 Hello everyone, my name is Jim Bandel and I'm hosting you for this deep adaptation Q&A with Scott Williams today. And it's really, I'm really pleased that Scott's joining us because he is a scientist really, really in looking at hazards, risks and so on at a really deep level and a cutting edge level with the UN system. He's a consultant and has worked for over a decade now with the UN Disaster Risk Reduction Agency on what became the UNDRR and working as a contributing lead author to the report that they do, which summarizes the state of knowledge on risks to humanity and what to do about them. So he's joining us from Switzerland where he's lived for eight years. Scott, thank you for joining. Thank you very much, Jim. And yeah, great to see what we have 16, 17 people now. Hello, wherever you are in the world. So first up, it's a bit like an alphabet soup to the UN system. And although I worked with the UN as a consultant for over 10 years, there was a new acronym. So I was wondering if you could also just help people understand what is the UNDRR? Why does it exist? What does it exist to do? Yes, alphabet soup is an alphabet jungle. It's a bit of a mess. And actually, this agency is probably more of a mess than many of the others because it was actually established in the end of the 1990s, at the end of what was called the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, which was a good idea back at the end of the 80s after a series of large scale catastrophic disasters that happened in many parts of the world. Initially, it was set up as something called UNISDR because the world's governments agreed on this idea of an international strategy for disaster reduction, maybe it'd be a good idea if we had a strategy. We weren't so ad hoc about the way we were approaching the challenges of an increasing profile of risk around the world. And so it was called UNISDR, even though it was set up as the UN Office of Disaster Risk Reduction. This is all a bit tedious and boring, yes. But it's actually created challenges in terms of people understanding how does the UN manage risk? Is there an office that deals with this? Or is it throughout everything? Because all of the different parts of the UN, whether it's the Food and Agricultural Office, FAO, or World Food Program, doesn't matter. They have, they're obviously all managing different types of risks. But this is a specific body, which is a secretariat body, which has the specific responsibility to report back to countries of the world and to everybody, all humans, on the general state of risk, or the understanding, what's called the global assessment of risk. But it's also the agency which is responsible for being the custodian, as they call it, the person, the organization that has to manage the way the world is implementing the intergovernmental agreements, these big agreements that happen every five or 10 or 15 years. And the first of these was called the Hyogo framework back in 2005. Before that, there were a number of countries that were starting to take risk seriously. But actually, after the signing of the Hyogo framework, we had about 160, 870 countries who had signed on and said, we're going to do something about risk. Why is that? Because the boxing dates tsunami, the 26 December 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean, which killed more than 300,000 people and literally caused ripple effects across the planet, got people's attention as often happens. Big events, all of a sudden politicians are, oh, what are we going to do about this investors? What are we going to do about this? Businesses are, this is having an impact. And it got raised up the profile of risk at that time still considered natural disaster risk was elevated quite significantly for a short period of time. Unfortunately, the focus at that time was still around natural disasters. It was still around these sort of acts of God, these cyclones would come in and level cities, these earthquakes that would impact cities. Oh, how terrible. And yes, they are terrible. Dialing forward to 2015, after the first 10 years of this intergovernmental agreement, and it was only a 10 year agreement. Something called the Sendai framework was then agreed, which is a 15 year agreement, which sort of lines up with what some people on this call may know about the Paris agreement and the sustainable development goals to be this sort of somewhat integrated approach to how we move forward with something which was called risk informed sustainable development. So that's how we get to now having the UN Office of Disaster Risk Reduction in 2022, about to launch whatever it is the fifth or the sixth version of this report, this big fat report, global assessment report, that's the 2019 version. They do it every two or three years. And then we're going to move Gary, that looks that looks like a disaster in itself that long. Oh, it's a wonderful read. Oh, who hasn't read this, this is Harry Potter forget that this is gold. No, I don't think anyone in the world's read this whole thing. Have you have you. Yes, yes, I have. For better or worse, and going to sleep with it many a night. But during that period actually there has been there has been a shift in terms of an understanding that what people were doing in terms of what I would call thingifying risk, modeling risk. And every time you try and model risk within a complex living system, you necessarily cut out lots of stuff to be able to come up with a number. The one in 200 year probability of a flood in Vienna or whatever it might be. But, but that is necessarily reducing lots and lots of complexity which is constantly and dynamically shifting. And so there has been a shift which I've been part of over the last decade with a number of people trying to bring in this notion that risk is not a thing. It's part of a process. Let's think of it more in the context of a verb that actually what we do as humans, how we choose to build things, what we choose to study, what we choose to model, how we choose to invest in things, how we choose to make policy. Actually, they are the drivers that actually then impact on natural processes, atmospheric processes, oceanic processes, even tectonic processes, which then create more hazards. But it's us creating the vulnerability by choosing to live in silly places and to live in those places in silly ways. Very few places in the world have actually come to terms with and built and created their societies in a way which is compatible in any way with the sorts of risks which they're exposed to. And so there has been a move towards, okay, can we get away from just trying to model things and have these perfect answers, which were never perfect answers, but people believed in them because they wanted the certainty to actually, can we be in sort of a mutual non knowing uncertain space where we can bring many different perspectives, not just the the science, the perspectives the more mathematical perspectives the Newtonian physics perspectives, but actually some of the more the indigenous ways of knowing the relational ways of knowing, and being more in an understanding of the unknowableness of the dynamic nature of living living systems. And can we think about how we could bring them together to have a better understanding, not an understanding but a better understanding and that's the work that I'm doing with you at the moment. So I'm aware of for example the limitations of scientific methods in the climate field for how then climatologists can conclude about the hazard and the risk and the timing. And then we're beginning to see some climatologists talk about cascading effects as well so that that how all manner of different tipping points might cascade into each other. And they're beginning to really recognize also how talking about uncertainty and the modeling doesn't mean, oh it's uncertain and therefore chill out everyone. And so it sounds like that's the same in a much broader range of risk areas and climate so we're talking like food we're talking like, well, could you just give us an example of, of, give us one tangible example away from climate where what you're talking about really matters. I think you I think you're touching on a pretty important point actually which is this absurd compartmentalization and separation of realities, which are not, which are interdependent in every possible sense of the word. The climate folks not talking to the disaster risk folks not talking to the sustainable development folks not talking to the water folks not talking to the equality. And unfortunately, the SDGs have actually enshrined and doubled down on that separation 17 pretty boxes SDG one that's what I do I do SDG seven oh I'm a climate person I'm a risk person. What are you talking about. We're human beings, but we're humans as part of life. And this ability, which has really developed since you know the enlightenment period but actually goes all the way back to Plato's understanding of the separation of mind and body. That we can categorize things and say we can understand this in this way and this in this way and pretend that underneath that and what I call that is that's managing the trees. So it's trying to manage the trees make sure that the trees are okay without actually nourishing the soils without actually understanding that underneath the trees underneath the manifestations of climate risk or the manifestations of the reduction in soil food system context, or the issues with global supply chain disruptions as a result of X number of things, but actually underneath that is is a set of system conditions, which give rise to a heightened probability and possibility of all of these things manifesting themselves. But actually underneath that is it is a layer which is even more important I think which is at the level of the metaphors that we use. And that's the then habituated in the way that we then think about, and are even able to perceive the interdependencies of all of these different aspects that you're talking about. And when I'm talking about the metaphors it's the metaphor of being able to solve and fix and control and dominate that nature is some sort of a machine, as opposed to my silly or more ecological approach to understanding that you can't fix you can't fix a forest. You can fix trees, you can plant trees, but you can't actually fix a forest, or you can do is nourish into it. And that notion of uncertainty is taking on board that there are aspects of all of those connections that you are part of that you can never fully understand and being humble enough and holding that confusion to say, but actually with enough perspectives from enough different places in conversation, learning together, you can actually get a better understanding. There's a fear that that better understanding would lead us in the direction of our serious embarrassment and cringe factor that, oh, we might have set things up a little wrong. This whole economic system thing, this whole living very concentrated urban spaces, maybe wondering that's creating the risk. I'm wondering as I listen to you. How many people within the disaster risk reduction field, let alone within the UN disaster risk reduction agency. Think that what we need to do is understand about the entirety of the way that we are the way we relate to each other and nature and the, the, the risk that we create through just the ways we're choosing to live and the systems we're choosing to build. How many people think like that or how many people are just looking at that massive report that you've done and think, great, I now know how to better dominate the planet to really reduce risk. I mean, how unusual is your more holistic integrated way of thinking about this. Oh, well, when I started on this journey I had here so that probably gives you an indication of how challenging this decade. There's a lot of factors at play as well but no. There's not many people. There's very few. Not that there's very few who actually hold these on this broader more holistic understanding a trans contextual understanding a multi perspective a multi epistemic perspective there's many, many people I'm really interested in how you got to that point but I'm going to just leave it at that moment, because therefore, knowing what you know from the best in the mainstream forms of modeling and all the different areas you've mentioned, and also knowing the limits that that has revealing the reality where we're at. How bad is it for us right now. How bad. I think I think it's worse than really anybody I've ever met can imagine. I would say. I think the perspective that I bring in and in saying that there's lots of people who understand have have a broader understanding and indigenous knowledge keepers that I work with in particular have a very good understanding of the holistic and relational way of being with a lot. The UN spaces in the intergovernmental spaces in the investment spaces and I worked in corporates and investment space for over 20 years. This this metaphor at the very fundamental level of your existence you're being on this planet is is shifted at such an early age, about the age of four or five when you go into the conventional educational system. This education what I am saying is there is a process in that educational system, which forces you to categorize things and get assessed on how you know those categories and different parts of those categories. That then is then double down on in terms of the financial remuneration you get at being better than other people and being able to categorize and compartmentalize and be able to know those categories and compartmentalizing is better than other people. That is where the power in the system sits at the moment, not in those who are displaying their full humanity, their deep complexity of understanding that they don't understand anywhere near what they thought they understood yesterday last year the day before releasing oneself from the notion of being an expert of being someone who knows what's going on. If you do that, it does lead to an existential crisis. I've been through that process. It, it led me into institutionalization briefly and and mental breakdown territory and requiring a lot of care and support to be rebuilt. Many people don't want to go through that they glimpse it what we're talking about, because you can't not if you're in Istanbul last week, and it's snowed 60 centimetres, and the whole city like, hmm, let me think let me talk about grandfather and see if this has ever happened of course it has never happened. These things that people are experiencing and observing, but being able to hold that dissonance pays well. Being able to hold the integrity of the observations and your behaviors does not and is not rewarded, and it is seen as antagonistic and not welcome in many spaces. It doesn't mean that it shouldn't be there and it's what I try to desperately do and it is heartbreaking most days of my work within the UN system. Having said that, there is a lot of really good human beings, beautiful human beings who have been habitualized into a way of understanding and being told this is how we fix things we get money. We form a project we shove it on a community. Hey presto they're happy. No. Did we understand the relationships? No, we didn't. I just want to understand a bit more about what you're touching on there, but I'm sorry for the just got a building site that started a few hours ago next door. I think what you're saying is that your knowledge of risk of all kinds basically arising from the way that we live when I say we well modern societies live on this planet is the way we're destroying so much right now and we've got so much shit coming towards us very soon. And it's incredibly troubling to witness that and understand it but it's also incredibly difficult when that also then sort of almost issues a judgment on the way one has learned to be in this world and make sense of it and progress as well to be successful and end up having a good career and doing the kind of work you do. And then also this awful kind of it's a weird loneliness of like, can't you see everyone like wake up. So is it is it those things together which which crushed you somewhat. And also you value, because it sounds like it's massively transformative it sounds like you identifying that processes, how you ended up arriving at your sort of more holistic world view now. Is that what I've heard you say or is there something else. I, the, I think that the the tonality of what you said, absolutely. I can't remember all of what you said it was beautiful. Jim, but yeah, I certainly, you know, 10 years ago, I was in the shouty listen to me, I know that this is all wrong. I'm judging you give me a keynote speech get me up on a platform. Let me lead a team. I'm going to take us in the right direction. And I did genuinely I think at the time feel that I was perceiving and seeing things from the perspective of being within deep within that system that as I call it the sociopathic systemic arbitrage system that is designed as you said it's an economic system which is designed to destroy life. That is what it is designed to do. If you can objectify and commoditize life, you can get people to pay for it. You can make money you can be powerful in our system is deliberately designed to and I could see that. But the context in which I lived and the abductive process that I was actually able to live I was still surrounded by walls of offices and surrounded by people who are very, very sure and certain of themselves which helped me to feel comfortable being sure and certain of myself. In the last few years I've spent more of my time as much of my time as possible every day at least in a forest environment in a in the mountains I'm lucky enough to be in Switzerland have access to these infinitely complex but also infinitely generous spaces and generous in terms of a spiritual sense. It's like a logical sense of physical in all ways. And so instead of being that shouty guy who's you know up on the platform going look at me look at me I've got all the answers just give me some money I'll fix the world which certainly was the way that when I look back at that cringe. I didn't, I didn't know any better I'd been schooled that that is the way that you can change the world. You know lead from the front and all about. And now, recognizing that my context of shifted so much that I am more in relationship with the, the, the generosity and that sense of reciprocity which exists in natural while spaces that I can. It has changed me embodied within me to then be able to carry that into spaces and hold this sense of stochastic generosity is what I call it for want of a better word. I'm trying to be kind and generous. At all times, even when people are being abusive, even when people are being destructive and judgmental, just playing into those spaces with a sense of, I love and care for you, and I accept your love and care. I do bring all of this experience and knowledge which may be useful in our conversation, but at a human to human level. And we just get beneath our egos beneath all those constructs and talk about where we feel vulnerable where we feel scared and and what we not not me and me but what we can do about this and helping people to try to find their way into a space where it's okay not to know just to be your own mute. Jim, I think. Sorry, I'm fascinated there and how you've talked about immersion in nature by choice with mountain running, I believe, and, and how that helps somehow do something to you you talk about it being spiritually nourishing in a way that affects then how you show up at work. In a context, or even worse, you know, than a decade ago, and that I'm wondering is it, is there a flavor of surrender and of cherishing. Like, it's, it's not okay you're all objects of my agency. It's now. Wow, we're in such a mess, and I don't know quite how what we're going to do and how make sense of this and do something good so. Hi, I'm Scott who are you let's let's let's try as you say drop the egos and start from there is that is that um, is that what I've heard and my next question is, are other people in your line of work, getting to that point of some sense of surrender. Are you cherishing being alive and just cherishing being able to try. Yeah. I hold this word spaciousness, pretty, pretty closely to me you know, why did I come up with spaciousness is a word that that sort of resonates with me. Because of this sense of the enclosure. You know, there was obviously in your, your British by background, I think we're born at least in, or live some of your life there I mean the enclosures of land that happened during the sort of you know 1516 centuries and beyond were part of the enclosure, and the separate separation, but there was also the enclosure of cognition, and the enclosure of of imagination. And I think what time in wild spaces has helped me to re re be in is is this sense of spaciousness, which allows for that curiosity. Within that spaciousness that everybody is able to be in relationship in a way which is, which is can be more it can be more playful. I believe that this is really important I believe it. Excellent. Let's, let's play with that instead of I believe it's really important therefore this is right. I believe this is this is definitely right. And to move away from that sort of very clear clarity and pop and polarizing language which is so tormenting our world with covered for one thing but but it has been for many years with climate and other issues that a spaciousness to be able to play with where the edges of those polarizing views are. Yes, so, so one of the things I'm playing within in the UN is this idea of being curious, and it sounds childish, a bit and play and a bit silly in the context of all of these intergovernmental agreements and all this stuff and billions of dollars and but actually, it's one of the most powerful intrinsic internal motivators for human beings to be where we've got to today, but also to where we might need to get to tomorrow. Being more curious can help stimulate the imagination. If we can imagine a different way of being in relationship with each other which is not transactional. You know, I'm not here today, Jim, to bump up the likes on your channel I'm not here today because you're paying me I'm not. I'm just here today because I just love being in in a space of open exchange where I don't know where it's going to go with other people. Being able to hold that in a space which is very transactional. So the UN system is still very transactional quite as much as the financial system, but actually it's an intermediary of the financial system to the perpetuation of sort of systemic colonial So it has those transactional characteristics I'll do something for you, you'll do something for me. When you're in a forest, when you're in a wild space that sense disappears there's no transaction unless you got chains are on your hand and then yeah there's a transactional thing going on. But if you just walk into a forest if you just sit in a wild space. There is so many relationships so many things going on that there isn't expanding that is possible. And a releasing is, I know there's some certain about this. Well, maybe I'm not as certain as I thought I can bring that back in to those more certain spaces to help people to play with a little bit more. So we may have, we may have questions because the way you're talking to me is very resonant with with a lot of the, what people do in the deep adaptation field and the way and the way we talk about being okay with not knowing being really relishing the curiosity and and surprises and simply with the starting point of no longer believing that we can reform the current system to avoid catastrophe. And that it's going to be really bumpy and really difficult but it's going to stay positive, creative, rather than just dig a bunker. It's trying to be more positive and creative in response to that view the current situation and the future. There's a number of ways we could go now with the conversation, because also we talked about in terms of what could be the women we invited people to the conversation. What could be the role of an intergovernmental system to help somehow cope with societal breakdown and collapse if there's such a nice possibility. So I don't want to ask you about that, but first, I want to just say for the people who are joining us on this call. Send your questions for Scott to Stuart. So rather than put them in the chat box send them directly to Stuart it says Stuart questions to Stuart please if you see that and then and then we'll come to you. But before we do that. Yeah, I just want to because we made when we get questions from people we may go the governance level we may go into personal consciousness all sorts nature immersion. Let's see what people want to ask but before we do that. You still work with the UN system, you still struggle to produce reports like that that you showed us. I guess there is some faith in you or some hope in you, or some certainty in you that the intergovernmental sector can do something to somehow slow or soften the breakdown of modern industrial societies, or somehow plant something that might help. After that collapse, or there's another motivation in you. I think it's just as simple as as being present in those spaces where a shift in perception could be the action that changes everything. And what I mean by that is, you know, showing up in a way where I am, where I am less certain, because I am less certain. That report that I'm party, you know, I'm one of the contributing authors for next year. I wanted to write my chapter in poetry. And you should have seen the looks on the editorial faces and the expert group as we can't. No, no, no, no, no, it's an intergovernmental report. They must really respect your work for you to still be in post after having suggested poetry. Yes. Yeah, and this is the strange thing that, you know, I think maybe less people in the conventional spaces respect me. But actually, more people are interested in this notion of being curious in a space where you're not really allowed to this is the format this is how it has to be. Can't we just do some pictures and stuff and some poetry. We've got to hold the complexity in a different way and the pros is just flattening and it's a demented left right linearity. And actually what I'm speaking to here doesn't work well in pros, really at all. So a couple of poems were put in to the to the chapter but they've been excised and put onto the editorial cutting floor not surprisingly. Do I have an ulterior motive. No, I think ever since we started talking gem. The reason why we did start talking is because I'm very confident that the extinction of our species is is is in any sort of meaningful way pretty pretty soon. And we can walk towards that in a way which is increasingly violent and increasingly polarizing and increasingly destructive, which appears to be the way that certainly those in positions of power and influence are increasingly deciding to go. Or we can sort of take a little bit of a scribble out of the book of some of those so called blue zone places and regenerative and reverberative and generous communities and out of the knowledge, the oral knowledge and wisdom of indigenous communities, and maybe a bit more music and dance and play as ways to explore into complexity in a way which removes both the burden which many people feel of being an expert of being the one who knows, knowing that they definitely don't know, which maybe is at the heart of much of the, a lot of the mental health issues that many people in countries where you would say they have what they need to be able to exist are feeling this burden. So my ulterior motivation if it's anything is that we can just be more playful and enjoy being with each other more as we face increasingly grim. Breakdowns the atmospheric oceanic system has now broken down the Arctic Ocean melting at the rate it's melting. It's destroying the physics of the northern hemisphere which impacts obviously on the southern hemisphere. The stability of seasonality is at risk now it's starting to break down that ends the food system at anywhere near the scale we're talking about little and transport systems energy systems and all of those fixed built systems that we have. So when that happens. Do we start fighting each other. Do we go into grim, as you said, bunkerization of everything put the walls up, keep trying to keep people out, or do we open our arms and say my house is your house my food is your food. My song is your song my story is your story. Do do we and and I think any, any chance, any chance I can have no matter what abuse that I suffer and how many times I get told get out of the room shut up when I will keep trying to go back into those spaces. As well as playing in spaces where I'm feeling that love and that generosity and that curiosity. Partly that's in forests. Partly that's in in warm conversations like da holds. But but also going back and forward and shuttling back and forward, getting drained and overwhelmed and heartbroken, going back and replenishing myself, going back in, because every time that one person has a shift in perception. The world of possibilities opens that wasn't there previously, and that might be in those possibilities that we can step forward over these very difficult few years. I just realized I'm feeling very greedy and I just want to keep talking to you, but I also know that we, we've got other questions. But just before we go to Rebecca for a question, two things that I really want to hear. I've never heard someone talk about reverberative, particularly after talking about regenerative. Could you just say something about that but also I think I'm hearing a call for and a commitment for and a truth of kindness in that so governing collapse any contribution from any person in the international system that any system can make is well how can I, how can I notice the way that I'm responding first and other people to increasing vulnerability and disaster and worrying news. How can I, how can I respond as kindly and curiously and playfully that's something else you said, that's possible. I've never heard a sense of ultimate surrender in you that whether it you're certain or you consider it very likely that the human is extinction is on the horizon and not in a million years, much sooner than that. So, any, yeah, any comments and then we're going to Rebecca. Human extinction and our sort of current configuration I guess, you know, I certainly hold that I'm 14 billion odd years old I'm just bunches of stardust mashed together in a different form which allows me to be on this device in conversation with you but I'm not going anywhere I'll just be recomposed into some other form somewhere on this planet and maybe somewhere off this planet who knows but it's just matter and energy and just happened to have this beautiful chance to be able to be in a discussion in this way right now. I think that perspective helps as well. The hundred years is actually not my, my, my life it's just my current configuration. In terms of the governing of collapse and the sense of surrender that probably links to that. It's both a surrender but it's also a an open arm welcoming of the end of an economic system which is based on objective objectification exploitation cruelty domination and control. So I'm super happy and hoping that we can accelerate out of that as fast as possible, because there are other ways of being, which are more reverberative to that word which is a word that I think Ian McGillchrist, maybe was one of the first who wrote about that in the master series but I think it probably goes back a long way before that this notion of a multi directional the way our brain works, the way, the way indigenous cultures actually held their relationships with all life reverberate both generous, but it's also reciprocal. So there's a reciprocity and a generosity going on simultaneously. Because everything is obviously in relationship with everything. At all times, I'm playing with this idea within that, that idea of trying to bring people into possibly a different way of perceiving their world and maybe having more recognition of the constraints from the context which they've grown up in and existed in their cultural their linguistic their family their educational, which have actually reduced the choices that they can make. But actually holding at that level, it eliminates the possibility of judging a person for making bad decisions. Someone like a Boris Johnson, someone say he makes a lot of bad decisions. But actually if you think about the context in which he has got to his 50 odd years old. How could it be almost any other without having people within his space saying, hang on buddy, hang on. That's not a kind and caring way to be being constantly reinforced that that's a great way to be up and onwards buddy. So actually just making the choice to be kind and carry caring, whenever you can in any space, regardless and knowing that there will be a reciprocity there. Not looking for it not seeking it and certainly not seeing any attribution of change in a system. I'm not trying to change anything. But I know that if you are in as a forest is it constantly generously flowing resources the resources and the currency of a forest is the water. It's the it's the exchanges be of nutrients between fungal and like fungi and lichen and the roots of trees and the leaves and birds and the and everything. Those currencies are so much more important than artificial currencies which actually work to destroy those currencies. So I'm playing with this idea of and it's a long term but I hit for short hetero phenomenological intergenerational polycultural and playful governance. So it has to be playful cool. It has to be intergenerational we've got to be able to bring the wisdom of elders together with the the freedom and the immediacy and wonder of young of younger people. But we've also got to do that in a way which is not auto phenomenological I maintaining that narrative story which is always wrong my story is wrong. Because I will continue to self correct and defend my ego until I die. And so will the Saudi Arabian government. So will you know the French Ministry of Health. So will whoever I like the I like what you've mapped out there and I'm just wondering how you convey that in the playful way maybe write a heavy metal rock song and play it at the next UNDRR summit maybe that will be the way to go. Together at the end of last year and circulated around and that's cool. Yes, I'm going to go to Rebecca now. Let's go to Rebecca now your question please for Scott also say you know where you're from and stuff. Thanks. Hi there thanks for organizing this my name is Rebecca Gibbs and I've worked a lot strategically on climate change but I now work practically and I help convene the caveants round table. And I'd like to ask about what I would call the interstitial space and by that I mean the space between mutual aid and large strategic organizations. It seems to me, and in some ways you're referring to this Scott that this is the space where quite a lot is going to need to happen because the strategic organizations are not up to it or not sufficiently aware that my experience of mutual aid has been that it also won't be able to hold the whole enormity of what we are facing. And so I'm interested in that because there's there's not a massive amount of awareness in that space or resources or preparedness and so I'm kind of thoughtful about whether you agree that that space is where things need to happen and whether you have thoughts about what we do about it. Thank you. Oh, I love it Rebecca. Yes. Yeah. So, I do think and I do try to tell or offer to people in the UN into governmental spaces to just read, you know, some of Kropotkin's essays from the 1890s some of you may know the work of Peter Kropotkin that he basically wrote a series of wonderful essays refuting this sort of industrial competitive mindset interpretation of Darwin's theory of evolution and said, no, it's it. That's not how that's not what he was saying, and that's not how evolution happens that's not how the adaptation of life happens in the context of the environments in which it's in. He wrote beautifully about the importance of mutual aid. And I think, unfortunately, the sort of the separation narrative the industrial the competitive mindset narrative which is then fed into and I would argue corrupted the UN system, which is so far away from the initial writings of the UN charter of the mid 1940s that that notion of mutual aid is completely dwarfed by by the perpetuation of systemic racism systemic colonialism, white savior expert dominant mindset. The community groups on the ground the practical implementers on the ground are actually necessarily involved in that messy relationing of all of the different parts of life that banging together of cultures of different communities of different ways of knowing, which that separation up at that strategic level, and I talk about the insulation from consequences, just the continuation to be able to do things and say but it's not working it's getting worse, but we keep doing the right thing. But, but maybe you're not but no we are because we've always done it this way so it's definitely the right way. We're the clever ones, we're helping them, even the rhetoric of developed countries and developing countries. I mean, that that is still being spoken about the very least let's call them recovering countries from the decimation of what happened in those places, but actually, we're all just human beings with different pigmentation because of where I think the ancestors happen to me. And so that interstitial or the even the liminal space that does it very much exists, and it is where I am playing and this notion I have a sort of intergenerational and polycultural and playful ways of being. I think is a way that I'm currently trying to think about how maybe knitting some of that together. Thank you, Rebecca. Yeah, Kevin's asked me to ask his question for him. So I'll just do that now. So Kevin asks Kevin Guyan who's from Canada and where it's 4am or something. How can transitional governance concepts be introduced into the UN system. Things like pre colonial democratic processes so indigenous consensus systems or Greek era citizens assemblies and a word I haven't heard before, neighborocracy. How can such things be introduced to the UN system to help with adaptation to the difficult era where we're entering. Neighborocracy instead of chumocracy would be that'd be a nice start is a bit too much chumocracy going on in certain places in the world. And that is what I and and others are trying to do to connect to connected the the two levels which I believe are the only two levels that sort of matter for life on this planet. One is it as I think as a record was saying, at the individual and the community and the in place that actually that's reality from your microbiome to use an individual to the place that you live. Eat, exist, sleep. And then the only other level that matters is the planetary system level, because that is that is a defined living system boundary arguably in constant interaction with the rest of the universe but that level does make some sense. Everything in between is nonsense. And, you know, I've got this sort of metaphorical eraser which I just like to play with that rub all those stupid lines off our beautiful world that were created only over the last few hundred years and most of them only in the last sort of 50 or 60 years. If we can actually conceptualize at a planetary level we're all actually in this together in an interdependent way, but we all actually are also in place, and we're very much reliant on and in relationship with being able to have governance at at really just those two things that we're moving into indigenous ways of being in relationship in an extended sort of family way your human interactions but also your brotherly and sisterly and cousin relationships with the rivers and the mountains and the soil and the birds and the and the turtles and and the dolphins and the But also being able to have that zoom in zoom out to because of and as you started I think Jim talking about our ability to apply scientific understanding scientific method to be able to understand those system processes which are way beyond that We have lived specific reality that each of us has with all of our specific particular complexities and relationships, but honoring both simultaneously. And I think it was Daniel Christian vile. I think he first came up with the idea of panicky, this sort of panicist logic that that looping connections between an interdependencies all the way from your micro biome and the subatomic up to the global system and the universe. It's always connected and it's just the speed and the magnitude of the flows between that sort of determine the stability of the environmental context in which you exist. If you mess with those environmental contexts. You mess with you because it's always interrelated and much of that wisdom that pre pre Plato wisdom pre Greek citizens assemblies actually back into the Heraclitus and before, which was really just an understanding of what indigenous wisdom and in indigenous communities before the sort of domestication of our species by weeks 10 12,000 years ago. That notion that there that there is a place that you're in that you're in. If you are noticing and able to attend to that. Then there is greater possibility of you being able to maintain a relationship a nourishing relationship, both for yourself and for your environment. If you break that you break you, you heighten the chances of that human extinction possibility that was possible. I'm going to skip to Ray Ray's got a question Ray from all fed works in in the way you you've said in the chat that you work in the more practical pragmatic side. You've got a question about Bali and the agenda. I have in my defense I have lived in Fenton for several years and done my NBC and workshops with Joanna Macy so I can do the emotional stuff too. And maybe I had a joke there, lots of stories. Yeah, so I've had really good experiences with UNDR really open to to to extinction type thinking at least in private, but also Molly John and NASA, you know, coming through in Geneva. So, and the drama groups they had in there so I mean it's a bit fluffy we're not sort of the hard edge but but some really good thinking as well. So, do you like those those those gatherings out of the global one or the continental ones. Will you be in Bali and shall we do something there because like looking at the people in this call and some of the faces it seems like hey we could we we can't just complain and not do something let's do something. I think we might have met somewhere actually right through your name and yeah I mean I work closely with Molly and the NASA group for NASA team and the knowledge systems for sustainability. Yes, the graph cube with the three dimensionality that I created the graph cube. Yeah, so if you like that then I loved it. Right, I do recommend I even made a URL so that people could find it easily. I think you do info but it might have expired now. Maybe I'll put a link in the chat. Yeah. Yeah, no I yes those gatherings are lovely in some ways because of that human human connection. Certainly that used to be possible I've been at all of them since whatever 2012 or something 2013 back in Geneva as it was. I won't be going to Bali, but I am I am contributing to many of the things that are happening and going to be happening in Bali. In particular one of the areas that I'm interested in and I'm contributing a lot to at the moment is on what's called the midterm review which you're probably familiar with. So these 2015 to 2013 agendas in the midterm review they basically go up how do we do and do we need to course correct do we need to do things differently and the answer is obviously. Hell yeah, you haven't done much at all in the first seven years so yes. So there's this process of you know consultations but what I'm helping with is exactly what we've been talking about. Can we create different spaces where we can bring yes the molly jones of the world and yes the you know ministerial level of the world and yes the investors of the world. But actually can we bring them together with children and indigenous communities and local populations and can we make it a sort of what I described the other day liminal cubism. So, you know Picasso was was magical in the way that he basically said, we don't only have to have the three point perspective, he said we can have all perspectives, as long as they're white male. We can have all the perspectives in the world as long as they're white males. Great great but what does liminal mean. It's the space in between it's the dawn and the dusk of a day where you're not in night you're not in day you're not in knowing and you're not in complete unknowing to gems earlier point. You have some certainties and you have some uncertainties and you're able to play in the confusion of that space. And it's not denying the importance of reductionist approaches and the scientific method. All it's saying is what are they in service or and what are they hiding. What are the metaphors which underpin why they are being modeled and why that science is choosing those questions. When there is an infinite number of other questions which are maybe much more difficult to answer, because they don't have answers. Like, what is health, what is success, what is risk even. These are questions that can be played into and I think if we can have more conversations in those more formal structural spaces that you're talking about where we're asking questions which cannot be answered but can be explored. We actually may be able to shift some of the ways that we're addressing these challenges and some of the ways we're even just perceiving the reality in which we're able to think about those challenges. Yeah. Super cool. Thanks. Thanks Scott. I want to go for our last question. We've just got a few minutes because we started a few minutes late to Joe. Sorry, I don't know how to pronounce your name Joe book. The question is, do you actually think the organized sorry if there's noise from my cat here if there's if we're not going to see the kinds of changes you think that will be significant from the kind of institutions that exist in in international governance and national governance at the moment. Then don't we just need revolutionary change and therefore should we be working on revolution. Yes and no. I think I am working on revolution and evolution and whichever way you want to describe it I do. I do honestly believe in the possibilities of a shift in perception shifting all possibilities. And you know that there are lots of examples that I've had over the last few years as I've been approaching spaces to try to enable the possibility for people to have a shift in perception. What do I what do I really mean by that, you know, as I described before my perception of the world. What was the perception which had been sort of gifted to me and actually inculcated into me that the nature is a machine fixing and solving can be done. And actually, if you're very clever and you know all the right things then you are the one who can fix and solve and all you got to do is then bring people and money together and then everything will be fine. That that shift in perception may take time, but it can actually be a shift in in a second in a minute in a single conversation. If there is the tonality for the possibility of that shift to happen. And some of the work that I do on what are called warm data conversations with with Nora Bateson on being able to help people to come into conversations which are have multiple contexts and those sort of questions are saying to Ray. To allow for that exploration and basically the reconfiguration and the and the and the re patterning of your relationship to your memories of who you are and what you know to be able to be in a different relationship with the reality that you're observing and existing in. And that shift in perception is revolutionary. Gregory Bateson, Nora's dad spoke about that that that shift in perception will alter your universe, your understanding of everything can shift and it is a scary moment and therefore it should never be done alone if you can avoid it. It often happens in trauma, where you have a traumatic experience maybe a diagnosed with stage four cancer. Okay, bugger my diary I couldn't care less about my diary I'm just going to get on with living. Often it can be in that single moment a single conversation, maybe you're made redundant. Maybe you get accepted to publish in a journal or some some moment that can actually shift your perception of both yourself and the world. I'm trying to have this space to have as many possibilities of people being able to shift their perception as many times as possible with the belief and the understanding and the learning from indigenous and relational practices. That that in that moment there is a new possibility of us being kinder more caring and more in relationship. And if you feel you're in relationship with other people as opposed to transacting with them. There's much less chance that you're going to be willing to be cruel to them that you're willing to exploit them that you're willing to dehumanize them. Because you feel that they are part of you because they are, or you feel that the river is part of you for the grasses. Thank you Scott. Yeah, what I'm hearing is that a different way of being to the one that we've been schooled in, which doesn't have all these separations and other ring and alienation is in itself revolutionary and we can be that revolution right now in the way that we are in whatever work we do. And it might add up to something but it's also just really good in itself. And it might not. And it's actually that liminal that sort of holding of that liminal spaces. I don't know if any of this is going to make any a lick of difference. Actually I at the same time I do know it's going to make difference because I've felt that shift in other people and the way I'm in relationship with them. And if they continue doing what they're doing but with that that revolutionary shift in the way that they're the way that they're being not what they're doing necessarily but the way that they're being present as they're doing it. Then that next person and that next person and just like a covert infection can spread through the population and the law of big numbers exponential growth. One or two people can actually make a phenomenal difference and if only one or two people on this call. Maybe maybe I can be different to how I was. Super cool. And if none do. Okay. Maybe in a week or two weeks or a month or six months, something will shift because of the space and the place we've been in together in relationship. Yeah, so thank you for your time together and thank you for scotting with us. It was fascinating to see I've never seen anyone put the talk about this and so I've been enjoying jamming with with you today. And so thanks to everyone who's joined us from around the world members of the deep adaptation forum and other guests. And can I just end with a little poem. Is that okay. No, I was just saying I'm not going to read. I was just about to say I'm not going to read the next report that you're right if it looks like the one you just showed us. But if you could summarize it in a song or a poem. Yeah, then I'm up for it. So you've you've got a poem. I don't know. Okay, so we're just going to hear the poem and then end the meeting. Cheers. Okay. It's called it's called a little duck by a gentleman called Michael learning a little duck with a bit of luck, a duck will come into your life. When you are at the peak of your great powers and your achievement towers like a smoking chimney stack will be a quack. And right there at your feet, a little duck will stand. She will take you by the hand and lead you like a child with no defense. She will lead you into wisdom, joy and innocence. That little duck that I wish you luck and I do wish all of you luck. Good health and lots of play.