WEBVTT

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How do we get people engaged
in solving global warming?

NOTE Paragraph

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I'd like to start with running
two short experiments with you all.

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So your task is to notice
if you feel any difference as I speak.

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OK?

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Here we go.

NOTE Paragraph

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We are seeing rising
carbon dioxide levels,

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now about 410 ppms.

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To avoid the RCP 8.5 scenario,

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we need rapid decarbonization.

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The global carbon budget

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for 66 percent likelihood
to meet the two-degree target

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is approximately 800 gigatons.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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OK, now let me try something else.

NOTE Paragraph

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We are heading for an uninhabitable earth:

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monster storms,

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killer floods,

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devastating wildfires,

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crazy heat waves that will cook us
under a blazing sun.

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2017 is already so unexpectedly warm,

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it's freaking out climate scientists.

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We have a three-year window
to cut emissions, three years.

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If not, we will soon live
in a boiling earth, a hellhole.

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OK. So --

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause)

NOTE Paragraph

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Now your task:

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How did these ways
of speaking make you feel?

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The first, detached maybe
or just confused?

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What's this guy talking about?

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The other, fearful or just numb?

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So again, the question I asked:

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How do we get people engaged
in solving global warming?

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And why don't these two ways
of communicating work?

NOTE Paragraph

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You see, the biggest obstacle
to dealing with climate disruptions

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lies between your ears.

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Building on a rapidly growing body
of psychology and social science,

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I spent years looking
into the five inner defenses

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that stop people from engaging.

NOTE Paragraph

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When people hear news about the climate
coming straight at them,

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the first defense comes up rapidly:

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distance.

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When we hear about the climate,

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we hear about something
far away in space --

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think Arctic ice, polar bears --

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far away in time -- think 2100.

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It's huge and slow-moving --
think gigatons and centuries.

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So it's not here. It's not now.

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Since it feels so far away from me,

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it seems outside my circle of influence,

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so I feel helpless about it.

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There's nothing I can do.

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In our everyday lives,

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most of us prefer to think
about nearer things,

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such as our jobs, our kids,

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how many likes we get on Facebook.

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Now, that, that's real.

NOTE Paragraph

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Next defense is doom.

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Climate change is usually framed

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as a looming disaster,

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bringing losses, cost and sacrifice.

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That makes us fearful.

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But after the first fear is gone,

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my brain soon wants
to avoid this topic altogether.

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After 30 years of scary
climate change communications,

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more than 80 percent of media articles
still use disaster framings,

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but people habituate to and then --

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desensitize

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to doom overuse.

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So many of us are now suffering
a kind of apocalypse fatigue,

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getting numb from too much collapse porn.

NOTE Paragraph

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The third defense is dissonance.

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Now, if what we know,

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that fossil fuel use
contributes to global warming,

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conflicts with what we do --
drive, fly, eat beef --

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then so-called
cognitive dissonance sets in.

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This is felt as an inner discomfort.

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We may feel like hypocrites.

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To get rid of this discomfort,

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our brain starts coming up
with justifications.

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So I can say, for instance,

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"My neighbor, he has
a much bigger car than I do."

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Or, "Changing my diet
doesn't amount to anything

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if I am the only one to do it."

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Or, I could even want
to doubt climate science itself.

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I could say, "You know,
climate is always changing."

NOTE Paragraph

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So these justifications
make us all feel better,

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but at the expense

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of dismissing what we know.

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Thus, behavior drives attitudes.

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My personal cognitive dissonance comes up

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when I recognize that I've been
flying from Oslo to New York

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and back to Oslo

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in order to speak about the climate.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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For 14 minutes.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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So that makes me
want to move on to denial.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

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So if we keep silent,

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ignore or ridicule facts
about climate disruptions,

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then we might find inner refuge

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from fear and guilt.

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Denial doesn't really come
from lack of intelligence or knowledge.

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No, denial is a state of mind

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in which I may be aware
of some troubling knowledge,

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but I live and act as if I don't know.

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So you could call it
a kind of double life,

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both knowing and not knowing,

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and often this is reinforced by others,

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my family or community,

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agreeing not to raise this tricky topic.

NOTE Paragraph

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Finally, identity.

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Alarmed climate activists

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demand that government takes action,

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either with regulation or carbon taxes.

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But consider what happens

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when people who hold
conservative values, for instance,

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hear from an activist that government
ought to expand even further.

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Particularly in rich Western democracies,

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they are then less likely
to believe that science.

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How is that?

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Well, if I hold conservative
values, for instance,

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I probably prefer big proper cars
and small government

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over tiny, tiny cars and huge government.

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And if climate science comes and then says

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government should expand further,

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then I probably
will trust that science less.

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In this way, cultural identity

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starts to override the facts.

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The values eat the facts,

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and my identity trumps truth any day.

NOTE Paragraph

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So, after recognizing
how these five D's kill engagement,

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how can we move beyond them?

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New research shows
how we can flip these five defenses

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over into key success criteria

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for a more brain-friendly
climate communication.

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So this is where it gets really exciting

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and where we find the five S's,

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the five evidence-based solutions
for what does work.

NOTE Paragraph

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First, we can flip distance to social.

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We can make climate feel
near, personal and urgent

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by bringing it home,

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and we can do that
by spreading social norms

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that are positive to solutions.

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If I believe my friends or neighbors,

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you guys, will do something,

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then I will, too.

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We can see, for instance,
this from rooftop solar panels.

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They are spreading from neighbor
to neighbor like a virus.

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It's contagious.

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This is the power of peer-to-peer
creating the new normal.

NOTE Paragraph

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Next, we can flip doom to supportive.

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Rather than backfiring frames

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such as disaster and cost,

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we can reframe climate
as being really about human health,

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for instance, with plant-based
delicious burgers,

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good for you and good for the climate.

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We can also reframe climate
as being about new tech opportunities,

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about safety and about new jobs.

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Solar jobs, for instance,
are seeing an amazing growth.

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They just passed
the three million jobs mark.

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Psychology says,
in order to create engagement,

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we should present, on balance,

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three positive or supportive framings

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for each climate threat we mention.

NOTE Paragraph

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Then we can flip dissonance

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to simpler actions.

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This is often called nudging.

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The idea is, by better
choice architecture,

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we can make the climate-friendly behaviors

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default and convenient.

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Let me illustrate this. Take food waste.

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Food waste at buffets goes way down

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if the plate or the box size
is reduced a little,

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because on the smaller plate it looks full

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but in the big box it looks half empty,

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so we put more in.

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So smaller plates make
a big difference for food waste.

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And there are hundreds
of smart nudges like this.

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The point is, dissonance goes down
as more behaviors are nudged.

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Then we can flip denial

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by tailoring signals
that visualize our progress.

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We can provide motivating feedback

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on how well we're doing
with our problem-solving.

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Say you improved your transport footprint

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or cut energy waste in your buildings.

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Then one app that can
share this well is called Ducky.

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The idea is, you log your actions there,

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and then you can see how well
your team or company is doing,

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so you get real-time signals.

NOTE Paragraph

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Finally, identity.

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We can flip identity with better stories.

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Our brain loves stories.

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So we need better stories
of where we all want to go,

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and we need more stories
of the heroes and heroines

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of all stripes that are
making real change happen.

NOTE Paragraph

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I'm proud that my hometown of Oslo

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is now embarking on a bold journey
of electrifying all transport,

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whether cars, bikes or buses.

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One of the people
spearheading this is Christina Bu.

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She is heading the Electric
Vehicle Association for years

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and she has been fighting every day.

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Now, the UK and France, India and China
have also announced plans

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for ending the sales of fossil cars.

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Now, that's massive.

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And in Oslo, we can see
how enthusiastic EV owners

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go and tell their electric stories
to friends and neighbors

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and bring them along.

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So we come full circle
from story back to social.

NOTE Paragraph

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So thousands of climate communicators

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are now starting to use these solutions

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all over the world.

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It is clear, however,
that individual solutions

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are not sufficient
to solving climate alone,

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but they do build
stronger bottom-up support

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for policies and solutions that can.

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That is why engaging people is so crucial.

NOTE Paragraph

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I started this talk

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with testing two ways
of communicating climate with you.

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There is another way, too,

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I'd like to share with you.

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It starts with reimagining climate itself

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as the living air.

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Climate isn't really
about some abstract, distant climate

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far, far away from us.

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It's about this air that surrounds us.

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This air, you can feel in this room, too,

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the air that moves
right now in your nostrils.

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This air is our earth's skin.

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It's amazingly thin,

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compared to the size of the earth
and the cosmos it shields us from,

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far thinner than the skin of an apple

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compared to its diameter.

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It may look infinite when we look up,

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but the beautiful, breathable air
is only like five to seven miles thin,

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a fragile wrapping around a massive ball.

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Inside this skin,

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we're all closely connected.

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The breath that you just took

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contained around 400,000
of the same argon atoms

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that Gandhi breathed during his lifetime.

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Inside this thin,
fluctuating, unsettled film,

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all of life is nourished,
protected and held.

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It insulates and regulates temperatures

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in a range that is just right
for water and for life as we know it,

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and mediating between
the blue ocean and black eternity,

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the clouds carry
all the billions of tons of water

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needed for the soils.

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The air fills the rivers,

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stirs the waters,

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waters the forests.

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With a global weirding of the weather,

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there are good reasons
for feeling fear and despair,

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yet we may first grieve
today's sorry state and losses

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and then turn to face the future
with sober eyes and determination.

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The new psychology of climate action

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lies in letting go, not of science,

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but of the crutches
of abstractions and doomism,

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and then choosing to tell the new stories.

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These are the stories

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of how we achieve drawdown,
the reversing of global warming.

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These are the stories of the steps we take

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as peoples, cities, companies

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and public bodies

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in caring for the air

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in spite of strong headwinds.

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These are the stories of the steps we take

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because they ground us
in what we are as humans:

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earthlings inside this living air.

NOTE Paragraph

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Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

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(Applause)