 Okay. Well, hello. Is it a bit late now to say happy new year? Anyway, happy new year. Lovely to see many of you who I've met in person or online. Yeah, I'm Jim Bendell for those of you who don't know me, and this is a Q&A for an hour with me, opened up to participants in the DPADaptation Forum. So we're going to be talking about DPADaptation for the next hour. And of course, it's a very, very big agenda. I've asked the senior facilitator of the DPADaptation Forum, Katie Carr, to host us for this hour. So Katie will kick off with the first question. Okay, good, right? I'm going to start then. So as someone who I know and have been working with closely for the last couple of years, working on the topic of societal disruption and collapse for a while now, maybe you could start by telling us how you've been feeling. So my feeling right now, apart from the nervousness of suddenly doing a Q&A, and possibly that's also because I'm not used to anymore standing in front of people because of what's happened in 2020, it's gratitude and wonder at the kind of people that have come into my life over the last two and a half years, and the way that people show up on this topic because of this topic, and the way that they're choosing to respond to an anticipation of collapse, by being open-minded, open-hearted, wanting to claw together and see how to be useful at this time. So yeah, restoring my faith in human nature, I feel that, yeah, it's been wonderful to realize how people are showing up with this anticipation of collapse in a way where they want to be useful and helpful and curious and open-hearted and collaborative, and that's been wonderful. So that's been a big thing. How else have I been feeling? Some overwhelm at the amount of things that could be looked at and worked on. I have a story of self, of being intellectual and wanting to be useful, contribute to the conversation, and it's a huge conversation touching on psychology, sociology, politics, economics, climate science, food security, all sorts. So there's a bit of overwhelm and therefore also a frustration that working on that has sort of crowded out just the implications of my awareness for my own life, so therefore to be more present with people I love. More recently, I've had sadness. I think initially it was defensiveness, and then I let that go, but then what remained was sadness about some of what I perceive as somewhat of the misinformed, inaccurate, and sometimes aggressive criticisms of me and deep adaptation now that it's become way more widely discussed. And I think maybe like with everybody, I've been feeling in the last year some confusion and vulnerability because of the pandemic, and then also because of the pandemic policy responses. And you don't know how that's going to go. You don't know how the backlash to those is going to work out. You don't know how bad it's going to get what with public and private debt and employment, big mental health crisis coming our way because of it. And though perhaps my work in deep adaptation has helped me be ready to witness all that and know it's good to talk about it rather than suppress it, that's still with me. Thanks for the question. Thanks, Jim. Could maybe talk about pick up on that with the pandemic. What do you think we are learning from the pandemic and the responses to it? So I'm an environmentalist and have been for since my first job in 1995 with WWF on deforestation and one of the very minor things that was talked about back then was how deforestation can lead to more disease, zoonotic disease from animals. But it was like a narrow area. So with that background, I've been slightly outraged at the lack of discussion, both within the environmental movement, but also just in the mainstream realm of public health or policies on COVID-19 about the connection between environmental degradation, including climate change, and the likelihood of outbreaks of zoonotic disease, including COVID-19. And therefore, even the UN has confirmed that environmental degradation, including climate change, has made the coronavirus pandemic more likely. I mean, of course, in a hyper complex systems, it's impossible to say, so this particular event caused this, caused this and therefore it's definitely been caused. But the analysis is such that we can at least say it's made more likely. So I'm annoyed at that about the lack of discussion because what that means is we're more likely to see zoonotic disease outbreaks again and again and again because of damage to the environment and because of climate change. I think also, I also wonder therefore, as societies destabilize, will people make the connections back to environmental degradation? And therefore, will they begin to question how we got into this mess? Will the opportunity for learning be lost? Because if you make those connections, then you have a conversation about with a very deep critique of industrial consumer society, and then you can even go into critiquing modernity, and you can start to explore how we might choose to respond differently without repeating the mistakes of our culture that got us into this mess. So there's some anxiety there about lack of connection leading to lack of inquiry leading to perhaps knee-jerk inappropriate responses in future. So that's the downside. The upside perhaps is we've seen a lot of mutual aid. We've seen a lot of people desire to do the right thing and accept personal hardship in order to do the right thing. And that I hope can be respected and nurtured and not abused by possibly the increasing rise of sort of authoritarian surveillance culture. We've got to be working hard at making sure that human rights are upheld and that we also resist the shrinking of the space for informed dialogue about what are all the different policy options when faced with a pandemic like this. We seem to see quite a lot of polarization into just follow what you're told on the one hand and not even question corporate power and how it might be influencing agendas. And on the other hand going into the realm of conspiracy where you kind of just go around in circles and there's no real collective progressive agenda coming out of those conspiracy theories. I see the pandemic in some countries may be turning into societal breakdown and even one that we don't bounce back to the 2019 normal won't be back again. So looking back on it it might be seen as the start of widespread collapse and I think that's also perhaps why people are more ready to have conversations about anticipating collapse now in all walks of life. So that's something that it seems when people are ready for and of course that's creating a bit of a backlash as well. Thanks. I'm going to ask Claire very shortly but I just wanted to stay with this and I heard you talk about the responses the out there big picture responses touched on polarization and the risk of increasing narratives of around fear but I'm curious if you would share with us anything that you have learned about your own like emotionally what's been happening over the last nearly a year. Maybe connecting that with what you've written about with individuals responses within deep adaptation but specifically how that has played out with how we're responding emotionally individually. So when I said that maybe my engagement with what we now call deep adaptation may have helped me personally with the difficulties of the last year I have become not only more aware but almost or more actively engaged in the noticing of my inner world. So I've had waves of anxiety that are also even how expressed in the body. I wouldn't say as far as panic attacks but in the ways that I haven't ever had before in my life and my response to those has been to be able to witness it and know that it's best not to just act from that and not try and escape that emotional difficulty with whatever story I'm hearing will seem to help so that story might be vaccine will fix everything we'll get back to normal or that story might be Bill Gates is trying to inject nanobots into my brain to turn me into the some sort of blood smart microsoft system or I don't sorry I don't keep up with all the theories um you know but just uh no I'm feeling a bit vulnerable anxious confused I'm used to always planning ahead I'm used to always having I know what I want and my plan be will be this and now that seems well I know that that just doesn't work now um and I'm I'm learning to be a bit more okay with that and meet people in my confusion pain vulnerability and so on and have conversations about it I learned that through the deep adaptation work prior to the COVID-19 pandemic kicking off thank you yeah I have the same memories of March last year feeling so very grateful not just for the the support and the relationships that I've got within the deep adaptation forum but the ways in which it has already contributed to to my own emotional resilience and the space is on the screen who I'm thinking of when when I say that out loud um so I want to go to Claire next um I can't see you on my screen but can you unmute yourself and put your video on if it's not already on so we ask also people to introduce yourself as well when you when you speak yeah sure okay um hi everyone I'm Claire uh I'm the media coordinator for XR UK um and one of the founders and my question that I've put in says what your thoughts on the increasing criticism of activists and intellectuals who advocate for collapsed anticipation and societal disruption to be discussed and also uh the the thrust of anti-doomism which I've become very interested in yeah hi Claire thank you I was pleased to see you talk about that also with um the climate scientist Peter Kalmas um someone who isn't shy to actually talk about how what a bad situation we we are in uh yeah so I'll stay on the theme of inner work um and I've said this before I've learned that even if um that it's not personal even if it seems it's personal and so um it's natural I think for me or anyone when to get went to hear criticism particularly if you think it's inaccurate misguided misleading or worse um it's natural to feel defensive some anger some and and and you maybe even get a bit self-righteous and aggressive in return but it's important not to stay in that like okay wow that's how I'm feeling and then and then not act from that place um because it's natural that people are getting upset hearing this info I remember when I first heard of dark mountain um which are a group that 10 years ago were talking in the same way uh I was annoyed when I heard about them I immediately thought um while they're just giving up and enjoying themselves writing poetry um I had that that feeling I remember it well um but I also realized that part of it was they were scary and I think George Mumbia wrote about it that actually you know they they're scary and so that's where a lot of people are at hearing this info and hearing that other people they're taking it seriously and spending time on it can be quite frightening to some people um particularly if people believe in reform if they believe in technological solutions if they believe that you should preserve this society that we know at all costs then they're going to be particularly disturbed by people like me and us talking about this and say that it's too late to avert disasters disrupting our society so the first thing is the inner work because this is not going to get uh it's not going to become an easier calmer conversation as more and more people talk about collapse and more and more problems are happening and more and more people are experiencing disruption in their own lives or seeing it on their screens around the world um so yeah how to engage that's why with the deep adaptation forum we talked about main the principles being engaging with uh compassion curiosity and respect and we also talked about returning to that knowing that we'll slip away from that so that's probably the first thing the second thing is probably not to disengage with the people who say yeah what you used to call them anti the anti-doomism like saying bad doomers um giving up um and upsetting our children that kind of thing um but I think it's important not to disengage entirely uh and then look at their arguments um so they're saying we're wrong on the science um and we're also counterproductive those are the two main substantive things and uh when anyone is making an argument which is different from ours you can say well please explain yourself on your side so rather than throwing accusations about what we're just saying so tell us uh clearly uh how how do you respond to these published papers in peer review journals that are saying that uh that even the latest models are showing that if we stopped all carbon emissions now um we would go through two degrees and then um tell us how that in 2009 all the top climate scientists including some of these so-called anti-doomic critics they they published something called the Copenhagen diagnosis saying that unless emissions are peaked by 2020 and are coming down significantly we will blast through two degrees and it will be catastrophe for our civilization um it's it's what is their evidence in terms of when we look at since the Kyoto Protocol decades of action on climate um while emissions have risen what's their evidence about how we're going to achieve the change um and also how are they refute um research that shows that so for example food security modeling which shows that um within three years of uh global ambient warming of 1.5 degrees we are very likely to see a multi-bred basket failure and then the knock-on effects of that will be massive so it's we're not wrong we have differences of opinion uh and people who anticipate collapse have looked at this and concluded differently to them and believe we should have a conversation about this and so that's not a marginal view I mean the the scholar's warning letter that came out just before Christmas now has over 568 signatures of scientists and scholars from over 30 countries around the world saying we can't keep shutting this down um as a conversation because then we lose time to actually see well what can we do to try and reduce the harm with increasing disruption breakdown and even collapse the other thing is they're saying we're counterproductive well again it'd be like well what's your evidence for that because we have evidence um that actually is not counterproductive you Claire know from all the people you work with I mean but you say maybe you could tell us um a lot of people who realize that we're in an emergency situation where now we can no longer believe that somehow we're going to fix this there's no fairytale anymore in environmentalism it's just going to get bad it's a question of how bad is it going to get and what can we do to help slow that and and soften the the landing and do as much as we can to find meaning and joy on the way and hopefully plant the seeds of something of course some people don't believe that's that's possible but um it's certainly not we've even done research members of the deep adaptation forum we did a survey and over it was about half say that since they anticipate collapse and have joined the forum they are leading what they consider to be leading in their communities in new ways so um we have some evidence that it's not counterproductive however if they've got evidence that it is counterproductive then it's important to see that because not because we stopped the conversation on collapse because we also have opinion surveys showing that a lot of people now anticipate collapse in the next 20 years so it's about how can we have the right kind of conversations to help people move away from a bunker mentality of it's us against them whoever people choose to define as us and them and so for me deep adaptation is offering a different way of engaging with that um so um but also a third thing would be don't just get lost in those arguments um because it's beyond climate science this is hyper complex it's it involves all other areas and we need to be clear about what our agenda is in in your case Claire with XR and activism um I think for deep adaptation it does invite the question what is our public agenda rather than our personal one and how public is our public agenda and do we have a strategy to impact at at a political level at the moment I don't think we really do and I think that's been fine and appropriate the focus of deep adaptation conversations has been on the interpersonal um but I think it may well be time now to start having a chat about that and maybe therefore there'll be more opportunity for explicit connection with extinction rebellion in other activist groups perhaps what do you think thanks um well yeah one of the things that I felt really strongly is that like a part of this conversation goes to saying um you know if if if you're gonna dash people's hopes then you're the problem you're driving a wedge in the movement um and um I'm quite interested in the in in that as an argument um which as far as I can see there's a bit of wedge driving going on it's not come from me or you so the aim to sort of bring people together to get people to take action and to do work together that helps either themselves their community or the wider movement all of the work we've got to do seems to me uh that we have to be able to tolerate these kinds of uh different levels that people get to in their awareness of um of what the risk is and um and I've also sort of obsessed about risk quite a lot um because I feel like one of the one of the major reasons why I think um climate scientists alone have not um been able to to alert people to what's really at stake is because they're not risk experts and so they very much want to communicate truth that as much as they can find it and if there's something sort of that can't be measured or that's not very well understood then often it's just emitted from the conversation and of course if you're looking at something that's hyper complex and you reduce it in that way you'll you give you give information that's like has huge lack of things that people could really do with hearing so um there's something in all of that which I'm not quite I'm never quite sure whether I've got to the bottom of it or not but I think it's um I think it's really important and I don't um I don't think that I don't think that I know anybody basically who's uh who's a doomer um I feel like the people that go to a place of you know inaction and head in the sand basically don't don't understand people who do understand this stuff can't put it down once they know I have to live with it yeah I've if I've ever met anyone who say climate change I was too late don't bother uh I actually they were never really engaged and um and they don't really realize what it means for them and their loved ones because you can't be blasé once you really take this to heart um so so yeah I haven't met anyone who truly believes uh it's too late to prevent catastrophic damage to our societies including even in our own lives and then just turned away um I know that there's cognitive dissonance increasing and I had it in me for years as I thought well maybe it's too late to stop these this massive damage and disruption and in my own lifetime I didn't know how to talk about it uh and so deep adaptation isn't it is a route out of that cognitive dissonance that some people don't want to go there because they fear the despair in the same way I fear the despair um um so yeah uh recognizing it's painful and therefore staying compassionate even when people are saying that you're just somehow influenced by Russian thoughts spreading misinformation and whatever the latest nonsense attack is against people like me thank you thanks thanks Claire and I want to go to Eric next he's got a question which connects with some of what you've just been with touching on hey this is Eric coming from Vermont in the United States and the question that I had was um you know for those of us who are communicating this message and I'm a university professor and I sometimes talk about this kind of stuff with my students uh usually by their own requests not so much because I bring it up um I guess the question I have is is what obligation do we have as communicators for those of us who are to present this in a way that does not push people over the edge with respect to mental health and then what are some strategies that you can offer or um that you know of that might help with that thanks you're muted by the way yeah thank you so um firstly I would say Eric um recognize how painful the topic is and therefore how difficult it is to bring this to people um where you think it's going to be new for them when I say difficult difficult for you and me to bring it to people authentically um and how it should stay difficult because the I had it one one or two talks I gave or one or two interviews where I was a bit rushed and I I was a bit numb I think to the topic and as soon as we start just oh yeah some data ABC therefore collapse da da da da da you know here's a model that's just you know it's it's reducing the the gravity of this topic but of course it's difficult to get fully emotionally connected with that gravity of uh all the time so the first is to recognize that and therefore pace yourself secondly so I don't do many talks like this and also this is my first I think I did a facebook live um um September 2019 I don't do yeah so there's that um secondly um I'm giving a talk uh that uh professor Ina who's on the call um is organizing so I'm giving a talk to an adaptation conference but I was when we were planning it I was asking so who's going to be coming and um and I said I I can't do it unless there's attention paid to the context and the support for the people who will engage with me um on this uh and so there's going to be a session after my talk which will be about sharing about emotions and providing support um that's not I mean it's it's online so that's not ideal um but the thing is is that um awareness of this topic is spreading and so the opportunity for people as a cohort of students for example to talk about this hear about it from someone like me and then talk about it with each other is way better than just news of it being shared uh in a as quick dramatic news bulletin I I've avoided mass media for that reason I just thought it would be ridiculous for it to just land in someone's living room as they watch telly in an unsupported environment so I focus more that's why we thought about creating the deep adaptation forum to learn about these issues about hold to hold space on this um so those are the first two things um I I also in the context of the deep adaptation forum although I'm not directly daily involved anymore and since I've left the team um we're quite clear that we need to spread means of emotional peer support throughout society because we're going to have a massive mental health crisis spreading and we can't just rely on professional services to do that however it's really important that all of us know where professional services are available and point people to them and also reach out for them ourselves so for example that's one of the reasons why the guidance database was created and launched as one of the first projects with the forum and that's also why the moderators on the deep adaptation facebook group know about uh how to point people to emergency mental health support um so but I'm interested Eric I mean you say you you've been doing talks about this or um how have you been approaching this this issue um and you know because there's one way of going which is just sort of almost bureaucratic and and that's not good enough you know let's see how we can really be helpful well kind of like I alluded to I don't necessarily like schedule talks on this topic but I do teach at the University of Vermont and a lot of different classes and it is uh normal for students at some point in this semester oftentimes multiple times during this semester to start bringing up issues of climate collapse and the many political and environmental and social consequences that they will have and I'm the instructor of the class and so naturally they turn to me and and want me to uh you know they want to bounce ideas off of me to see if they're being irrational they want help working through their cognitive dissonance which is a huge issue and then it's pretty normal nowadays at least among the kind of students that I have for probably half of them to rely on some kind of medications in order to stay functional because of mental health issues and it's also typical for maybe a quarter of them to have like significant mental health crises during the course of this semester and so I have to point people to the resources they need so that they don't kill themselves which is a ongoing fear of mine not necessarily because of things that I present to them but just because of the stuff that they see when they turn on the news um so I don't give I don't bring this issue up but I'm I try to be there for the students when the issue comes up and try to I don't even you know I wish I had a strategy that I use that I could report works but I feel like it's individual to each person like some people the best I can probably expect to do is calm them down others they're in a place where we can have a talk about the details and that we can like pick at their cognitive distance which is it varies so much thanks Eric thank you very much and I know that you've been doing a lot of work around trauma and taking that into account and becoming trauma aware in these conversations um thank you and thank you for for the heartfulness that you that you're bringing to this work as well I would like to go to a question from from Ina next which is kind of bouncing from this this very personal place up to a bigger picture Ina can you unmute yourself please yeah thank you um yeah following up what Jem just said um of course the the context different quite oh yeah let me introduce first I'm a professor in social spatial planning at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands um I think the context and the awareness on deep meditation is quite different in in in countries and in different cultures and in the Netherlands I see even in the mainstream media the last two years really a rapid increase in awareness of the severe impacts of climate change so I think there's a time now to reach more out to indeed to students and the public about these issues and I'm therefore so quite pleased that Jem agreed to give a lecture on next Friday during the open university in Groningen it's an um and for the other side just put a link in the in the chat because there will be much more activities this week also on on adaptation and which you can follow and there's also conference on the youth climate movement I think it's especially important to also reach out to the youth but indeed in a careful way deep adaptation can create sense of urgency but can also create stress so therefore we indeed followed up this presentation with Jem on Friday with a session on emotional responses to to this predicament however my question is more political um so it's um following up your article in open democracy where you address seven points of critique in a very clear way I was thinking um how to create a more concrete political agenda following up the four airs especially around issues like restoration innovation a shift to a post-growth economy um yeah also um about how can it include aspects like a radical communitarian perspective and also how can we include guidelines for governments so how to support a more bold governance direction including a revised financial system what would be your thoughts on that on a concrete political agenda of the deep adaptation group yeah um thank you Ina and professor Haulings is one of the signatories of the scholar's warning which calls for more active engagement of this topic by all kinds of scholars with a view to developing that policy agenda so yes I agree now that the anticipation of collapse is spreading around the world as particularly more people experience disruption destabilization vulnerability confusion unpredictability in their own lives um uh if if we don't reach out and talk to them about how you process that then certainly other people with other agendas will do and arguably are doing so arguably the rise of the right the rise of um so-called populism but really um nationalism and so forth is is trying to take that sense of malaise and annoyance it's not it's not by chance the popular phrases are like make america great again or take back control this is about based on the sense the future doesn't look very good anymore and we're annoyed at the present um and in other countries there are similar sentiments and similar catchphrases so yeah unless we reach out and show uh that there's another way of responding to a sense that the future's not going to be great um yeah in the old way of understanding great so not great in terms of materially not great in terms of what you may have thought your future would or your kids future would have will be um then people are going to fall for the narratives that they're being told about who to blame and where safety lies and that will be counterproductive we could see um quite aggressive foreign policies being justified we are already seeing dehumanizing narratives within the environmental movement um and uh and it means i'm about to say something which some people for example may find controversial but it means we have to be okay about having disagreements within the so-called environmental movement and the so-called deep adaptation movement so for example some people like to talk about overpopulation uh and yet uh it's very easy for any of us to learn for example oxfam just had a report out which reminded us that the richest one percent of the world their carbon emissions um account for more than double the poorest half of the whole planet so um if we if we have an overpopulation problem it's within the one percent and and um and so actually the the narrative of overpopulation uh you know where where are there too many people and uh and it could lead to therefore sort of this a callous narrative of oh well there's too many of us at just at a time when we need more solidarity humanitarian commitment support and and new internationalism in the environmental movement and in general uh as we face this crisis because because it's going to be natural that the the bunker mentality is not it's not just going to be people building bunkers it's going to be seeing their towns their country uh their identity their race even as a as some kind of bunker us and them and i i believe we need to point that out and challenge it and show a different way and part of that will be to show how the environmental disaster occurred because of the same things that lead to that kind of racist othering of people which is is you you you sort of you deny the the subjectivity and the the the full sovereignty of every other living living being um there's this constant separation of self and it's because of that that then we can tolerate colonialism uh destruction of nature racism patriarchy and so on um so the articulating the depths of that critique will hopefully invite people away from sort of defensive um mentality as they feel fear but also we need to spell out spell out as you say a coherent policy agenda yes i think it's about time and yes there's an opportunity for a systemic critique because decades of effort of reforming capitalism have just coincided with incredible uh species loss habitat loss climate destabilization uh so there's just no credible evidence for continuing a reformist agenda and we need to start talking about well what is a radical transformative agenda and uh in terms of the objectives and the methods of getting there and so you mentioned finance and yeah i've been doing quite a bit of work on that and and um the banking and monetary systems do encourage uh encourage and even require economic growth and some researchers debunk that and actually that research we believe the people i'm working with the economists was incorrect and there is actually a monetary growth imperative for the nature of our monetary system and therefore if we're serious about trying to uh have bold mitigation and also uh transformative and deep adaptation then we have to uh show a pathway to an alternative monetary and banking system um so it is time for that uh and i'm really uh i'm i'm going to be working on that more this year um and i really hope and i think that's what the scholar's warning indicates there are many more scholars who are saying from all walks you know climatology but economics politics psychology saying i'm ready for a really difficult new conversation about well what what's needed in society and therefore potentially there'll be many more people to work together on a on a policy agenda um so i'm up for it in my little way my part of that thanks thank you iina um i want to invite question from Zareen now which yeah connects with with part of your response just now Jen Zareen can you unmute yourself and while Zareen is unmuting yourself just a moment to remind anybody who's got a question that's just burning to be asked there's still time and you can post it in the chat box please thank you thanks gem you've already touched on some of the things i was flagging out so i'm calling in from elitist outside of Cambridge in the UK and i'm coming from a non-scientist perspective from my work as a coach and a facilitator within the UK civil service and the corporate sector and a newbie within da so much of the work is about somehow engaging minds and hearts attracting people to do the tough work that is needed and create the new system we need so within that context i ask um you mentioned current system institutions of economy culture and politics that suffocate the potential for real transformation and yet new structures tend to get institutionalized and reflect the existing colonialist white supremacist paradigm what do you experience as working well within da that can help in our quest for change wider a field in our myriad of ways you know i'm not going about it as an environmentalist or a scientist so we're all doing it in our myriad of ways i see a lot that's working well within da and i want to know what you see yeah so thanks zareen um i want to start with where you ended which is that yes uh the experience of societal disruption and collapse and the anticipation of societal disruption and collapse is not an environmental thing um it's in its economics politics psychology organizations communities um and our own inner worlds and also uh acting to try and reduce harm in that context is not just at all an environmental thing there's a huge role for religious institutions and humanitarian groups and coaches and organizational leaders and all kinds of so yeah um you're right it's um it's a much bigger piece than just talk and so it's important not just to get stuck in the environmental conversation and argument um what do i see working you've also talked about how you see um that we continue to see structures being created in this society that reflect uh the ideology of this society and you summarize that um in terms of a colonialist way of being uh and i suppose we can see that then when people get together to do things about the environment uh for example so what's working well in da i was i was really pleased to see uh one of the things that came out of the strategy options dialogue last year a volunteer led dialogue on what should deep adaptation be working on as a international community um was decolonization and diversity to actually look at this and also to not just about how can we be more inclusive um but also what can we what can we learn about these topics uh and how might we as a community change for example it's because of that and the initiative that's emerged as a result of that um strategy options process that now i'm asking myself what could i learn about uh people who've been through tragic disruption of their own way of life and who also feel that that their sense of identity is coming from a culture uh is part of a culture that has been uh disrupted oppressed destroyed um and also i'm thinking oh dear i don't actually know so i'm i've existed within a culture that um is limited and therefore my engagement with what is a global problem is reflective of my culture um and therefore is limited uh and so yeah i'm i want to be open to learning uh from that um i realize it can be quite painful for some people to recognize that um because it gets confusing like you you you begin to lose a sense of solid ground um in terms of you know what my well view and and my blind spots and so on but it's important and it's difficult work and it's the broader decolonization anti-racism and and the co-liberation agenda which is important to deep adaptation because we are trying to reduce harm as societies come under stress and begin to be encouraged to to blame each other or blame the other um and psychological theories like terror management theory point to how when people get more stressed they can also become more attached to their existing stories of identity safety security belonging it so unless we're active in in inviting people away from that which i think the decolonization work in deep adaptation is active in inviting people away from those responses um then if we don't do that then then what are we doing what are we really doing here if we believe in reducing harm um i mean i believe i i believe all the the practical deep adaptation you know delinking from the capitalist system and growing your own and and becoming more resilient in your local community is brilliant and it's not enough that can't be a turning away from the broader social justice agenda thank you gem and thanks Zareen um i want to go to yuri next if you're ready yuri to unmute yourself and ask your question yes it's great to see so many people over here and what what strikes me is that according to the world economic forum about half the population world population in younger than 27 years old well you know the world economic forum yourself quite well and i have the impression that the majority of us over here are just a little bit above 27 years of age so i was wondering how could we what what could we do to pull in more young people into this discussion because it's their world too after all yeah thanks yuri um so uh it's uh it's important and i'm i'm not directly involved in the deep adaptation forum in the way i used to be so i don't know where the forum's got to on this issue but i do know that we all took it very seriously and wanted to be deliberate and careful uh in the way that we would engage young people um i have for me it was really important so i reached out to say caroline hickman and um who's a child psychologist and there's a video on that which i recommend when i interviewed her um and and she in her work with talking with young people around the world as part of research project about anticipated climate disruption and even collapse was that they they've already been having the conversations themselves and they've already been processing it and got lots of ideas and so as adults we need to be open to hearing and talking with not talking to children and young people and that was my experience i was blown away when i went to a school to talk to young people so blown away i made a film about it it's called it's called oscar's quest and it's talking with children about collapse and um what i realized was that young people it's like okay this okay all these adults are arguing amongst themselves about who's right who's wrong who's responsible who's ever responsible blah blah blah but it sounds like there's a real possibility even probability that this is the future that i will live in much more than they have to so what am i going to do about it um so there's much more of a okay so what uh energy that i hear like an immediate processing and then so what so um so i think it'll be very uh it would be it's important to engage young people and i'm not doing it i don't think the deep adaptation forum is doing it but katie you might be able to update me on that um and it has to be done very very carefully because it it's all different age groups there are different issues and different contexts different backgrounds different support structures in the family and the school it's got to be done very consciously with some resources uh to make sure that it's done as well as possible um but i am i'm not working on it myself and um i don't know where the forum's at on it katie you can come in there if there's anything to say yeah with yori if you've got ideas as well about what's really important to keep in mind to be sure um yeah just in response to that gem uh no we're not my my background is working in in education with children and young people um and it seems to me that right now um it seems that it isn't part necessarily part of the function of the deep adaptation forum however it could be a place uh to support um adults parents teachers other people who do work with children and young people to uh explore the best ways of having those conversations the best ways to support them rather than deep adaptation be a place for uh drawing young people in yeah it doesn't feel like that's quite the right fit at the moment i think it's important for the climate movement the adults in the climate movement to uh engage young people on this um if not deep adaptation then to engage people on the young people and children on adaptation uh there need to be as many demands on government and business and leaders uh for emergency adaptation uh to climate disruption as there are demands around mitigation and net zero and so forth and at the moment the fridays for the future movement and other children's and young people's activist movements uh i don't think are talking about adaptation i think it would be good to have those conversations um doesn't need to be about anticipated collapse or deep adaptation it's just the broader piece of of trying to reduce harm with we know what some of what's coming can i can i respond jam message you asked me to respond yeah um it was what i i i've lived in fitland in my life earlier on in my life and um i went to form our host family where my host sister when i met her at first like she was four years old but now she had grown into like a 19 year old um and we talked about how things were going there at high school she was in her last year of high school and i asked her and her boyfriend who was there so what do you think on climate change and are you talking about that are you discussing it and uh to the surprise of her parents who with whom she never really talked about it it was like yes we talk about it and and do you worry about it i asked and both of them said yes every day and we can't sleep um at night because of it and that that um that fear that that conscious fear and that the unconscious fear as well that was there and that was constantly bothering them and what i have noticed is that it's really good to open up open up such a discussion and i have been discussing it with many students at some universities very guest lecture um and i just address the issue and i um i don't say like i confront them or i i go all in and that's not how i do it but it's it's having a frank discussion and and talking to them as equals i can you know what do you think we should be doing and if you take them series and if you treat them as adults and i well you know i think you can have a very meaningful discussion and even youngsters who said yeah you know yes i've heard it but i i never believed in it but hey after this talk that we've had uh for three hours like gosh it's far more serious than i had realized so even for some people who weren't in there but just to just to get everybody to talk about it for once to open it up as a okay topic to discuss i felt that really did a lot of good work yeah thank you thank you yori it's um nearly every question that's coming is exactly on this topic but but for different uh different audiences and different purposes is how on earth do you talk about this so thank you for bringing for bringing that one on in i'd like to go to alex next please alex if you want to unmute yourself please sure thank you um so glad to be here and to spend some time with you jam and katie and everyone um alex ds i live in porto rico um hurricane alley in curbian i run a a adaptation consulting firm called common future and i'm a member of the business group of the deep adaptation forum which is had a meeting a couple weeks ago i see a couple places here from that group so my question jam is you've you know you've said a couple of times that i've seen you speak in videos and and and so forth that you have not yet uh taken the time to focus in on how uh deep adaptation framework and the four rs apply to business and it happens to be my own work and i've taken the initiative and i grabbed the four r framework and i turned it into a uh uh what i'm calling a deep adaptability framework for business um because the corporate world is is much maligned as as being part cause of the climate crisis uh but today it's turning its attention to climate risk and the uk just announced that it'll be mandating climate risk disclosure by companies the new biden administration is coming in with the same uh uh intention switch and we just announced it'll be uh mandating companies to disclose and manage their climate risk so climate risk suddenly become uh we're in the middle of a tipping point here right uh and it's forcing companies to do what we are all doing at an individual level to huddle as senior teams i'm sorry i'm really sorry to wade in and i've waded in anyway but i've got quite a few other questions so i'd really okay so so a question very very quickly have you uh thought lately about how the four r framework and how deep adaptation can be useful in a business setting yeah thanks um thanks alex and it's good you're doing the work um and it's wonderful to hear the framework is is is helpful um i'm i was love hearing that the the four r framework because that was it that was what i was offering is a framework for dialogue because i don't have the answers this is uh this is an awful situation for all of us so um the problem of coming in with a with a framework would be if it if it gives the impression that this is just yet another thing a new management tool and a new uh you know a new thing to get clever at um it's an awful situation for all of us um and for some people more than others so i'm the framework is to invite conversation and it's it's because i i i don't know what to do and and also i've realized that when i when i have presented it are ideas on what organizations could do i've started by saying so for example the lecture in cumbria university so some business students i've started by talking about how research on uh organizations policies on just simple climate change adaptation are rubbish i mean it's just not being done properly um and also even just um adaptation not deep adaptation just adaptation to climate change is a framework for investor risk and for um guiding portfolios and just it's just not being done coherently so just start with that you know just just within the existing paradigm of of non-collapse um just so much more could be done on adaptation in general um but then what i've realized is if i don't talk about how how what an awful situation is and bring that um the power of the ideology of being business like which i've you know as a work in business school for decades uh it's it's it's almost like a it means that people can't even hear what i'm saying um doesn't compute and so i realize i find it very difficult to just go straight in with a um so this is what i think you could be working on and you should need to create a you need to create a um a new role and a new team that reports to the to the board and you need these people on it um uh you know supply chain community relations risk management uh finance strategy you know and just the quality of interaction is appalling afterwards because i haven't really clocked what i'm talking about so i think you can't sidestep the the full discussion of how difficult it is and how unpredictable the future is becoming and unstable it is and you can't therefore sidestep that what who you are alex going to meet someone online or in person you're a person meeting a person who is increasingly mutually vulnerable as are our families and everyone we love and the life that we know more vulnerable you can't sidestep that and to and no no nor should you um and i think that would give a maybe that then gives a different quality of conversation now i haven't been acting as a consultant on this so i don't know but i my guess is that would give a different quality of conversation it would become a quality a conversation about how do i help my staff and their families and the wider community process this information and work together to work out what to do um so it wouldn't it wouldn't just be about the organization it would be a more a sense that the organization is a meeting place of people and it's the people that matter um and i talked about it in my lecture to Bath University where they asked me to talk about organizational implications and i thought well okay i need to talk more about deep adaptation first and then talk about ways of raising this with organizations i don't know if you've seen it but i'd be really interested in your thoughts on on what i was recommending so no i don't yet have a set of of um ideas recommendations and i will read your particulars i need to be writing a book this year i've committed to that it'll be coming out in november and yeah the organizational implications of this is going to be in the book so i'll look at your work um Katie you said the more questions and should we have a very quick word from Alex on on what mate what what from that and then and then Alex if you could say very quickly because i mean we get to the other questions yeah yeah i mean it's interesting that you i mean i agree 100 with your uh feedback on that i think the reconciliation are is the starting point in my discussions with corporate groups because it's about people it's about uh connecting and reconciling a corporate what the strategy the plan they have at a company with this reality so it's about reconciliation of that perception the minds of the human bias that they come to the table with and clearing that out with up first and getting that out of the way before we move into any kind of um you know adaptation agenda so actually it starts with the r with the reconciliation are uh for exactly the same reason you just stated absolutely but it ends up being a people a more of an hr kind of people uh approach to it than uh because it's going to be so bad and the disruptions are going to be so massive that it's about having the resilient mindset that comes with reconciling which is what we all try to do on our personal uh scale so absolutely thank you Alex yeah thank you also seeing more of what the the business group in the deep adaptation forum do thank you yep absolutely thanks so i was going to invite david bent to ask his question but it appears that he's not here certainly not appearing on my list so i'm going to ask it on his behalf um how do you think gem that the deep adaptation community can contribute to the big formal processes of 2021 if it can so he suggests multilateral climate negotiations hosted by the uk biodiversity by china and u and food systems summit in september yeah um so there's a few things he rattled off there i mean i know that there's the the the cop26 those of you who are scholars um there's still time to register to review the ipcc report just go to ipcc it's probably ipcc.ch i can't remember off the top of my head and you can register and if you're a scholar then you say who you are and you should be authorized to then uh be an official reviewer of a chapter or even more if you can do more than one chapter uh and your feedback will be registered in public and obviously they don't have to take it on board but um yeah do that uh i am the uh i think the ipcc has had an important role to play but has unfortunately been downplaying uh how dangerous the situation is um by nature of their methodology and the the sort of the permission space they felt they had within as a reporting to an intergovernmental system uh i'm anticipating what they say in their next assessment report to be way more frightening and uh challenging than anything before so much so we're going to have conversations emerging about geoengineering um and adaptation will be a lot a bigger conversation and i think um we can't leave it to um physicists to dominate the conversation about what humanities should do because you know if you've been trained to wield a hammer then you'll see every problem as a nail um so yeah we i want more scholars involved uh in conversations about what do we do a more transdisciplinary engagement and that's why i've been involved in something called scholars warning to actually pluralize the kinds of people um involved in in looking at what do we do about the predicament we're in um more than that uh here we go david if you watch this i don't think any of those processes really matter very much prove to me they've had any impact whatsoever on the trajectory of the human race over the last decades sorry so we can get all excited and like try and influence one sentence in one report it doesn't matter sorry and me having worked at the un for years sorry carbon emissions biodiversity loss inequality um yeah so um just do what you believe in in fact hold back thank you jim and that was a perfect segue to a question from david baume here there david hello nice to see you jem and i'd like to say thank you for your work for what you've done on behalf of our community in the world my question is now that you are less involved in the day-to-day work of the forum how are you spending your time do you know what it's one of the downsides i may i'm because i'm deliberately spending less time in the forum like no time in the forum i'm missing i'm missing the loveliness of interacting with it's just gorgeous interacting with people in the forum and thank you for reminding me that david um so what am i doing um i was quite involved in the the the scholars warning activity so i recommend people go to scholarswarning.net and see what's coming out of that and more is coming later this year uh i've been planning ahead in terms of what intellectual work and research i'm writing i want to do and securing funding for that and putting a i'll be putting a small team together on that um and i've discovered that i i can't fix my workaholism through um uh i can't fix my workaholism very easily so what i've done is i've signed up to drumming lessons singing lessons and guitar lessons and so i'm sort of forcing myself to depart from both the intellectual world and also um just twitter and looking at world news and the latest oh that's happening all over the planet and particularly in america and so yeah i i'm trying to fill up my life with with more of that oh and i've started i've got a knee and a back problem because i've spent decades working too hard on the laptops living a story of contribution through self-sacrifice of not looking after my body and so i'm actually swimming almost a kilometer every other day which is so damn exhausting because i'm so unfit that actually that wipes me out sometimes so i haven't fully retired but i'm trying to get some some balance what are you doing you are too kind uh nothing relevant to anyone with respect to deep adaptation though the core message that i have learned to take from deep adaptation is to find a life that is authentic to myself and compassionate to others at the same time that is a struggle learning how to actually benefit people but also not burn yourself up to ashes in the process so i'm walking almost every day that's my version of swimming thank you very much thanks so much david um beautiful wisdom to share with us there um i want to um apologize to anybody who who posted a question and i haven't invited you to share it um i wanted to uh in some areas where there were lots of people posting questions on the same topic i wanted to get a representation and then some areas which were brand new so i hope that um uh yeah even if you posted a question and you didn't hear it uh the answer that you have found some answers um but i just wanted to ask jen before we finish is there anything that you were expecting to come up or anything that you hoped you might be asked about which you haven't been asked about yet oh no but there's one thing i might want to say which is um for those of you who feel ready it's time to speak out um and uh that won't and but to do so in in a way where you you realize that there will be that it's it's not easy um it's not easy because you you obviously want you don't want to be blasé callous numb you want to be authentic to yourself and compassionate to the other as david said um and when you do this speaking out at times it will go wrong or it'll be stressful um but i think it is a time now for more people to speak out because um as the anticipation of disruption and collapse spreads um people need to hear that there's this way of responding and increasing numbers of people are hearing of this way of responding the deep adaptation way uh through the mass media where typically journalists or publishers of books and so on or documentary makers or whatever will be bringing their own agenda where it's completely understandable that they want to make us seem peculiar wrong um to be laughed at or demonized and that's not going to stop not for quite a while and okay just we can just accept it um but i think it would be good for more of us to speak out and that means in whatever ways we can um so that would be my message for those of you who who can and to seek support in that perhaps so the deep adaptation forum it's various different groups you know i mean that is is is there a facebook group for people who speak out is there a facebook is there a facebook group for people who write as opinion pieces in your local newspapers or in magazines i don't know but i'm not i'm not directly involved but maybe there could be more support provided beyond the deep adaptation advocates group there could be more support people to speak out and help each other do that thanks gem um we're finishing a little bit early i would like to thank you so much this q and a it's a little bit different um than your previous and i understand this is the last one that you're going to be doing for quite some time uh so it's been really lovely and thanks to everybody else for coming and to those of you who have joined for uh many or several of gem's q and a's over the last year and a half i think you've been doing them um yeah and for those of you that that we both see in between times it's a great pleasure gem thank you very much yeah and just want to say when this this will go up on my youtube channel and i'll put some links into like some of the things i said like you know the oxfam report um and others so um and then that will be posted to the event page and if anyone's watching this on youtube then um please um there are over 50 lovely people on this call and please reach out the deep adaptation forum deep adaptation dot info and then you can connect and you can find your place and you can start meeting amazing people around the world and and um stay present to the difficulties and be supported and support each other thank you great thank you all bye