From Protests to policy: What Climate Action actually works?

The Climate Shift Podcast, hosted by Sam and Lara, takes a closer look at what climate action truly makes a difference in the episode From Protests to Policy: What Climate Action Actually Works?

Through discussions on activism, government policy, and community-led change, the podcast explores which strategies are creating real environmental impact and how individuals and organisations can turn awareness into effective action.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hi, welcome to the Climate Shift podcast. My name is Laura Bertels.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

My name's Sam Thomas.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

And today we're going to be talking about which forms of climate action are probably you know the best and why we do we've chosen this form of climate action. So I'd say in the climate anxiety world, obviously, we mentioned a little bit more about like a certain top type of like climate action, and that was protesting. Protesting's gone. It's crazy. Um like I just we were talking about how crazy it was and about how um like action nowadays, you know, like in a protesting style, it's been like banned and it's frowned upon. Like there's been a lot of news reports of protesters being removed from sites, you know, physically and you know, like without consent because you know, they just won't move because they they want action to be taken, but you know, they've been disrespected towards it. Like, do you think that well we've already spoken about this, but do you think that protesting's a really really good form of climate action?

SPEAKER_00 1:01

I definitely think it can be, yeah, but like you said, I think it's the way people have in there perspected on it. Because you know, one time someone could have seen a protest gone wrong with a guy's you know giving the wrong style of message and ended up in violence, but then there could be the other times where you know they're just they're just trying to get by and protest what they believe in. But I think it's just the way people are perspected, and I think they shouldn't be perspected like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Do you think, and this is probably like because I personally believe that this is a really big part of like contribution to climate anxiety. Do you think social media is a really really good way to spread a word as about climate action?

SPEAKER_00 1:36

So social media definitely can be a very good way on on spreading it because it it can. Sometimes I've done Instagram posts on different things and they do go out far, but I think it's the way they again are posted on social media because sometimes it's not all true, and then it gets people that like we spoke about earlier, the climate anxiety. So social media can be very good for getting the message out there, but that's only if it's factually true, not some false thing some guys just decide to make up.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

This is actually going back to the last episode that we did. Um do you think the social media is really really good at you know putting like the label AI generated media on facts and on true?

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Yeah, definitely. I think that they're just they're just quick with it.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

I feel like a good example is like people make TikTok videos about random things, and if TikTok sees something in that, you know, that's not necessarily true on something that looks fake, TikTok will label it as like you know, AI generated media. Um I don't think that Instagram and Twitch like X, which was formerly known as Twitter and like Facebook are really really good platforms for add you know showing like AI. Obviously, Facebook have got this like feature that says like may contain like untruth content and stuff like that, but it'll still offer you to see the content if you choose to. But um, I think with like platforms like social media, like with Instagram, for example, like meta platforms, I don't think they do a very good job of showcasing whether or not like you know, something is AI or something is not true or something is made out to be worse than it actually is. I think that was what you know started a lot of climate anxiety for people who gained it from social media and things they've learnt online.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

I think for a lot of these social media platforms, they always say of how anything you post is stalled with them, you'll it'll never, you know, it'll never be gone. Even if you delete it from your thing, yeah, it's always there. So I think if that is true and they you know still have it from years, years, years ago, or whatever it was was posted, someone should have a job in these social media platforms to fact-check things because if they look, say for example, I said oh all the polar bears have just died, and I post it on TikTok and it's getting views and views and views, and people are believing it. I think there should be someone who says who's like you know, just looking out on the recent posts, and they could be like, polar bears are all dead, search it up, and if it's true, get that post deleted, because otherwise it's spreading the wrong message and making people worry when they shouldn't be.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

Yeah, but I'm not exactly sure. I'm not sure there'd be a way to do that, I see, because everybody's grid is like filtered by mainly AI, to you know, like a sort of like a how do I describe it? Like a f it's like a framework of like different sort of you know, context on what people view on social media. So for example, if people were to view like, you know, climate action and protesting and you know like just politics and stuff like that, for example, that's what they're gonna get. Yeah, whether it's true or not, it's gonna be on someone's feed, and like no matter how big the audience is, like not every not everybody's gonna believe it, and obviously that spirals then like chains in comments of like what isn't isn't the truth. So sometimes I think it's a case where pal platforms don't delete it because it sparks such big discussion where you know, personally it should it should be taken down, it should be advised as you know not real. But obviously, some of these platforms don't have that ability to warn people that it's not exactly true because it's not exactly confirmed and it's not been denied, you know, it's nothing they can't take it down because it's awareness, it's a form of awareness no matter whether it's true or false.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Yeah, good, yeah, true.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

But I don't think social media is a really, really great way to target climate action, like as long as you know, as long as things are fact-checked and as long as things are put under hashtags, you know, to reach the right audience. I don't think the social media is 100% the way to like reach climate action.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

And I yeah, and I think people that do see things on social media just need to double check for their own good because like it's scary. Yeah, it is like they it can seriously make people think back on it. I feel like we're just going back to the climate anxiety episode, but it it social media does just social media is a big thing for everything nowadays. I could talk about TVs and social media would still be a big thing because people advertise TVs on social media.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

It's also like a case of like where if you obviously it's not very talked about in schools. Climate action is not talked about in schools, and the way that our planet is for climate crisis isn't talked about in schools. No, like not once was I told in school like this is what's happening to the planet right now, and this is how this is what they're gonna be able to do to stop it, or this is how we could stop it. Like, I learned it about it completely externally, and um like that in itself is a bad thing because I personally think that schools would be able to reach a wide audience of students, so students were aware of like the surroundings and everything that was going on in the world around them. Whereas, like, obviously, students already are aware of what's going on around them from social media, but I think there's a certain time in a place where a teacher could say, if you've seen this on social media, just know that it's not been confirmed, so don't be scared by it. You know, I feel like nowadays our older people of power, people who educate us and people who are paid to, you know, people who are paid to spread information do not spread information in the way that they should be.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

I remember, well, now obviously I mean comprehensive, but I don't think throughout my whole years of there that I have actually learnt about climate action, it's obviously a drug-free class, but that obviously stops at a certain year if you don't pick it for options. But I don't think even then you were learning. I think the most that we learned about towards that was tsunamis, and we watched, and there was basically just a few lessons on how they happen, what they are, and then there was a film on what a tsunami looked like in a film, and obviously all films are not real anyway, they're all based on things. But I think that shows a big toll. Even in primary school, I think there was a week where we'd um not a week, there was a day in a year where we'd travel to different classrooms, and each classroom would be a different country. Yeah. And it would, you know, you'd have the different countries like food and then drinks, food, drinks, but then they'd also give a little like a presentation on how the climate looks there, there, there, there, and that was about it, but that was like one day a year. Yeah. And that's it.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

See, now that's just a one day a year. Like that's you're not keeping that in your head.

SPEAKER_00 7:40

And in that day, I think people were more focused on like the food and the drink they were trying.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

I don't think they they just it's not a scary thing when you've got food and like food and drink on a table in front of you when you're thinking about everything else that's going on in the world. It's like I've got snacks in front of me right now. Yeah, and I feel like that's a really big thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

It's the fact of like people were just thinking, oh yeah, okay, we'll sit and watch the presentation because then we got to eat after it.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

No one no one was thinking, oh yeah, that's a that's a I know I was one of them. I was like, yeah, I can't wait to go to the next class and eat what they've got.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

Um, so I think that like a really, really good way. Like, obviously, communication was a really big one, I'm assuming, passing classroom to classroom to classroom, because obviously it's different staff, different teachers, you know, you've got to be signposted, we're too and from to go. But what do you think about us sitting here to discuss like problems and stuff like that? Why do you think that this form of climate action is like good?

SPEAKER_00 8:29

I think the best part about it is because we're both young.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Uh the the most you see now is boring old people. It's old men, it's old women, it's both fun, they've grown throughout their life, and they're just giving a speech on how it used to be. When we're young, we're still going through life, we're still going through the climate and stuff like that. So I think that's why it's best something like this, because we're both so young. Some people could see it and think, oh, they're young. Well, listen, we're if they just see, you know, Steve, the old man, who's done about millions of these throughout his life, they just Steve's tone of voice is just so slow, he's not got no charisma. And he's just there looking down slowly at his piece of paper, looking at what he's saying, and then he knows when our speech is done, yeah. That's done.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

Do you think that the podcast is like good for um what's the word? Because there's a lot of like talk about how young people are the future. Like, we are the voices of the future. Do you reckon that like war would you in is necessarily part of that?

SPEAKER_00 9:21

Yeah, I'm a big person for podcasts. Uh you know, I do my own podcast, I do a podcast in studio. I'm a big thing for podcasts. I believe that they are the future. More people are getting into podcasts and I've said it before. That if someone, for example, I'm not a biggest fan of education, I have different beliefs that other people would, but I've said before if someone sat here like me or anyone that did a podcast on education and it was getting out there, it would have an impact because I believe that any style of podcast, no matter what it is, it brings that impact because it's a different style, it's new and it's still growing.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

It's not textbook learning, is it? No, it's like it's something that can't be taught. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

I I love that. That's actually that was actually really good. But I think that well, basically, I feel like we should probably explain the context. Um, so when we first started, obviously, with Claise Vanc and obviously you know Youth Camry, when we did our first meeting, we sat down, I think it was late actually, it was really funny. I came on the meeting, I was Gens Blazing, and we were actually talking about like the type of topic so that we could discuss when come into like you know, jobs and like assigning each other jobs, like the meet the team, and like obviously, you know, that type of stuff. And um when we came up to climate action and stuff like that, I feel like I I think it was you and I who'd first like we'd built the bridge, like Sam would message me randomly, I think, or I'd messaged him randomly about posts, and it just became a regular thing.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

I think it was the um Meet the Teams. I think I had to message everyone, and then it was just someone you just didn't go away, and then we were messing back and forth.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Back and forth all the time, and we like you know, it just became like a friendly thing. But we started when we sat down in that um grassroots like room in Cardiff for the first time, and we walked from a train station for the first time, something clicked between. Like me and Sam, like we generally we could sit here, we can have a good conversation about it all, and it was one of them type of topics that was so easy to talk about because it wasn't learnt we didn't learn about it, we had to do the research on our own, and we had to just reflect and we have to talk about it. But I think the reason why we chose climate crisis is because it's not popular, no, it's not like genuinely. We'd all heard climate crisis as one of the options on the list, and I don't even remember what else was on the list, like it was so evidently obvious that that was the one to choose. Like when we chose it, it was like, Oh, we don't do that a lot. Like, you know, nobody talks about climate crisis anymore, especially. Especially young people, especially young people, yeah. Like, I remember being one of them scared young people who would like seen videos on like you know, TikTok and on like like people, people were sharing on their Instagram story during like COVID, it was a trend. Where like every single like problem that was going on in cult climates was on social media and it was all over people's stories, and I was terrified. I was like, is there even gonna be like the world that we live in after COVID happens? Like, I was terrified to leave my house, I was terrified, terrified to go back to school because I was scared of how the world would change, yeah, and because I wasn't taught about it, I had no reason to believe that that wasn't gonna happen. So I felt like you know, me personally talking about it, it just got it out. It was like, you know, I don't have to be scared about it because there are probably other people who feel a different way about climate crisis and about like the way that we can take action against climate crisis. So talking about it, it was important to me, yeah, and I think that you can agree with that. Like we bounced off each other, and I think that's the reason why we chose the action that we did.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

Because protesting, like I said, it's roundabon.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Why join the crowd when you can stand out in your way, yeah?

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

I love that. I love this all. I don't even know what else to say. But yeah, I guess that's why we do what we do in it. Yeah. Because it just stuck out on the list of like different ideas.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

I think the the biggest thing that stuck out to me before we joined was the podcast inside of things. Yeah. Because I know it can just get that reach out there.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

You get to sit you get to sit down and talk about something.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

You get you just busted shit. You sit and talk and just just pretend there's not a camera there. Basically. But do you think that's everything? Yeah? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

I'd say that we summed it up pretty good on why we do what we do.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Well, this is the Climate Shift Podcast. I'm Sam Thomas.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

And I'm not reverted.