love talking to people who disagree with
me it’s a great it’s a great time right
now to talk to people to disagree
because let’s face it ahead of time and
there’s a lot of argument going on I
like trying to understand what what
their values are what makes them tick
why are they thinking away they’re
thinking and what is it that has led
them down a different course to my own
why the views that they are holding
different to mine this has really been
also a journey of my own activism of
trying to be more effective and as I’ll
try and explain to you also trying to
incorporate values of real diversity
trying basically to make change I
haven’t I haven’t always been like this
I am a radical environmental campaigner
and I spent a lot of my time shouting at
people this isn’t in a previous
incarnation jeez seven heads of state
meeting not just shouting at people but
also making sure that I’m chained to
something so I cannot be removed from
earshot in this case plastic garden
chain grape gets past the metal
detectors
shouting is great isn’t it everybody
have a shout just Anna oh that’s
fantastic doesn’t that feel good to be
shouting with people who you know who
you like who who support what you stand
for but listening is a lot not harder
and listening to people you don’t agree
with is is truly challenging and as a
radical as ice I think of myself as a
radical actually listening has been the
most radical thing that I can do I
become climate change climate changes
it’s an issue you really want to shout
about because I’d say all of the issues
we’re hearing about today it’s the one
where people’s attitudes become most
detached from the overall threat
they’re kind of like cut away from the
ice sheet of scientific fact I’m sort of
floating across the ocean and also
iceberg of self-sustaining positive
fantasy I became so concerned about this
I formed an organization 12 years ago
called Climate outreach and we are
leading specialists in Europe in talking
to people who are normally not engaged
with climate change at all I spend a lot
of my time in focus groups in interviews
sitting and listening to people not like
myself who are cut off from the green
debate a lot of time with grassroots
conservatives but also have trades union
activists with people of different
faiths of people of different ages and
classes and cultures people basically
cut off but I also spend lot of my time
talking compulsively to strangers I
haven’t I have a target that every day I
will speak to us as one stranger about
climate change and I don’t cheat on that
because I could can’t use a thousand
days and that’s like the offer 3 yes and
I think you’re an easy I think you’re an
easy audience to like strangers sitting
down talking with my live in a small
town two and a half thousand people I’m
stunned getting feeling what people now
crossing to the other side of a road and
they see me coming with a that they’re
worried but you know they might be my
quota for the day and I hear all kinds
of things a lot of people are scared a
lot of people concerned not be what I
want to talk about as at all two-thirds
of people have never had a conversation
of anyone in their lives about really
the largest so I would say existential
threat to our futures two-thirds of
people that means when I do it I hope
when you leave here you will do it too
that could be the very first
conversation I’ve ever had in their
lives with something about this issue
and I hear all kinds of weird and crazy
things you know Oh climate change don’t
need to worry about that that’s not
going to happen for thousands of years
okay I change all that that’s already
happened in the past has it oh it’s
always happened
oh I don’t poo is it’s a bit cold today
I don’t see not that global warming you
keep talking about oh my god it’s nice
and warm today oh this is nice maybe
with climate change I’ll be able to grow
grapes in my back garden a climate
change it’s caused by the rich it’s
caused by the poor of all their babies
it’s caused by the Americans it’s called
by the Chinese it’s
oh why don’t you scientists of make up
your minds and tell us what’s going on
and hear all of this stuff and the
important thing about this is that it
shows that actually people’s attitudes
are not grounded in the science they’re
grounded in narratives narratives based
around values attitudes things that they
hear from other people like themselves
that’s why we have to understand what
makes people tick
and the people who don’t accept what I
work on so we can try and find a way of
meeting that matching point between what
they believe in and the truth of it the
other thing is that those views don’t
come from nowhere all of these little
denial tropes about climate change have
actually been planted by people because
I’m a climate change communicator and
out there there’s a posse of climate
change non communicators just I dedicate
my life to try to create action on this
there’s a whole world of people out
there who dedicate their lives to trying
to undermine my work and you know what I
want to talk to them too but if I’m
going to talk to people who disagree
with me I’d better talk with a real arch
people who disagree with me like this
guy here this is actually a post of it
was up all around Paris is one of the
number one climate criminals this is
Myron Ebell he’s now he’s now what lead
advisor to Donald Trump on climate
change and he is the person who’s been
put in charge of deconstructing the
Environmental Protection Agency I had a
great afternoon of Marnie though
listening I have to say listening I said
– and we’re not going to agree on any of
this stuff you know what your
communicator I’m a communicator tell me
what you know tell me how you have
gotten to be so good at this let’s face
everybody likes to be flattered you were
so good at what you do tell me
everything I’d learned so damn much from
that meeting of course he said a lot of
rude things to me as well he had a
parlor a stack of papers in front of him
when we when we met in his offices and
it turned out that they were printed
from my blog every single rude thing I’d
ever said about Marnie Bell which he
then sat there and read to me page after
page and can I say if any of you write
obscure blogs anyone if anybody reads it
I cannot tell you how satisfying it is
to have it read back to you by a very
person that you’ve been slacking off all
of these years now Myron Ebell the
meeting with Myron led to another
peculiar thing which was an invitation
an invitation to be the guest speaker
for the mid Texan Tea Party always happy
to meet new people
sure why not my hostess for lovely
Deborah Deborah Deborah the hostess with
the mostest mostest small-arms this is
this actually photograph is not by me
this is the photograph which is on her
advertising campaign materials when she
run for the governorship of Texas where
she got an alarmingly large number of
votes for I’m there in front of 4050
well lubricated Texan libertarians on a
ranch in the middle of nowhere with
plenty of space to hide the bodies tell
me I said because I’m always up for
listening tell me what you think about
climate change Wow
they said relaxin was probably off more
Texan than my home counties well they
said it’s a lie well we’re sorry it’s a
lie created by extremist socialist
environmentalist whoa to undermine the
American Way of life to destroy and take
away our resources to take away our
fundamental constitutional freedoms and
extend the power of government whoa whoa
whoa there all go oh well thank you
that’s very interesting I found when I
listen I listen back to the tape I’d
gone all Terry Thomas everywhere how
interesting it’s very bracing but
what is funny being up with a room of
avidly passionately opposed people it’s
not easy either
I mean there’s a lot of things in their
values in their politics which I
fundamentally and utterly disagree with
but I’m not going to find that out
unless I go and meet them and talk with
them and I took other things from that
meeting as well one thing I took from it
was what these are not bad people
these were politically engaged active
community active
of a kind which I have worked to all of
my life on community-based campaigns
against opencast coal mining against new
against new supermarkets against forest
destruction the other thing was that
they had formed a set of narratives
around their values and that there was
an alternative world in which it could
have been a very very different
narrative they could have been just as
passionate in their campaigning for
action on climate change there’s nothing
in climate change but inherently makes
it a left wing or a right wing or a
socialist or libertarian issue there was
an alternative narrative that climate
change was the greatest threat to their
freedoms to their security to their
property to their opportunities to God’s
creation to their landscape to the
rights of the unborn child there was an
alternative narrative that could have
been there but dealing with it was the
biggest opportunity it could make
America great again it could provide
jobs it could provide new opportunities
security world leadership this is not my
values I don’t like most of these
narratives these are very valuable
appointees there was a world in which
there could have been narratives which
fitted with who they were but the
problem was that people like myself my
colleagues bless them in the
environmental movement other people who
are active on climate change had never
bothered to even talk with them most of
my friends thought I was insane even
going there well why are you talking
with them because in truth not only they
not talk of them but they despised them
and everything that they stood for that
creates a void and into that void moves
people like Myron Ebell the people who
move into that space are ones who poison
the well and have poisoned it for a
generation now and this is deadly for
climate change is an issue every single
Republican candidate in the u.s.
fundamentally denied climate change and
that climate change science it’s become
such a mark of conservative belief in
the United States that now climate
change your attitudes on climate change
is a better predictor of your politics
than any other single issue abortion gun
control Capitol
punishment none of these issues are as
divided as climate change we’re not that
bad yet but we’re getting there you are
twice as likely the things that climate
change is a myth if you are conservative
than if you’re left-wing you are twice
as likely to think that climate change
is the real major threat that it is if
your left-wing than if you’re
conservative so I guess what I’m saying
here is actually much bigger than
climate change it’s but we’re a very
important point in history at the moment
as activists as campaigners as change
makers we really have a we have a choice
about where things can go from here we
can go back into our shouty mode mount
our barricades say you’re idiots we’re
not talking to you go to hell and let’s
face it we have the most polarizing
president in American history at the
moment this is his strategy this is how
he runs his politics we can do it by his
game or we can do it by our own and our
own I suggest involves actively
listening we talk a lot about listening
but in the end we find it very hard to
do this is not easy this is hard
listening to people who are not like
ourselves not necessarily liking them
not agreeing with them not finding
necessarily a consensus but listening to
them and understanding but they need to
see the key issues of our times in their
terms not ours with narratives based
around their values not necessarily our
values and I’ll give you so for reasons
I guess wise an activist I think that
this is so important I think firstly
because on the issue I’m working on
climate change we don’t have a hope in
hell of dealing with climate change
unless everybody is on board so any
pretense but we can just talk within one
with on one group in one bubble and not
extend out with the challenge of
speaking to people across the spectrum
is delusional I think a second reason is
that if we if we don’t do this
we’ll pay a very high cost if you don’t
listen to people not like you you don’t
learn things you know
there’s only really two people who tell
you the things you really need to hear
the people who love you and the people
who can’t stand you I’m always very
happy to other people who can’t stand me
telling me what they think because I
know that I might hear some truths
they’re very useful you know it’s an
enormous mistake in the 1930s for the
conservative not to listen to the
Socialists who are warning about the
rise of fascism but I suggest actually
was an even bigger mistake for the
Socialists for the activists of airheads
buried in the Morningstar not to listen
to the warnings and a very clear
evidence of what Stalin nightmare was
turning into because that was coming
from the pages of a Daily Telegraph and
these the Second World War has is an
important parallel for what we’re
working on because it is the proof that
as a as a society as an economy we can
completely retool and rebuild ourselves
once we have recognized there is an
overarching threat but we need to all
work together on climate change is an
overarching threat it needs a complete
reconstruction of society in the economy
and what was relevant in the Second
World War was that it did not have or
involve the left and the right and all
the different shades of opinion reaching
a consensus agreeing with each other
liking each other or they had to agree
on us but they were all going to play
their part against an overarching threat
they had different ideas different
values and at the end of it very
different visions about world aware
where the world was going to go and that
for me is the model of change because
the third lesson is to say changes are
always be diverse change political
change now in a much different sides
might like to airbrush out the
complexity of it has always been about
people from across the board learning
and supporting each other the
anti-slavery slave trade campaign was
led by a number of evangelical
conservatives campaigns for campaigns
against apartheid campaigns for for
social rights for justice for for gay
rights for gender have always drawn on
people unlikely partners coming together
and learning from each other
and I guess that brings me to her to
recollect that the final point on this
which is that that I believe
passionately in diversity diversity is a
source of enormous strength because it
come the strength comes from a
difference I support diversity in all of
its forms of gender of ability of
sexuality of race of faith and so on but
I think my colleagues in the wider
movement have an enormous blind spot
when it comes to the diversity of
politics of political worldview and on
the issue I work on that is the most
deadly right down the middle polarizing
force of all and that’s why something
needs to cross over now we all know this
this is all sort of oh don’t develop
don’t on time we all we all know this
intuitively don’t we we all know when we
deal with our neighbor that we’re going
to find common ground we’re going to get
along we’re going to like them we’re
going to find similar things to joke
about we all know that when we’re
working on a community campaign I don’t
know heaven so we’ve got 72 fight for
madly to fight for our local hospital or
our local school we know they’re but
we’re going to find common ground with
our people because we’re all facing a
similar problem and we know that when we
form a community-based campaign like
that that actually diversity is strength
we want people from all different walks
of life different ways of seeing things
to come together because we know what
we’ll learn together but when we get
bigger we lose sight of that when we
deal with these large huge overwhelming
challenges we all start to get kind of
tribally so I like feeling groovy it’s
like I’m feeling sort of charming behind
our banners rah rah and that’s where for
me to share with you as an activist the
greatest learning the greatest challenge
has been how to take the common sense
from a smaller scale to a larger scale
to learn across to spend my time not
just thinking about it but actively
going and finding the people I disagree
with sitting down listening to them
respecting that they have a point of
view I’m trying to learn from it
so do you agree with me good good right
on sir thank you very much [Applause]