We recently worked with our long-time collaborators, The People Speak to hold mass community conversations on climate change, inequality and climate emotions as part of Climate Lab Pendle.
We invited Margot Przymierska and Mikey Weinkove to share their encounters with varied opinions and responses to the climate crisis. Here they explore factors that inform people's views and feelings about the crisis, mis and dis-information, numbness, neutrality and understanding the barriers we encounter in climate engagement work.
Talkaoke at Nelson Festival of Culture, 2024
Overview
We are The People Speak, a group of international artists, cultural producers, science communicators and activists based in East London. We have 27 years’ expertise in helping people to understand each other and collectively process the complexity of the world. We use participatory formats and interventions, such as our flagship format Talkaoke - the non-hierarchical talk show - where we articulate collective imagination, inform public decision-making and deepen connections between diverse groups of people in London, the UK and Europe. Since 2010 we have been collaborating with a Brierfield-based arts organisation In Situ - home of Talkaoke Hub North. In the course of our decade long collaboration we have been talking to a whole range of Pendle residents participating in Talking Society sessions, annual Pendle Festival of Culture, Nelson & Colne College young people’s workshops and Pendle 2050 - a series of visioning sessions, which informed the local government’s policies and strategies.
Are we on the same journey?
The uniqueness of our approach is that we create accessible structures that encourage participants to take control of the direction of the conversation, set the agenda spontaneously and get involved in a direct, face to face exchange of perspectives and ideas with the others sitting around the round Talkaoke table. We encourage diversity of perspectives because we believe that we have all something to learn from each other. For example, we would never deny something that a person says - even if we believe it to be factually incorrect. Our aim is not to call someone out on their lack of knowledge but rather understand their perspective and what led them to forming a particular opinion or value system. It is a simple concept, but it’s a concept which allows us to hold space for the kind of exchange that social media promised but rarely delivers. In the age of polarisation and unclear information provenance leading to mis/dis-information, we have seen that unexpected or unpopular views are marginalised or become a target of online attacks. This is why it is core for us to ensure that Talkaoke remains a space to explore all views in creative and constructive ways to better navigate the complexities of today’s challenges.
That said, our views are increasingly influenced by the omnipresent technology, AI and algorithms that can often provide us with information and content that reaffirms our point of view or prays on our fears or curiosities. How do we know if what we read and watch online is mis/disinformation or a lesser known fact? These questions are fresh in our minds, as we are coming to the end of our creative research project Public Voice in AI by the University of Sheffield, where we explored the role AI plays in the lives of marginalised communities in East London. Be it British Bengali teenagers at risk of exploitation or older people with mental health issues - they all engaged with the online content, which had shaped and on the other hand reflected their interests, values, religious beliefs as well as fears.
For a live spontaneous talk show like Talkaoke this poses a creative challenge: how do we bring everyone on the same journey, even though each participant might be seeing a different newsfeed on their social media? Could this be true with regards to climate?
Talkaoke at Nelson Festival of Culture, 2024
Rain or shine, Talkaoke has been popping up in Nelson town square annually as part of the Pendle Festival of Culture as well as being an integral part of the climate conversation led by the In-Situ team on the ground.
Despite climate change being seen as the greatest challenge of our times, we are yet to find the most effective ways of engaging everyone in the discussion and collective action to address it. Talking to people in Pendle, we have noticed that climate as a subject does not arise very often in a direct manner.
Is climate change part of God's plan? Apocalypticism and climate change
On 25 June 2022 we did Talkaoke at Pendle Festival of culture in Nelson. We were talking to a group of young people about time speeding up when the conversation turned to the imminent end of the world. Time going faster is apparently a sign of the world ending. We had a long conversation about the end of the world, Judgement Day, the Dajjal (the anti Messiah) and what humans should do to prepare. Towards the end of the conversation a local councillor said that this apocalyptic talk was a tenable way to discuss the dangers of climate change for his community.
Talkaoke at Nelson Festival of Culture, 2024
Many people in Pendle have quite an apocalyptic view of the world, saying that end times are near and there are many signs that the end of the world is near. For those of the Muslim faith this can mean that your priority is to be a good muslim in the eyes of Allah come Judgement Day. Whether this means addressing the issues of climate change or not is a debated question. Some say that apocalyptic talk is a more understandable way of addressing the climate emergency, while others feel that climate demands are a distraction from the importance of practising the tenets of one's faith.
The Quran for many does predict sea level rise
Do they not see that We set upon the land and reduce it from its edges? And God judges; none repels His judgment. And swift in reckoning is He. 13:41
But there is still a question about whether it is the right thing to do to put effort into reducing climate change. Many muslims say one cannot anticipate Allah's will in this matter but the one thing that is agreed upon is the importance of being a good, practising muslim when it comes to Judgement Day. The importance of being fair and just to other humans is in the human realm, whereas the world as a whole or nature is in Allah's realm.
Any discussion of climate change in any context is ineffective or even counterproductive if dissonant with the world view of the people you are speaking with. Rather to be accepted as an argument it must support the participant's existing understanding of the world, or even better be spoken by the people you trust already. Many people do not trust scientific, academic or governmental institutions. There are historical and contemporary reasons for this such as Gaza, colonialism, eurocentrism etc. If addressing climate change is considered an institutional goal it can be seen as something to dismiss rather than adopt. My feeling from listening to many people speak on this is that personal, individual human stories from around the world that call for climate justice to help those individuals would be much more relatable than facts about CO2 levels or temperature records.
Climate Fresk at Inside-Out Pendle Cards show graphics from the IPCC report
Conspiracy theories & technology
Access to technology, sources of knowledge and information in the 21st century has never been this easy. We have all been down the rabbit hole of researching an obscure phenomenon or pursuing answers about the origin of an international conflict. But is it always clear where the information comes from?
On 29 June 2024 we were back at the Pendle Festival of Culture with Talkaoke. The conversations quickly drifted towards asking questions about the purpose of country borders, being a global citizen, leading to reflections on the exploitation of the global resources, capitalism as a modern form of spirituality, with a smattering of climate change undertones thanks to Anna and Tom who were dipping in and out from their Fresk pop-up near by.
How do we move forward as societies when so much of our idea of progress is rooted in technological developments and burning through the Earth’s natural resources?
Live visualisation for Inside-Out Pendle Image: Christopher Gerhardt
As Talkaoke went on, we realised there are different views of what future people want and how we get there in the face of climate change. Many people agreed on a future that is peaceful, compassionate and equitable. Chris's perspective was that extracting natural resources leads to prosperity and the ability to invest in new technology to bring about innovation to tackle climate change. Vivienne’s approach is about going off grid and reverting back to more basic life: windmills generating energy, thrift culture and a more spiritual connection with Earth.
Talkaoke at Nelson Festival of Culture 2024
While some views came with references to specific sources or names of scientists and public influencers - others did not. Does it mean the latter carry less weight? No. We form our opinions through personal experiences and conversations with people outside of our echo chamber. At The People Speak we often use the concept of ‘building the bridge from the other side”, from the side of the person who expresses a view that is different from ours. We find that this approach encourages deep listening in a non-judgemental way, which may bring us closer to establishing commonalities between different views. In the course of this particular Talkaoke, some common themes emerged, such as the care for the local area and the country, concern for the young generations’ future but also distrust towards institutions and anger about laws and policies that affect us.
Are bad emotions really bad?
Especially when it comes to climate. In November 2024 we were involved in co-creating and facilitating Inside Our Pendle, an event, which was a culmination of a longer project by In Situ, aiming to involve people in conversations about climate change in the area, with a particular focus on emotions.
Inside-Out Pendle at Colne Muni
The day was structured around the Climate Fresk workshop, which helped break down the complexity of climate using an accessible game format. Talkaoke remained open to the participants throughout, providing a space to digest and collectively process the load of information and emotions they evoked. Participants diverse in age and background were able to discuss how they felt about different aspects linked (perhaps indirectly) to climate change. The conversations were captured by Christopher’s live visualisations and covered a range of topics from supporting the local produce and a lab grown chicken wings, to NASA’s conspiratorial plot to colonise the oceans and imagining what will run out first if climate change accelerates in the UK (will it be the sandwiches)? We like leaning into the humorous, outside of the box points of view as a way to encourage playful creative flow among participants, inviting the group to explore deep and serious subjects with a similar creative mindset. In the second part of the day we switched things up by inviting the participants to reflect on some of the recent climate-related news headlines and try to pinpoint the main feelings associated with them. Some examples included floods in Europe, fertiliser prices rising in Pakistan, excessive rainfall affecting the UK’s agriculture as well as high air pollution in Pendle or the plan of building 65 wind turbines in the nearby moorland. While the conversations led to some interesting insights such as a lot of support for the turbines, some - left the participants feeling numb or nothing at all - feelings absent from the emotion wheel and yet so representative of the scale of the problem and the fact that many changes we are seeing are still happening geographically far away.
Emotional Map - Inside Out Pendle Yellow - optimism| Pink - anger Green - fear Blue - sadness Live visualisation by Christopher Gerhardt
Concluding the event, we looked at the emotions felt during the event in a different way: could they reflect our core values and point towards action? We did this in a process called the ‘emotional pivot’, which led us to reflect on positive aspects of the feelings like anger (showing our disagreement to injustice), sadness (how much we care about things we might lose), fear (a potential to become resilient) and positivity (celebration of human connections and life’s pleasures). But what about numbness, indifference, neutrality or even depression? Is there an ‘emotional pivot’ we can and should explore with relation to these latter feelings? As our work in Pendle continues, we would like to go deeper into understanding the origin of those feelings, especially in the young people who seem to be staunchly emotionally neutral. We are keen to use creativity to inspire a more vivid emotional life - and yes, it is a roundabout way of addressing climate change, but it could be a worthwhile and effective approach.
The People Speak
The People Speak is a group of international artists, cultural producers, science communicators and activists based in East London. We have 25 years’ expertise in helping people to understand each other and collectively process the complexity of the world.
We create fun, interactive participatory formats and interventions in the UK and abroad, where we articulate collective imagination, inform public decision-making and deepen connections between diverse groups of people. We employ multiple media, technologies, instant visualisation, sound effects and online elements in parallel to engage and stimulate diverse minds and push the boundaries of what a collaboration/conversation can be.
More about Talkaoke at In-Situ
Climate Lab Pendle