120. The man trying to change Britain's climate conversation, Nick Oldridge

James Piper 0:01

Hello, welcome to Talking Rubbish, a weekly podcast delving deep into the world of recycling and discussing the truth behind snappy headlines and one-sided stories. I'm James Piper and I'm joined by Robbie Stanford, my Far From Rubbish friend. And we are joined today by Nick Oldridge, our Far From Rubbish guest. Good morning, Robbie. Hey James. How are you today? Yeah, very good, thank you. I'm conscious that we've decided we're just going to go straight into interviews now. We're not going to do an intro. Okay. But occasionally we need to do an addition and correction. Oh no. Because it's so important.

Robbie Staniforth 0:32

Oh gosh. Okay. So we've got to get it in in a timely fashion after I made a mistake, did I? You made a mistake, yes. Oh no.

James Piper 0:38

And not only did you make a mistake, but normally we don't say people's surnames on this podcast. We just say, oh, so-and-so emailed in, we just give first names. For the first time ever, I believe, you chose to use someone's surname, but giving completely the wrong info. So that person, I've spoken to them, they are they're not happy. Not happy at all. Oh really? Okay. And this for me was a bit of an eye-opener to how many people l listen to our podcast. Because what had happened is you said Milk and Moore have stopped doing refillable glass milk bottles. Okay. And you'd heard it from Rich. Yes. That episode went out at four o'clock. At 4 a.m. You said it at minute 55. At 5 a.m., I had a message from a milkman from Milk and Moore saying, I'm just doing my milk round, listening to your podcast. We're not stopping glass bottles. What's wrong are we talking about? Really? It's like, oh my god, here we go. Just complete lies. And I phoned Rich and he said, I didn't say that to Robbie. I was talking about orange juice, I think, and the fact that they're producing glass bottles. But you have slandered milk and more to the point where we have to correct this.

Robbie Staniforth 1:47

Oh, you're right. He did say it was that they're not doing their juices in glass bottles anymore, not the milk itself.

James Piper 1:54

Spreading fake news. Damn it. And I have to say, I don't know. I thought I would never tell this story on the podcast, but I think we've got to make people aware of the risk that you might spread fake news. We've have to make people aware of this. Because there was an episode a few episodes ago, maybe I don't know, five to ten episodes ago, something like that. And Robbie casually said there is an old adage that a ban is only as good as the thing it replaces. And I went to put that on social media because I thought, what a lovely adage. Like that will do well on social. We can have a chat about bands, people will want to comment. But before I put it on social media, I thought I better check where this adage comes from. So that in my, you know, description I can put Robbie as quoting Einstein or whoever. I think you're the first person who's ever said it. It is this is not an adage. It is just something you've said. It's an old adage in my policy circles. I see. Before we head over to Nick, I would like to take a moment to thank our sponsor, EcoSurety, who are on a mission to rid the world of unnecessary packaging. They help brands navigate the tricky world of extended producer responsibility, but that is not all. They also collaborate on some incredible recycling projects and consumer awareness campaigns for those tough to recycle materials. If you're an organisation looking to make smarter packaging choices, check them out at ecosurety.com. And you can follow us at rubbishpodcast. You can email talkingrubbishpodcast at gmail.com or you can WhatsApp us. Also join our Discord. It's the easiest way to engage with us and listeners of the show. The link to all of those things is in the show notes. Hi Nick, thank you so much for joining Talking Rubbish. It's a real pleasure to have you on the show. We had a good chat about the national emergency briefing last week. But it's great to have you on to give us all the behind-the-scenes gossip that we've been looking for.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Well, I am really happy to be here, but just as you were doing the intro, I realize I actually feel quite spiritually connected to this podcast. And that is because my wife, over 10 years ago, along with Simon, my brother's wife, set up a business to tackle wrapping paper waste. Okay. So my every Christmas for years, our world was all about um trying to switch people to fabric reusable gift wrap. And so I got really stuck into all the stats of you know the wrap data on wrapping paper waste, what can be recycled, what can't. So it's all feeling quite familiar being here. What was the outcome? Is it has that been successful in switching people across to fabric wrap? They did pretty well. This is oh god, when did they start? They'll kill me for not remembering. Maybe it was 2011, 12. Um, they did pretty well. They were the first to market with it. It's based on the Japanese Firashiki model of tying and wrapping, but they had it's so easy in my house at Christmas. You just pull drawstrings and things are wrapped automatically. Uh, they did pretty well. Uh, it's kind of a little bit dormant now. Uh, they were both focused on other things, and a lot of other brands appeared on the market. But I would say, along with climate salience, this this has fallen away. People have moved on to other things, haven't they? Generally, just I think they're quite linked the two things, actually.

Robbie Staniforth 5:10

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And you mentioned your brother Simon there. So, how exactly did you come to establish this national emergency briefing then? And was it something that you did sort of in a spur of a moment, or was it a long time in coming? Uh, both.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Well, you know, my normal normal reaction here is it's all his damn fault because my life has obviously changed quite a lot since this happened. So I was merrily doing climate comedy, so something called climate science breakthrough. That was my way of dealing with the existential dread and the lack of well, the comms problem, you know, no one listens to the climate scientist or can name a climate scientist. It all gets lost in the media mangle of you know vested interests. But um, I was making this climate comedy. We were on our fifth short, so it's climate science breakthrough, David Cross over in the US. We made that, and that was pretty good. And so my brother pops up, and he was working, we've both been doing climate work. Um, we used to run a business together, we can come to that. But he pops up and says, I've got this idea, and it's based on the COVID briefings because what happened in that moment, let's not think about what happened later, but in that first moment, I think that nearly 30 million people tuned into the first one. We literally sat down and listened to hardcore science direct from the expert. And we don't do that, do we, in our society? And we all listened, and 90 whatever percent of us went, okay, I can digest that. So we were treated like grown-ups, we digested the information and we acted. And we acted in in you know, for our communities and our friends and neighbours and loved ones. And I know it's not as a clear and present danger. We could literally see Italy, couldn't we? Coming, you know, the virus was coming. But the concept was what he had in his mind, and he was going to do a briefing for MPs. And I said, fine, that's good. You get on with that. And um, he was gonna hire he's gonna hire a room basically in Port Cullis House. Uh, you get about 100 MPs or so. Uh, so we traded names on who, and that was so that was the other good thing. He had the idea of treating everyone like grown-ups and bringing in experts, and then he also had this belief that it should be a whole society approach. I don't know whether you've been to climate conferences, but they're normally extremely specific. Like, let's do a global methane levels, let's discuss that for a day. Or, you know, it's very the data is always global, and the the the approach is always CO2 or the big picture stuff. But he said, No, we should be looking at food and health and economics and everything. Uh, and I thought that's interesting. And so, yeah, we discussed a few experts, and again, I said, Great, good luck. But it was, I think about two weeks later, after the first chat, we met for coffee. We both live just close to Tottenham, so we uh we met for coffee and he said, I'm gonna hire Westminster Central Hall. It's a bit this I don't know whether people will have heard of this building, it's opposite Parliament, and it's like a sort of slightly smaller Albert Hall. It's it just reeks of establishment. And I said, Oh Jesus, right, okay. That that's that was it. I said, You can't do that on your own, you'll you'll fall apart. That's nuts. So we teamed up from that point on, and here we are.

James Piper 8:26

I guess that one of our conversations last week, the positive that we took from it, uh we start we opened with really was that it was combining so many aspects of climate change. You know, we often think about one side of it, flooding, or the thing that's localized to us, and actually to talk about national security and food and all these aspects that you you spoke about, I found very powerful when I watched the film. How did you how do you decide on those topics? Do they naturally land? Were there any disagreements about what the briefing was going to do and going to say?

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Yeah, they they really do naturally land. It's when you we spend a lot of our time trying to talk to people, you know, we do stuff on social media, but we run campaigns, we're in the climate comm space. So you get into lots of debates with people, and you can't just talk to them about CO2 levels, they don't understand what you're talking about, really. So it it's just a a logical step to try and approach the you know, everything that affects us in society. And if you think about it, if MPs were being properly briefed in a professional briefing within Westminster, they would cover everything like that. So these things naturally fell in. Um, some of them were seen seen by others to be surprising. So quite a few people in the climate space said, wait a minute, why are you bringing a military guy to a climate conference? Some people didn't were entirely comfortable with that. Um, but that turned out to be one of the best decisions we ever made. His his briefing was just incredibly powerful, and it reaches everybody. You know, if you're if you're sat to the say to the right of politics, you you're gonna listen to some someone talking about national security. And indeed, since he did that, that's become quite commonly discussed. Um but there were some other disagreements, like we so we used my creative partners from the Climate Comedy, the Utopia Bureau, to help us create, you know, what's it gonna look like? And they said it's simple, you've got to look like the government. Uh and we said, okay, that's that's that's good. Because we could not be seen as you know, activists, campaigners, uh ideological this had to be a public information initiative to connect people with the experts. That's that was it the framing. So we had the the logo, which you would have seen, the sort of British flag in the black and white, it's supposed to look slightly battered. And we did have a moment where again a few people in the in the in the movement, if you want to call it that, said, Oh, I'm not sure about that flag. I'm a bit uncomfortable about that. And again, we stuck our ground, and that and that has really worked. Um, we did we did consider using the government's own crest, uh, but we were told by someone senior in in the in the field of law that would be a really bad idea. Because we just wanted to impart this idea that this is serious, this is the establishment talking. And in fact, I've met a couple of people to this day um who were in the Westminster briefing who thought it was the government. We attended a show, I think it was the not the blue Blue Earth Summit, and there was one guy who said, Oh, I didn't come to talk to you because I thought you were the government. So that that was really critical. Um, but broadly, no, it there was lots of debate about everything we did. Framing was really important, you know, all those experts have such big bodies of work, and we were we were really, really certain that they had to, we gave them to around 10 minutes each, they had to boil it down to the the information that felt most relevant to people, you know, not the sort of big picture stuff, the global stuff, but it really had to come and land um with someone who won't have heard this before in a way that makes you sound almost a bit nationalist. And it's not that we don't care about the rest of the world, but people respond to what happens in their community, in their county, in their part of the country. And then, you know, they don't respond as well if you tell them that's something that's going to happen in Bangladesh. So we really try to make it UK-centric. That was probably the biggest bit, you know, bit of work we had to do.

Robbie Staniforth 12:21

Yeah, and you sort of mentioned there that there was um some friction points and trying to gel together different topics that were often disparate in individual sort of broadcasts or talks on a particular subject. And so you had to get over that barrier of gelling it together so it's a unified citizen message. What other key differences do you think there were to a lot of the general sort of climate debate that we've had in the UK over the last sort of five to ten years? I'm sort of thinking about extinction rebellion and their approach to the climate emergency. How did you try and make it distinct? And what were your insights in how it we needed a different approach?

SPEAKER_00 13:09

There's a lot to unpack there. That's a good one. Um, I mean, first of all, you've the science is really heavy, right? So if you go and listen to, I remember when I was trying to, before I did the climate comedy, trying to reach people in my social circle to stop me being the only one in the room who's worrying about this, and then you reach for the science, but what do you send them? It's like a 400-page report from Chatham House, and like they're not gonna read it. So we needed enough content. It's this is this is this is rigorous science that's being communicated by the expert, but we didn't want too much of it, so we wanted it to land so that it was okay, that's that's enough for me to understand the problem, but we didn't want to overdo it, which in climate communication from the scientific world has been part of the problem. It's almost overwhelming like what do I read? Everything's too long and too complex, and there's too many graphs and tables. And then we wanted to move that into the sphere of being digestible, being understood, and being and landing in a way that you know people understand in their regular lives. In addition to that, there are another a number of key areas. So there's certain framing that came before, maybe, yeah, like you say with XR, sounded quite activisty. Maybe it sounded political or idealistic. We wanted this to land, but the people we had in the room, we wanted this to land with senior people in a bank, with insurance people, with business people, with politicians, with people who haven't absorbed this information before, people who would definitely not read The Guardian where there might be a climate report. So we wanted it to land in a very mainstream way. So that was another part of the framing. It had to sound um just simply professional and almost coming from the establishment in a language that everyone understands. There's another angle as well, which is where the climate communication sort of um model had moved to. I think there was a general feeling as of we don't need more expertise in science, we need positive stories. We do need positive stories 100%. But I think one thing we felt, this is maybe all about context. One thing we felt is it just moved to the positive stories purely. And so in that context, you don't you haven't got the framing. So what where should I be putting this discussion on my list of things to worry about? You know, I've got social media, I've got AI robots, I've got all these things, I've got the cost of living. The climate was starting to sound like if you listen to the messaging, something was being sorted. Oh, okay, I'll park that. I'm I'm no longer, I no longer have a problem with that. So we felt it was really critical, because this is the mother of all problems, it's like the threat multiplier to all the other things you might be worried about. It was really important and something we felt was that was almost um, it had to be done, because everyone has a right to know, to put all the hard stuff on the table. But also in all of this, we spoke to our experts about moving that narrative through into the positives, because behind all these stories are remarkable positive stories. That's why I get out of bed every morning. So so that that that was the journey, and that's in a way in the film, if you watch how the experts are ordered, which is slightly different from the briefing, it sort of finishes the positive ones because that's the social science is really powerful there. You can give people really difficult information, they can digest it, but you need to point them uh, you know, towards the end to the to the positive narrative.

James Piper 16:30

One of our observations, and we spoke a lot about this last week, was um I'd been reading some information from the Bristol Committee that reviewed the film and decided how much of it was accurate. And they felt there were high levels of accuracy. You know, I don't think there was anything they said was disputed in terms of is this a fact that you could say, but they had this kind of general view that it tended to lean towards the most extreme outcome, you know. And obviously, when we talk about climate change, we talk about a very wide variety of outcomes depending on what mitigation is put in. And there is a risk that if you just focus on the worst case, you give climate sceptics the opportunity to go, well, we don't think this is likely, and here's the reasons. If you have like a scale of worst case to best case, and you've got to sit somewhere on that in terms of your messaging, and you're obviously leaning towards more of the urgent and emergency end of it. How do you make that decision on what to present and what and ultimately what experts to bring in? Because you have a choice of different experts on each of those topics that you could bring in who might be on different parts of that scale.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Let's do the experts first. I mean, because I'm gonna gently push back on this actually, and it's not something I've heard very often. Um but that but you know, we're open, really open to this. Is a great discussion. Um, the the experts we chose were more that was more about the ones who were just gonna be outspoken. And if you talk to them, they will tell you their colleagues are saying similar things. It's not every expert is comfortable um being outspoken. But in terms of the scenarios, no, I I'm not sure that's the case. I think this is about how we talk about risk. Because if we only if scientists only talk about the most likely outcome, that's what's mostly been happening, then it isn't really a fair approach because we don't do that in other areas. So if you arrived at, you know, Nick Oldridge Airlines and I was handing you your tickets, and I said, enjoy your flight, the plane probably won't crash. You would probably stop and say, Well, wait a minute, what are the odds of this plane crashing? Oh, you know, 5%? You wouldn't get on the plane, would you? And so if you take Kevin Anderson's talk, he said, I I think, and um paraphrasing here, he said we're heading for around two degrees. And the UN emissions gap report, which came out recently, I think was at 2.8 degrees, so that's probably worse. Um and he also then said there's a very real possibility we could reach something like four degrees, which the UN also said is a very real possibility. And some of this gets into the weeds of actually it's the the impacts are coming harder and faster than we actually thought. And so so I think the only thing the only part we played in that is that we want all the facts on the table. We don't just want you to give, oh, this is most likely going to happen. Because it it it it's that's an unfair piece of communication to not also say that this could also happen. If you went to see a lawyer, they would say that. If you went to see a doctor, they would say that. They wouldn't ignore the other other possibilities. So I think it's really important all that is on the table. Um, another thing we did to balance that is we interviewed the experts. If you noticed in the film, um they had interviews as well as showing parts of their um briefing behind the lectin. So we interviewed them as human beings to try and get their sense of this because some of this how do you feel about this? That I think that helps it land as well. But I think it's really important that we put in the the likely scenarios and the possible scenarios, because it would be dishonest to not put that on the table.

Robbie Staniforth 20:02

In terms of trying to persuade people, then so yes, I appreciate the kind of people who might be on the fence or people who understand climate change and are worried about it, they want to understand the risk. But in your experience of those that you know have been persuaded by the film, presenting a this is the risk, you know, this is the very real risk, has worked to turn heads rather than and change minds, hearts and minds, rather than have um the resistance and the skepticism. You've not particularly seen skepticism then as a consequence of the scenarios that the film paints.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

No, I can't say I haven't seen skepticism, but in terms of response to the film, I haven't. But I suppose out there when you're trying to have conversations with people, I encounter people all the time who just feel a bit like I don't really want to let this in or I'm a bit skeptical in general. But I think um I think it's really important to be straight with people. I think it's really important to do this because if you look at the climate data, most people are concerned, but if you dig into it, um it's often their concern for their grandkids or they're concerned about faraway places. I think we have not had the conversation about how the risk could really impact us in our actual lifetimes, and that is materially different. And I know people who still to this day think it's a yeah, it's a faraway problem for for uh the next generation or the generation after that. Um, so I think that's important. I think adding in where the opportunities lie is also important because if you just yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna dump this on you now, this is all awful, and I'm gonna walk off and you're gonna feel completely overwhelmed and probably go and pour red wine on your cornflakes tomorrow morning and just think, hey, what's the point? Um but if I also add in to you that there are people trying to stop this who have all that same information that you do, uh, and I add in that there are huge opportunities for making. Life actually better for all of us. It's it really changes how that lands. There's a there's a a woman called Genevieve Gunther who wrote a book on the politics of climate communication, I think. It's an amazing book, but she touches on all this research about how you can scare people, but you have to show them the pathway to action and where all the positives are. And also, outrage actually motivates them quite strongly to go and act when they realize that there's a very small group who actually don't want these changes to happen. I would also add in the messenger is important. And so we needed to find a whole variety of people that people could relate to. So when they came out in the briefing, and it's the same with the film, people will say, Oh, the the health guy, I can that completely got to me, you know, because of the NHS or because I've been in that situation. I just it's relatable, isn't it, through health? Same with Richard Newie on national security. That really resonated with some people. So we had to have that diversity of messenger as well. So I think I think that sort of completes the picture of helping this land with people.

James Piper 23:01

Was it the health guy who said, I just want to be able to tell my son I tried? And it was like it was a really emotional point.

SPEAKER_00 23:08

This is that was actually the probably the thing that's most commonly said to me, yeah, as something that reaches people when he points to the camera and he's pointing, isn't he? Mate, he wants to say to his son, mate, I really tried. That is all the more poignant when you you learn that he he's lost his other son in an accident. And oh wow, okay. Yeah, so for him, that is such a powerful point. And it's it was so knowing that I watched that and and and it yeah, it brought tears to my eyes. But that that was a really important move we did in the film. You know, if we'd just shown them behind their podiums, these experts, and then had the audience reactions, I think something would have been really missing. What we had to do to them, we had to humanize them and make them emotionally relatable as you know, as people, you know. And and the problem is we don't know. If you ask the UK public to name a an expert on climate or a climate scientist or anyone in this field, they don't know them. And so we had a job to do there to get them to communicate their expertise, but also for them to for us to connect with them as human beings. And I think that's really worked quite well.

James Piper 24:14

I apologize to the health guy for just calling him the health guy. I haven't learned their names either.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Professor Hugh Montgomery, he's an amazing individual. I have never met anyone who works harder and faster than that man. He's incredible.

James Piper 24:27

You mentioned there about people talking about like, oh, this is about my grandkids or things in the future or a far-off country. Do you think the heat waves have changed things? Obviously, we've had a very extreme summer. I'd be interested to know if you've seen, I don't know, a change in the audience of the national emergency briefing over the course of the summer. Have people suddenly gone, oh wow, I need to engage with this. And this feels like an action I can do. Go and see this film.

SPEAKER_00 24:51

Some yeah, something definitely changed in the summer. But I think it's interesting to go back to when we launched. So we launched on the 7th of April with no media budget. And I guess the people that organized screenings first were were probably the people who've been recycling since 1970, you know. Yeah. The hard the hardcore who all came out who just get this already. And and so we were getting about 10 screenings registered a day, just straight straight away. Uh, and that was just our our our pipeline, as we call it, just kept going up and up and up. And then in about June, it just went bananas. Uh, and we were getting a good 300 screenings registered a day at one point, and that has got, I think that's partly temperature related. It's got to be partly temperature related. One thing we also did uh in because in the early days we were pointing, we'll probably come to you know the what next, but we were pointing people in multiple directions, all the different things they could do and the groups they could join. And we ran that back and just thought about it again, it's a COVID reference, slightly R rate, unfortunately. Sorry, bad reference. But if we are out of each screening, if we can produce two more screenings, we're gonna get exponential growth. So we started as our core ask from this screening in this audience. Are there at least two or maybe three people who think they could organise another screening?

James Piper 26:09

I went to go and see it in Bath and I um I left thinking, oh, I'm gonna air a screening. Like we've got the village hall at the end of my road. I'm part of this sustainable uh village group. And I thought I'll reach out to them, did a quick Google search, realised they've done about three screenings so far. So I was like, you know, in the local area in various in the village hall and in various places. I was like, okay, we're oversaturated. I'm not sure I can bring anything to this village. But I did it's funny, no one actually mentioned it in my screening. Um, can you put on a screening? That wasn't an action we were left with, but um, but I must admit that that was my immediate reaction. It was, oh god, I feel like I can bring this together.

Robbie Staniforth 26:47

Yeah, you've got to get the message out, yeah.

James Piper 26:49

But I think my whole village has seen it, so I don't need to do it again.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

Well, uh a point there. Um let's go back to why we were doing this. So we we we did the event, it was in Westminster. We got about 140 parliamentarians to turn up. We were a bit sideswiped by the the budget being the day before. When is the budget ever in November? So that was a bit that was a little bit annoying. So that made it harder to get MPs there, but there was always gonna be this film that sort of phase two, and the film was a chance to invite an MP to be briefed with you. So some MPs are gonna come straight away because they care about this stuff, but lots are just gonna avoid it. Uh, you know, they get lots of emails and letters into their MP surgery, and they only, I guess, take things seriously when the when the numbers start coming with them. They're too busy answering emails on potholes, I would imagine. Um, but something does happen, and we've seen it in this data we've got from the work we've done with Bath University. Repeat screenings do significantly increase the likelihood of an MP signing up to agree to the televised briefing. And I think they do that because, well, it's a pothole thing. If you get one email from we're back to those people who've been reciting since the 70s, they'll think, oh, that's just the usual suspects asking me to come and see a climate film. Then they get 20 emails, 30 emails, 40 emails, or repeated invites to another venue. Some of these are in cathedrals, would you believe? I think we've done 10 cathedrals, multiple church, hundreds of churches. So they get this invite and they get another invite and another invite, and I then think it's just a human condition, isn't it? I think this is actually a serious thing. I'm gonna have to address it. I should probably go. Yeah. And so repeat screenings actually is a is a really important thing.

James Piper 28:31

My MP's Darren Jones. I should find out if he's seen it and if he hasn't. I'll just invite him around to my we could just do it. I'll just sit with him, we can have some popcorn, we can watch it and discuss it.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

I think you should get him on the podcast to discuss what he's gonna do about it because he has and he's organized his own screening. Oh, really? Okay, there you go. He promoted his own screening on social media because he thought it was, you know, something that would help him connect with his constituents, I imagine. The the number of MPs we've got now is 176 who've signed up to we're calling it the parliamentary call. It's not so it's not backing a policy, which makes it easier. It's just backing the idea that there should be, which is that the genesis of this whole thing, the the out the ultimate outcome of this whole project. The idea of a televised briefing, as we were talking about in the beginning, like COVID style, the Prime Minister, so Andy Burnham, introduces it, and then independent experts come on and and explain all that. So we're we're just trying as hard as we can to get as many MPs. I think we've currently got a third to sign up to say this is something that should happen.

Robbie Staniforth 29:30

So while we're on the topic of screenings, then talk us through the hosting of a screening and and why you went down that route and why it isn't just sort of available on YouTube to watch at your convenience, and why that's an important part of the campaign to get this ultimately televised briefing.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Yes, a good one. Because if if we'd done that, my life would be a whole lot easier, and I don't care. I'd have time to do my recycling. Um this is quite a reasoned answer, and we're really glad that we didn't do this. So, yes, we could have made the film, put it on YouTube. I mean, one thing I've noted from doing the climate comedy before the social media sphere was so polluted as it is now. So, in I think I launched the first one in 2022 or three. Um, we did one with Nish Kumajo Brand and Jonathan Pye and Kerry Pritchard McLean. But the first one we launched got a million views.

James Piper 30:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Almost overnight. And that was old, that was the old Twitter. It just went boom. And so content was much easier to spread, this kind of content. And so it's much harder to spread now. Um that's kind of a side side issue. The big one is this is difficult information. Some people might get upset, disturbed, um, shocked. Um, they might about what they hear, they might find it hard to process. So that has got to be able to land in a situation where we've thought about their their care and how they how they process that. We've got to consider that because it's our output. And then also finding agency. You know, we all really consume our media all media content mostly on our own, which is pretty un unhealthy. And I think that's quite proven now, isn't it? So doing this in a shared space, so in-person screenings, helps us land the information, it helps us process the information. And indeed, we started working with the Climate Psychology Alliance on how to that whole screening guide. If you went to the screening you describe, that those facilitators, those hosts, would have been given an entire guide on how to deal with all this in terms of how to deal with um people's emotions, how to help people process their emotions, how to give them time to do that. So it's had real scrutiny this into how to manage it all. Mike Berners-Lee's been heavily involved in this as well, being an you know uh an arch climate communicator. And so that was really important. But the other one was uh agency in action. So if I just tell you to go away and watch this film, I've no idea what's going to happen to you, and you've got no idea what to do when you've seen it because you sat, like I say, on your phone, probably watching it on your own. But if you're in a room full of the people that you share your community with, or now in your workplace, because our workplace screenings are really flying, then those are the people you can go on to talk about it with. And it was really interesting with the Bath survey. So this is this finished now, but it's now become one of the biggest environmental um data sets in the UK. We have to say that it's slightly self-selecting because it's people who've chosen to go and see the film, but it's still a huge body of data, the 13,000 records, something like that. And so they got surveyed before the film and they got surveyed after the discussion. So film, chat, and then they complete the second one. And there was a strand of the data that the Bath team looked at where the longer the time to the to when they filled in the second survey, the more positive the results. So if they watched the film and more or less had a quick chat and ran out the door, that didn't land as well and give them as much agency and hope and positivity as if they spent a good chunk of time talking about it after. And that's the key. You talk about it, you decide what can we do about this, how does our community going to address it? Are the groups we want to form? Are the groups already around that we want to join? Um, can we share our worries? Can we compare notes? But the big one is because we know this from the climate data, most people think they're the only one worrying about this and no one else is. So you've just sat in a room and you've seen all these other people or process the same information as you. Final one, if it's on YouTube, what MP is going to go and watch it? They'll all tell us, oh, I've seen that. So how will we ever know an MP's been briefed? And that one thing is so important to us, and I think this works so well, is for this group of citizens to say to their MP, I want you to come to my village hall and be briefed with me. I always describe our inbox um when it's sort of all kicked off as the the variety of uh incoming emails we get, but one of them beautifully covers this. Uh something it went something along the lines of this: Hi, my name's Beryl. I've just out of hospital, I've had a kidney removed. I'm kind of paraphrasing. Uh I've never organized anything in my life, I've never uh uh emailed my MP and I've never done anything like this before. But I've hired the village hall, I've invited my MP and as many people I can as I can, but I don't know how to use a projector help. And that was, but then the next email in the inbox, I'm not joking, was hi, it's the Ministry of Defence here. We'd like to organise a screening.

James Piper 34:42

So presumably you said to Beryl she didn't need to get a projector because you were going to bring the nine experts and Mike Berness-Lee to the village hall and do a live national emergency briefing.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

That that has happened to me. Um, and no, I think that the probably the one that shocked me the most was when my local church, or I live in a very small village, there's about 140 properties, and someone approached me and said, Nick, I've hired the church, and I I assume you're gonna come to your screening. And I had to host my own screening, and it was quite a humbling moment because we've produced all these Google Docs and these assets and these scripts and these instructions, and we've we think they're pretty good. Uh, and we've given them to all these hosts, but then I suddenly realized that I hadn't actually done one on I've been to plenty of discussions and panels, but I hadn't actually hosted the thing itself, and so that was quite a moment to stand there and get the projector set up and make everything work. And I would have enjoyed saying no thanks, I've already seen it. I would have really enjoyed that.

Robbie Staniforth 35:42

Uh, nice to hear you walking the talk though, though.

James Piper 35:44

Very good. So I had a question about individual action. This was a big topic that we talked about last week. How do you balance the need for individual action and inspiring people to make change of their lives with the big message? And I hope a fair criticism that we had of the national emergency briefing was that actually as an individual, I didn't walk away with loads of action. Whereas I've done like the carbon literacy project to put solar panels on my roof because I pledged to do that, and it finally got me to do something, which was great. Um, I was surprised, particularly I was thinking about the conversations I have at home, like family size being quite a big discussion in my house, and like do how much meat do we eat because we're not vegan or vegetarians, how much meat do we eat? Uh flying long haul flights, my wife and I have travelled the world and which we feel really guilty about, and we now want to think about what we want to do each year. I was quite surprised that none of those topics were in the film, really. I mean, they they touch on just themes like electric cars and stuff, but it's it's not like I'm left like I would be with a carbon literacy project where I'm like, I've got a personal pledge. And if we think back to Lucy's episode, which I know you've watched, she said that was quite a big failing of the climate movement that it has gone quite far into the systemic rather than the individual.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

Okay, that's a good one. Um, the actions of getting these MPs on board, because top-down is we're not going to make it without top down, and we can discuss how personal and top-down all fit together. But the act of getting these MPs on board, this lobbying from citizens, is a personal action. What we found as we built this coalition around us, you know, National Trust and all these amazing groups that are supporting us, is it as soon as you start naming policy, it becomes a bit like People's Front of Judea, then someone will say, Oh, I don't like that policy, I like this policy, and that isn't the policy we're pushing, we're pushing that policy. So we've actually remained a little bit policy agnostic, so that's one thing to say. Otherwise, I don't think we'd have this coalition around us. I think there's so many other groups already doing that. And when it comes to personal actions themselves, again, in the resources that we put out, we do perfectly point people to those. But for me, I'm from doing the work I've done in climate communication, I was in a focus group once for the climate science comedy, and one of the groups were watching this comedy, listening to the scientists, because a scientist translating, it's a comedian translating a scientist, so it's jokes from science. One of these groups started talking about it, you'll like this, it was recycling. And and this this woman said, But I'm really shocked. I thought we were, I thought we were sorting this. Like I do all my recycling. That was literally her answer. And she's be and so for me, you've been you've been led to believe that doing some of this stuff uh purely will solve the problem and it won't. But this is so nuanced because doing this stuff is also really important because that drives the social change and we need it as well. I mean, look, take take me. My wife and I stopped flying mostly in about 2016-17. Always take the train. I've I think I've got on a plane three times since then. Uh, I've got air source heat pumps and electric car, and I've got solar panels on my roof. But you tell me how many things on those lists that can be afforded by most people in the population. That's the other one. So you're you're landing all this guilt on people that that it's sort of their fault, and they have like and they have to do all this infrastructure and and kit they've now got to purchase, which they may or well not have the money to. So I do not want to say personal actions are important because they really are. They're important because they help drive social change. If you switch your diet, that will make you feel better, it's actually more affordable, and that will also be a signal to other people. Um but for us, for our particular initiative, we are trying to get those in power to stand up in front of everyone and be honest and then take the appropriate action. That is our single aim. And to do that, we're trying to connect people and citizens with their with their power that they have through the political system to enable that to happen. We uh we will partner with anyone and everyone who is talking about all the other personal things you can do, because for me they're really important for agency. And just on the food one, I do remember it's Professor Paul Berens who does the food talk. And I do remember us going through his talk and trying to get the phrasing right, because this was a problem we might have had if we'd really focus on all the personal stuff. Imagine if because he was saying, How strongly do I go in about he's a vegan, how strongly do I go in about quitting meat and dairy? And we decided that you just got to cut it right down, you don't have to give it up was the safest message. Because you can imagine the Daily Mail headline. Uh, climate experts get together and demand that you can no longer eat meat and you have to drive an electric car and you can't fly. That could have been the headline for the national emergency briefing. So I've given you the almost too many things to unpack there, but it's definitely important to us. But our our ultimate mission is is the top-down changes, but we actually fully support all of the other changes because they all fit into that big universe of societal shifting, I think.

Robbie Staniforth 41:07

I'm just interested quickly in in the stories of hope that you've heard, you know, because a lot of what I've heard from people who've attended the briefings is anxiety and worry and what can we do, but not that much sort of uh other than let's get my local MP involved, and that's hopeful, and we might get a televised briefing. But that's quite short-termist, isn't it? On the sort of more grandiose scale of hope.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

Okay, I mean, the the first thing to do is turn here to the data um from the bar survey, which is now in, and I'm just gonna list through a little bit of that. But certainly and undeniably, you are gonna be impacted by watching this. And I wish it weren't the case, I wish the news was better. But I think as Adam Buxton so well uh communicates, like before it's this nebulous just thing that I'm just scared of. I don't really understand it, but I'm just scared of it, and now I know what it is and I know what I can do about it. I think that's the crux of this. But what came out of the Bath Survey was really interesting. So 57% are more hopeful compared to 16% less so. Um that's quite critical because it's a really, really, really tough thing to hear, but that still happened. Um, 87% of people felt more motivated to act. That's really powerful. Really, really powerful. And I think if we put that as a YouTube, you know, not than the in-person screening model, I think that would have collapsed. Um, 90, this is my favourite, 93% of people think that the UK public is not being fully informed about the risks and effectively are saying we should have a briefing. So they all agree we want to be treated like adults and we want to have this information. And 89% of people came out of the events feeling a little or much more informed. And it was interesting. If you go back to the the the Westminster event, uh we were quite nervous nervous, we were we were on the verge of that's the most stressful thing we've ever done, me and my brother. Um, so when it all kicked off, we just didn't know what was going to happen, how it was going to be received, what people would say, and we were a little bit worried about people within the climate space, like the NGOs and the sort of people have been doing this for a long time, is would we get criticism for you know taking this down the wrong route, taking the wrong angle, being too honest? And it was really profound what people who had been in the movement a long time were saying when they came out of this, because they they to sort of broadly summarize it, they were profoundly moved and almost um brought back to life. You know, they've been sort of living with this, it's not been working, we've been failing, I've been getting more miserable, and now I feel mm very moved. I cried, but I feel massively empowered.

James Piper 43:49

It took me a while to see the film, uh, just mainly because I've got a young son. Robbie hasn't seen it. Correct. So and we are too people who are likely candidates to go and see it. But We both would have watched it a lot sooner um had it been on YouTube. So I guess you there is a risk that the survey data presents back a n an already engaged climate person. And so they are likely to maybe feel more hopeful because to them, if I was to hypothesise to them, they're like, thank god someone's doing something about it. I've been worrying about this for years, and I'm glad I get to see a film about it. And you might you I suspect if people were forced to go and see a national emergency briefing, um you would have very different survey results. Yeah, I am interested in kind of whether you've got any data on how many people went to see it who were skeptical about climate change, how many people have been to see it who were dragged there by their friends and left feeling more hopeful. Because that is really interesting, isn't it? Because that's yeah, and that's what you're gonna get when you if if and when the briefing happens, you know, that you're gonna suddenly find 90% of the population seeing it. And you want to make sure that lands. And if we haven't got the data that's a true representation of the population, I guess there's a slight risk that we're not 100% sure how it's gonna land.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

No, another really, really good one. Um, so there's a few things that are happening that are different. So I think in the early screenings, you were absolutely getting the climate committed going along now, but there's a number of sort of areas it's diverging, um, and it is diverging into so many different places. So the faith community have come out quite strongly and said, Oh, the Christian denominations are leading this, but have said we want to show this in every single church and religious building we have. There's people in the healthcare sector uh who want to show it as something called the Grand Round, which is like lectures done for trainee doctors and medical people. Um, we have got the we reach the apex of the Women's Institute, and they did an internal screening for various groups, and they want to push that out through the Women's Institute, which is incredibly powerful. Um, we've got all these different organizations that have just popped up to screen it. Uh, Deloitte's being one of them, uh, British Airways being another, the BBC have screened it internally, Channel 4 have screened it internally three times. I think ITV and Sky as well. Um, and then we've got things happening in schools and universities. So we went, um my colleague Ben and I went to a school in Plymouth and did a screening to a bunch of six formers. So we we stop at 16. We don't think they should go below 16. And the six formers were their response was really interesting. It wasn't, it didn't lean towards this just really scary, it leaned towards a little bit of outrage that we, the grown-ups, had not been talking to us about this. So why are why is this not being discussed? One of them changed his degree choices there and then. He said, I was I'm good, I was literally gonna do history, I am now gonna go for engineering because we've got to sort this out. So we've got someone managing a schools program which is gonna go into every sixth form in the country. Um, and so that's gonna be a much different audience from the audiences we're getting. And it's the same with the workplace screenings. I think we're I'm behind on my stats there. We're well over a thousand workplace screenings, and these again will not be the same self self-selecting audience. I mean, the the person instigating it will be, because it was it's gonna be the sustainability lead or manager or you know person doing that. But it's it's uh, you know, Costa Coffee, I think, have done one. Um, and these are all internal. Now, Riverford are doing one uh, I think this week to their customer base. So we're starting to lean into a, and you might say Riverford self-selecting organic vegetables. But if we if that model works, based on the sort of blue chip companies that are coming forwards, we might do more of that. So I think yeah, yes, we're conscious of that, but I think it's starting to permeate out now. And that again goes back to that reason of recruiting the people who do now get it, now know more, and now enthused by this to get more screenings. You know, someone the other day took it into their golf club and did a screening at the golf club. Um, we've also got some new creative coming um probably next month on ways and means to get people who wouldn't normally go and see a climate film to watch a climate film. And to be honest, that's why we got um Jennifer Saunders and the other celebs in there. It's not because we think celebs are really important. It was to try and draw people in who wouldn't who wouldn't normally view a film like that.

James Piper 48:20

You've inspired me, Nick. My local screening is going to be at my pub, the end of my road. I reckon I can get a lot of climate skeptics in that pub.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

Pub screenings could be a little sweet spot, actually. Yeah. I think pub screenings are important.

Robbie Staniforth 48:34

And and just to play the little devil's advocate to James's question, you know, as we mentioned, I've not got to a briefing yet, and I'm absolutely in the target demographic. So the counterfactual is also true that there can be plenty out there who know lots about climate science, care about the environment, who choose to say, well, uh and as I have done, it's not top of my priority list because I already know quite a bit about that. So there's also the opposite is the case in terms of it won't just be the green and key.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

So I mean, latest stats on it, we have got we've held now held 4,386 screenings. We've got nearly 1,500 planned. Um, it's a way to go. We reckon that's about 230,000 people. That's not a lot, but I think what the model's doing, it's helping us build this movement and it's becoming really cohesive, and these people are really connected now. They've they feel, I mean, I get emails signed, National Emergency Briefing, Stevenage. There's like there's people who've got their own Instagram accounts, there's there's people who are organizing um audience surveys, there's there's so many things happening that we actually feel guilty because we can't keep up with. So I think that's all going to add to the the noise to encourage people who might not go and watch a climate film to watch a climate film.

Robbie Staniforth 49:50

I've got my fingers crossed here for you, Nick, and the rest of the team who've worked so hard on it, and actually UK citizens who are leaning into this to try and make it happen. So let's for a moment imagine the Prime Minister's agreed to this televised um briefing. Um, it's uh been aired sometime, you know, mid-evening, and we wake up the next morning. What do we want to happen thereafter? What do you think the next sequence of actions will be?

SPEAKER_00 50:22

So, for first of all, by doing that, because leadership on the subject of change and especially subjects like climate is so critical. And there's great data on this. If it's only activists talking about something, it doesn't land with people. When a political leader, your prime minister, fronts up something like that, it does something seismic to how we receive the information. So, first of all, we've now just gone through something that Mike Berners Lee calls a one-way gate. Like the whole country, like we did in COVID, has just gone almost in the click of a fingers to a different paradigm of what's going on. They've that not everyone will, but everyone, the majority have understood something they didn't understand before. So that's a huge thing, and that tackles the things we've been debating before about getting everyone on board and how we reach all these different people. So we've now got it. It's now a subject that the culture and society and politics has got firmly on the table. And it doesn't matter who owns the media, it can't be got around because the cat is out the bag. What happens next is is difficult, isn't it? Because current policies are quite business as usual oriented. Like we've done great things on energy, so are we, you know, we are cutting energy in our switch to renewables, but that's one-fifth of our total energy use, the grid. You know, everything else, transport, industry, agriculture, it's all flatlining. So we we've got to recognise that there's a huge amount of work to be done. What we would then like to see is so the government is now has made the statement, the MPs have sorry, the the independent experts have all stood up there and and and explained this to everyone. So the government's own policies are now not going to look relevant relative to what everyone now understands the risks to be. What we would then hope to see is for the government to ask the climate change committee to go away and run a project on what is the fastest transition that we can do? How is that what's what's feasible? Recognizing that we now see this as completely urgent. What is the fastest transition? How how quickly can we move now, just in all practical terms, across every industry? And that's they'll probably need to employ some more people to do that, but that's what they're there to do. At the moment, they've been asked to do something a lot more benign than that, and so suddenly we it would move from being a political problem to being given to the a bunch of experts who are the climate change committee to then paint a picture of what the change we need, uh, how it how it pans out. And actually, for me, come on, what's missing in politics at the moment, it's a bit visionless, isn't it? I know Burnham's got kind of more of the light touch thing going on, but it's it's always around really small things like you know, disposable barbecues and noisy people on trains, but we've been missing vision. And so can you imagine this sort of renewed vigour we might get from knowing we've got to refurbish all our housing stock? Hey, there's employment opportunities for all those, is it four million neats, you know, that that we've got now? Huge employment opportunities. We've got one of the leakiest but badly, the most badly insulated housing stocks in the industrialized world. And we could be renovating that street by street. We could be rolling out renewables in in the same manner. So it could be something exciting that we all get behind. And I think I think that could unite us in a way that is missing at the moment.

Robbie Staniforth 53:54

I keep fingers and toes crossed that this actually happens because it could be a watershed moment.

James Piper 54:00

Nick, thank you so much for coming on to Talking Rubbish. It's genuinely, we do this podcast and we give our opinions on topics, and particularly with this national emergency briefing, I gave some personal opinions last week. It is awesome to then have the person who's got the answer to my questions as to why it was set up in the way it was, um, why it's focused in the way it is. I think you've complimented our episode from last week really nicely, and actually given me a lot of things to think about into and I'm sure up influences things to think about. You did say earlier you'd you'd have time to do recycling if the national emergency briefing was uh less busy. So I feel like before we get into our standard two questions, you should just clarify to our audience whether you recycle each week.

SPEAKER_00 54:42

I definitely recycle each week. What I was insinuating there is I am so busy that some of the home admin has been slipping slightly. I do I do have a question because I believe where I live, I mean, it we we have incineration going on in Plymouth. And I do do my recycling a lot with a lot less motivation than I used to do. Because what I learned with the, and this is the shout out that I didn't do at the beginning, it's rag wrap, my uh wife and Simon's wife's business, so it's reusable GIF wrap. What I learned when I was doing that is is it only is it still only 9% or 8% of plastic producers is being recycled? Boy, do we have a podcast for you. I hope the can of worms there. But I suppose what I'm saying as a as a layman on this is that I'm doing my recycling with a little bit less motivation than I used to.

James Piper 55:33

It's a really interesting thing, actually, because it's the opposite of climate. So with climate, you want to talk about worldwide issues two degrees, three degrees, four degrees increase in in temperature, right? With recycling, you want to talk about local. You want to say what's Plymouth recycling? Because that is ultimately your question on whether you should recycle or not. And when people talk about nine percent of plastic being recycled, that is a worldwide figure, taking into account every country. You know, and America, as an example, has a very poor recycling performance because they landfill everything because they've got loads of space. So we do have an episode called Do We Only Recycle 9%, where we talk about that. Every interview we end with the same two questions. First one is Nick, is there something in your life that we could offer a listener that you found really helpful in your sustainability journey? So it could be uh a product, an experience, anything like that, and I will go and get it for one of our listeners.

SPEAKER_00 56:25

Oh, that's very sweet. Um, the the thing that springs to mind, because it came up in the conversation, is Genevieve Gunther's book. Because I found that the most inspiring. So this she is an author, but uh she came from the world of language and she was a Renaissance scholar, and so clay came into the climate space going, You guys are doing this just wrong. It's like you're telling your stories all wrong, and and describes it in much better terms than I do about um, it's a bit more like Star Wars than how you're doing it. It's like a plucky group of uh heroes are up against these huge forces. And anyway, she described it so beautifully and she breaks down the opposition to the climate conversation, the narrative so expertly, including going up against um Nobel Prize-winning economists, um, that it's just one, it's it's the best climate book I've ever read. And I really advise people to read it because climate is a comms issue. It's all about how we communicate it. And here's an expert in communication. Um, and this book is, yeah, I would heartily recommend it.

James Piper 57:28

That's perfect. Okay, great. So if you want the chance to win that, uh just head on over to our Instagram. Our handle is at rubbishpodcast and give the post that announces Nick's episode a like, and then you'll be in with the chance of winning that book. So that's great. Thank you so much, Nick. Maybe I should include like a return Uber fair to your local screening. Should I do that just to encourage whoever wins? So then is it depending on where your local screening is, because we did talk about one in Budapest last week. I think I'm gonna fly anyone to Budapest, but I will because that would actually be counterintuitive if we're for you to defeat the purpose, James. But if you have a local screening near you and you want to go, I would be happy to pay for the infair for the person who wins that book. Up for the value of £20. pounds. And Nick, finally, if you had an environmental superpower, what would it be and how would you use it?

SPEAKER_00 58:20

As I said in the last answer, it's a comms problem. And I think and I think we've learned this during this project now. I think when you equip people when you treat people like grown-ups and give them all this information, most people are incredibly reasonable. And uh this is a quick aside. Did you see that guy who just walks back to whole from what's the biggest lesson he's learned? The answer he keeps giving is 99.99999% of people are actually really nice, yeah, and that's across the whole world. Yeah. So if you give all these glorious people who we share our planet with, the the unfiltered information, they generally make the right decision. So I think my superpower would be to unhook vested interests from our media in a single click of my fingers and have, I don't know, communities-owned newspapers and media outlets or something benign that wasn't um distorting information. And then we would all be dealing with the same baseline of knowledge, and we'll be able to get on with stuff like recycling.

Robbie Staniforth 59:19

I love that.

James Piper 59:20

That's great. Thank you, Nick. As always, thank you all for listening. Thank you for the reviews and engagement. We absolutely love getting the opportunity to do this podcast each week. Join our Discord, follow us on social media at rubbishpodcast. You can email talkingrubbishpodcast at gmail.com or you can WhatsApp us. And everything we've discussed today can also be found on our link tree, and the details to all those things can be found in our show notes. There is nothing left for me to say other than see you next bin day. Bye. Bye. See you later. Bye.