“I would actually start with saying, what are the things you love?”
Gail Whiteman is a Professor of Sustainability at the University of Exeter Business School, and a social science expert on how decision-makers make sense of systemic global risks from climate change and other environmental threats. She is the Professor-in-Residence at the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and is actively involved in building science-based targets for collective business action.
Whiteman is a past member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Frontier Risk, keynote speaker at Davos in 2023, “Unlocking the Polar Crisis” with HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco, and in 2020, “What’s at Stake: The Arctic,” alongside Sanna Marin (Prime Minister, Finland) and Al Gore. In 2021, she organised and participated in a High Level Panel – “A Plan for the Planet – the Arctic and Beyond” — with TIME Magazine as part of WEF’s media programme for the online Davos Agenda, together with HRH Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, Robert Downey Jr., Baroness Bryony Worthington, Rainn Wilson, and Eric Rondolat.
She’s the founder of the climate communication project Arctic Basecamp and co-founder of Climate Basecamp. This interview was recorded on November 11, 2024.
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Helena Rambler 00:07
Thank you for listening to our tiny podcast about a giant topic. We’ve learned we have listeners all over the world, and we’re curious who you are and what you would like to hear on the show. So if you’d like please send us an email at podcast@thecityatlas.org. That’s podcast@thecityatlas.org. Thanks for listening.
Gail Whiteman 00:31
And you know what? I think you just changed the name from climate, because climate seems politicized, and it shouldn’t be, but people don’t care about climate. They care about a livable future. We need the climate to get there, right? So I would just reframe it. That’s one of the things we’re thinking about too.
Helena Rambler 00:55
Welcome back to another episode of Bridging the Carbon Gap.
Because climate change is not formally taught in New York City high schools. City Atlas started this podcast to connect students directly with experts to find out how they would design a high school curriculum for climate. In today’s episode, we speak with Gail Whiteman, a professor of sustainability at the University of Exeter Business School, and a social scientist who focuses on decisions, actions and how people perceive the climate crisis. Through her initiatives, Arctic Basecamp and Climate Basecamp, she works to translate complex scientific data into the impacts that matter to the public, the government, businesses and the media.
Helena Rambler 01:41
Hi, I’m Helena. I’m a junior at Hunter College High School in New York City.
Pierce Siegel 01:51
I’m Pierce. I’m also a junior in New York City at Hunter College High School.
Gail Whiteman 01:55
Well, cool. Hello to both of you. Thanks for inviting me.
Helena Rambler 02:00
Just to start off, could you give us a quick summary of your projects and your findings at Arctic Basecamp and Climate Basecamp?
Gail Whiteman 02:08
So maybe I’m going to start by asking you a question. So, if you had to say on a scale of one to 10, what was your level of understanding of climate science, and 10 being like a lot, and zero being nothing, and five, obviously in the middle. So what, where would you say you were yourself on that scale?
Pierce Siegel 02:29
Maybe a seven.
Gail Whiteman
Seven, okay.
Helena Rambler 02:33
Okay, yeah, I agree. I guess seven, seven and a half, maybe.
Gail Whiteman 02:36
Seven and a seven and a half, and that’s good. And my question is, how come you guys are so high?
Pierce Siegel 02:42
Well, we run the podcast Bridging the Carbon Gap, which we’re lucky enough to have you a guest on. And we also are on Hunter’s Environmental Action Team, which we run at school. And we ourselves try to spread climate awareness and learn more about it every day.
Gail Whiteman 02:59
Right? So you guys know quite a lot about it, because it’s also kind of your day job, as well as going to school and stuff, right? So if you would say, just judging here, a little bit like if you scan the horizon of other juniors in your year that were not in those things, would you say they’re also at a seven or a seven and a half?
Helena Rambler 03:19
No, I don’t think so. they’d probably be at, a four. Kids at our school kind of know about it, and they’re aware of it, but they don’t actually understand and know climate change to the extent that it needs to be known.
Gail Whiteman 03:35
And why is that? Do you know why?
Helena Rambler 03:38
I think part of it is lack of education, and also, the lack of searching for the education. Just seeing this issue, and not really having, not really understanding, that’s the lack to strive for education.
Gail Whiteman 03:58
Right? So I think that that’s, well, first of all, thank you for that. And I think then if I said, you know, how about your parents? Where do you think they are? Or, you know, it’s Thanksgiving soon. So you know, Uncle Joe or Aunt Betty or whoever else, like, where are, where are they? On that scale, there may be somewhere, I don’t know. You tell me where. Where are the others in your family? Are they between a four and a seven, or are they zero and a 10? Where are we going here?
Pierce Siegel 04:27
Maybe a little lower, maybe a two or three. Definitely heard about it, but no real incentive to learn more.
Gail Whiteman 04:34
Exactly. Would you say the same, Helena?
Helena Rambler 04:37
I would say some of my extended family would definitely be low. I would say my parents would probably be like, around me, just because, like, especially my mom, like, she’s like, exposed to it for like, that’s related to her job, right? But nothing like my extended Southern family would have no knowledge or awareness.
Gail Whiteman 04:56
Right? And I think that’s really common. So again, thank you. Thank you for that, but I think that so the reason why I set up, first of all, Arctic Basecamp, as the founder, which is a not for profit organization that has a mission to speak science to power, and also the little sister called Climate Basecamp, which is the new one with a mission to speak science to culture.
We set those up because so much of science on climate is really important. You guys know that you’re at a seven, seven and a half, right? It’s going to determine all of our futures, as well as some of the risks today, depending on where you are in the world, or where you are in the US. And it’s hard for people to really know the details. It’s not because the science isn’t clear. The science is really clear, but it’s about communication and about relevance. So it’s relevant to you, maybe because of what you’ve already learned, but also you’ve got, you know, a side job where you’re doing this podcast and all these other things, right? And your mom, you said Helena has a job that has some relationship with climate issues or environment or that’s part of it. So she’s also got some extra, you know, daily information, attention being paid to that. But for most people around the world and in the US, especially, you know, it’s not part of their day job.
And the way science is packaged, is not easy for people to understand. So when scientists tend to talk, they tend to give lots of very sophisticated, complicated language and data points, and you almost need a PhD to figure out what they’re actually saying. And they don’t actually tend to spend a lot of time, and there’s some that do, but most of them, they don’t spend a lot of time trying to talk to people, right, maybe in their neighborhood. But you’d be surprised how many climate scientists also have relatives at Thanksgiving, and they’re in the same spread as your relatives. Some will be at a two, and some will be at a higher amount. And I think that’s really normal.
So the job of what we are trying to do with Arctic Basecamp, and then with Climate Basecamp, is trying to communicate to people about what is happening, why it’s happening, and why it is relevant to them.
So what Arctic Basecamp does, it is focused on people in power, so people that run or work for big companies or government, so they’re politicians or policy makers or the media, we try to explain what’s going on in the Arctic and why that is not just bad news for the polar bear, but why it’s actually bad news for the rest of people and societies around the world and ecosystems.
So the Arctic is a big place. It’s beautiful. I don’t know. Have you guys been to the Arctic? Have you? Have you’ve seen it on TV, right or on video, right? Like, it’s beautiful. I’ve been to the Arctic, and it is really beautiful, even when it’s melting, it’s still gorgeous. But it is such an important ground zero for climate change. So there’s amplification that comes in and is warming the Arctic region about four times faster than the rest of the world, which is obviously bad. But on top of that. because of what it does in the rest of the climate system, that is going to cause all kinds of other stuff, and is doing that right now.
So for an example of what the Arctic does, and this is why I try, we set up Arctic Basecamp to try and communicate these things better, if you know, there’s fires happening in the US right now, right? Do you know where they’re happening?
Pierce Siegel 08:42
Yes, they just happened in Prospect Park, and in Van Cortlandt yesterday, I think.
Gail Whiteman 08:47
Yeah. And there’s a ton that are also happening. You know, there’s stuff that’s happening on the East Coast, and then there’s a ton of stuff – right now, Hollywood and LA are really getting hit by wildfires again, right?
But there’s also stuff happening in Connecticut and so on. And certainly, if we take a look at the California wildfires, that is actually the Arctic calling, and that’s not something most people know. Yeah, I see your face. You’re like– well, I didn’t know that. Yeah, it’s true. And you’re a seven or a seven and a half, right? Well, it is true.
So the Arctic is white. And then part of the things the Arctic does, whether it’s snow or ice, it bounces sunlight back out into the atmosphere. That’s the albedo effect. So that’s that, that bounce. But when the Arctic ice is gone, or some of the snow is gone, or the land ice glaciers like Greenland, if there’s less of that, then it actually absorbs into the ocean and also changes, not just the currents and the temperature in the ocean, but also starts to change the jet stream. So the polar vortex gets funny, and that affects extreme weather in the mid latitudes.
So the fires that we’re seeing happen, or it could be the drought or sometimes it gets really cold, in Texas, the polar vortex comes down. And we see that in Europe too, there is this extreme weather.
And it looks like science is saying that the Arctic, the changes that are happening in the Arctic, are amplifying and magnifying. It’s like a threat amplifier. So it’s making it worse.
So what we try to do is connect those dots. We do it too Arctic Basecamp. We do it with people that are big companies, politicians, media, etc. And then with Climate Basecamp, what we try to do is we speak science to culture, so then we’re really focused on individual people. So that’s some of the things. And I can talk about Climate Basecamp in a second, but maybe I thought I’d pause and just see if you had any questions on that first before I do.
Pierce Siegel 10:46
Awesome. Thank you so much for the background. So for Arctic Basecamp, you present your findings annually to the World Economic Forum. Can you talk briefly on how important that experience is and what it’s like?
Gail Whiteman 11:02
So the World Economic Forum, for your listeners that don’t know who they are, they’re an independent social organization that focuses on finding out from the world’s experts, scientists, and thought leaders, what are the world’s biggest risks facing the economy and society around the world.
So they do an annual global risk report, and they say what’s happening. So, you know, it could be the pandemic, it could be climate change, it could be crypto security issues. Could be geopolitics, it could be war. We see war happening in the world again now, unfortunately.
And what we try to do with Arctic Basecamp is influence the discussion of those people, and many of them that attend the World Economic Forum big meeting every year in Davos are the elite of the world. So those are the people that are running the big companies. They’re politicians, they’re media, they’re just really rich people, too. And what we try to do is explain what I was starting to explain to you, that there are real risks, not just with extreme weather to our houses and our vacation spots and where we live our life, but also to food. So if you’re a big company that’s in food, a lot of them are at risks for it, for crop failures are being amplified because of the Arctic. Or, if you’re an insurance company, the costs are being accelerated because of the way the Arctic is changing. Some of that with sea level rise.
So as Greenland melts, it increases sea level rise around the world. And then, if you add on the storm surges, and then you add on extreme weather, drought, floods, etc, etc. You’ve got coastal cities of which huge amounts of the population live in, that are increasingly at risk. So we try to explain that, that it’s not just about their backyard, but it’s about the system.
And we do that in a number of ways. The first way is that it’s not like they invited us to come the first time, right? Like they didn’t say, oh, Arctic Basecamp, please come. No, no, no, no, no, no. What they did was, well, they didn’t do anything.
It took me about five years, honestly, a long time, so like your entire high school career, I spent this period of time trying to get Arctic scientists to Davos, to the World Economic Forum, and it’s super expensive to stay at, if you can even get a place to stay, and then to try and get on a presentation. Like, nobody, nobody wants you to do this. They don’t mind if you’re there. They just like, why would you add value? They don’t know.
So the first time, what we did was we actually just took a real Arctic science tent. We went there and we camped in the snow, so it was super cold, really cold, and then we had a number of senior politicians and policy makers and business people do keynotes with us. And I tell you, we really broke through that sort of clutter. We’re not Zuckerberg with the big budgets or Bill Gates or something like that, like, we’re literally camping and it’s freezing. I mean, it’s freezing, right? So it was like, minus 24 Celsius, which is very cold. I can’t remember my Fahrenheit. You’re gonna have to add that back in. [Minus 11 Fahrenheit.]
It was really cold, and we camped there. And then everybody was like, wow, what are you talking about? So we keep going back every year, and the situation is not getting better.
When we started, the Arctic was warming about two, two and a half times faster than the rest of the world. And now it’s definitely close to four times faster than the rest of the world.
So that’s the difference between 2017 and 2024. So that’s a real ramp up. And I’ve also got some tools that I can give you as a like, as a link, where your listeners can put in their birth date, or the birth date of like a star that they like, like some celeb, and they can see how much Arctic ice has melted since then, versus etc, etc, or their parents birthday or whatever, and you can start to see how much has gone and it’s going really rapidly now.
So the Arctic is a big insurance policy against catastrophic climate change, and we’re really losing it. If we look at, say, Arctic ice, we’ve lost close to 40% from where it should be, and if we look at the volume, it’s like 75% which means, if that’s your insurance policy, like we are in trouble.
So although you might say you’re at a seven or seven to five on climate stuff, you might not know some of those facts and just how rapidly that’s happening.
That being said, we don’t want to just go and scare people. We want to go and say, we want to partner with people, because this is where the power is. We want them to have solutions and bring those solutions to scale. So that’s the real objective. I say, shock, shock. This is what’s happening. And then it’s faster than you think, even if you think, you know, but then let’s scale up those solutions. So let’s give hope for the rest of humanity. So that’s what we try to do with Arctic Basecamp.
Helena Rambler 16:08
Amazing. Thank you so much. Now you also run Climate Basecamp. So could you talk about how you use culture to encourage conversations?
Gail Whiteman 16:19
Well, one of the things we realized in Climate Basecamp, it’s amazing for me, because I’m not just the founder. In fact, I’m just a co-founder, but I’m the co founder with, of course, actor Rainn Wilson, who you may know, or certainly have seen him in The Office. He’s been involved in Arctic Basecamp. So in this area with me for the last five years, I took him to Greenland, and he did a short video documentary on that called an Idiot’s Guide to Climate Change. I’ll also give you the links for that too. And he’s a really clever guy, and he’s really committed, and he knows a lot of the science, and we realized that when we started to do things with Rainn, like he changed his name once, in a stunt for us where he changed his name to Rainfall, Heatwave, Extreme Winter Wilson. And honestly, it kind of broke the internet during that period two years ago, so we were in coverage everywhere on that and not by people that already knew they were, you know, like, what’s going on here.
You know, probably 300,000 also changed their name. I mean, it’s a gag. On my LinkedIn, I still have mine changed, because I like it, but, but we realized that actually Rainn can speak to power, like if you bring him to the World Economic Forum, everybody wants to meet him there too. But actually it’s everyday America wants to meet Rainn, so he can talk to people, and people actually have power.
So together with a third guy called Chuck Tatham, who is a comedy writer from Hollywood, maybe you’ve heard of shows like Modern Family or Arrested Development, or How I Met Your Mother.
We decided that what we would do is set up Climate Basecamp with the idea of, we speak science to culture, so we use the stuff that people are interested in, and then we don’t try and change that, but we try to say, here’s, here’s what the impacts are. We often use humor or using hope as a way of getting people involved. And in a second, I can talk through a couple of the campaigns we’ve got, but that’s sort of what the idea is. That’s why we’re doing Climate Basecamp.
Helena Rambler 18:30
Cool. Thank you. And like what inspired you to establish both of these kinds of initiatives.
Gail Whiteman 18:41
I think a bit of desperation that scientists knew really important things, but were just not able to figure out who should know those things, and then how to talk to those people. So before I actually became a scientist, I worked in marketing and advertising, so I would be used to this, yeah, quite a long time ago. Now I was, you know, trained to sell you chewing gum and all kinds of other products, or bank cards or banking and things like that. So I knew how to target the target audience. And I saw that science thought that somebody else was going to do that for them, and nobody else does that for them. So what I thought was, well, we can do that for them. We can start to explain. They need to talk. They need to go to Davos. They need to talk to the World Economic Forum. And when we first went there, we were largely, certainly the only people, only scientists, camping in the snow. But we really, I think, tried to legitimize the need for science in this area, and with Climate Basecamp, it’s the same sort of thing.
So how do we talk to people in a way that they understand what the science is? And we can’t start by doing a course at school, because people are busy, that might not be what they want. We have to talk about what they care about. So one of the campaigns we have that we think is going to be really successful, is about, is called, save the things you love. So if I say under, you know, sports, fashion, food, entertainment, and I’m missing, what music, what, if I say to you guys, what do you love? What do you love in any of those categories? What things do you love? So Helena, what do you love?
Helena Rambler 20:25
Maybe just like every day, kind of like having access to all of these food places near my school, yeah.
Gail Whiteman
And what kind of food do you like?
Helena Rambler
Um, like, like, smoothies, maybe smoothies.
Gail Whiteman 20:38
And what kind flavor smoothies Do you like?
Helena Rambler 20:42
Berry, or like, peanut butter.
Gail Whiteman 20:47
Yeah, yeah, okay. And, and pierce What about you?
Pierce Siegel 20:50
I’m a sports fan, so that would probably appeal to me the most.
Gail Whiteman 20:53
Yeah. And what sports do you like?
Pierce Siegel
Soccer.
Gail Whiteman 20:56
Okay, so, okay, so save the things you love.
Let’s look at smoothies or ice cream. The flavors that we use, that we rely on, berries. Strawberry, could be mango, could be lots of nuts, like pistachio, for sure, I’d have to check on peanuts. I’m not sure about that or not, but certainly, many of the things that we love, the flavors that we love, they’re at significant risk from climate change. Vanilla, if you like vanilla a bit in your smoothie or your ice cream, chocolate, for sure, coffee, they’re at real threat for climate change.
And if you look at the cost of chocolate in the last year and a half, it’s, you know, really increased, and that’s because of extreme weather conditions on the crops that are related to drought and so on from climate change. So if you want to save the things you love, the flavors that you love Helena, then you got to work on climate action. Because if not, you’re not going to, either those flavors are going to go or they’re just going to be too expensive. So you can’t have one every day, because it’s just too expensive.
Now, Pierce, soccer, okay, so on soccer. You think, what does that have to do with climate change? Maybe, okay, people drive to the games or something, so it’s bad but you’re outside, looks pretty good. That’s fine. Well, there’s been a number of studies that have actually showed that soccer pitches, outdoor soccer pitches around the world, UK, for sure, but the same as with the US, they are really at threat from extreme weather changes.
So there from, yeah, you didn’t know that, did you right? Yeah, that’s, that’s shocking. And interestingly, with soccer, it’s not just that. It could be too hot or there’s an extreme thing, like it’s too there’s flooding or fires, like, you know, there’s, you know, forest fires. You can’t exactly play soccer because the air pollution is too bad, even if it’s not burning like the actual where you’re playing, but on top of that, it can change wind patterns. So then, if you know where to do a corner kick, and the wind is changing because of climate change, it affects the game, so it affects the beautiful game, right? So, but if you’re an ice hockey fan like, Good luck getting outdoor rinks.
When I grew up. I’m Canadian originally. When I grew up, outdoor hockey rinks, everybody had them in their backyard and so on. Everybody had them. But now, and especially, you know, Upper New York State, lots of parts of Canada, you just can’t have an outdoor hockey rink because, you know, your mom or dad can’t freeze it, because there’s not enough freezing days to actually have enough ice on those rinks. So there’s like apps in Upper New York state where they show you when they think you can get it coming in. So you can check where the outdoor ice hockey rink is going to be, or is because climate change is happening, all of those. So if you want to save ice hockey, you want to save all these other things, it’s all about climate.
Pierce Siegel 23:42
Yeah. Thank you so much. Moving on to a less positive note, how do you think you can combat misinformation and this mistrust of climate change with institutions?
Gail Whiteman 23:56
Well, I mean, I have to say that is really the big question right now, we can see on social media, whether that’s on X or beyond, this issue of misinformation is the biggest competition to climate action.
Actually, the biggest competition to saving humanity is misinformation. So that is something we need to do now in Davos. When we go to the World Economic Forum, we’re meeting people face to face, so we can counter some of that, but that’s, you cannot meet everybody, right? So that’s not helpful.
We have got an online platform that we are working with where we’re getting about 2 million people coming in every year to learn about the risk. Yeah, that’s a lot. It’s a real lot. 2 million people every year are coming in. It’s just new, and we’re really learning how to do this. And we start with, not ‘learn about climate change.’ We start with, are you worried about this extreme weather event that happened? And they’re like, Yes, I am. And then they come in and they learn about it.
And we have to do it better. We’re learning as we go, but that’s one way of doing it. But I still think it’s not enough. I think the issue of misinformation is one that we have to get together with lots of other folks, including the technology companies, and really see how, are we going to fight this? Because once it gets out there, you cannot have a bunch of scientists, you know, in their offices writing a rebuttal, and by the time they publish that in whatever newspaper it you know, you’ve had hundreds of 1000s of people posted on social media, and it keeps living on and on and on. So it doesn’t matter what the scientists say. So somehow we’re going to have to use technology to chase that more effectively or and we’re really hoping that this might happen is that the technology social media companies themselves take it a bit more seriously.
Helena Rambler 25:45
Yep, great. So the initial idea of this podcast was to gather an expert opinion on what would go into a high school curriculum for the 1.5 degrees Celsius target?
We know that 1.5 is kind of out of reach. But what would you put into a curriculum designed for the under two degrees Celsius goal of a Paris Agreement? Because, at our school, we don’t have a curriculum. There’ve been classes in the past, but we no longer have that class available for us at the moment. So, what would you want to teach students?
Gail Whiteman 26:21
So interestingly, I would start not with the 1.5 because it seems like really far away, or two degrees warmer Celsius.
I would actually start with saying, what are the things you love? What are the things your parents love? What are the things you are hopeful about the future? And then I would start to deconstruct how those are at threat from climate change, then I would give a lot of the science. Here are the here’s the planetary boundaries framework, really good framework. And I can send you some links afterwards. If you, if you or Richard, send me an email, I can give you some lists on this and here’s the safe space for humanity. So we got to know where the safe space is, and scientists do know that.
And it’s not just about climate. It’s also about biodiversity. It’s about nitrogen, phosphorus, it’s about ocean acidification. It’s about plastics and and land use, water use. So these work together on like a wheel of about nine different processes that keep the planet at a level that’s safe for humans. So we need to know all of that.
Then let’s dive deep into climate and see where we are and see what happens. I would still keep it at a 1.5C, because I think people need to know why we wanted to get there.
Now next year, we might have sort of a whole year above it, but I think at this stage, let’s still keep it in but we need to say what happens at a two degree warmer world. And I think there’s lots of good resources for that, and good blogs that are out there. And again, I can direct you to some of these things. I think the other thing that I would really try to do is have some interactive tools, like we’ve got.
You can obviously use the Global Climate Risk platform. There’s stuff on there, or the tool where people can see, you know, how much the world has warmed since they were born, how much Arctic ice has gone since they were born. And then they add in, like, their favorite, you know, it’s a lab, and see what’s happened since they were born. And then also things like just figuring out, we found with Rainn, when we use the polar risk name changer, people really liked it because you change your name, it’s like a little, little tool. You put your name in your first and last name, and it creates your name based on the global risks of Arctic change, as an example. So people always say, Oh, I don’t like my first name. I want my second name, but they’re learning what’s going on.
And we’ve got a series of interactive things. We’ve also got ones like on glaciers. So there’s also an easy tool where you draw a glacier and you see how it floats. So there’s some interactive stuff that goes with that. And there’s other things that other people, other people do.
And then the third bucket. So get people involved, right? And then and on the Global Climate Risk platform, we also have an AI tool that summarizes all news stories around the world related to extreme weather every day. It scrubs 100 different languages. It also looks at how health is affected by climate, and what stories are out there, and then also what’s happening in the polar regions as well, because that’s sort of where we started from. That was our home base.
And then, though, people can get knowledge in different ways. And then what I would really, you know, talk about is politics. I think you can’t dodge it. I think we need to look at that. And it could be at the state level, it could be certainly at the global level, and it could be at the national level, but also I think it should be at the city level. So looking at what cities do, the really important big cities are huge. That’s where a lot of people live. That’s where a lot of the CO2 emissions are coming from, but also that’s where the impacts are coming in on the actual cities themselves. So cities are an important piece.
And then finally, I would really talk about solutions. What is happening that gives people hope, and there’s so much happening. So like, the price of solar and wind has dropped like 85% since 2010. If you take a look at the economics of it, like you actually look at the state of Texas and the amount of renewable energy that’s coming in, or in any of the red states, the Republican states, there’s a ton of stuff that’s happening. If we look at electric vehicles, looking at what’s happened in California and beyond, but also looking at other countries like Norway or what, strangely enough, maybe what China is doing and how they are really gearing up on EVs, and have huge opportunity in that space as well. There’s lots of solutions. Some of it’s new stuff, and some of it’s just getting some of the things we know to scale. So I always think you have got to have hope, and you have got to see the solutions. Like it looks like it’s doom and gloom, but it’s not, and then just the final part of solutions would be adaptation. We are going to have to adapt as a country and as a city and as a community, and probably as a family, and what does that mean, and what is the world doing for adaptation, and how can we be part of that?
Pierce Siegel 31:28
Yeah, awesome. Just to focus on your comment about change, in your opinion, how much change do you think needs to come from individuals, lifestyle, versus governments and these large corporations?
Gail Whiteman 31:45
Yeah. I think there has to be a balance. And often what you get is governments and companies saying, Oh, look, people don’t want to do it, so we can’t do it. So leaving it up to the individual, and that’s really hard, because they’re, you know, in general, you know, one family, that’s not the same as the elite.
When I go to talk to the World Economic Forum, the people that are there, because those people control big companies or big countries or big whatever, media empires, let’s say so. I actually think that we need action happening at all of those levels. But there is clearly something that we need governments to do, and absolutely something we need companies to do. So big companies around the world are already starting. We have to make sure that they don’t slow that down because perhaps governments around the world are not as focused on climate action as they used to be. We have to make sure they keep going, because they control the economy, right? So they do an awful lot, and they need to continue to do a lot. And actually they’re going to need to do more, especially if governments start to stall on climate action.
And then at the same time, I think we need to look at people and give them options. So, you know, yes, being vegetarian or vegan would be great, because meat consumption is a good thing, but at the same time, you can be low meat, right? You can be low meat. So you can have your family doing one day a week or two days a week of no meat, and experimenting that way, that makes a big, big difference. So it’s not about being a purist. It’d be great.
But, you know, people are living their lives, so we have to change them, we have to keep changing. We have to keep changing fast, so it’s not just one or one or the other.
And finally, I mean, I think there’s a real role for civil society and protest. You know, Greta Thunberg, she camped with us at Davos. She was one of our campers in 2019 when she came for the first time to the World Economic Forum. It was very cold night when she camped with us. Let me tell you, it was really cold, and she’s Swedish, but it was another really cold one. So the youth have done a lot, but it’s not just the protest, you know, youth, which I think have been very brave. But I think it’s youth all around demanding change at different levels. And then if you look at, you know, college graduates like, don’t go to work for companies that are kind of slow on climate, or climate deniers just don’t, you know, there’s a war on talent of good people, so don’t work for the wrong ones. Make your choices.
Helena Rambler 34:20
Great. Thank you. I know that this could probably be a difficult matter to work with, just because there’s so many, like, conflicting opinions and I think it’d be pretty easy to lose hope. Yeah, have you experienced any interactions that like, kind of inspired you and like, showed you why you’re doing all of this?
Gail Whiteman 34:42
Yeah. I mean, I think that when I see the change that I’ve seen since 2017 in Davos, that gives me hope that I’ve had some narrative impact. When I see the cost of renewable energy dropping so dramatically faster than anybody thought that gives me hope, seeing developing countries around the world, and also countries like China, absolutely dramatically increase their commitment to renewable energy. They’re also increasing their commitment to coal, which is the wrong thing, but they are still also doing renewable energy. So you start to see it makes sense to people. So there’s a lot of things that give me hope, and I also think, ultimately, you know, it’s not up to the youth to give, you know, grown ups hope. It’s up to us to give the youth hope. So we have to do more.
So it’s, you know, it’s your parents, it’s, it’s, maybe their parents, if they’re still working, but certainly your parents, they got to do more, and they’ve got to pick these things up. And then let’s get like, celebrities, sports stars, actors, musicians. Let’s get them to use their big or social media influencers. Let’s get them to use their big platform. And many of them are starting to do that. So I think all of these things give me hope.
And then ultimately, I guess the thing that gives me the most hope is nature, right? If you look at nature and like, literally go outside today, after this and look outside, nature is giving you hope every single day, every day, it gives hope. It gives you hope globally. It gives you hope locally. Whether that’s that flower or that weed that’s coming up through the sidewalk, it is giving hope. It is doing the job it’s been doing for a long time, and it’s doing it regardless of the challenges it faces. So nature doesn’t give up. As long as there is life force, nature continues, and it’s beautiful and it’s shiny, and you don’t see nature all depressed, right? You don’t. So we are nature, so that’s what we can have access to. And when you feel hopeless, go out into nature and just really look at that tree and think, yeah, the tree has not given up. It’s still doing its job, you know, and that’s us. And then we will, I genuinely believe, then you will feel better, and you will have the energy. You may never know how your actions have made a difference. But that’s not the question. Fame is not the way forward. It’s just about, you know, you’re a tree. You keep growing, you keep doing it, and work from that. So nature gives me hope.
Pierce Siegel 37:27
Yeah, that’s really inspirational. And I guess, as a founder and as a climate activist in all your years, have you ever had these really frustrating moments of pushback, and what was the best way that you handled it?
Gail Whiteman 37:45
Well, I’ve had so many, I cannot tell you, like so many, so many, so many, so many, so many at the same time, you just got to keep going. And I think the time I felt the most recently, the most hopeless, was in one of the UN meetings where I could just see it was really dominated by oil and gas executives, and it was a very polluted place. And I felt hopeless. I suddenly thought, I don’t know if we’re going to get there. And I thought, you know, that’s not helpful, right? Because while we may never reach the targets that we wanted, every bit that we do is still going to be better than if we didn’t do anything, right? Because it could be super horrible. So, you know, we gotta keep going. And what I did was, I said, I need hope. And I thought, Well, hope isn’t just about like, like, Oh, I’m hopeful. I’m just gonna fake it. And I thought hope is about action, so I put together a campaign called Performing Hope that that that hope is about the actions, the little ones and the big ones that we do to make a difference in this space, and we need to keep doing those. So yes, recycling is not going to save it, right? It’s not going to save it, but it makes me feel good when I do it, so I’m going to take that as part of my energy base to keep doing the bigger actions. So it is about performing hope. And then I just tell people about it, and then I ask for their help. And you know that people, people engage, because we need help, and it’s a collective and I think it’s about, you know, finding the courage to keep going.
Pierce Siegel 39:29
Awesome. Thank you so much.
Gail Whiteman 39:31
No, you’re welcome. I hope that was helpful. I hope it wasn’t too much.
Pierce Siegel 39:34
No, it was. It was fantastic. Thank you.
Gail Whiteman 39:37
Do you feel more depressed after this podcast, or do how you feel? How do you guys feel after this information?
Pierce Siegel 39:47
I learned a lot. I feel, I guess, inspired to be honest.
Helena Rambler 39:53
Yeah, I really like the point that you said about nature. I think that’s really beautiful. And I feel like, you know, for people who are very aware of the climate crisis, and, like, the climate anxiety is a really big issue, and I think that, you know, the point that there’s so many different like nature will always keep pushing kind of and there’s so many different people and so different things out there that you can always look to and just feel better about it, and that’s really beautiful, Yeah, yeah.
Gail Whiteman 40:20
Well, thank you. I’ve, you know, it’s been a hard week with the election, and to worry that people vote in, you know, politicians that don’t really believe in climate science. I think ultimately, it is really about coming back to what gives us hope. And Nature never stops having hope. It really doesn’t. And so I’ve done the same, Helena, in the last week, you know, just really saying, yeah, yeah, we’re going to do this and and we are, we are. And there’s a lot of other, you know, middle aged people like me that believe the same thing. And, you know, we’re not going to let one set of events take away our hope or our action, and we’re going to make a livable future for you guys. So don’t worry about that. You can help us because you’re younger and smarter. But we’re not giving up.
Helena Rambler 41:16
Actually, on that note, sorry, another question, yes, obviously, like, the election was kind of a big, a big sky, scary step back, I would say. But there’s a statistic where 83 billionaires were behind Harris’s campaign and chose to support her. So, you know, there’s the kind of, there’s this possibility that all of these billionaires, instead of the US government, if they could be a part of the Paris Agreement, that could be a really influential thing.
Gail Whiteman 41:46
Great idea. Great idea. Yeah, really great idea. So that’s a great you know, who are those 83, that’s a great TikTok campaign. Seriously, yeah, yeah, exactly. I don’t know if you’ll get very far in X. I think the algorithm will sink you on that one, because that billionaire was going a different direction. Use a different social media. It’s a great idea.
Helena Rambler 42:10
Great. So, Gail, thank you so much for coming and thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us today.