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Presenting stories, insights, and efforts of those who interface with the natural world.
Day to day, like, things can feel very stable and very unchangeable. But we have to remember that change does happen, and positive changes have happened. And how did they happen? What were the things that lined up to kind of break out of that status quo and into a new one? It can be hard to remember that, like, things are possible.
Deepti:We haven't seen it before in our lifetimes. Transformation happens all the time, like in the natural world, in our history, in cultural history.
Host:This is Surface Exposure, presenting stories, insights and efforts of those who interface with the natural world, its inhabitants, resources and temper. Deepti Kannapan joins me for this episode. She's known for her TED Talk entitled Climate Change Movement Needs Your Creativity, Not Your Guilt. The TED Talk presents powerful insights on dealing with feelings of responsibility and guilt over climate change, the mechanics of change, and how to turn negative feelings associated with the issue into positive, meaningful action. I recommend you give it a listen.
Host:I'll link it in the show notes. During this episode, we expand on Deepti's message. Climate change can promote a sense of hopelessness and a feeling of responsibility for the damage that has been done to the natural world. But, Deepti argues, we are not individually responsible for damage, but do have responsibility to act. Deepti lays out an action plan for those who want to make a positive change and feel good about doing so.
Host:Deepti Kannapan is an artist, engineer, and climate activist in the Los Angeles area. She's the author of Fire's Ally, a fantasy novel with climate themes. She's active with organizations such as 350.org and the League of Women Voters. I hope you find the program valuable. If you'd like to connect, provide feedback or support the podcast, you can find links for that in the show notes.
Host:Now onto the conversation.
speaker 1:I wanted to respond to your wonderful TED talk, which was a really great presentation. I know it was a couple years ago now, and I wanted to ask if it was still relevant to you or if your message is still relevant or how it's changed before
Deepti:we look into
speaker 1:it, before I respond to it?
Deepti:Yeah. I mean, I think it's I stand by it. It's more it feels more urgent to me than than before. And I think there are some nuances that I would change now. I think there was a more long term view at that point.
Deepti:And now there are some things that are moving faster and some things that are moving slower. And so I think maybe the focus is slightly different, but the basic message, kind of I feel it more more than ever.
Host:Okay.
speaker 1:And any for anyone listening, I recommend you go check it out. I'll have a link in the show notes, Deepti's TED talk called the climate change doesn't need your guilt. It needs your creativity. You said the message is the same, but the focus is different.
Deepti:Yeah. I think I would expand on it in the sense that there was more of a focus then on the renewable transition. Was using positive examples to say, here are some positive trends, and you would want to participate by throwing your weight behind these trends. And there's a lot of good progress happening, and you can be a part of it and you can accelerate the progress. And that is still true.
Deepti:But I think there's also more of a resilience building and a capacity building focus that needs to come in now. Because there are a lot of positive developments that are being rolled back, and there's more of a need to respond to people who are essentially worsening the situation. So there's a little bit more of a you know, you need to defend the progress that has been made and continue to make progress. So the basic, you know, action for people is the same, which is, you know, get plugged in, bring your creativity, the movement needs you, and you don't have to be perfect. All of that is still true.
Deepti:I think just the examples I would use now are like, you know, you might need to defend the funding of your local park or an initiative that's going great. You know, you need to look at it and say, how do we make this resilient? And how do we make sure that the progress continues even as maybe its funding sources become uncertain or some of the protections around it get rolled back? So it's more of a, like, a strategic dynamic process now, more so than just kind of like a steady, like, things are getting incrementally better, and we can speed them up type of message. So I think that's what's come into focus for me now, which is like, you know, when you make progress, it's not guaranteed to just stay that way.
Deepti:You have to go back and check on it and bolster it and make sure it can't be undone.
speaker 1:I wanted to ask you about your first sentence, your opening message on your TED Talk. Does climate action feel impossible? Yes. Why did you choose this hook? Why did you choose this message to open your TED Talk?
Deepti:Yeah. I think it's because most of the people I talk to about climate action are people who believe it's necessary, who care already. You know, they're not climate deniers or people who are ideologically opposed or anything like that. But often, the thing that's keeping them from doing the kind of work they want to do to help protect the earth. They're being kept from it because they're just intimidated and it feels very daunting.
Deepti:And people would often say like, oh, I want to do all these things, but I can't. Not I don't have enough willpower. I'm not perfect enough. And so I wanted to start by saying, do you feel stopped by this? And I'd heard, especially when I talk to people a little longer and kind of, you know, ask them how they feel about things.
Deepti:And once they, like, get going, they would say, like, I feel so discouraged. I want us to be doing this and I've been seeing it fail for years. And you know, so it was that was clearly the source of a lot of pain and inaction. So I, yeah, I really wanted to start there.
speaker 1:Climate action feels impossible almost as if we're responsible for it. We have a responsibility on our shoulders to do something about it.
Deepti:Yeah. And to do, like, everything. You know? Because people if you really go down the rabbit hole, you might be like, oh my gosh. The first thing I do in the morning is I drive and that's bad.
Deepti:And then I drink coffee and, oh, that's not farmed sustainably. And then I do this next thing and oh, that's imperfect or that's causing harm. And so, people feel guilty and responsible for causing damage by just living, right? They're living in the system. You do need to eat, you do need to breathe, you do need to, go to your job.
Deepti:I think people take disproportionate responsibility by feeling complicit in the damage that's being done. And I mean, we do have a responsibility to act, and we have a responsibility to change the system. But that doesn't mean you're responsible for the damage. I mean, I don't think people need to be so hard on themselves. They didn't cause this.
Deepti:They weren't asked. They weren't consulted about how to set up the system. And so, know, we're in the system, so we have a responsibility to make it a better one, a one that's more responsible to the natural world, that is more in line with our highest human values. But you have to start where you are. And I think there's often a crushing sense of responsibility that makes it hard for people to do anything that will have an effect, and also to give themselves credit when they do something.
Deepti:They kind of go like, yeah, I did this one thing, but I'm still messing up in so many other ways, or I'm still complicit in so many other ways. And I think when you look at how change happens, it doesn't need to be incremental and perfect and linear, like all in one direction. So you don't need to look at all the things that are going wrong and think, oh, clearly, this is not gonna change. This is not going well. I am failing.
Deepti:Like, you might not be failing, actually.
speaker 1:Yeah. You you covered a couple of things here, and if you wanna keep well, let's back up, and then we'll talk about change. Yeah. Talk about it like electricity. But I wanna back up to the words responsibility, guilt, fault Mhmm.
speaker 1:System. Responsibility means you've power over it. Right, without me breaking out a dictionary. Fault means you're wrong. Guilt's a feeling.
speaker 1:Right. And it wouldn't be convenient for a system to if the responsibility was seemingly passed off to someone else, and it looked like a responsibility, felt like one, but responsibility entails that You have power over it. Why does it feel so impossible, you know, to have any power over it? You know, maybe it I'm not saying it's not a responsibility, but maybe there's a lot of guilt and fault disguised in there too. They're different things.
speaker 1:You
Deepti:know? Yeah. Exactly. And it's like the people who care the most feel the responsibility. It's kind of like we're all responsible a little bit, some more than others.
Deepti:And the people who have the tendency to care about things are feeling more responsible. But they're not more responsible than others. And as you say, it's very convenient for the system to be like, yes, you are responsible person in a house with a car, not me, the person who's allocating resources and, making the decisions to drill oil and set prices and manufacture, you know, massive amounts of plastic. It's kind of the it's an interesting collective dynamic because how does the decision get made? Right?
Deepti:Like, somewhere somebody is drilling oil. Why is that happening? Whose decision was it for that to be happening? And to some extent, it is the market. To some extent, it is a kind of collective dynamic that includes you.
Deepti:But that doesn't mean that you not buying oil is the place where the change comes from. So it's kind of like, yes, we are all a little bit responsible some more than others. And it is a bad thing. But the important thing is, let's stop. And where does the ability to stop it come from?
Deepti:It comes a little bit from you, a lot from certain decision makers. And the thing to measure yourself against is not like, am I perfect? Or did I consume nothing that would harm anyone? You need to measure yourself against, what could I do, and how much of it did I actually do? You kind of need to baseline it against what's possible.
Deepti:And a lot is, but not just by you.
speaker 1:Yeah. And looking at change during your TED Talk, you related a change to electricity. Mhmm. Can you explain to us how electricity works since you're an engineer? And how yeah.
speaker 1:How do we produce a current?
Deepti:Yeah. So, basically, I'm talk what I'm trying to illustrate with that is that shifts in a group can kind of accumulate across people. Right? So, you need to measure yourself against what you would be doing by default. So everyone is consuming, everyone is being imperfect, but if we are trending in the right direction, then there's sort of an overall I use the word current, and basically an overall shift in us as a collective.
Deepti:And examples of this are like consuming less meat is a really good measure for decreasing our overall emissions. And you get more of a positive impact if, let's say, 10,000 people cut down their consumption by, let's say, 10% than if a much smaller number managed to become completely vegan and be completely perfect. And so whatever people are doing now, if they can all shift in the same direction by a small amount, the overall trend is building in a particular direction. And the connection with electric current was that electric current is basically the flow of electrons. And so in a wire, if you've got electrons all moving, let's say, to the left, you get a current towards the left.
Deepti:But in practice, when you watch the electrons, if you could, they're actually moving at really high speed in all different directions. And so each of them is imperfect in the sense that it's not moving to the left as you wanted it to. And yet, the trend is towards the left because each one has shifted very slightly relative to what it would be doing if you didn't have that current and if you didn't have that voltage that produces the current. So mainly I was trying to illustrate the point that a group trend can emerge even if the individuals are just normal people doing imperfect things and not pushing the trend forward individually all the time. It's kind of like when you're doing it less, somebody else is doing it more, and a sort of coordination between people can sustain that trend.
Deepti:So you don't want to measure yourself against, like, am I being the perfect embodiment of this trend at every second? Rather, you want to be like, am I contributing? And as a collective, are we moving the needle?
speaker 1:Right. And it you've mentioned that it takes a small percentage to begin a trend. What's that number?
Deepti:Right. So this is why things are more complicated than electric current. Because, again, we can sort of imagine progress as being this, like, just a single trend. Right? We're all getting better every day constantly.
Deepti:But in practice, it's more likely to be that it's toppling of dominoes. And so the thing that is making us sustain the current trend is, you know, I'm calling it the system. Right? It's like, how is our lifestyle? How are our cities set up?
Deepti:How is the market set up? What are our jobs like? There are so many factors that influence how much we are able to do in terms of reducing our consumption.
speaker 1:Yeah. And that's where I was getting at earlier is that sense of responsibility and fault at the consumer level for these options that you were given to choose from.
Deepti:Exactly. You
speaker 1:didn't write the options. You know? You were given options, and then you got blamed for choosing them.
Deepti:Exactly.
speaker 1:What are the options? You know?
Deepti:And, yeah, what are like, what decided what the options are? It's basically a set of decision makers. Right? It's whoever designed the products that are available, whoever kind of shapes the economy through their marketing and through their policies and things like this. And these are small groups of people Mhmm.
Deepti:Within which you can sort of build a critical mass. So changes in culture, changes in corporate policy, changes in legislation, all of these things can shift rather suddenly through pressure. And so it's rather than it being a steady trend of, like, now five people are, walking, and now 20 people are walking. And it's like, when you see that progress stall, even if we use walking as an example of a sustainable practice, You might be like, it's not growing fast enough. How will we ever get to the percentage we need?
Deepti:But along the way, there's this kind of jump that happens where, if you can influence the decision makers, now you have new options. And the choice landscape is like reshaped for people. And so now you get rapid progress, where it's suddenly everyone who wanted to walk or bike or live plastic free or whatever, but couldn't because they didn't have the choice, now suddenly they're able to. And to do that, you didn't have to go and talk to each of them individually and be like, you should try harder. You just had to go to where the leverage point is.
Deepti:And that's a much smaller group of people. And so you just need to influence a subset of them. And again, there's kind of a tipping point dynamic. So that's what the smaller percentages have to do with. Like, don't need to go and scold everyone who's making imperfect choices.
Deepti:Because that sounds daunting. There's too many people to influence. But you don't they didn't need convincing. They just needed the choices presented to them. So you kind of have to go to that strategic point.
speaker 1:So why is the system resistant to change?
Deepti:Yeah. Well, I think that is kind of the dynamic of how systems are resilient, right? Like good or bad, they have ways to self correct and maintain the status quo. That's kind of how we end up in a stable situation for a long time. If it was easy to change, it would just be changing all the time, you know?
Deepti:It would just be like, okay, today we have a whole new system of government, and then the next day we have an entirely different one. The fact that we've maintained a system for this long means that it has mechanisms to protect itself from change, which can be a good thing. But I think also there's a dynamic of entrenchment of power, and self reinforcing of this dynamic of exploitation and inequality, and a whole bunch of related issues that mean that a few people get to make decisions about how resources are used. The more they're able to do that, the more they can use resources to entrench themselves further and make their power more guaranteed. And so, I mean, we've kind of been in this cycle for hundreds or maybe thousands of years where people are incentivized to compete and try to hoard resources and, you know, have more profits than the other and try to crowd others out of the market.
Deepti:And the way you do that is by being really efficient and being, you know, really good at keeping the resources for yourself and extracting as much as you can from the earth. And so it's kind of unsurprising that if you have power, you wanna keep it. I think that is a part of human nature. But it's also, you know, in human nature to want to be responsible and want to be cooperative and to try to have equality. So it's kind of like there are different sides of of our character intention.
Deepti:But we've kind of gone quite far down this path of incentivizing competition and more exploitation and trying to crowd other people out. So like take all the resources for yourself so that so that someone else can't, you know.
speaker 1:Yeah. Works when there's a lot of field to go run out free on, but once you start to run out of field.
Deepti:Exactly.
speaker 1:Yeah.
Deepti:And it kind of I mean, there's always someone suffering. Right? Like, even if you're even if you're you know, if the economy is growing and it seems like, you know, there's plenty of wealth to go around and there's plenty of field, I think the hierarchical nature of it is kind of it breeds inequality. It kind of makes things worse for for people. There's always someone being displaced.
Deepti:And so I think it's there's, like, multiple shifts that need to happen to get out of a loop like that. It's, like, it's cultural, it's policy, technological, economic. It's, like, all of these things need to, move kind of in coordination with each other to get us to a new stable state. You know, something that we can sustain and that will self correct when we deviate from it, but isn't this harmful to the to the natural world?
speaker 1:Yeah. You described it well. It exists because it's good at not changing too quick. Mhmm. Yeah.
speaker 1:And that's it starts to feel impossible and daunting as an individual when you were talking about culture needs to change, economy, technology, human nature.
Deepti:Yeah. And and changes of this scale have happened before. You know, if you look at most of human history, there's been massive changes and often for the better. So I think it's hard to grasp on a human scale. Like, you know, we're not thinking about how much has changed since, let's say, 5,000 BC to now.
Deepti:And obviously, like, we don't intend to be that slow about this change, I'm pretty sure. But day to day, like, things can feel very stable and very unchangeable. But we have to remember that change does happen, and positive changes have happened. And how did they happen? What were the things that lined up to to kind of break out of that status quo and into a new one?
Deepti:It can be hard to remember that, like, things are possible. We haven't seen it before in our lifetimes, but transformation happens all the time, like, the natural world, in in our history, in cultural history.
speaker 1:For anybody that's got the weight and feeling of guilt and responsibility has this feeling of responsibility over climate change. What can you do? Like, what's the game plan here?
Deepti:Yeah. And I think think we do have a responsibility to do what we can. Right? And so the, like, the key thing is what you can. You don't want to set yourself the goal to be a superhero or do something.
Deepti:I mean, much as I would like to be able to do more and to kind of solve climate change by tomorrow, I need to kind of dial myself back and say, well, it's not gonna happen like that. It's gonna happen as a group. And in terms of game plans, there were loads of people working on multiple game plans. Right? So there's, like, so many different aspects to climate change.
Deepti:There's, you know, conservation, emissions reduction, just transition. Like, there's so many land use. Right? There's so many different aspects. And it's also, you know, local and regional.
Deepti:So there are people working on game plans. They work in various, like, nonprofit organizations, climate advocacy groups. So you'll want to go to the people who have been studying this, and who have been working on plans. So the top thing I recommend to people is try your hand at volunteering. It feels useful.
Deepti:It really does a lot for me in stopping the feeling of powerlessness or feeling like I'm unable to influence the situation. I mean, I'm not able to on my own, but we are able to.
speaker 1:Okay.
Deepti:And often, like, when I look at local groups, so I'm involved in a couple that do habitat restoration, a couple that do advocacy. The advocacy ones are 350.org and League of Women Voters. And it really helps to study what they've been doing, whatever groups are near you or whatever makes sense to you. What are their accomplishments? They often have achieved a great many things that are encouraging to see.
Deepti:And they're small groups, a lot of them. You know, they have small chapters with 20 or 30 people, often even less. And yet they're able to make a difference. And also they collaborate with each other. So as a group, they kind of build up a movement.
Deepti:And there have been a whole lot of successes over the years. The big the big one was, there was a lot of activism around banning CFCs and repairing the ozone layer. And, that was actually very successful. There have been many kind of diplomatic wins and regulation wins over the years. And, you know, you might say that's not enough.
Deepti:But it shows it's possible. And it shows that we just need to do that but more. More and probably more resilient. And you can join those groups. And then you can take a tiny fraction of the credit when they have their next win.
Deepti:And you can be like, I helped do that. And that feels a lot better to me than, you know, trying to make these impossible choices in the system. Right? Like, trying to choose among many bad options. I still do that, but that doesn't, like, fuel me.
Deepti:The thing that fuels me is, being able to do something active and see the group succeed, and then go like, I I helped do that. Yeah.
speaker 1:That seems like a really great way to help overcome some of the emotional disparity that can come with the issue, you know, of the feeling possible and overwhelming. But, yeah, when you join in on a cause, it's got a set goal and people have been concentrating effort, and it's a good thing. Could just be one little thing, and it the little things take a lot of work, probably a lot of people. And anything worth doing, worth chasing, probably can't do alone. It's, really powerful to join a movement that's has a goal already.
speaker 1:Information can be, like, overwhelming. And Yeah. Right? It's only useful if it changes behavior and it's actionable. So what resources do you like?
Deepti:Yeah. So I've been kind of collecting organizations and events and things on my website. So one of the things that I think people really need is the kind of information that kind of shows them how to do something. Mean, we do need to know what's happening. We need to be up to date on how is climate change going?
Deepti:What are the trends? Is it still happening? Yes. How bad is it? You know, there's a lot of science and stuff that I think you need to know, but it doesn't change what you're gonna do day to day.
Deepti:I mean, each day I don't decide, like, am I going to continue to take climate action based on, the temperature somewhere or the latest estimate of how emissions are going. It's kind of that doesn't change my actions. But what does change my actions is which organizations are around. What are my choices for participating? What campaigns are going on right now?
Deepti:And what do they need from me? So I encourage everyone to kind of build their own resource list. I mean, are plenty. I'm actually working on just a sort of database tool for people to find their location on a map and be like, okay, what's near me? What organizations are active near me?
Deepti:And I've been building one for my area, which is South Los Angeles. So yeah, I have a couple of resources about that on my website. And I want to encourage people to like keep a file of what organizations are near you. There's a couple of big ones. So if you're in The US, you probably have a chapter of 350.org or the Sunrise Movement or Citizens Climate Lobby or Sierra Club.
Deepti:So there are a lot of these big national groups that have local chapters. So I would say go to the website of the main organization, find the list of chapters. They usually have an interactive map or something, and see which ones are near you. You can also look for parks and like friends of some park is often an organization that does restoration work on it. And either find a list or make a list.
Deepti:I think I really want to encourage people to have a resource list so that whenever they're feeling like I need to be doing something and I feel responsible, you can say, okay, here are my options. I could donate to one of these groups. I could volunteer with one of these groups. I could just pull up their campaigns and sign their petitions. And all of that helps.
Deepti:All of that helps. And and, yeah, I mean, I'm trying to compile that for people. I wanna make that as accessible as possible. And so, yeah, I'm trying to map the my state, The US, global. There's lots of global groups as well that you can try and find a local chapter of.
Deepti:But yeah, I think I don't unfortunately, I don't know of like one resource that exists yet that will direct you. But so I think I'm hoping we will all collaboratively kind of build up a directory of these groups. And, you know, they often have public events, so you can check out their calendars. And it's a bit of a process. So I recommend to people that like, sign up for their email lists when you find a bunch of groups or go to their volunteer events.
Deepti:And you might have to try out a few and decide if it's for you. They each have like a different focus area and also just like cultural factors that may or may not suit you. So I actually spent months I mean, know, I've been at this for a couple years now. But, you know, I spent months just kind of dropping by different volunteer events, reading emails from groups, and even unsubscribing from some if they were depressing me or something. And yeah.
Deepti:So it's kind of like you have to find your way through it a little bit.
speaker 1:Yeah. There's lots of different ways to become active and involved. Lots of great opportunities, especially in the conservation world, which is can be tough to connect it with the greater climate change. How does it connect, or what examples or programs have you seen where it really the good example of getting people out and hands on and active and really connecting it to the bigger picture.
Deepti:Yeah. And so I've I really enjoy getting kind of the ecological explanation from, you know, the the organization running it. A lot of natural land is really important for, ecology and for, carbon sequestration. So, like, a healthy ecosystem will help basically take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Right?
Deepti:So it all kind of works together. Like, we need to cut back on our emissions by a lot. And what has been emitted needs to be taken out from the air by plants. And also, there's a lot of wetland and specific ecosystems that are keeping carbon dioxide or methane out of the atmosphere. So it's like all of these things are working together to balance the atmosphere and balance the amount of greenhouse gas we have in it.
Deepti:And so there's a lot of interesting ways they're coupled. So part of that is physical, right, which is what I just described. But also, these are all organizations that work together. And parks and things help, you know, the public connect to nature. And the more they connect to nature, the more they are receptive to messages about the need for climate action more broadly.
Deepti:So it has an education function. It has a cultural function and a research function. You know, a lot of really interesting science happens. And so I do sort of think of it as two related focuses. Like, we need to prevent climate change from getting too much worse.
Deepti:But also, as it's happening, we need to protect the ecosystem and biodiversity and plant life and animal life, which will have to adapt and which will probably need our help surviving what the world is going through. And also helping the ecosystem adapt will help balance the greenhouse gases. So they are all like kind of different parts of one giant effort in a way. But also for myself, I find that like, these are two sides of my action that help me feel a little more balanced on on my own side. So I okay.
Deepti:I will preface this by saying I'm somebody who likes to run around and do a
speaker 1:whole lot of different things. I'm not saying that everyone needs to to do that.
Deepti:But for me personally, it feels really good to, you know, go outside, pull some weeds, you know, count some birds, or, look at, you know, trails for, you know, paw prints and things like that, and do some outdoor stuff, and hear back from biologists who use the data we collect, and who say like, oh yeah, here's a trend overall, and this is how we're helping. I like to do that side of it, and that kind of refreshes me and motivates me to do some of the other stuff, which is more on a computer, which is more about calling representatives or maintaining spreadsheets about bills that are being voted on and stuff like that. Like, I see those as two sides of the same coin as well. But I wouldn't enjoy just doing one. I feel like they've kind of flow into each other.
Deepti:One motivates the other. And kind of doing some of those advocacy type things gives me more optimism about the other stuff. Being like, yes, if we could secure funding for this kind of effort, or if we could regulate something, how much more impactful would some of these park these parks be? So I I kind of I I like seeing those together. But, again, no one has to do all everything.
Deepti:I just happen to be somebody who likes to be bouncing around quite a bit.
speaker 1:Yeah. You described a lot of different roles that are at play. What role do you find yourself most valuable in? I
Deepti:really like when I'm able to bring either some of my, like, writing skills or art skills or organizational skills to something. I think my interaction with organizations has been like, I like to have a project. If they can say, could you create this for me? And then I will sort of do it from beginning to end. And it could be like putting on an event, or making some kind of online platform, or making a playbook.
Deepti:You know, I I find that project skills seem to be kind of appreciated. And it kind of when it can fit into their strategy, and when we can kind of think big picture and be like, yes, how do we as a movement advance and adapt to all the changes that are going on? A lot of my effort right now has been around connecting the different organizations and doing kind of group initiatives. Because a lot of us are recognizing that we've been a little bit siloed. We've been all kind of replicating each other's effort in some ways.
Deepti:Like one of us will one group will put on an event and be like, hey, could you cross promote it?
speaker 1:And then another group will put
Deepti:on an event. And we're all trying to bring in newer folks and introduce them to to the community, but we're kind of doing it separately. And, you know, we all have, like, small budgets and stuff like that. So where can we team up and, funnel people in and be like, hey, come join any of us. Come join all of us.
Deepti:We don't need to be kind of we're not in competition. We're obviously collaborating. But I think we tend to almost work as if we were in competition.
speaker 1:Almost like the system is like that.
Deepti:Yeah. Exactly.
speaker 1:No. Totally. Yeah. I get what you're saying. It's a really interesting challenge.
speaker 1:I'm glad we're in this, like, talking about this right now. It's a real challenge. Right? Like, use the term siloed.
Deepti:Mhmm.
speaker 1:You know, op and I imagine you meant that in a way, like, separately, redoing the doing the same thing separately, using the same energy twice versus finding how can we collaborate our energies better. Gosh. I have to change my vocabulary. You know what I mean? Like, everything has to be better and more efficient or does it?
speaker 1:Well, if we're redoing the same thing twice and we're little and nobody's hearing us, oh, they just did that over there. We did it over here, but they didn't hear us do it. They you know? Like, there's there's something to be said about, yeah, how to combine our efforts.
Deepti:Yeah. And I think so it's kind of like what you're doing. You know, we need to be readable or, like, understandable to people who are new to this space. Like, we can't just be we're giving people too many choices. We're like, hey, here are five zillion organizations.
Deepti:And here's what we do, and here's what we do. And they're all slightly similar, but also slightly different in how they're phrased. And I feel like one of the things that we really need to be doing is kind of all showing up together and being like, hey, we are the climate people. You can join any of us, or you could join all of us, or one of us. Like, It doesn't matter because we're all working together anyway on some level.
Deepti:And so I think, yeah, it's a matter of being kind of readable and understandable and presenting a united front to someone who's brand new. And, you know, we occasionally disagree about stuff. These different organizations have slightly different focuses, but we agree that we need more people. I think that's a good starting point.
speaker 1:Share with me some of your recent successes. Yeah. Give us some good news. What progress have you seen in your realm?
Deepti:Yeah. Well, locally, I think I I'm seeing us build a lot more of the infrastructure that I've been feeling is needed. So I mean, like, infrastructure as a movement that I think has been needed. So I'm seeing a lot more partnerships between organizations. We've been doing this Los Angeles Climate Week planning.
Deepti:And basically, we're seeing a whole influx of interest from the public. Like, you know, a lot of things are going badly. And a lot of things are you know, I keep getting newsletters with legislative wins and things, like progress on conserving endangered species and stuff like that. So that's still happening. I don't have specific examples of legislation we got passed yet at this point.
Deepti:But I think I can just sort of see the movement strengthening and gaining momentum. Every organization I talk to has the same urgency of like, oh my gosh, we have to start working together. We have to start putting on group events. One thing I'm really proud of is for a long time, I've been trying to make this climate hub, which is basically the resource list I was talking about, but like an up to date one, right? Like a place where people could go if they're in LA and say, I want to do something about climate.
Deepti:I don't know what. What are my options? And I've been trying to build that. It was kind of it was gonna be a lot of work. And I found that somebody, one of my friends, had already made one for Los Angeles proper.
Deepti:Los Angeles is pretty big, and I'm in the South part. And so I was able to work with one of my other groups within the League of Women Voters to maintain a South Los Angeles hub as a kind of extension of the hub that already existed. So we kind of used their app and their back end. And we just a handful of people, about three of us, took on the responsibility of updating all the South Los Angeles events. We just pull them from the calendars of the organizations that we're aware of and have worked with.
Deepti:And so now we kind of have a process where every month we update the main hub with South LA events, because the South LA events were kind of underrepresented on the main hub. And it's a nice interactive map. We can send it out every month to our members. And this had been three or four years in the making where I just I hadn't figured out how I was gonna make this resource. I didn't know how to build it.
Deepti:I didn't know how to display it, and I didn't know how to get it out. But just by kind of poking around in all these different organizations, it suddenly, like, clicked together. And I was like, oh, all we have to do is make sure that the the bigger hub that exists is up to date and that our membership gets it. And it's been, like, really popular. Like, we've been handing it out we've been handing out, like, QR codes on postcards and telling people, hey, if you're looking for climate events, here's how you get started.
Deepti:And it's been getting a pretty good response. So things like this, I'm hearing like efforts like this from other folks as well, where they're making hubs, they're making lists of actions that you could take of various types, you know, the effective kinds, not just the take a tote bag kind of stuff. And it's been really overdue, but also really inspiring to see that people are being really strategic. And regular folks are saying, wow, I have to do something. And I will join you.
Deepti:Just tell me what to do. And I just wanna see more of that. But yeah, there are hubs in many states in The US and in many countries. And some are global, and you can kind of look for a local action thing. So yeah.
Deepti:State probably has one. And if not, maybe you should start one. Whoever you are listening. But yeah, to your question of what does this look like. And I mean, my dream scenario is for, like, every climate organization and every issue to be fully staffed.
Deepti:Like, for every organization to have all the people it needs and to be able to dream bigger. Because right now, we have a whole lot of different climate organizations looking at different issues. You know, some are looking at plastic pollution. Some are looking at oil refineries and closing them down and doing that safely. Some are looking at specific ecosystems.
Deepti:And there's so many issues. And fortunately, there are good people working on all of them. But these are all small groups. And they're kind of working on a shoestring. And what I would like is for each of those groups to have all the people they could want.
Deepti:And for every person who kind of Googles, how do I do something about climate? Which is actually a very common search. I did some research on that earlier to see what are people searching. And they would be like, how do I do climate stuff? Right.
Deepti:And I want every one of those people to be directed to something that they can something actionable that they can do. Right?
speaker 1:Yeah.
Deepti:And have people with skills to be routed towards an organization that can use their skills. Because there's so much motivation. I mean, I don't know if I want to say motivation, but like concern. Right? That through these surveys, like Yale Climate Communication Center surveys, there's like 60% plus of people really believe that we must do something about climate change.
Deepti:And they want to, and they just aren't being directed to where they can help. And it's not easy. It's not a simple answer that just go do this. But I want that pipeline for everyone who wants to
speaker 1:do something to be able to do something. And everyone who is doing something to have all the help they want. And that's kind
Deepti:of like, I mean, obviously I can't get us there by myself, but that is the the future. I I agree
speaker 1:with It sounds simple to say, but it would yeah. It takes a lot of energy and work to connect the dots. You know? And that's communications. That's networking.
speaker 1:That's outreach. Easier said than done to just let's connect the dots. Let's reroute the motivation and the skills to where they need to be. Right. And, oh, why are these two group these small little groups doing the same thing?
speaker 1:They don't even know each about each other, and they're actually doing the same thing twice. Right. Probably getting the effect of it. And if they all did it at the same time, bigger and better, more people would hear about it and compound their energy better. And, yeah, just connect the dots.
speaker 1:It's just easy as that. Right? You
Deepti:know, though, it wasn't that hard to create that little hub thing. Mean, it it took some work, and it took a lot of, like, figuring out what I was trying to accomplish for the LA hub thing that I was working on. But I can like, I want to, like, share a little kit or something, which I'm gonna work on. Hopefully, I'll have it ready by the time this goes out. I I wanna be like, hey.
Deepti:I created a a hub for LA. Here's how I did it. Wherever you are, you know, build on my effort. Like, don't again, don't replicate. You know, don't do it all over again.
Deepti:Mhmm. Here's how you can make a hub where you are. And so that's kind of like that's how I see it happening, which is whoever makes a hub, you know, let's all share it with each other and teach each other how to do it. And that's how, you know, that's how we'll get to every location. We'll also have to figure out how to communicate it well and how to get it seen and, you know, yeah, connect the dots and get the pipeline all the way from googling how do I do it all the way to the end of the pipeline where they're actually doing it.
Deepti:So yeah, there is a lot of work involved. But I think there's also a lot of people who could do it. So yeah, sometimes I get very
speaker 1:excited about like, that's it. That's all we have
Deepti:to do. Just connect the dots and everyone's gonna start doing stuff. But I'm sure it's harder than that.
speaker 1:What would you do with a $100,000,000?
Deepti:I think I'd start a magazine or some kind of publication to get this information out in in, like, an entertaining, scalable, fun way. And hire a bunch of, like, writers and, I don't know, comedians or something to yeah, to come up with ways to get this out, you know? Because I just, and to get it seen, right? Because the media environment is so fragmented and scattered. And the main message around climate is so bleak and sad and depressing.
Deepti:And it needs to be different. It needs to be like, hey, you can do stuff. You you can get outdoors. You can look at little foxes and stuff. Like, I don't know.
Deepti:There's so much positive stuff to say that is around action. Because I think the most positive messaging I ever receive, or even the most positive feeling I get from any of this, is from doing stuff. And the news is bad, right? There's always bad stuff. You know, the trends are worsening and, you know, you don't need to deny any of that.
Deepti:Like, that can be true. And at the same time, it can be true that it's like, it's fun to do these things, to solve problems and to advocate and to get these wins. And I mean, it's hard too, but it feels meaningful and it feels like getting out of the house and talking to people and doing something interesting and having a bit of an adventure. And I feel like that message really needs to get out there at the same time. Right?
Deepti:At the same time as we say, hey, things are very serious. We have to take action. We can also say taking action will be fun, and here's some cool stuff that happened when I took action. I think that's the message I want to get out, I would throw any amount of money at it if I had it.
speaker 1:Where would you take a flying time machine?
Deepti:I would like to you know what would be super fun? I'd to, shadow Darwin around when he's like looking at stuff on the Galapagos Islands. Because I am super jealous that he got to discover all of that. And yeah, I just wanna like, I just wanna hang out and look at nude species being discovered and stuff. So maybe not necessarily Darwin, but just like some of these naturalists out there looking at at new species.
Deepti:Okay. So I think I'm saying, like, the nineteenth century and
speaker 1:just early adventurous scientific expeditions where scientists were adventurers sort of deal. Yeah.
Deepti:Okay. And then we could tell them, like, hey.
speaker 1:You gotta stop you gotta start conserving now.
Deepti:Don't don't wait till wait
speaker 1:till imagine? We'd go back and send some messages like that. Like, hey. It's gonna look different.
Deepti:Except, yeah, time travel is dangerous, I guess. He could create a weird paradox, but I'm I'm gonna risk it.
speaker 1:Yeah. Would you?
Deepti:I don't
speaker 1:know. How would you how would you convey the message to leaders in the past that, hey. We're going to make a bigger impact on this world than we think, and we might have to adjust the system before it's too late. But here's your chance to make these small adjustments now. What what what would you tell them?
speaker 1:And when?
Deepti:I think, like, my temptation is to just bring a bunch of charts and graphs and be like, hey. Look. You know? The the number of cars is gonna increase. Like, whoever's making a car, you know, I don't quite remember who invented it, but it's like, hey, you think this is just this cool one off thing?
Deepti:You know what I would do? I would be like, hey, you're inventing cars. Can I interest you in an electric motor? And just like skip straight from I mean, I feel like that's a joke answer because I think
speaker 1:What are you gonna plug the electric motor into?
Deepti:Better hurry up in that. Yeah. I feel like whatever our, like, awesome solarpunk renewable energy system is that I would want us to build now, I would just go and hand the blueprints of that to to a city planner or the president of wherever of everywhere And be like, hey, just skip all the icy engine stuff and skip all the coal power and jump straight to this. Because actually some countries are doing that. Like the ones that didn't industrialize a whole bunch earlier are kind of skipping straight to renewables and microgrids and stuff.
Deepti:So we could be like, hey, everywhere do that. I don't think it'd be that simple. I think they'd probably have to fight about it a bunch. The economic pressures might not line up. I don't know if that's in the spirit of the question though.
Deepti:Because I think if I'm trying to do a persuasive argument that teaches people about the importance, you don't want to just hand them blueprints. I think I would do something like, like all your industrial dreams are going to succeed really, really well and I don't think you're ready for that. Like you think this is hard and that it's going to be this huge achievement, but you're going to succeed too well. So you should kind of rein it in. I think that's the message I would wanna give people.
Deepti:Okay.
speaker 1:Well, would you ever go to the future with that time machine? Would you take a flying time machine to the future?
Deepti:It's kinda like do you just jump forward not knowing what you're getting into? Is it just like, hey. Let's just go a hundred years into the future, and I don't know what it is? Or could I be like, I'm gonna go to the exact moment when things are awesome?
speaker 1:Well, you have a control of a time machine, so you probably program it to do that. So you you'd you'd you'd set the controls to tell you what you're getting into. You'd set it for no. Go ahead. No.
speaker 1:However, I'm asking you. Yeah.
Deepti:Yeah. How
speaker 1:would you use it?
Deepti:I mean, I'm tempted to say that I wouldn't because I think I would find that scary. But
speaker 1:You wouldn't use the time machine to go into the future?
Deepti:No. Probably not. But if we just kind of, like, assume that I have to or something
speaker 1:You can come back. You know?
Deepti:Yeah. You
speaker 1:can go back and forth.
Deepti:Yeah. But, like, you would know the future at that point. And I feel like that would give me existential angst.
speaker 1:Okay.
Deepti:So I would go, like, two years into the future just to check it out, and then be like, okay.
speaker 1:That would be interesting, but not too crazy, Yeah.
Deepti:Or I would go, like, ten thousand years into the future having checked first that it's not going to be bad. I'd be like, find me a nice time ten thousand years in the future, and then go there. Because I feel like that's so far away that it wouldn't mean anything to me. But I would definitely not go one or two thousand years into the future because that that's the scary zone, I think.
speaker 1:Okay. Do you have a segment of history you're most interested in right now?
Deepti:Yeah. Well, I've I've been reading some bloggers and stuff who write about what humans were like before agriculture and before patriarchy and all of that stuff, And what our social structures were like. And actually, this was research for my book. For my fiction book. And so it's kind of an interesting like, before things got super entrenched and before we had power concentrating for generations, How did people get anything done?
Deepti:If you're not going to have a ruler ordering you about how do people organize themselves and decide how to use their resources and stuff like that. And I mean, it was recognizable to me. It seems to be they had more egalitarian structures that still have their own conflicts and power dynamics and things like that, but it doesn't compound like every generation and become so extreme. And there's all these different social structures. So I've been kind of interested in that because it's like, that shows what we're like when we're not in a system that's exploiting everybody.
Deepti:I think that's one thing. But I've also been reading some, like, medieval stuff, and
speaker 1:that's that's almost the opposite. That was,
Deepti:like, a very, very hierarchical time.
speaker 1:Would you care to leave us with any final thoughts, final messages? Where can people find you and your content?
Deepti:Yeah. Yeah. I think my main
speaker 1:message is,
Deepti:find your climate community or community around whatever issue is important to you, near you. Start mapping it out. You'll like it. Look for local stuff. Local stuff connects to the bigger picture.
Deepti:So if you want to influence something on a bigger scale, you can, but through the local action. And find the level that makes sense. For example, like, half the South side of my county turned out to be the right size, like South LA. Because I was doing something in my very local city within the county. It's like a small city outside of LA, and that was too small.
Deepti:And then I was trying to do something for the whole of LA County, and that was too big. But South LA turned out to be the right size. And it just dawned on me one day. I was like,
speaker 1:oh my gosh, this is what I need
Deepti:to be doing. And don't know. It was like it was quite an quite an inspiration even though it seems kind of silly.
speaker 1:No. That's interesting. Yeah.
Deepti:Right? Yeah. So
speaker 1:like, small. Right? So I can no. That's too small. It's not, well, that's too big.
speaker 1:You know? Yeah. Finding the right scale for what you're doing. And It could look different for everyone, I guess, or your role.
Deepti:And for everything. You know? Like, there's a lot of stuff that I was doing something even smaller recently where it was just like a bunch of neighbors. We got together, and we would just like, did some postcard stuff together, you know, like reaching out to send a message, you know, send climate messages out into the community. And that was even smaller, but it made sense for that project.
speaker 1:And
Deepti:so, yeah, I think often scaling it down is the right move, and very occasionally scaling it slightly up again is the right move. But, yeah, I encourage everyone to, like, find that. Like, you can do a whole lot of really cool stuff with just two or three people even sometimes, because it just makes it a different kind of activity than trying to do something absolutely alone. And maybe, like, two or three people could join up a volunteer event together, and now you know your friends are gonna be there. So, yeah, there's a whole lot of different options.
Deepti:But I I just really encourage everyone to start exploring that and find the thing that feels useful and that is useful, you know, that you're that it kinda makes sense to you that this will have a positive effect, but also feels motivating and not depressing. Yeah.
speaker 1:Finding a cause to be a part of.
Deepti:Exactly. And a way to be a part of it, right? A way that's practical.
speaker 1:So
Deepti:yeah, I have some resources about that on my website, which is deepdkannapan.com. And maybe I can point you to a specific one to link. And so yeah, most of my stuff is on there. I have a fiction book called Fire's Ally, and it covers some of these themes. It's kind of a climate fiction and a fantasy.
Deepti:But yeah, I think there's some resources on there. I'm gonna keep linking more. But yeah, that exploration process is like, there's a lot of nuance to it. And I hope we can all kind of share the experience and the learnings of how do you find the place to plug in. Because it's not trivial.
Deepti:It's not just like, hey, just go out and take action. It's like, there's a whole bunch of sub questions under that question of how And do I take let's work through them all together. You know?