Claim OwnershipWhat Can We Do In These Powerful Times?
Subscribed: 4Played: 47
Subscribe
© 2024 What Can We Do In These Powerful Times?
Description
I've been working in the field of sustainability and climate change for some 20 years. It feels like the need for change is growing faster than the impact we are delivering. So, I am wondering what I can do next that is useful. Speaking with others, they have the same challenge.Which is why I’m doing this interview series. In 30 minute bites, I ask some brilliant people what they are doing now and why. All to inspire and enable the audience (which may turn out to be just me!) through stories grounded in experience. Please do listen, be inspired and suggest who I should be interviewing.Thank you -- David (powerfultimespodcast@gmail.com)
47 Episodes
Reverse
Rupert Read is Co-Director of the Climate Majority Project, and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of East Anglia, and former spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion (Twitter, Website, Wikipedia entry). The Climate Majority Project has the mission to "accelerate effective, coordinated climate action by a broad-based coalition of citizens; from grassroots initiatives to high-level policy". Rupert left the relatively stability of academia to wholeheartedly focus on CMP. Temperatur...
Erica Austin is a social entrepreneur, community weaver, facilitator, photographer and Christchurch Ambassador (LinkedIn). She describes her self as a multi-potentialite, or someone with activities in many fields. As we will hear, in Erica's case, this is something of an understatement. I was first introduced to her as the Community Activator in the Edmund Hillary Fellowship, a community of 500+ innovators, entrepreneurs and investors committed to New Zealand as a basecamp for global impact. ...
Alex Evans is Founder and Executive Director of Larger Us, a "community of change-makers who share the aim of using psychology for good – to bridge divides, build broader coalitions and bring people together" (Alex's Twitter). Alex set up Larger Us to flip society from a breakdown dynamic and into a breakthrough dynamic. That means paying attention to hwo the state of world impacts our state of mind, how our state of mind how we show up, and how we affect others through our behaviour, ...
Ella Saltmarshe sits "at the intersection of culture, narrative and systems change" (website, LinkedIn, twitter). She describes herself as a founder, systems change specialist, anthropologist, writer, podcaster, teacher, activist, and (as of very recently) a mother. We recorded this interview on 31 October 2023, only a few weeks into the Isreal-Gaza conflict. Anyone who follows Ella's work will have seen her recent focus on that conflict. For the start of any International Women's Day events ...
Kim Polman is Co-Founder & Chair of Reboot the Future, a fellow of the Aspen Institute and co-founder and chair of the Kilamanjaro Blind Trust (bio on the Reboot website, LinkedIn, Twitter). The purpose of Reboot the Future acts on the belief that a better future is possible if we follow the Golden Rule, that we treat others and the planet as we’d wish to be treated. In the conversation we dive into the Golden Rule and how that is applied in Reboot The Future. Plus how Kim is a late bloom...
Jonathon Porritt is a sustainability campaigner and writer (website, Twitter, Wikipedia). After years in the Green Party (while working full-time as a teacher), in 1984 he became director of Friends of the Earth in Britain and then co-founded Forum for the Future in 1996. (One of the other co-founders was Paul Ekins, who I interviewed for Powerful Times here. I worked with Jonathon when I was at Forum, 2003-2016.) Jonathon was also Chair of the UK Sustainable Develop Commission for nine yea...
Dave Snowden (Twitter, LinkedIn) is Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of The Cynefin Co. The Cynefin Co is "the world leader in developing management approaches (in society, government and industry) that empower organisations to absorb uncertainty, detect weak signals to enable sense-making in complex systems, act on the rich data, create resilience and, ultimately, thrive in a complex world". The Cynefin Framework is a decision support framework, a way of determining what method to ...
Prof Jacquie McGlade (Twitter, Wikipedia) is an administrator, academic, advocate and more besides. Currently she is Professor of Natural Prosperity, Sustainable Development and Knowledge Systems at UCL (which is how I know her) and a lecturer at Strathmore Business School in Nairobi, which is where she lives. She is married to a Maasai village chief. In a frankly amazing career, Jacquie has been a scientist, the executive director of the European Environment Agency, and the Chief Scientist a...
APOLOGIES FOR SOME SOUND ISSUES RIGHT AT THE START AND END OF THIS RECORDING. Amy Twigger Holroyd is Associate Professor of Fashion and Sustainability at Nottingham School of Art & Design (website). Through design-led participatory research, she explores plural possibilities for post-growth fashion systems: alternative ways of living with our clothes that meet our fundamental human needs and respect ecological limits. Her main project pursuing this is Fashion Fictions, which invites y...
Sandrine Dixson-Declève is Co-President of The Club of Rome (LinkedIn, Twitter, Wikipedia). She divides her time between leading The Club of Rome, advising, lecturing, and facilitating difficult conversations. She currently Chairs the European Commission, Expert Group on Economic and Societal Impact of Research & Innovation (ESIR) and sits on the European Commissions Mission on Climate Change & Adaptation. We speak a lot about the latest findings of systems dynamics modelling as expre...
Prof Tim Jackson is a British ecological economist and professor of sustainable development at the University of Surrey (personal website, twitter, wikipedia). He is the director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), a multi-disciplinary, international research consortium which aims to understand the economic, social and political dimensions of sustainable prosperity. He is also a successful playwright. It was an extraordinarily rich and honest conversation, co...
Andrea Hartley is Founder and CEO of Skating Panda, a creative social impact consultancy (Twitter, LinkedIn). DISCLOSURE: I do some work for Skating Panda as 'Senior Associate -- Strategy and Sustainability'. In the 12 months to April 2023, that work comprised about 18% of my income. We speak about Andrea's three priorities Unlocking those individual and organisational impact journeys, Finding ways to communicate big issues so that they can better have real impactShifting the natur...
Dougald Hine is author and co-founder of Dark Mountain, a cultural movement of people who have "stopped believing the stories our civilisation tells itself" and a School Called HOME, a "a gathering place and a learning community for those who are drawn to the work of regrowing a living culture" (personal website, Substack, wikipedia). His latest book is "At Work in the Ruins", which we discuss at length in the conversation. At the beginning Dougald describes himself as "using words, a...
Robin is an executive coach, facilitator, a mediator, an organisational consultant, works in leadership development and sometimes known as a mystic (Twitter, LinkedIn, Website). Our conversation concentrates on the importance of feeling present, and being fully open to what is happening in that moment. Only then can we integrate the past, and not be unconsciously driven by it. Only then can we hear the calling of the future, and act courageously towards something different. Only then can we...
Liam Black has a long history of leading social enterprises (including Jamie Oliver's Fifteen), and is now 'Chief Encouragement Officer' and mentor to many (website, Twitter, LinkedIn). In his own career, Liam has made many jumps into the unknown. His view is if you are clear about the work you want to be doing, then taking the jump gives others the chance to recognise what your'e trying to do and to offer you help (including, maybe a job). Also that "if you do things with good intentio...
Clare Farrell is a co-founder of Extinction Rebellion, as well as fashion designer and lecturer (Twitter, website). Clare had a lot of deeply interesting things to say across a broad range of topics. So, this episode is the longest yet at 57 mins. I make no apology, as every minute is worth listening to. Just want to give you a heads up. She speaks about the coming together of Extinction Rebellion as a magical time: "It's a huge honour really. So too, in like, basically, I feel the univer...
Daianna Karaian is co-founder of Today Do This, which aims to empower everyone, every day (Today) to take action on (Do) what matters to them (This) (LinkedIn, personal website, Twitter). The theme was people being able to take meaningful action in their work. Why? First, "The scale of the change that's needed is only going to happen if social and environmental considerations are woven into the daily decisions and responsibilities of everyone in the company at every level in every departm...
Richard Sandford is Professor of Heritage Evidence Foresight and Policy at the UCL Institute of Sustainable Heritage (Twitter, LinkedIn). He interested in how we think about the future and how we connect it to the past. We discuss in depth how heritage can be a source of useful and productive stances towards the future. Key line from Richard for me: "Change s coming...If you're looking at the future, perhaps our job now is to preserve that sense of identity that allows us to ...
Zahra Davidson is Chief Executive and Design Director of Huddlecraft, a Community Interest Company that uses the the practice of combining people to unearth and multiply potential (Zahra's Linkedin, Twitter and Medium). Huddle craft asks: 'What if everyone could multiply their potential by the power of their peers?' We talked about how collective learning is so necessary for global transformations, but how to contribute at the necessary scale while keeping the important relational, often lo...
Helen Henderson is a Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC), combined with a long history of community education in Derry/Londonderry. We explored Helen's work on peacebuilding and non-violence. For instance, how do you build peace between communities that have been in conflict for decades? Two things: spaces to discover common humanity; and growing critical literacy. My reflection is that I've not had to worry about security. But that's a privilege others ha...
Comments
Download from Google Play
Download from App Store
United States