I'm Ellie, and I want my hope back.
I don’t fit the mould of a public speaker. I am a young person who cares about the future of our planet. That’s it.
When I was thinking about what I wanted to share with you all today I kept coming back to the community. For me, it’s where real transformative change will come. Not in pursuit of a technocratic utopia where climate change gets solved by tech billionaires. Instead, my vision is one where community holds us in our darkest days. Where we learn from one another and move forward.
I’ll start at the beginning. I’m Ellie, I’m 18 and I want my hope back. My childhood has been punctuated by some pretty scary stuff, to say the least. It's tough finding yourself in that, while also thinking about what I might like to do when I grow up. I remember being asked by a careers advisor at school what I might like to do when I leave school. What I wanted to say was that I want to try and make the world a better place. But instead, I pretended that I wanted to study natural science or sociology. I am still not sure what I want to do in the future - partly because my future is being painted out very differently than how I first thought it could look. The reality is our world is going to look different. And not necessarily better. We all know the state our planet is in. Climate change isn't something that we can push to tomorrow's agenda. It's happening right now.
I am a stubborn optimist. I see the collective voice of young people who are already creating a ripple effect of action - and that speaks volumes. Young people are igniting conversations. My generation has inherited this crisis. A study by force of nature found that 56% of young people think that their future is doomed, and 70% are anxious about climate change. Many Of the conversations I was having at the ELP2 launch weekend were about how powerless each of us felt. I struggled to concentrate at school because I felt that I was being selfish by dedicating myself to my studies and individual progress over something so much bigger - the climate crisis. I grew bored and frustrated by what looked to me like an outdated curriculum that didn't even reflect where we were in the world. I had to carve out a different pathway for myself, as I knew I didn't want to go to uni. I was the only one in my year to not apply. Not to blow my own trumpet but I think it takes courage to take the path less trodden.
In my mind you can respond in one of two ways to the climate crisis: you can shut down and resign to the attitude that “it's such a big problem that you can't do anything about it” or you can choose to set those thoughts aside and start to make changes and encourage other to do the same. I think that's where the heart of action is. I don't believe that our leaders have our best interests - they just want to make policies that keep them in their seats.
I’m not going to pretend that I am a proper climate activist. I’m an imperfect one. I’ve never struck off school. I’ve never been on a march. I've never held a placard. I am not another Greta. I admire the courage and bravery of those climate activists who do those things. But we can all show up for our cause in whatever way works for us. We don't need 100 perfect changemakers. We need 1 million imperfect ones. As said by Clover Hogan, founder of Force of Nature. Change isn't going to come from blaming others who don't do as you do. But from identifying the commonality that we are all nature, and in protecting it we are conserving ourselves.
I think part of this is our inability to disagree agreeably now and be accountable for our responsibility to be a good citizens. This citizen story arc is something that I have been dipping my toes into with the Re-Actions Citizen Friday Campaign. Re-Action is a global collective of outdoor enthusiasts who care about the impact of their adventures. Citizen Friday is our spin on Black Friday. We want to disentangle from consumerism and discover what each of us can do as citizens to leave the world in a better state than before us. It's all about community, sharing, repairing and repurposing. Pretty cool hey!
Community for me is everything. And I think we've lost a sense of what it means to be in one. For me, it's social media that is the root cause of this division. We get trapped in echo chambers. We chase likes and follows. We present the image of a perfect activist online when posing with our eco coffee cup. I am a Gen-Zer so I can’t remember a time without social media - I discovered that the biggest dip in nature connection comes as we hit the teenage years. Is endless scrolling, liking and following, the cause of this? A split reality. Something has to change. I joined CURV, a startup social network, a few months ago as a community builder and ambassador. CURV is trying to undo the damage that social media has left in its tracks. CURV has developed an app specifically crafted to foster community action and a sense of togetherness. On CURV there are no likes or follows or filters. But shared spaces for action and sharing our stories, our true authentic selves. We have partnered with big organisations like Natural History Museum, Force of Nature, Just Dig It, Green New Deal Rising, Rebel Book Club, and more! CURV I think is the missing piece in the jigsaw. When I was looking at volunteering for impact-driven organisations Re-Action and CURV I first looked at their principles and walked the talk.
Pertinent to this audience is that there are changes taking place in todays’ employment landscape, not least in recruitment and retention of staff and a study by Prof Paul Polman found that at the end of contracts, my generation no longer goes quietly, we quit “consciously.’”with purpose. We stick by our values and only work with orgs that align with them us without compromise, of course there is an element of privilege to this idea but interesting nonetheless….
For you as leaders and founders, if you want to be able to attract the right people for jobs, you have to rethink your offering. Or you'll have an office of old white guys who aren't open to being flexible and adaptive to our changing world.
That's it from me, I'll wrap this up I want to leave you with a few final thoughts …
Community action is the way forward
Switch your bank and pension to one that doesn't invest in fossil fuels
We all have something we can contribute to making a difference - whether you are a founder, a dreamer or a parent we can all use our skills to take action.
Listen to young people - we are the future whether you like it or not we have ideas and value in every room.
Thank you!
Photo credits: Helen O’Connor, Victoria La Bouchardiere & Wendy Wyat
