base on a mobilize on a mobilization call when we were putting our plans together what our plan was and we presented a similar campaign arc or timeline for them uh we showed them what the pathway is for taking action in this moment how we can take action together in a way that escalates and builds our power um and the digital storytelling portal success was because it was one of many points in a campaign um working towards a larger mobilization for the solutions and the changes we need to see especially here in Canada in doing our fair share for tackling the climate crisis this allowed our base to connect the dots between the climate impacts that they were experiencing politicizing them uh holding to hold our politicians and fossil fuel billionaires accountable to what they experienced and showing um how winning bold transformative climate solutions is absolutely possible and achievable and here's the way that we can do it so with that i'll stop talking um and thank you for listening to me uh if i don't get to answer any questions because i know we have not too much time together you can always email me my email is on the screen and with that i'll stop sharing my screen thank you Jennifer um and so if people do have questions feel free to post them write them into the chat as well um a few pieces that i just wanted to track one i just really wanted to appreciate the style difference of presenters and i just it's so consistent with uh some of us have our presentations ready and some of us just share our story and i just really want to honor uh how how how we all share um but one question uh that i think um just hearing this and you're really thinking about how to uh let's use the word utilize how to utilize a climate impact in terms of bringing people absorbing them into the movement um and using that moment as a chance to bring people further in and uh i'm curious if you have um any particular examples of people who have sort of done that that journey of had an impact and then they get brought in and what do you do after the moment that is to say after the impact is you know that the wildfires are over after the moment the heat done was over after that that moment often a lot of the energy drifts away because people are are hyped for that moment they're in a reaction for that moment their adrenaline is running in that moment and then they have to go back to their lives and and so forth and so i'm just curious like what you've learned about sort of keeping people uh after that experience yeah that's a great question and i think it kind of goes back to um as a team and with our partners we always think about the strategic lot bigger picture of the kinds of change we need to win and showing people it's absolutely possible and so for example with this um sort of a day of action and this digital storytelling portal once people had an opportunity to share their story uh we made sure we stayed in touch with them whether that was through email through social media um and gave them another way to take action with an escalated way like sharing your story was really powerful there's an opportunity right now and here in canada there's this federal government consultation around emissions cap that's open um and it was a way to escalate their action like this is a really powerful opportunity to tell our federal leaders that they can't keep propping up the fossil fuel industry and so giving people opportunities to continue to take action in an escalated way um so uh yeah that's kind of how we do it is we tend to have the next thing lined up and it's usually part of a strategic bigger campaign to win solutions because at the end of it we're going to keep playing whack-a-mole with our federal government around approving fossil fuel projects and propping up the fossil fuel industry if we don't start to push for bold transformative solutions um and so one way that we did that with people who shared their stories was absorb them into our base and keep in communication with them about ways to continue to take action to hold our federal governments accountable no more delays we're watching we're not going to allow you to keep sidestepping as climate disasters get worse so i hear a number of pieces one of the things that i'm reminded of is a campaign lesson of always plan for two actions ahead uh so that you've got your the thing you're doing but then what's next that you're you're ready to prepare people for because after they finish an action many people's first question is so what's next and so then you can begin organizing them back in um and one other just question about the some of the mechanics of how you've been organizing since you're so thoughtful about that is um in like these quick moments it seems as though you've been doing a lot of your organizing digitally and that your digital organizer that's your that's your way of working and are you finding uh particular channels or particular ways that people are are organically finding each other uh during those moments yeah so it's very common for us when before we're going to launch any kind of big action whether it's a digital action or a day of action on the ground we host mobilizing calls so we get our base and anybody who follows us to jump on a call with us to hear our plans and there's people always in the chat in um conversations with us connecting the dots between what communities they live in what climate impacts they're right now dealing with and coming together and forming those communities on their own so the reason why actually the digital storytelling portal came up was because Jane was on that initial call where we were talking about what do we do this big moment is coming up or we're going to commemorate the heat dome and Jane just decided to share her story with a bunch of strangers and that kind of like catalyzed our plans and put a lot of pieces into place so it's just about creating the space for people to come together and talk and form those communities so um yeah we're always trying to create spaces for people whether it's online or offline um a lot of the stories that we put on the portal came from the day of action we knew people would be coming we knew people would be sharing their stories and commemorating so we made sure we just had the tools to capture those stories and give them a wider audience and there's just a question that just came through that that I think you might be helpful for as well which comes from Paul who's just asking about what do we do at people who are contemptuous of the climate movement the folks who just look at the problem and just laugh in our faces about it um and so Paul's just describing the neilism that they're encountering just is really disheartening to them so what do you do about that yeah I something like so for me as like a campaigner it kind of just comes back to just connecting with people where they are and the and the way that I find doing that is just through sharing my personal stories so maybe if I share about like you know like this pipeline project or this you know fossil fuel offshore drilling project is something we need to stop people might be like you know uh very like yeah uh unsure if I share my personal story that's not something people are gonna disagree with generally people are gonna want to connect and they're gonna want to hear and they're gonna want to hear um like this is not okay um and so I think just like getting to the heart of even what Derek was saying like sharing our story sharing our humanity sharing the the stakes of this crisis and that um yeah mobilizing and organizing is not this like untangible foreign distant thing it's something that we're communities are already doing when the climate impact happens is can you those exact communities that are on the front lines organizing and mobilizing supplies and supports and so um yeah this is one way that you can take action it's interesting one of the things that your presentation reminded me of uh we're on the an anniversary moment here in Philadelphia so those of you who are from Philly you may remember that a year ago uh 676 was flooded um and so we had a major flooding event and it was flooded sufficiently so the entire highway just you have a sense of the highway sort of runs underground for a period of time and the entire highway 12 feet high was fully uh just filled with water and so it's a place where we drive and suddenly it's it's completely underwater and so uh there's a group of people earthquake or action team who thought to themselves we don't have a whole campaign framework yet so we don't have what Jennifer had of an entire framework that we figured out but we can figure out one step that we can do and so what they did was they just hung a banner over uh over on 676 so that people could see uh what's the banner say it says the climate is changing why aren't you pico which was their target uh the energy utility company and so they pulled together just this very specific action uh that was a chance to highlight the injustice and and highlight and sort of mark the story and i think in some ways paul this is my experience which is for people who are deep into the climate denialism uh i don't find myself i don't find trying to talk them into out of a denial position is very easy uh because denialism is largely psychologically speaking a way to block out right it's it's like i don't want to hear it i don't want to get into it and so i'm not going to be able to like break someone down uh in that position but instead it's about trying to find some different markers different moments to notice uh this thing happened that's unusual this thing is not normal that thing that's extreme is not normal and to see which one of them they can connect with and then we can talk so finding a bunch of personal stories and seeing which one they might actually have some some ability to connect with and then working from that that spot but it's very hard to work it just in in that direct way um anything else from you jennifer that you want to offer uh before we uh move over to justin the no that was everything thank you so much everyone for yeah taking jennifer time out to listen to me today thank you jennifer there's a really it was really wonderful love it love it and so now we get to justin the so j as she's commonly known in 350 and um j i i just wanted to start just by saying can you just tell us just two things where you are right now where you're joining us from and just just introduce us of your sort of your position your work in the world um yeah hi everyone thanks daniel um i am calling salmon what wrong country which is uh west melbourne um in australia um but i am also a campaigner with the 350 pacific team um a newly campaigner most of my experiences come from an organizing background so sometimes i blur the two um naturally i guess um yeah is that was that enough to you yeah yeah yeah so um so the pacific is just marking right the this the broad story of the pacific islands uh has been one of resistance for quite a long time and the the phrase that has really been um the heartbeat of the pacific climate warriors is we are not drowning we are fighting which has been a position it's a it's a statement of of urgency um and so i want to invite you to share like share how you all have been navigating the different climate impacts and the relationships the web of community that you have been building over the last couple of years because you're conscious of seeing a impending crisis that every new typhoon creates a new uh journey with so bring us in um i'll do my best um yeah so i'm also yeah like when i hear it in crowds when we're like chanting it out like uh yeah i'm never used to like the impact that would have on me emotionally i'm always um one of the many that would just start crying when we're you know chanting out we are not drowning we are fighting and i think because it's just always like revealing new layers of how much that means to us where we are at in the world and in the situation that we're in um so yeah it's it's almost like a living motto with us and like we all have a very like grounded understanding that like it's not a new message it's something that our people have been saying for the longest time and um when we're given the opportunities to amplify that like like yes we will without a second thought um but i yeah listening to all the stories that we've heard so far like there's a lot of like similarities and um this week for me has also been like a really like special week and i didn't think i was going to talk about it but it kind of weaves in a lot of the things that i'm feeling so earlier this week we had a very special tour on like the traditional lands for the Gomorrah people which is in New South Wales it's a very popular region for coal mining and um i guess it was like this really i don't know new incentive to like before we launch a big campaign that affects the especially these people who are dealing with these problems let's go spend some time and just listen to all the stories of um activism that they've been putting up a fight for like many many years and so uh yeah it was really special to like be have that opportunity to like listen first hand from like the people who are experiencing the extraction of the fossil fuel industry and then for me to like also keep in mind like yes this is like the impacts that it's having for like the my people in the pacific and so like i'm constantly thinking when they're my organizing and campaigning hats like how am i what there's an opportunity here how can i connect that work especially with our pacific climate warriors network our diaspora teams is very like it's growing fast and so um always thinking of those opportunities but yeah so this tour was like a really gracious opportunity to listen to these stories specifically of resistance from the coal mining giant known as Whitehaven who have been operating on these lands for a long time it was like an overwhelming experience but it was also refreshing and i think it speaks to like we are in this moment of launching this new campaign um let's you know let's get their blessings of these people who have been doing this work for uh before us but hearing their stories i had this feeling of like like we're late to the party kind of vibe like um we know we're like the these people who have just come from the city we're going out onto like rural areas and hearing all this work and it's just like oh like you know um yeah what can we do you guys have done everything and are doing such an amazing job um and so like there was that feeling of um like hopelessness and despair and it took me back to like the first action that i ever took part in which was the canoe flotilla back in 2014 and it um is also like the beginning of the coal campaigning for Pacific climate warriors um where they used traditional canoes to blockade you know the world's largest coal export which is you know on the same region where this tour took place and so i was just having this like yeah all these things were happening in my mind like connecting this history and the stories um and trying to be present um as well and um where am i going with this i guess um yeah i like i'm also acknowledging like my experiences are very different from living outside of the pacific and so i always need to remind myself my role in this work is like amplifying and being in solidarity and i find my comfort of organizing is very rapid responsey um you know hearing that call to to cook to clean to report to mobilize to amplify like like something clicks in me to respond and and i know like yeah i just i guess i just work in that way and when i was at the tour after feeling that like lake to the party vibe um that started to click in and i was just like trying to see what can i do how can i bring my communities back to this region how can i support the work of the traditional owners and the indigenous folks who have been on this fire you know land rights is a very complex full of nuances especially when working with farmers who um have property on from settling on on those lands and so yeah i'm always looking for those opportunities so i like linking the history of the canoe flotilla feeling like learning about climate change for the first time and thinking feeling hopelessness and then like something would click in and i'd be inspired and i have no idea what i'm doing but like my i guess like my spirit is like guiding me to do the things that need to be done and that happened again this week at the listening tour um and so like yeah just wanted to like put that out there because it's a very raw thing that just happened earlier this week haven't fully processed it but i i know there's something there that i could offer to everyone that's here um i'm also acknowledging that there are different types of ways that um you know mobilizing in response to resistance and the whole um the elements of repairing can can take shape you know we have to adapt to these new normals uh and be more intentional of how it works building new spaces for our communities to connect and to learn virtually like we have been learning in the last couple like during the pandemic i guess has been very intense virtually um you know these moments inspired many firsts for our network in our pacific teams our pacific power-up trainings our fellowships yes it was a technical training but there was also this call to create space for healing and finding joy and purpose to like keep our communities connected um our first responders you know who are there on island to help with cleaning and repairs after um disasters whether they are clearly climate related or not um storytelling we've heard earlier that you know storytelling is very powerful you know it's our frontline truth so this gives people an opportunity to share their realities which is also a form of healing um and uh yeah it echoes both what Jennifer and Derek had talked about you know community and gatherings are so important because it's a powerful way to respond to hardship um and the feeling of being isolated and afraid you know leaning into the power of stories and storytelling um yeah one of the things one sorry one of the things that i i just i want to underline that you're offering is that in these moments uh there's different kinds of responses that come up inside of us some of us are Derek is a Derek is a classic organizer right her response was let's organize let's talk about people power and you also have another response inside of you which is let's let's figure out where to be where to where to be a helper um and i'm remembering uh mr rogers was asked uh i believe this was after 9 11 mr rogers was asked um what do you tell people in in awful situations when awful things happened and he said uh what do you tell a kid and he said you tell kids to look for the helpers wherever they whatever whatever no matter how bad situations are they're always helpers and they're always playing a role and so that's a role that you've played historically during some of these climate disasters that have happened again whether they were marked as a disaster related to climate or not but the increasing you know rate of of typhoons hurricanes and can you give us an example of uh like a story of when when when you have responded in that way and what that's look like on the ground because it looks really different um in your community than in some of our other communities and so i'd love to just for us to get a sense of the ways that folks um respond after both before during and after a crisis of that sort yeah um one story that one of my favorite ones which is a very short story um um yeah one of the tropical cyclones that took place in i think in fiji um and i think there was like a reporter that was trying to track like the realities of like people being you know in despair and feeling hopeless and but in the background you just had like a whole bunch of like people seeing songs and um finding joy while they were like cleaning um their their communities um but a more recent example is um i think this was under our rapid response work um but um it was like finding the structures that are already in our communities to support each other that they need and acknowledging that we're not an aid agency but um because of our proximity to our work around climate impacts our closeness to our communities that are called to respond and provide support after climate impacts and this was our team our warriors in tonga who mobilized after cyclone gita um which was like to clean and make sure the schools and the villages were safe um this structure that existed in response to that cyclone was the same structure that was used to mobilize in the aftermath of the volcano that happened um so earlier this year last year um to provide support and so um like that example really provided this opportunity of like launching the solar scholars work which i know we've been working before we get there can you describe the the structure what did that structure look like oh yeah the structure what was yeah because uh like yeah bring us into what that structure looks like yeah so um we have so i guess what made it helpful is we have a a team in tonga and our coordinator was in touch with us giving us updates on the situation that was at hand and the first thing that everybody needed was um you know access to clean water and you know um and and stapled food and so to do that we needed to do some fundraising so we were able to do a call out to our teams outside of tonga to do some fundraising while our teams in tonga were doing um mobilizing their communities by like creating teams to do cleanups teams to see which families uh you know needed what to do sort of like a need for a stock take and this went on for a couple months but that i think the the importance in the structure here was the ability to communicate um after that disaster a lot of the the phone lines were down Wi-Fi was not available and so for us to be able to um to provide funding so folks could get um access to Wi-Fi that opened up our the our ability to communicate and have a lot of the organizing offshore to take place. Got it and that leads naturally into the reason that you end up doing the scholars program so take us there. Yeah so the um it's very early stages but um i guess there was this need for solar scholars in the pacific because it was inspired by the aftermath of cyclone Gita and Tonga where people were huddled around our power points at churches to try and find power and and Wi-Fi to connect with family um so the whole idea of having like solar panel or tech packs it was to empower our communities with the tools and the resources that they need to build their own solar panel system after a disaster um and so as an organizer or as a campaigner we have this task to like redesign and contextualize this work um to want to bring it to life but also to make it accessible um but yeah that was the solar scholars piece and as i understand this solar projects are that emerged out of i guess the philippines it may have been the place but is that right and so they had created these things to be these generators after a crisis that people can have power immediately because again as we just saw with Derek people lose power that's one of the first things to go um and so it becomes a uh a resource and where did where did those solar like where do you imagine those things getting set up yeah so because of you know seeing the photos of um community huddled around churches and church religion is a very um a big element of pacific culture and so it felt fitting to like um picture these or plan for these panels to be built on churches as the symbol of like after a disaster people want to seek safety and and churches are you know one of the big places that all communities first think of to to sit together and so having a church and having providing them with that equipment to like power up their communities to get back online um yeah kind of created this really beautiful narrative of um yeah disaster response and the pacific and what that looks like and so so you've got you've got people like uh trained getting trained into using these and and figuring out the systems for that and so part of this is uh in this sense you all have an experience of dealing with climate impact over and over and over again so it's not that you always know what's coming but that you know some of the things to expect and to prepare for and so creating those systems and so it's so valuable for us to then think about what are some systems that we should learn if we're not in that situation but also what are some of the different psychological things that you have put in place what are some of the different ways that people hold themselves to not live in uh constant fear constant uh anxiety for what's coming next what are some of the the ways that that that's being built as well yeah i think well like the the solar scholars um project uh it was one of those ways of responding to what people were feeling it was like um feeling isolated and and having to wait for support and aid um but like we can give them these resources where they can be the the resource and aid for their communities themselves um the um how do i wear this i think it's definitely something a lot of us are working through at the moment you know coming back um being away from each other having so much of our capacity in rapid response and um yeah that um what do you call my gosh face-to-face interaction or in-person interaction and how how the pandemic used to call it meeting people seeing people um yeah like being apart and so now that you know we're able to do all these things we used to do back in the day we're planning you know for a new strategy and in the in the next few years uh whether you have been a part of this movement and you're like wanting to come back um i think community the importance of community and gatherings it's a space for like healing and sharing stories art um is also a very powerful tool i recently heard this quote where it was um oh my gosh testing my memory again why would i do this to myself um when culture is threatened art is art becomes a weapon um and so that's just like really it's sitting with me really really well this week and um yeah and stories and storytelling and i think these have been a great source of guidance for not any of this work but also to like uh respond to all the different things that people may be feeling and i'm just holding that space i think um you know september is usually a big month of mobilizations for us in the pacific but like we know a meeting out where our teams are at we know they're just not ready for that and so we're making that space to allow them to like yeah to do what they need to do to be to be able to to show up to this work and um yeah that's just been a like a new lesson for me as well this year and i tend to work at the pace of how the climate movement in australia works but also i'm tied connected to the work in the pacific and it's a completely different pace and it requires um you know different tools and different work so yeah i i appreciate in in the us at least in some of the groups that i've worked with we we talk a lot about mutual aid that's the phrase that we use um and i know that's that's gotten globalized in some strange ways but the the way that you're talking about people just people to people finding support and that one of the things that creates such anxiety amidst a climate impact moment is people not feeling like i know how to be helpful and so when we provide people a way to be useful a way to to offer something that that even if it even if it may not be it it's not going to solve the problem that's not what we're doing here we're not being heroes as derrick says but it's about being able to offer something so i hear you talking about that as a as a key component of what you all offer to support the psychology of people and then also continue that through after the moment has happened but but then building a weaving a community through music and song and and so forth during and after that event can you tell just other things that you have found other advice that you have for uh for those of us who who are experiencing climate impacts or will experience climate impacts as organizers that you've found important lessons for us to take bear in mind yeah i think the you mentioned it earlier you know we're not heroes or trying to be heroes um like we don't have the answers to everything and i think being transparent that this is a learning journey and um understanding that like being an organizer also means to be of service to your community and that for me completely flips like the way i need to show up in this work i'm serving my community not like um the climate movement or so to speak or like you know what's happening outside of this world but like looking more inwards into like the needs of our communities to be able to show up and um yeah stepping into the light to try all the things to like model the possibilities that this world can you know um provide i can offer you or like i think we hear a lot that there's not enough representation seen in this work so like i tend to just demonstrate yeah try all these things and i feel like it's worked really well with like our younger diaspora communities who have all these really wild and crazy and colorful ideas but you know they say they don't see enough of that in our work so it's like i'll create the platform let's see what you got and and it creates this like buzz and excitement and sort of this like you know the way you know the climate movement was for me when i first joined it was this really fun space of community who all had the shared purpose we were all on the same page we all want the same things and let's use all the tools to do the work and um yeah that's been uh something i always come back to thanks Jacinta anything else that you want to like other pieces that you want to share or present about about your work and and insights for us i feel like i've said so much i agree um not in that way the good way there's a there's a lot to digest so um i i just want to say thank you uh jay for for your sharing and jennifer and derrick as well and uh i think one of the things that that i'm holding uh as a as a attention point so just for me personally uh my my neighborhoods flooded twice in the last year uh and we've experienced we live right next to the river uh and so we've we've experienced some of this some of the flooding and and in that sense it gave us it wasn't disastrous uh as a moment but what it was was it was a wake-up call from many of our neighbors about something as a foot and it became a chance to i think do three things and i think this is often where we are around climate impact which is one just building the neighbor-to-neighbor community relations it became an opportunity where i could talk to all of our neighbors and say hey what did you experience and that became my connection point to them it became a chance for me to then think about how do i offer something specific to them so with one neighbor we canude from one house to the next to connect to them and so we just got back human human connection and the second that emerged fairly organically was uh building a community resilience response for for next time for for dealing with the moment in our case because it wasn't as severe it was working on trying to build a extend a little bit of our berm and and build some some uh some waterways to sort of move water around from from what we're going to expect in the future and so we've already begun doing that some of our neighbors have have bonded and we started building these concrete berms but surviving isn't just about those things and there's a third piece which is and i think each one of you has taken us into that um which is taking people in the moment and also beginning to move them to address the issue of the climate crisis itself because my neighbors if we just build a berm that doesn't help us on the whole on the globe and what we also need to do is we need to continue fighting the climate crisis and so what we're doing is this process of dealing with immediate neighbor to neighbor dealing with the crisis in front of us and then as we have the space and the attention beginning to build people build people and build systems so that people can organize mobilize do there is do more than just survive but also really go out and and fight the the fossil fuel industry that's creating this problem that's generating uh this crisis in the first place and so I just appreciate all of your stories connecting that um and so thank you to Jay thank you Jennifer thank you Derek um thank you to everyone for participating and and coming and joining uh this particular session so this is as far as we had imagined uh for where we were and I also heard uh Dawood who's in Pakistan right now at 4 a.m 5 a.m by 30 uh had said that they wanted to just share like a word or two um uh just about uh where they are so Dawood i'm just going to bring you on uh just to if you want to share just a few words about where things are um and we're not going to go too long um on this particular piece just because I know there's there's many things to cover but but if you want to just give you you express an interest to just give a few words so I'm hoping people can hold some attention for Dawood who's just in the middle of it so uh let's give the best attention that we can Dawood you there can you listen to me yes okay so uh thank you for giving me the opportunity to say a few words and uh thanks everyone for showing this solidarity with the people of Pakistan and uh what I would like to contribute is that I personally believe that most of the people including here in Pakistan do not understand the scale of the disaster that has happened right now so although Pakistan only contributes one percent of the greenhouse cases but the disaster that it's pressing in terms of droughts in terms of wildfires floods and even locusts are attacking parts of the country so the scale of the disaster that is currently going on is so huge that I'm afraid that the this may convert into a sort of crisis a health crisis a sort of food shortage crisis so I'm I'm very happy that the world community has come together to support but but the point is that the local governments need to be strengthened need to be aware that that those people who are unreachable by roads and those who are living in the rural areas are are reached and they are provided with the support that they need need because I'm highlighting this because the the the natural calamity is now exacerbated by the way the Pakistan government is responding the only hope that we have seen here in Pakistan is the is the local organizations and the individuals that are supporting on the ground this is so heartening I mean to see for me at least so I missed your question I'm sorry because when I joined as a panelist I could not listen to you for a moment then I I was cut off so I just wanted to say that the world should come together and pressurize at least the government of Pakistan why would say that because it needs a global response because the scale of the problem is such that I don't believe that it has happened ever in Pakistan it's unprecedented the gushing I mean the videos if you see the number of deaths that have been reported are very less but but the people who have seen the the situation on the ground who have traveled to some parts of the country are saying that that it is a huge problem in a country where there is 750 mortality rates I mean the health system is so poor that it cannot respond even to the usual needs of the population so how can it respond to to a malaria you know problem or to food food shortage problem or anything like diarrhea which is already prevalent the cold rise I mean having an outbreak in Pakistan so there are a lot of things I wish I had the time to talk about them but but me being a person related to public health and activism I have been listening to and receiving all the emails from 350 but but they say here in our part of the world that you will never talk about seed beds until and unless you meet an accident so now the people are now talking about how this climate change is affecting us how the entire buildings were even wiped out in such a huge manner that it was like I'm sorry to say like a Hollywood movie so most of the people most of the panelists and listeners in your conversation would not be aware about the scale of the disaster but the people here who have witnessed it and unfortunately the way the response has been it's not very heartening the only thing which is heartening I would repeat is the people's response the individual's response and the local small organizations and philanthropic foundations that are responding and I again thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk to you and and and everyone who expressed solidarity thank you so much thank you Dawood thank you so much for for sharing and and being up at this hour I do hope you get some sleep as well I mean this is this is the reality that we are indeed facing and so I so appreciate you speaking on behalf of your people and and where we are is a situation in which there's a lot of work to do there's a lot of work to do for all of us there's work to prep and prepare our local communities our local governments our national governments and our international relations for the the crisis that's ahead of us and the crisis that's happening right now and so my heart goes out to you Dawood and I I repeat I think the the emphasis of this call really is a reminder about building up these systems I started this call by asking everybody to breathe and I just want to invite us to do that again that's that's one thing that we have as as humanity which is our breath together and so I just want to invite us together to take a collective breath just to again get your feet on the ground and let's just take three breaths together and as we do that just hold as much as you can in your heart thank you everyone thank you panelists thank you tech thank you dawood thank you all the people who attended thank you everyone thank all the people who are watching again on the recording we'll send that out to you afterwards thank you everyone who's watching live as well really appreciate everybody coming we will send out the recording to everyone on your email Katie's going to paste a link if you want a certificate for attendance or also to give an evaluation form and again thank you everyone so much I hope you have a great evening morning afternoon much love much blessings much power all love