We Need to Talk Ocean: Imagining a Perfect 2030
On Wednesday we hosted our best virtual event yet: We Need to Talk Ocean: Imagining a Perfect 2030. For each sign-up, we pledged to collect 100 Plastic Ocean Bound Bottles. Thanks to all of you that signed up, there will be 39,100 fewer Plastic Ocean Bound Bottles in our Oceans!
If you didn't make, it or you just want a recap check out our round-up here.
Alternatively please find the full event below
We were honoured to have some incredible speakers in the ocean space on our panel to lead our thought-provoking - but never heavy - ocean conversation: Danni Washington, Peter Thomson and Cristina Mittermeier.
Our panelists provided us with a balanced - and insightful - perspective on what needs actioning to fix the environmental problems we face by 2030.
With an impressive suite of questions from our participants, and addressing a range of subjects from circular economy - to the management of the fishing industry, Peter Thomson brought the event to a close by asking the audience what they were doing to get to carbon neutrality.
From the outset of this webinar, we quickly launched into an engaging discussion with each of the speakers giving us a bit of background on themselves and why they are where they are today.
Danni, as a science TV host, kicked off with the importance of encouraging people, especially children, to ask the big questions. She focuses on the importance of trying to connect the next generation to wonders of the ocean in order to save it.
In Peter's introduction, he touched on his heritage, mentioning that his grandfather had sailed from Scotland to Fiji, reminding us all that there was a time before engines and automated vehicles that have contributed to our current level of pollution. He also mentioned how plastic was introduced during his lifetime and from its first appearance many had the impression that this would not be a good thing.
Each of the speakers then spoke about how they will reflect on 2020. With a realisation that this may be the year that everyone realizes that the individual is not as important as we thought. It was mentioned that Covid-19 will not wipe out the human race and we should only grow wiser from our experiences. Using what we have learned to tackle the problems of preserving our world. As if we fail at this it will be far more detrimental than any pandemic.
As Peter reminded us that if by 2050 we didn’t have Greenhouse gases under control then it would be the end of the human race. A very harrowing, yet accurate remark. This led us onto the topic of indigenous people who inhabit 80% of the most bio-diverse areas but make up only 5% of the world population. We discussed how we can learn from and incentivise the people that protect these areas.
Cristina made the point that 90% of wealth is in the hands of 1% so until our wealth is distributed to these communities which are looking after our planet it is hard to achieve the level of conservation needed. Women are underrepresented and need to be lifted into careers in science, conservation, arts, and communication. We need to see more minorities working in these fields- there’s no time to think about climate change and biodiversity when you're fighting oppression. Danni agreed that If we empower women and girls and use their strengths we will see a massive shift. Peter added that Indigenous thought is so important to conservation as is the thinking of young people due to their fresh outlook and not letting us go back to our old ways.
We went on to address the problem of the scary 3 C’s consumerism, capitalism and corporate shareholder corruption and how we can change our approach through the inspiration of Cristina’s notion of enoughness- immense happiness from having enough not driven by material, taking only as much as you need and using everything that you take, and knowing in doing so will also allow others to have enough.
Perhaps one of the most poignant moments during our webinar was Cristina's breakdown of donations in the USA. Did you know that of the 400 billion dollars donated to charities in the USA per year, only an alarmingly low 1.8 Billion goes towards the environment? This shocking statistic gives us further insight on how little time and money is being spent on tackling this monumental problem.
Social entrepreneurship is the business model of our future, what does this look like? According to Danni, it’s where companies give back more than they receive. We have to restructure our economy to become circular, because right now we are on a linear path that leads to a dead end.
