Reimagining Government S4E2 – Kumi Naidoo on activism, human rights, and climate justice

Kumi Naidoo: [00:00:00] In the moment of history that we find ourselves in, pessimism is a luxury we simply cannot afford. And the pessimism that justifiably emerges can, must and should be responded to by the optimism, our thoughts, our action, and our sense of humanity. 

Gabrielle Beran: Welcome to Reimagining Government, the podcast from the Centre for Public Impact.

We’re your hosts, Kandice Louis-Wilson and Gabrielle Beran. In this season, we’re asking a bold question. What if tackling climate change starts with rethinking who holds power?

Kandice Louis-Wilson: Climate change presents an opportunity to radically transform our way of life. And this transformation should include creating more space for all genders to thrive and flourish. In this series, we’ve begun to spotlight some of the amazing women reclaiming power in the fight against climate. But as we’re discovering the impact of climate change is not [00:01:00] equal, there’s also appears to be a gender gap in admissions emerging.

Men emit 26% more pollution than women from transport and food, according to a preprint study of 15,000 people in France. 

Gabrielle Beran: And in some social circles, there is a growing association of environmental consciousness with weakened masculinity. 

External Clip: If they gave a shit about global warming and rising sea levels, why does every single multimillionaire and billionaire buy a house on the beach?

I thought we’re all gonna drown next year. Climate science is a state of mind. That’s an appalling scam. It’s a lie. How did we wind up with a country in which feminists do science? 

Gabrielle Beran: This has got us wondering, what is the role of men in fighting the climate crisis? What does real male allyship look like in these spaces?

Kandice Louis-Wilson: Those are great questions, and it all speaks to how climate justice can’t be truly effective if it’s [00:02:00] not inclusive. If we’re not bringing everyone along, then we’re essentially fighting with one hand tied behind our backs. That’s why today’s guest just feels so important. For today’s episode, we sat down with Kumi Naidoo, President of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, and the former Executive Director of Greenpeace and Amnesty International. 

Gabrielle Beran: Kumi has spent decades on the frontlines of justice movements.

He’s a fierce climate justice advocate with roots in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. And he often speaks about patriarchy and colonialism as root causes of environmental destruction. Kumi has been involved in activism since he was 15 years old, and he brings a valuable and generous perspective to this conversation.

Kandice Louis-Wilson: We speak to Kumi about why male allyship matters in feminist and climate movements, how we can start to heal some of the fractures in the climate and gender conversation, and why inclusive climate justice, one that leaves no one behind, might just be our best hope for the future. 

Gabrielle Beran: Our fascinating conversation with Kumi Naidoo, after this quick break. [00:03:00] 

Advert: There are a lot of gaps in society, the racial wealth gap, gender equality gap, education, access gap, and more. To help close these gaps, my best friend, Tania Roa and I, Adriana Maria Medina, share stories on how to take action for systemic change. Our experience in advocating for social equity and climate justice provide tactical ways for you to find your role in the social justice movements of our time.

Through our personal experiences and those of our guests, we encourage new perspectives rooted in care, transformation, and community. These stories will help you imagine and work towards a more equal and just future that prioritises people and the planet over profit. Join our journey towards collective healing by listening to Closing the Gap, a social justice podcast on all podcast platforms.[00:04:00] 

Kandice Louis-Wilson: Welcome back to Reimagining Government. 

Gabrielle Beran: Welcome, Kumi. Tell us, where are you joining us from today? 

Kumi Naidoo: Uh, I’m in my hometown of Durban, South Africa. 

Gabrielle Beran: I hear the wine is good down that way, Kumi. But maybe that’s a conversation for another day. 

Kumi Naidoo: Well, it’s better in the other part of the country, in Cape Town, than Durban, but uh, it’s good enough.

Gabrielle Beran: So, Kumi, can you take us back to a moment in your life where you remember being aware of climate, climate justice, how it was maybe connecting to some of the other activism or work you were doing? Maybe what climate and climate justice meant to you then and, and what does it mean to you now? 

Kumi Naidoo: The truth is, growing up in apartheid South Africa, we had a view that environmental issues was something that rich people and white people did. The reality growing up in [00:05:00] the society that we did, most white people treated their pets better than they treated the majority of our people. So if I’m brutally honest, in my early years of activism as a teenager, we saw environmental activism as tree-hugging and bunny-hugging.

But I did have a really close friend and comrade called Lenny, who I jokingly say at that time he was probably one of 5,000 voluntary vegetarians on the entire African continent. He, he was one of the few people that understood the intersection between environmental justice, social justice, gender justice, and so on. 

We fled the country at similar times, and then two years later, while I was a student in exile in Oxford, I got the news that my friend Lenny and three young women from my hometown, Durban, were brutally murdered by the apartheid regime.

And in my last conversation with him, he asked, he was a [00:06:00] very philosophical guy, he asked me this question. What is the biggest contribution we can make to the course of humanity? And I said, oh, that’s an easy question, giving our life. Because at that time, every other weekend, we were at funerals burying people that had been killed by the apartheid regime. And he said, no, you know, that’s not the right answer. It’s not giving your life, but giving the rest of your life. 

Two years later, when he was murdered, I had to think about that distinction. And that distinction is really important in the moment of history that we find ourselves in. And that is for all of us to recognise, the struggle for gender justice, climate justice, economic justice, and so on.

These struggles are marathons, and they’re not sprints. And therefore, the biggest contribution any one of us can make to the course of humanity is to persevere and to stay committed to those issues until those injustices are eradicated. [00:07:00] 

I’m embarrassed to say that I fully understood what a big danger climate change poses to our children and their children’s futures was brought to me, when I was in the middle of a hunger strike, putting pressure on the South African government to stop the human rights abusers happening in Zimbabwe. 

I was in the 19th day of a hunger strike to draw attention to this issue. When I get a call from Greenpeace asking if I would consider being a candidate to be the new head of Greenpeace.

I told them thanks very much, but, uh, it’s been 19 days since I’ve eaten, and I don’t think it’s a good, a good time for me to make such a big decision. And that evening, my daughter, who lives in the UK, saw me on BBC, and I had lost a lot of weight, and she called and said, Dad, why are you still doing interviews and so on?

I said, no, no, you know, I’m not doing that [00:08:00] much. I did the interview with BBC and I, speaking to you today, and the only other call I took was speaking to the guys at Greenpeace. And she said, what did they say? I told her, and then she said to me, Dad, I won’t talk to you if you don’t consider this position when you finish your stupid hunger strike.

Basically, implying that for a person who had the benefit of education, it was pathetic that I didn’t understand how climate change impacts on our life. It required my daughter to like shake me up and say, hey, get with the program. You need to realize that my future and my generation’s future is at stake. And the threat of climate change constitutes the biggest intergenerational betrayal of all times. 

Gabrielle Beran: And so Kumi, with the encouragement of your daughter, who sounds like a wonderful person to have in your life. You added a new element or something new to your activism. [00:09:00] What did you see when you started to enter this more deliberate climate space?

Like with Greenpeace? What did you see that was similar to, to the struggles that you’d been fighting against and, and what did you see maybe in the power dynamics, if anything, that was different? 

Kumi Naidoo: What was common was that power is never voluntarily given. Even well-meaning people struggle to give up power voluntarily, including in our very movements.

And, as you probably know, most of our international organisations, including ones that I’ve served, suffer from the burden of being structurally racist in the sense that they’re dominated by people from the Global North, even though the Global North constitutes, you know, less than 15% of the world’s population.

What was different? And this is a really important difference, is that for all the struggles that I had been involved in as a 15-year-old for [00:10:00] democracy, human rights, gender justice, and so on. Important, though all those struggles were, there wasn’t a clock, say on gender justice. There wasn’t a clock ticking saying you gotta sort out gender justice by 2030 or 2040, right? 

Climate change is very different because there’s a clock that is ticking and saying. Folks, you gotta get your act together and you gotta get your act together fast, otherwise you are going to risk the possibility of humanity being able to survive on this planet. And I just wanted to say to your listeners the good news here, right?

People like myself have said many times, you know, save the climate, save the environment, save the planet, and all of that. The good news is the planet actually does not need saving. If we continue on the suicidal trajectory that we are on, we will destroy our water resources, which we are doing. We will destroy our soil quality, which we are doing.

We warm up the planet to the [00:11:00] point where we cannot grow food. Once we hit that point, when food, water, and soil are threatened, and we are on that trajectory already and seeing the impacts of it. The end result is, we will be gone. The planet will need still be here. And I, tongue in cheek say to people, hey, you know everybody who’s concerned about saving the planet, don’t worry.

Because once human beings become extinct as a species, the oceans will recover, the forest will grow back and so on. Climate change is very different from every other struggle that we are faced. It fundamentally threatens everybody on this planet’s future, to the point where the science tells us, we could be looking at the extinction of humanity on this planet.

And for that reason, we need to give climate justice struggles, the urgency that it deserves, which we are not doing anywhere close to, uh, sufficiently at the moment.

The universe is [00:12:00] always sending us lessons. Okay? So, in 1997, the Asian financial crisis, that led to the contagion that affected Argentina and Russia and so on. In the middle of that crisis, our leaders said the world needs a new financial architecture. 

External Clip: We have made progress in the effort to develop a 21st-century International Monetary Fund, but we have no doubt that further change is needed.

Kumi Naidoo: Then, we have the global financial crisis in 2008, 2009. Our leaders then said, we’ll scrap fossil fuel subsidies, which ran into the trillions of dollars. 

External Clip: Putting an end to the unwarranted subsidies that we are given oil companies right now through the tax cut. 

Kumi Naidoo: And then during COVID, you might remember that many of our leaders said, oh, we need to build back better.

External Clip: We must use this moment [00:13:00] now, to do things differently, to build back better, and to build back bolder. 

Kumi Naidoo: So while we are in the middle of crises, our leaders do find the courage to say that which is necessary. But sadly, once they put the bandaid over the problem and they contain it, it usually goes back to business as usual.

So, the response of those in governmental power and corporate power is very much system recovery, system protection, system maintenance whenever we have a shock to the system. But what is urgently needed now more than ever before, we need system innovation, system transformation, and system redesign. The fact that climate change exists as an issue is a reality of a failing economic system, energy system, food system, transport system, and so on.

So we should dissuade ourselves of the idea that [00:14:00] all we need to do right now is rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, while humanity sinks and we’re gonna be okay. What is needed now, because we’ve dragged our feet and we’ve let fossil fuel companies dominate our economy and our societies to the point that they do right now. 

We have to recognise that the clock is against us, and that if we believe that by incremental tinkering here and there and uh, renewable energy project here and there and so on, is gonna get us to where we need to, then we are kidding ourselves. So let’s be very clear. The current systems of power that are in place are not serving the needs of the vast majority of humanity if they don’t take decisive action right now to shut off the poison oil, coal, and gas, that is driving climate change.

Kandice Louis-Wilson: No, [00:15:00] that’s a, that’s a really good point, um. I, I love the analogy because I think oftentimes when we talk about climate, um, you’re right. If you are not someone in, uh, in this world, right, in the spectrum, how do you relate? How do you understand what the problem is, and how do you understand what, what, how do we fix it?

And so when you’re talking about these, you know, formal institutions, um, are there any that you feel are getting it right? Are you, are there any that you feel that they’re doing the necessary things, they’re making the right steps towards rectifying this issue? 

Kumi Naidoo: I wish I could say in response to that question that there is an explosion of political and business leaders that are being honest, that are responding to what the science is saying, that are acting with the urgency that we find ourselves in.

And I’m sorry to say, the answer to that question is it’s not the majority. In this difficult contextual environment, what we have seen is a bunch of countries step forward to say, we either accept the science or we don’t accept the [00:16:00] science. And even if you don’t follow the science, you just have to be looking at extreme weather events to see that we are in a deep crisis.

A couple years ago, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, and a few Pacific Island states took the lead in supporting the idea that we cannot put all our eggs in a voluntary basket where countries voluntarily are expected to deliver on commitments. But what we need right now is a binding treaty. A binding treaty, like we have nuclear nonproliferation, like we have landmines, like we had on Ozone, to shut the flow off the poison: oil, coal, and gas that’s killing our children’s futures. 

So I’m happy to say that there are now 20 countries, which includes, uh, primarily Pacific Island states and small island states, but it also includes three fossil fuel exporting countries. That’s Columbia, Timor Leste, and Pakistan, who have also joined to negotiate a treaty where we’ll come [00:17:00] together and say, given what we now know, first commitment is no new fresh investments in fossil fuels.

Second commitment is, given what we now know, how can we phase out fossil fuels as fast as possible. But how do we do it in a way that is fair to workers in the fossil fuel industry and fair and just and inclusive to communities that develop on fossil fuel infrastructure? By that I mean, for example, if you’re a woman who sells fruits and vegetables outside a coal mine, if that mine shuts down, what happens to those people who rely on that infrastructure to be able to survive?

The idea is that next year, the Colombian government is already called for a international diplomatic conference to take place in, uh, April next year. That’s the earliest it will take place. Latest it’ll take place is October. And what will happen at that diplomatic conference, when it gets held, is immediately at the end of that, it’ll be a conference on the phase out of fossil fuels.

[00:18:00] And similar to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, there was a similar conference, and immediately at the end of the conference, the negotiations throughout that treaty started. These 20 countries that have taken the lead are not denying the reality that we face. Because, bear in mind that for years and years we were going to the cops, calling for a FAB deal.

A fair, ambitious and binding deal. And sadly, what we’ve got year in, year out is a FLAB deal, FLAB, full of loopholes and bullshit. The power structures that are in place are holding us back, and I think it’s fair to say that the fossil fuel company leadership has, has exercised historically and presently disproportionate power and influence over the decisions of governments.

And, the time has come for our leaders to step forward. And put people before the profit of fossil fuel companies, which is [00:19:00] what has dominated far too much of decision-making. 

Gabrielle Beran: Oh, Kumi, we could talk about small island states and their role in this forever as, as a, as a proud member of the Pacific community coming from New Zealand.

But I’m gonna shift us a little bit if we can, to talk about power, and power and patriarchy. We have this amazing podcast series lined up, but I think, you so far are the only man that we are gonna interview, and that puts you in a, a wonderfully unique position to give us some perspectives. I was at COP myself last year and, and certainly, uh, the gender balance was far from desirable in, in terms of equitable representation.

You mentioned there, a lot of those, those power players, politicians, fuel lobby. Certainly in, in the climate world that I’m in, the conversation is very much sort of accepting that, that women and girls and, and other marginalized groups and communities of different genders and across the world are bearing the brunt of the climate crisis.

What I find so curious though, the, the question has not been turned around yet enough to [00:20:00] say, hmm. These people are being the most impacted and, and who is causing it. And what are those power dynamics, and why do you think that is that we have not been able to have a productive conversation about patriarchy’s role in the climate crisis?

Kumi Naidoo: I have so much to say about this. Let me start with Mary Robinson’s comments, the former president of Ireland and uh, a former High Commissioner of Human Rights. After the Glasgow COP, she said in 2021, this cop was male, pale, and stale. If you look at the leadership of the fossil fuel industry, for example, there are very few exceptions of women in prominent leadership, it’s a completely male-dominated industry. 

In 2002, the Pentagon and the CIA commissioned a report on what will be the biggest threats to future stability piece and reduction of conflict. And they concluded that the [00:21:00] biggest threat in the coming decades, this was in 2002, will not come from terrorism or conventional threats, but will come from the impacts of climate change.

And we know that when there is war and conflict, that women and children face the brunt of it. I think, the fact that we have not had equitable gender leadership has been of massive consequences to how we have dealt with conflict, why there is so much of war, and one of the logics of male decision makers has been very much, not only that we dominate women, but we also dominate nature. 

In some ways, if you think about it, women and nature. As far as, uh, you know, the manosphere if you want right, or the male power, right? They find themselves in this, in the same situation, just as male decision makers, wrongly, unjustly, and stupidly assume that they [00:22:00] can govern without full equity with women, they make the same mistake of, oh, we can treat nature as a commodity and we can just decimate all our ecological assets, and we’ll still be able to survive as a species on the planet.

The last thing I would say is that when I was at the end of Greenpeace, for example, when I joined in 2009. As an environmental organisation, I came with a message, of, we have to make a link between climate justice and economic justice, and democracy and human rights and gender equity and so on. And the truth is, I received massive pushback.

Oh no. Uh, gender is dealt with by the women’s organisations and therefore we don’t want, you know, to step on their territory and so on. And I would say that the most powerful single idea that we have in the world: seeking justice, is an idea that comes from the women’s movement, when decades ago they [00:23:00] gave us a rather cumbersome word, but a very powerful concept of intersectionality.

People in the women’s movement said, if you want to address gender equity, you needed to understand our gender intersected with race, class, religion, ability, and so on. And one of the mistakes that we’ve made in the climate justice movement, is framing the climate challenge as an environmental issue, rather than as a cross-cutting issue.

The challenge of climate change is a failure of our economic system, our food system, our energy system, our transport system, and so on. And unless we start at picking up on this wisdom given to us by the women’s movement decades ago, we will continue to make mistakes at our own peril.

Gabrielle Beran: Kumi, you can’t see me ’cause we don’t have our cameras on, but I had my hands in the air. I tell you what, I’m gonna be clipping [00:24:00] that up and sending that across the airwaves when it’s ready.

Kandice Louis-Wilson: Yeah, no, totally agree. I was over here. If you could look in the chat saying preach and amen, because I was definitely echoing, uh, what you were saying, and just thinking about masculinity and patriarchy in that space.

Um, and also too, thinking about my perspective as an American who is, you know, looking at, how my system is addressing climate issues and gender based violence and all the things that go into there. Can you talk more about what you think the role of men in playing, in dismantling the gender impacts of climate change? And then also talking about how can we then steer younger men down a path of alternate thinking when it comes to climate and gender? 

Kumi Naidoo: So I think the most important thing that men can do is create as much voice, space, visibility and possibilities of leadership for women. I think that what our attempts at addressing climate change has missed [00:25:00] is drawing on the wisdom of more than half of the world’s population in decision making. 

And, therefore, I would say, it’s not surprising right now, if you see the most

powerful activism coming from young women and young girls. If you look at the Fridays for the Future, for example. Whether it’s uh, Disha Ravi in, uh, India, Vanessa Nakate in Uganda, Greta Thunberg in Sweden and so on. You look at all these, they’re all led by young women. So we need to create more spaces for that.

You know, that doesn’t mean that the voices of young men and so on are not important, but we need to have more equity in the voices that we hear. We are dealing with the massive level of eco anxiety and climate anxiety. So much so that, you know, I remember in September 2019, in the march in New York with hundreds of thousands of [00:26:00] people during the UN General Assembly, there were two sisters carrying a sign that said: Hi mum, sorry, but I don’t think you’ll be a grandmother. 

And you’ll be amazed at how many young women I meet who are starting conversations about it’s irresponsible, you know, for us to have kids, right? The fact that my generation has left young people with these kinds of questions is a pathetic statement of my generation’s failure of leadership.

Our son is a very popular musician, hip-hop artist, and rapper. He went by the name Riky Rick. Uh, sits us down and says, you know, you are really not good at what y’all do. You’ll have been struggling for human rights, democracy, sustainability, and so on since you were teenagers. And when I look at the world, the world is moving in the wrong direction.

So when I asked, why is it, do you think we are failing? And he said, that’s because you’ll aim all your narratives and messages at the brain, and you’ll ignore the heart, the body, and the soul. [00:27:00] Sadly, several weeks later, uh, Ricardo took his life and kind of brought home, you know, one of the massive challenges of the moment that we find ourselves in.

How do we respond then? So, one of the responses following Ricardo’s passing, we set up a foundation called the Riky Rick Foundation for the promotion of artivism, where we bring arts, culture, and activism together. Because one of the biggest reasons we are failing to galvanise the kind of participation and volume of people taking this issue seriously, is because we talk a language that people don’t understand. 

We use too much of science. We use too much of policy jargon and so on. And so we will not move the agenda forward if we do not harness the power of arts and culture to its fullest, [00:28:00] to be able to address the communications deficit of not just climate activism, but of all kinds of activism.

So right now, many of us involved on the right side of history, if you want, are so alienated from the base of people that we need to be communicating with. In the anti-poverty movement, when I was the Chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty, there were several times I used to have this feeling that some of the people in our movements won’t even be able to have a conversation with a poor person if they met the poor person.

And so right now. Uh, especially for young men and in Africa, in the Caribbean, in indigenous communities and so on, we are seeing a troubling, troubling trend of high level of young people suicides. It’s not always related in a direct sense to the climate crisis, but it is one of the things that is adding to a global mental health [00:29:00] crisis that we continue to ignore at our own peril.

It’s critically important that we recognise that the scale of change that we need to make in the world right now, given that we’ve ignored what the science said for so long, is gonna require a kind of participation, a scale of participation never seen before. 

Now, there are two reasons why that mass scale of participation is critically necessary. One, is that those in power in governments and in business are not seemingly able to move as fast as we need them to move, unless they see and experience visible pressure on a permanent basis. So that’s one of the reasons, but there’s a second reason.

The participation itself, creating opportunities for people to participate in ways that speak to their skills, their inclinations, the things that give them joy, and all of [00:30:00] that, is going to be the most powerful antidote to despair, despondency and hopelessness. 

In the moment of history that we find ourselves in, pessimism is a luxury we simply cannot afford. And the pessimism that justifiably emerges from our analysis, our lived experiences, and our observations, can, must and should be responded to by the optimism of our thought, our action, our creativity, our courage, and our sense of humanity.

Kandice Louis-Wilson: For our final question, we ask all our guests to share a key learning that they could share with the government in order to help them pave a better future in climate and gender. And we want you to speak directly to the government figures and public service workers listening to this podcast right now. What do you need them to learn? 

Kumi Naidoo: So to our brothers and sisters who find themselves in positions of leadership in elected office or in civil servant positions. We [00:31:00] understand what a difficult position you find yourselves in. It’s not as if people on this side of the fence who are pushing for the big structural and systemic changes that we need, don’t see how difficult it is.

Secondly, I would say to them, because it’s difficult doesn’t mean that you don’t have the capability to actually deliver that which is needed. We need a binding treaty. And so to all civil servants, as well as those in power, please encourage, use your voice, use your space, to get your governments to come to a negotiating table, to negotiate the phase out of fossil fuels as fast as possible.

Whatever good we do, renewable energy, recycling, energy efficiency, all of these things which are showing that clean energy is cheaper than dirty energy and so on. All of it is good. But if we do all of that, but don’t shut [00:32:00] the tap off on fossil fuels, we are not gonna succeed. 

The scale of the challenge is so great that government alone is not going to be able to address this issue if they do not create the most enabling environment for civil society through trade unions, through NGOs, through social movements, through faith institutions and so on. To be able to participate in the solutions making, as well as in galvanising the kind of popular support that is needed for a massive societal change that we need. 

The good news is that these changes if we do, doesn’t only protect us from the climate threat. But if we did it in the right way, also means that we can promote greater gender justice, greater economic justice, and so on.

Because it’s not simply a question right now of replacing dirty energy with clean energy and keeping the system completely in place. The [00:33:00] system is broken. So, what I would say is to individuals that find themselves in different positions, push the system as far as you think the system can go in the direction of what the science is guiding us to do.

Push it as far as you can recognise. Of course, you’ll have setbacks and all of that. And then, also in terms of resistance and opposition that you receive from climate justice campaigners, for example. See it as a resource. Don’t be threatened by it. See it as these folks are helping me get the space within my ministry or within my particular initiative or project to move forward.

See us as allies, don’t see us as enemies. And recognise that when the history of the planet is written, history will judge that what you’re doing today was exactly the right thing that humanity needed. And to our friends [00:34:00] in government, we say, we understand that you didn’t create everything that you inherited, but please just follow what the science says we need to do. And if you do that, then you will find that you’re acting with the same urgency that folks who are pushing for faster action on climate are asking for.

Gabrielle Beran: So Kandice, what did you think about our interview with Kumi?

Kandice Louis-Wilson: I thought it was both exciting. I thought it was deeply engaging. Um, I appreciate the honesty with which he shared the challenges and triumphs along the way. And I think one of the things that resonated with me the most, uh, and I was literally talking to my girlfriends about it afterwards, was, uh, what will cease to exist is civilisation.

The world is resilient, the earth is resilient, right? And we talked about like how the ocean’s rebuilt, and we talked about there’s a particular beach we grew up at that during COVID it, it just manifested into this like, beautiful thing. And we call it Dirty Myrtle, but during COVID [00:35:00] it was like literally like blue.

There was like wildlife, there was like new coral reef growing. Um, and I just thought that to be so not, it’s not profound. It’s, it’s very simple, but it’s very powerful as that, you know, when we get out of the way, the earth will replenish itself. 

Gabrielle Beran: I, I think what I loved is the simplicity. Of that message, focus on the fossil fuels.

There is so much noise in this space, and sometimes energy, and that’s fantastic. But something we think about a lot at at CPI in our work around climate is how do we pull back from these like tink, we call ’em tinkering actions, like, you know, yeah. A recycling center here, a bike lane here. Like that’s super cool and fun and, and fantastic, but we’ve gotta go.

If we’re thinking systemically about this, the sources, we’ve gotta turn off fossil fuels. We’ve got to learn to thrive in a climate secure future. And that is gonna take a complete societal transformation. Uh, but it’s also, it’s possible. And I think that’s what we saw with Kumi’s passion, was [00:36:00] that that frustration that like this is possible.

Kandice Louis-Wilson: Absolutely. I loved him talking about his foundation, um, and artivism, uh, the activism of art and how he talked about, um, the healing mechanisms and tools that are within art. I really appreciated that conversation, uh, coming from, you know, a creative family. Uh, playing multiple instruments and being an artist and doing all the different things, it really resonated with me and how I relate to change and, and how I want to impact change in the world.

And I think also too, just thinking about the generations that are the next generation of activists, I think that resonates so well. So I really appreciated his perspective on that. 

Gabrielle Beran: Two things. One, Kandice, I think he should compose some intro outro music for us, with your musical skills. Um, but also I like the climate crisis definitely has a bit of a communication challenge, and if we can communicate with people in different ways through art, through music, because it’s, it’s a hearts [00:37:00] and, and soul issue. Right? 

Kandice Louis-Wilson: Absolutely. 

Gabrielle Beran: Intellectually, we know the facts, but something isn’t clicking.

Kandice Louis-Wilson: And I think that’s the issue, is telling the truth better, right? Because are we speaking to everyone? Everyone is not like nerding out about this stuff like us, who’s like, wait, tell me more. You know? Like some people are like, okay, we know, right?

But how can we speak to them in ways that translate to information that is palatable for them, that is interesting to them, that will resonate to them in a way that they want to make change. Um, and so I thought that was another just. Uh, as the more I talk about it, I’m like, and there’s another thing and there’s another thing.

But, uh, there’s, that was another thing that I thought that was, uh, just very profound, and I thought, you know, very, it’s like he had these like great one-liners that was just like, oh man, that makes so much sense. And it was just like five words. Uh, but I thought that was super, um, powerful. And I think as we talk about, you know, what are the next things that happen, we do have to make this more interesting for folks.

We do have to talk about it in ways that translates with people and resonates with people, um, in ways that are bigger than, you know, numbers and facts. Because you are right. We know the [00:38:00] numbers and facts, but how do we talk to the heart and hope of it?

Thanks for tuning into this episode of Reimagining Government. This is a special series on climate and gender, brought to you by the Centre for Public Impact. If you wanna learn more about the work we do at CPI, check out our website, centerforpublicimpact.org. That’s Centre, C-E-N-T-R-E for public impact.org.

Gabrielle Beran: If you enjoyed this episode and are enjoying the series so far, please consider rating and reviewing on your podcast app. It only takes a few seconds, and it helps our interesting conversations reach more people and keep the show going. I’m Gabrielle. 

Kandice Louis-Wilson: And I’m Kandice, and we’ll see you next time.