 Hi everybody, good afternoon, good morning, good evening, wherever you are, and welcome to this webinar which is called Use Your Power. My name is Lucy Karena, I use the pronoun she and her and I'm going to be your trainer for today and this webinar is, we're going to be running this webinar on repeat twice today, this is the second time we're running it, we're also going to be running it twice next week, so if you've registered more than one slot there's no need to join twice, you're here now. So this is our first time running this webinar today, so we've run it this morning and we're running it today, we're running it again twice next week, any feedback you have at the end of this webinar is going to be really appreciated. So first of all you'll notice that you are muted at the moment and you're going to be muted for the call because there's a lot to go through and we're expecting quite a lot of people but we are going to be communicating a lot via the chat box, so I'm inviting you all to open up the chat right now and we're inviting you to give your introductions into the chat, so type your name, your age, your country or city, where you are at the moment if you're comfortable doing that. Do make sure when you're typing into the chat that you're typing to all panelists and attendees, that means that everybody on the call is going to be able to see your introduction which is what we want, so do type in your intros and during the webinar as I said we're going to be using the chat box, you can type anytime into the chat to communicate with me, with your fellow participants. We also have something called a Q&A box which is a question and answer box, so that's for any questions that might arise during this webinar that you're afraid might get lost in the chat, make sure you type them in there so that they don't get lost and we'll try and answer them live if we can or we'll save them till the Q&A session at the end. There's another tool that you can use which is raise hands, so there might be times in the webinar when I'll ask people to give an example or I'll invite people to speak into the mic, raise your hand if you want to do this and I'll take you off mute and you have the floor. We're also going to have a poll during this webinar, you won't be able to see that yet in your zoom window that's going to kind of pop up when I launch the poll, but do note that if you're joining us via voice call you won't be able to take part in the poll but I'm going to walk you through what we're doing. So I want to say hello, there's, wow, lots and lots of people joining, so we have, oh gosh, who do we have? We have Omar, Mohamed, Shanti, Valentina, Rajiv, Anna, Gonzalo, Mag, Klyn, Mike, Alejandra, Pia, Omar, Min, Rachel, Sylvia, Serena, Shash, Mohamed, Kamlesh, Natasha, Diva, Stacy, Ana Maria, Sai, John, Chloe Lee, Kamlesh, Robert, Roti, Alejandra, welcome to everybody, it's amazing to see you all joining from all over the world. I want to introduce you to our tech person today who is Monica, so say hi, Monica. Hello, my tech skills were failing and I wasn't coming off mute there for a moment, but I'll do better as the webinar goes on. Hi everyone. Thanks, Monica. So yeah, Monica's joining from Johannesburg. She's here to help you if you are having any problems with any links, that kind of thing with Zoom. And just to let you know we are recording this webinar, so this is really mostly for you, like if you would want to watch it back, if you miss anything, and we'll also be putting a recording up on the website for other people who missed the webinar. So I think let's get started. So first thing, I want to make sure that you all have a pen and paper for this webinar because towards the end we have a little bit of a workshop. I'm also going to ask Monica, if Monica, can you link, can you put the link for the presentation slides into the chat box? And when Monica does that, yeah, I'm going to invite you all to click on that now and open it, because not only is this going to be a resource for you after this webinar, but it's also full of links that I'm going to be referring to throughout the webinar. So you can explore these as we go along, if you like. So the objectives for this webinar, by the end of this hour, you're hopefully all going to have a better understanding of how to use your power, what is your sphere of influence, what are the most impactful actions you can take for climate justice right now. And hopefully you'll all be aware as well of what are these kind of priority issues in your regions, what are some of the regional or national campaigns that you can contribute towards, and how to connect up with other activists where you are. So the agenda for today then, first of all, I'm going to run through how you can get involved with what's already going on. Then we're going to see where you can go if you want to build your skills and knowledge to kind of better inform you on what action you're going to take. We're going to talk a little bit about systemic change, why we want systemic change, not climate change. And then we're going to delve a bit deeper into your situation. So what is your power? How can you use it in a way which is going to have an impact? And then towards the end, I'm going to run through some more resources that are there for you. And hopefully we're going to have time for a question and answer session. So the first part of this webinar is going to include quite a lot of information. So don't worry if you miss anything, we are recording the webinar, you'll be able to watch it back. Also, if you have the presentation slides, you'll have all the links to come back to and explore further. And then the second part of the webinar from sort of use your power, this is going to be more of a kind of interactive workshop. So we always kick off these webinars with a poll to kind of see who's here, what's the kind of experience level. So hopefully this will have just popped up onto your screen. So I'm inviting you to start filling that out straight away. And again, noting that if you're joining via voice call, I'm afraid you won't be able to participate in the poll, but I'm going to walk you through some of the questions right now. So the first question is, have you been involved in a climate action event before? So either no, I'm brand new to this, or only the climate strike, or I've been involved in more than one climate action, including the climate strike, or I've been involved in climate action before but didn't join the climate strike. And then we're asking, are you already connected up with other local activists? So, you know, first of all, you can, you know, maybe you're involved with a local climate action group already, or there's a group locally, you're not involved yet, the operative word being yet, or there isn't an organized local action group, but maybe you want to start one. So whichever one seems most close to your situation. So I'm going to give maybe 10 more seconds for people to fill that in. So eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Okay, so I'm ending the poll now. And hopefully you can now see the results there on your screen. So it looks like around a third of you on this call are completely brand new to this. And another third of you have only been involved since the climate strike. So I want to say a really special welcome to all of you for stepping up, for joining this call, for wanting to find out more about how you can get involved. It's really exciting. And there's also some of you who are kind of maybe regular climate activists. So you've done this before. So you're also very welcome. And only some of you are connected up with local groups already. And a lot of you look like you might be planning to join a local action group, which is very exciting. So thank you for participating in the poll. So we're going to start off by talking about what you can do starting with those existing campaigns and activities that you can get involved with. So the first thing that you can do. So for those, those of you who said that you're not yet connected to a local group, and you'd like to join one, there is a link. If you have the presentation open in your browser, you can see the links in the notes beneath the slide. So you have the option you can join a local group near you. There's an interactive map that you can put in your location. And you can find out what's going on near you and how to connect up. You can also, there's also a link which is inviting you if you can't find a local group near you to consider starting your own. And we have a ton of resources there if that's what you want to do. I'm going to try something which might get a bit chaotic, but should be kind of fun. I would like you to put a start in the chat if you're joining us from the Pacific, Australia or New Zealand. And I'd be really surprised if anybody actually is because I think it might be the middle of the night there. I'd be very impressed. But if you are, there are some links here about the campaigns you can join in this region. There's Pacific Power, which is transitioning to 100% renewable energy. There's Stop Adani in Australia, so Stopping Coal. And in New Zealand, there's a great campaign called Fossil Free Banks, which is calling for a bank that guarantees a complete cut of corporate ties with a fossil fuel industry. And I want to give a reminder here that New Zealand, like a lot of countries all over the world, is actually striking on the 27th. So this Friday, actually, there's things going on. So keep an eye out for that. So next up, we have Africa. So please put a star in the chat if you're joining us from Africa. And I'm expecting there might be a few more people there. Yeah, it is pretty late in the Philippines. So I'm not surprised that many people haven't joined us from that region. But if you're for Africa, you're invited to join the Africa VUCA campaign. So this is Resisting Fossil Fuel Infrastructure. It's about blocking that infrastructure that the fossil fuel industry needs to operate in Africa. So you'll find the link just there. So Monica's joining us from Africa. Renato is joining us from Africa. So welcome. I hope everybody's cheering them along from your couch or wherever you are. So next up, put a star in the chat if you're joining us from Latin America. So this is a big year for movement in this region. We have the COP25, the UN Climate Talks taking place this year in Chile. You can join the Zero Fossil Movement by clicking on these links. So Latin America represents, we have, oh, Renato's from Peru, Martha, Alejandra, Giuseppe, Christopher, Gonzalo, Rachel, Alejandro, Ana, Matthias, great. So you have those links, how to join the Zero Fossil Movement there. So now put a star in the chat if you're joining us from North America. So in Canada, we've got the Our Time campaign that's calling for a Green New Deal. If you're in the U.S., you can join actually the We Are Unstoppable call, which is taking place tomorrow. There's a link to the registration in the slide. That's going to give you more detailed information about joining the movement in the U.S. So follow that registration link, book yourself in. So, oh, I've lost track of where everybody's from. But hello, everybody. Maybe Chloe, Michelle, Daniel, Anna, Alexis, Roshi, Shelby, Valentina, Amy, Anastasia, Margaret, Steph, Morgan, John, I don't know if you're from the U.S. or Canada, but Darius is welcome. That's what you can do. So star in the chat if you're joining us from Asia. So there's a lot going on in Asia. The main kind of campaign that we have going across Asia is calling for an end to coal. And then we have a couple of national examples. So in Indonesia, you can get involved with the fossil free campaign. In Japan, we're focused on divestment. So removing the finance, removing the social license that's kind of propping up the fossil fuel industry in Japan. And movements in the Philippines are blocking all new coal, oil, gas projects. So welcome to everybody there. Diva, Maglin, Shanti, Din, Krusan, Palpasha, Rajiv, Maglin, Sumit, Muhammad, Shashani, and Priti. Welcome. That's what you can get involved with. And now, star in the chat if you're joining us from Eastern Europe, Caucasus, Central Asia, Turkey. We've got the Cities for Life campaign that's happening across this region or Cities for Climate, which is happening in Turkey. So that's what you can get on with, that you're my neighbours there in Eastern Europe. And last but not least, if you're joining us from Europe, put your star in the chat. Yeah, Europe. So the fossil free divestment campaign is going strong across Europe, kind of pulling that rug out from beneath the feet with the fossil fuel industry. If you're in the UK, you can also join the push for a green new deal, some exciting stuff happening there. If you're in Germany, fossil free Germany is organising some webinars as well on the 7th and 9th of October. So follow the link, book yourself in for those. So hello, Victoria, Omar, Serena, Pia, Natasha, Kelly. Welcome. That's what you can get involved with. And lastly, do keep an eye out for the next global mobilisations taking place. So Fridays for Future is going to keep striking every Friday. Extinction Rebellion are planning two weeks of resistance, starting Monday 7th of October. They're also running an ongoing campaign, sorry, they're joining a campaign which is called Buy 2020, which has actions planned at the end of October. You can check out by clicking that link. You can find the links to these campaigns by clicking on those logos in the presentation. Sign yourself up, make sure that you can receive updates. So the next thing you can do is skill up. So learn new skills, get familiar with campaigning and the concept of climate justice. So first of all, you can do this by joining one of the regional webinars that's going to be taking place in the next few weeks, which is hosted by 350. So, oh sorry, Janice, we didn't ask about Caribbean, Bermuda, other island nations. I don't know Monica, which region, I'm not familiar with the 350 regionalisation, but which region do we usually host those nations? Do you know? Well, the Pacific island nations we did mention in the beginning, but then the Caribbean countries work with our Latin America team. So that's why we didn't separate them. I see. So Janice, if you follow the links to the campaigns happening in Latin America, that should cover those island nations as well. So first of all, with the skill ups, you can do this by joining one of the regional webinars that's going to be taking place in the next few weeks. So these are hosted by 350. We've got webinars planned for Europe, Africa and the US and Canada. So make sure you're on all those email lists, keep an eye out on social media and on the website. So for Europe, the date is yet to be confirmed, but in the US, we have that, we are unstoppable webinar next Friday, October 4th. In Canada, we have what's next after the strikes, which is a webinar happening next Thursday, October 3rd. And the Africa VUCA webinar for new organisers is still to be confirmed, but maybe on October 4th. Also, we have a whole site dedicated to trainings, to building skills to make change. So for example, we have this great website trainings at 350.org. You can go through, you can take these kind of skill ups like climate change science 101, having climate change conversations. Also, if you follow this link to go fossil free, there's another whole ton of resources, for example, on how to run a fossil free campaign and loads of kind of like templates, step by step guides, which you can go through as well. So those are all for you to kind of explore. So now I, I'm going to give you a little bit of an introduction to the kind of action that we're going to explore. So action that's going to lead to system change. So I'm just going to just quickly check the chat for any questions. Renata, if you missed the movements in Latin America, hopefully you can, oh yeah, Monica said you can see them in the slide there. So do, do open that slide up so that you have all those links there. So no more business as usual. You might have heard this phrase over and over again. And over the last months, and particularly with these climate strikes, we've seen the climate movement start to kind of change tactics. We're seeing more disruption, more strikes, more direct action, which are sort of becoming the norm. And we're seeing action that's better reflecting the urgency of the situation. And this kind of action is actually very strategic because by disrupting systems such as education, such as industry, our streets, our infrastructure, we're recreating a crisis on the ground in practical terms, which is far more difficult a crisis to ignore. So it's more difficult for those in power to ignore us. And we call the 20th of September, day one, because from now on, we're going to see an escalation of this action everywhere at all levels at the local, the national, and the global. So many of you have joined this call because you're deeply concerned about climate change. Maybe you're already very conscious about your impact on climate change. And this concern affects maybe decisions that you make in daily life about what you eat, about whether you walk or take the car, about whether you remember to turn out the lights, for example. And this is all very important if you're already doing these things, do keep it up. But you may have joined today because maybe you feel like this isn't enough. And this can lead us to feel kind of powerless and hopeless. Because we're not just consumers, right? We're human beings with human rights. And we're citizens with democratic rights. And actually, our consumer power is tiny compared to that power that we have when we assert these rights. So the pressure to make individual lifestyle changes also comes from a place of guilt. It can exclude or shame people who don't actually have the option to source their food locally or organically to use an electric car. One quote I like to kind of come back to here is that the aim is to work towards better systems, not to exist in this system as superior people. And that's by a writer called Zoe Williams. And it really kind of brings home that, you know, in order to change the system, we can't afford to tinker around the edges anymore. We need to make deep emissions cuts within this tiny time frame. And when only 100 companies, energy and mining companies are responsible for 71% of emissions in the last 30 years, it can feel kind of pretty futile, right, to change your light bulbs. So to make an impact, we need to end this fossil era itself, if we're actually to have any hope of seriously addressing the climate crisis. And it's not even just about fossil fuel companies own emissions. I wonder if anybody here knows how long fossil fuel companies have known that global warming is happening and how long they've known that it's caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Does anybody know how long? Yeah, Shashini says since the 80s, Exxon knew since the 70s. Exactly, Anna. Yeah, and Kelly and Margaret, it's since the 70s and Pierre. So actually, yeah, Exxon knew, Shell knew, they were doing research into this since the late 70s, early 80s. Shell even released a documentary in 1991, which predicted rising sea levels, famine, climate refugees as a result of burning fossil fuels. And it's actually eerily accurate, their predictions. And you can watch the whole thing. It's actually on YouTube. I don't have a link to it. But if you type in Shell 1991 climate change documentary, it's scary stuff. And instead of acting on that information and changing their business plan, they've spent millions of dollars, potentially billions over the years, funding climate denialist think tanks to spread misinformation about the causes of climate change, and even about its existence. And not only that, but we know that one of the reasons that we're in this emergency situation now is because action on climate change has been has been obstructed and blocked over the past decades. Yes, decision makers of rich countries are to blame, but they've been lobbied aggressively for decades by the fossil fuel industry. And this industry has rigged the game. It's captured our political spaces to block any real action on climate change. So the documentary, I can't remember the exact name. It's by Shell. I should have got the link for you. But if you type into Google Shell 1991 documentary, it's available on YouTube to watch. So even so, every single year, these companies still receive billions of dollars in public money in your taxes to further explore, extract and burn more fossil fuels. And then and this is, really the injustice of it, then they walk away with the profits, you know, we give them the money to do this. They walk away with a profit with an obscene profit as well. So, you know, let's be clear, when we talk about, you know, fossil fuel companies, we're not targeting the workers, the communities whose livelihoods and local economies rely on these companies, what we're calling for is a just transition of our energy system from a system that's driven by profit and endless growth to one that's driven by human needs to energy that's led by human lead, energy that's informed by the reality of our planetary boundaries. And this transition must be worker led. Energy should be in the hands of the people, not these big polluters, certainly not a handful of mega rich fossil fuel CEOs. So, we all know that that's what should happen, right? But how can we, how can you and me, how can the climate justice movement make that happen? So firstly, we need to reconsider how we view the power of the fossil fuel industry. So we have this kind of traditional way of viewing power. You may be familiar with this power triangle. So there's a few people at the top, the power flows from the top downwards, those at the bottom take orders from those at the top. But here's another perhaps more accurate way of seeing power and particularly seeing the power of the fossil fuel industry. So any observations about this triangle, anything at all, right into the chat. And particularly if this triangle represents the fossil fuel industry, what do you think this means? Yeah, so it's supported, right? Yeah, the industry is nothing without all of those people supporting it, we're holding it up. It's unstable, absolutely Daniel, it's unstable. So an oppressive system that relies on destroying our planet is unstable. A system that relies on a logic, you know, something that defies logic, like, you know, infinite resources on a finite planet, infinite growth on a finite planet, that that's unstable, it needs to be propped up, right, by these pillars of support. And these pillars can make the structure seem legitimate, can make it seem right. So if the triangle is the fossil fuel industry, you know, these pillars, what could they be? I mean, we've talked about one of these things already, we talked about subsidies. So funding, financial support, also political support, so policies that allow, allow fossil fuels to continue, permits, anything that keeps their political power strong, so access to the UN, access to your government, and so on. Also resources, so the actual access to the land that's needed, the access to those oil fields, the access to the tons of water needed in the mining process, and the tools and everything that's needed, the infrastructure. And also social legitimacy, right. So we accept them, they cultivate this image of providing a public service, like a necessary evil, if you like. You know, they sponsor research into our universities, they sponsor our museums, our art galleries, our football clubs, so that we accept that they're, you know, benevolent, they're an inevitable part of our daily lives, right. So for example, I mentioned the divestment campaign that's happening, you know, in Europe and Japan, across the world, which is getting schools, houses of worship, even big banks, cities, even countries to remove their investments from fossil fuels. And this is removing that finance pillar. But it's also removing the social license. So it's changing the way that we're viewing this industry. So instead of seeing them as this kind of necessary part of society, the public is starting to see them as something that's inherently globally destructive. So with the climate strikes and with this new kind of era of escalated climate activism, of disruption, we need to know our power, we need to know how to use it, and we need to know how we can disrupt these pillars, how we can lead to real systemic change. So now we're going to spend the rest of this webinar with a little workshop where you're going to start thinking more about your particular situation, what is your power, what can you do? We're going to focus on you and your community or communities at the local level. And of course, you know, the big mobilizations are super important, but they're not half as powerful if there's nothing happening on the ground for the other 360 days of the year. So other reasons why we like to have a local focus is really, we know that real wins can be achieved really quickly at the local level. So six months can really deeply shift ambition in a small city or institution, can get a win on the board. We know that local wins everywhere builds these preconditions for national and global climate action. And we also know that local struggles can be won by everyday citizens and volunteers. So these global level, the national level, even state level campaigns require staffing, require major funding, all sorts of resources to navigate these sort of complex power structures. But anybody can do a local campaign and win it. So also winning a local campaign is really the biggest impact that a single citizen or a collective can have on the climate. So I would like to give an example of a powerful victory that happened just last year. But instead of telling you the details, I'd like you to see for yourself. So what I would like you to do is to open the presentation slides at slide 30. So you'll see this video there. And I'm also going to ask Monica, are you able to put the YouTube video link into the chat? It's in the agenda guide. Thanks Monica. So this video is about three minutes long. And in a moment, I want you to watch the video. And then after those three minutes, we're going to discuss our observations. So I'm not going to play it for you in this Zoom window because we're going to have an issue with the sound. But so you'll need to open it in the link and press play yourself. So just to note before we start, unless you speak Portuguese, you might want to put the subtitles on. So you have to click the little icon that says CC in the bottom right of the YouTube video. Okay. So is everybody ready? We're going to start watching now. Okay. So for most of you, probably the video's just finished. So let's talk about that. So what are your observations? What did you think really struck you about this campaign and the way that it was won, the way that people brought this about? What did you think was most interesting, most impactful about the action that these communities were taking? So I want you to type in your answers into the chat now. Anything that really struck you or moved you about this? Yeah, so this involvement of a diverse group of people from all walks of life, right? So, you know, this guy was listing, you know, like people from different religions, different communities, different unions. Yeah, absolutely. So they use social media to involve lots of different groups, but it wasn't just an online action, right? There was this kind of like, there was both offline and online actions. So yeah, people power. Yeah, connecting up to a sympathetic decision maker in the council, identifying that person. Yeah, local people uniting, being well informed of the impact, unity, inside and outside of formal spaces. Yes, absolutely. So in the city hall, the protest, so there's a kind of diversity here. So I want to collect some of these, some of these takeaways. So, Monica, if you're able to type some of these, some of these observations into this slide. So yeah, absolutely. So this kind of, so a diversity of actions, a diversity of communities coming together, you know, not letting this sort of lack of resources get in the way, finding a way of being resourceful, using social media, using different means, education, communication made a difference. Yeah, absolutely. They didn't have much opposition to deal with though. I mean, it's maybe it's not communicated in that in that video, but I know that in, in lots of states in Brazil, these kind of campaigns have faced a lot of challenges. So yeah, exactly. So I think you'll get this kind of idea. So yeah, having smart goals, having clear requests, getting together the whole community themselves. Absolutely. One thing that also struck me, which I'm going to talk about just very quickly is, is there's something that this, this campaigner says at the end, which is that he hopes that this is going to be an inspiration for other cities, right? So not just thinking about your own local community, but also how can this be contagious? So I kind of call this scalable, you know, as a scalable action. So, you know, just to explain this kind of concept really, really quickly, you may have noticed him talking about, yeah, this inspiration. We do need this big top level change. So how can we achieve that with isolated wins? When you're setting up a campaign at the local level, it's not just about making things better for your local community. You can also think ahead. You can think about how change in your community can lead to change on a bigger scale, how you can use your example to inspire others to leverage change at this kind of bigger scale. And this is the one of the reasons that local campaigning is great. There's that opportunity for a win on a shorter time scale, which can then kind of snowball, right? So I'm going to invite you now to start thinking about your community, your sphere of influence. And if you've joined our webinars before, you'll know I like to break down the concept of local action and local community a little bit, so it becomes easier to identify who you can build collective power with. So we're going to do this little exercise. We're all part of many different intersecting communities. And for many of us when we hear local community, we think about communities of place. So your city, your town or village, your particular district or borough, your street or block, your apartment building, these are all communities of place and you might be part of many different communities of place. But we're also part of communities of practice. I'm talking about what we do every day. So your school, your university, your place of worship, your workplace or union, your professional bodies. Thanks so much clearly for for breaking down what smart girls are. That's very important. So you might also be part of a community of interest. So, you know, your city's cycling community, for example, the local art scene, your hobby group, for example, and, you know, acquire whatever you're part of. And also for many of us, we consider our communities of identity to be particularly important to us. So for example, your LGBTQ plus community, your diaspora cultural or ethnic minority community. As Amy says, you know, the disabled community as well, which often faces exclusion in activism. But as I experienced it often actually the most radical and hardworking activists there are out there. Your indigenous community, youth, that's a community as well. Parents and grandparents, you're a community as well, right? Absolutely. So these are really important communities to us. And we're often a part of many, many different ones. So your task, I'd like you to set your task. I'm going to give you 60 seconds. I would like you to list on your piece of paper, all of the communities that you can think of that you're a part of. And I'm going to give you one minute starting now. So you don't need to share into the chat if you like, but you don't need to. This is just for your sheet of paper. Okay. So hopefully it doesn't have to be a comprehensive list. But hopefully you all have a list of some communities, local communities, communities of place, of practice, of interest, of identity that you can think of. So my follow up question to you is how many communities did you count? I'd like you to type just the number into the chat. And this isn't a competition. It's not who has the most communities. Okay. So we have some people with three, seven, we have a variety. So yeah, it's usually kind of between two and 10. If you have like 20 communities, then, you know, you need to spend some time by yourself because that's too many. But yeah, great. So lots of people have lots of different communities. So what I want you to do now is choose just one of them, right? So zoom in on one community that you think might be sympathetic to your course. So that you think you might be able to engage in climate activism. And we're just going to do a kind of exercise, an example. You can do this with all the other communities as well. But just choose one now. So do you all have one in mind? Let's go. I'm going to ask you now a few prompt questions. So for some of these questions, you may not have an answer, but that's okay. You can wait until the next question. And so first of all, I'm going to give you just a minute. I want you to think about how does your community use or source energy? How do they get around? How do they source food? How do they access green spaces? So how do they interact with the existing systems? So I'm going to give you a few minutes to think about that, write some bullet points. So as I said, it might be this question feels a bit irrelevant to your community. That's okay. So what do I mean by access green spaces? Okay, so I kind of mean, do they have access to nature, to clean air, for example? Are they able to, are they able to, are there parks around or are they kind of, is your community mostly in sort of inner city where there's lots of pollution, that kind of thing? Does that make sense? So the next prompt question is how is your community impacted by or will they be impacted by climate change or harmful energy? So some examples here, you know, it might be that it might be that your community is, you know, your apartment building is next to a really busy road. There's lots of pollution. It might be that there's a coal power station plan nearby. It might be that your community is already being impacted by climate change or might be, you know, might be more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change for some reason. Yeah, absolutely. Amy, so indoor air quality as well as outdoor air quality, yeah, absolutely. Renato, my community actually harms the environment. So that's, so we're going to talk about that in the next question actually, Renato. So the next prompt question is thinking back to that kind of upside down power triangle of the fossil fuel industry. It might be that your community in some way supports the fossil fuel community, the fossil fuel industry in some way, you know, not purposefully, but maybe in some way they do. So which kind of pillars do you think that your community could actually disrupt, could withdraw their support from? So this one might be a little bit more kind of abstract, but thinking about things like, you know, if your community is your workplace, do you have a workplace pension that pays, that invests in fossil fuels, for example? Is there some kind of way that you're giving social license to, to fossil fuel companies, you know, who is sponsoring your research at university, who is sponsoring your local music venue or art center, these kind of questions? And which, and how could your community respond to that or engage with that? So now just my, my fourth question, bearing in mind your responses to these prompt questions, have a think about maybe what action you think your community could take, what collective action. So we're not talking about individual actions here, we're talking about, is there some kind of collective campaign or collective action that your, that your community could take? So you may have already thought of something, you may actually need a little while to sort of think about it or you may think, maybe I picked the wrong community to zone in on, maybe I need to think about something else. But if you do have an idea already, please do write it in the chat and let's have a look at some of these. So if you are typing into the chat, please do type, you know, who is the community that you've chosen? And what kind of action do you think that that community could take? So John says, local news, which fails to tie climate change to their weather reports. Okay, so are you a part of community that could actually address that, could actually, you know, could actually make a campaign so that actually on every single weather report, they're tying it to climate change, right? Shanti says, a Buddhist center to build consensus to close coal power plants, brilliant. So yeah, is that something that you could do with your Buddhist center? Could you actually, you know, get people together to build this kind of campaign and reach out to the local community as well? That sounds like a really powerful thing to do. Alia says, advocacy. So Alia, what community are you thinking about and how could you advocate together? What kind of unique angle do you have as a community that's going to leverage some kind of power? So Christopher says, travel community to deny a single use plastic, to use ground travel, i.e. public trains over plane, research accommodation. So when it comes to public transport and traveling, you know, what could you do to make sure that people do choose public transport over flying? Maybe it's, you need to make a campaign so that actually public transport is a viable alternative, right? So that actually public transport is more reliable, is cheaper, is more environmentally friendly, so that people are going to see it as an actual viable alternative. So yeah, Amy, yeah, contacting people in your local community radio station to do more coverage of news. Brilliant idea, I think. So, Renato's, your community is train engineers, so raise awareness of the harm you might be doing with your job. Well, maybe as train engineers, also, you know, trains, they're a much more environmentally friendly way of traveling than private cars, so actually maybe you have some kind of power there, you can actually build a campaign around that. So Gonzales says, parents of my kids school. Great, so start walking in the kids to school. I had a really great idea about getting the parents of a kids school together to plant trees, which is a really nice way of involving children in these kind of transformative actions and also educating and also, you know, making a statement as well. And how is that scalable? You know, you plant a thousand trees with your kids, you encourage the next school to do the same and the next school and to bring more nature into your city. So, wow, there's lots of examples coming through. So I'm wondering about, I don't think I can read all of these out, but I'm seeing some examples of these sort of like lifestyle changes and what I would really recommend is thinking about, you know, if there is a sort of lifestyle change, so switching to walking rather than taking the car, that's not, you know, that's not an option for everybody, but maybe making public transport more accessible, that kind of thing. How can we make it so that it's not just you doing that, you know, it's not just you and a few friends, that it's actually everybody in the community and that actually you make it so that it's a whole campaign to make sure that everybody can do that, so that everybody has access to be able to do that. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so these are all fantastic ideas. And remember, we've only just zoomed in on one community here, right? I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to read out all of these, but they're all really inspiring and really great. But we're going to capture all of these in the chat as well. We're going to take all of these from the chat and I'm going to look through these and maybe reach out to some of you as well in email and develop these further as well. So this is just, yeah, as I said, one community that we've chosen. So how could you start engaging your community? These are just some ideas of how you can do that, you know, the best way is maybe just to start organize an open planning meeting, talk about what we've talked about today. We've got, you've got the slides, you've got a ton of resources as well. Think about setting up some kind of a discussion or workshop for your community. So a fast running out of time. This is always where it gets interesting. And then we start running out of time. Sorry about that. But I want to bring you onto, you know, the next steps, how we're going to put these into practice. So first thing I would like you to do is we have a Facebook group. And for those of you on Facebook, we set it up in the lead up to the strike for new people organizing for the first time. This group is for you really to share advice, to post questions, to get information. So Monica has just put the link to that Facebook group into the chat. You can click on that link right now. You can request to join. And as soon as I get off this webinar, I will approve you and you'll be in the group. And so what I want you to post in there is, you know, what are the three next three actions that you are going to take? So it could be joining your local group. It could be getting involved in a regional campaign. It could be joining the next global mobilization. It could be skilling up. So taking some of those kind of online webinars or videos that I showed you. It could be reaching out to one of your communities, thinking about making a plan. It could be thinking about all those other communities that you have kind of listed and thinking, what could we do there as well? And how could I link them up? And how could I bring people together? So please do join the group. If you're not on Facebook, you can always email me with your plans. I'm lucy.cadena at 350.org. And hopefully as you've got these slides, you won't lose that email address as well. And I just want to make sure that you have also the support that you need. So obviously, you're all familiar with the global climate strike net website. That's probably where you registered for this webinar. Also, we have a handbook, which is completely free to download. And it's really fantastic. Please do download this. You can get your free download in PDF here. It was just released in July. And it's really relevant to what's going on right now. We've got that training site, trainings.350.org that I showed you. And the fossil free website as well. If you have any questions, please do email me at lucy.cadena at 350.org or help at 350.org. So I'm afraid we don't have a huge amount of time, but I think we can take maybe a couple of questions if they are not too lengthy. So let me just check. Monica, do we have any in the Q&A at all? Rachel has just put a question into the chat box, actually. Rachel, would you like to come on the mic and ask your question yourself? I can unmute you if you'd like. Yeah, thanks, Rachel. Yeah, if you want to explain that, you might need to unmute yourself, Rachel. Is that working? Yeah. Hi. Yeah, so I live in Dominican Republic and there's a high level of poverty. Yeah. And I think that it can be a little overwhelming seeing climate change as an expensive option because you'd have to import supplies or being on an island. So yeah, I guess just ideas to shift people's mindset to see that as like a just I think people here have a hard time seeing long term goals versus just satisfying immediate need. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I know that in many countries, you're probably not the only one on the call who has, you know, like your country actually has immediate priorities and climate change probably doesn't feel like a priority. And actually probably, you know, mitigation, so like lowering emissions probably isn't like that as important because maybe there's energy poverty as well and that kind of thing. So I think, you know, it's really difficult to prescribe with these global webinars, you know, like a one-size-fits-all kind of campaign idea. But what I would say is, you know, certainly community action is important not just for taking action on climate change but also for climate resilience because actually, you know, the Dominican Republic is one of those very vulnerable countries, vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. So creating communities of resilience is really, really important joining people together there. I think that maybe, you know, maybe what you, one of the actions that you might be able to take is probably more like transformative actions rather than sort of actions of resistance against the fossil fuel industry. So actions such as, you know, like creating community gardens, creating sort of community resources, that kind of thing. And we have a really nice example actually. I showed you one video from the Fossil Free campaign. There's a few other videos from different types of communities, ones from the Philippines from a very isolated community in the Philippines who managed to fundraise for solar panels for their church roof. And the church kind of became like a community centre point where people could actually go charge their phones and all this kind of stuff. Bringing the kind of transformational solutions, I think, to people and showing, you know, showing that actually, you know, you can actually have energy sovereignty if you go down this kind of path. And I know that's not maybe, maybe I don't know the situation so perfectly where you are, but that's the kind of thing that I might recommend. I don't know if that's helpful at all. Cool. Thank you, Rachel. I'm really sorry, but we have run out of time. I knew that we'd do this. We run over. And I really don't want to miss all of your questions. So if you do have further questions, do join the Facebook group. If you have Facebook and you use it, post your questions there because if I don't have the answer, certainly somebody else will. There's a lot of experience within that group. We can all support each other. Do email me as well. I'm very happy to answer any questions that you have as best I can. And I really hope that I'll be able to see you again on another training soon. So thanks everybody for joining for participating. It's been really interesting and speak to you soon. Bye, everybody.