The joys of being positive even in an unfair world

This blog is going to change slightly - now I'm exploring the UK so much I can't always find an obvious "other country" link. This post is inspired by the need to hear other people's voices far more. Words by Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

Imagine - snowy scene with my daughters.

Like most teenagers I was a bit confused about how to be me. I could see that for me there was a choice about the face I presented to the world. I could go down the dark route from knock knock jokes to sarcasm, and then on to irony. I could be bitter and cynical (cool and funny). I could play life as a tumbler, laughing at my mishaps and sharing them. Or I could be a cross between Pollyanna and Mary Poppins always looking on the bright side of life. That's the one I've chosen. Yes I get it wrong sometimes, but mostly I cross out my negative rants and look for a positive spin. And it definitely makes life seem a friendlier, more delightful place.

As a result I've been transfixed by constructive journalism.

This is a newish approach to news which asks the usual Ws - who, what, where, when, why - and then adds a sixth, what next? When you write like this you can find out what happened after the crash, divorce, death. This click through stops the news being a catalogue of misery. You might still use the thinking of "if it bleeds it leads" but with the constructive journalism approach you also follow up. A car crash might end up being a story of five people being given donated organs, going on to lead their lives.

There are all sorts of reasons people like constructive journalism as an alternative to our 24/7 bad news world. Recently I shadowed Giselle Green from NCVO, who is editor of Constructive Voices. She was speaking to first year journalism students at London Metropolitan University about the way news organisations have seen a huge decrease in circulation and media switch off. Simultaneously research shows that the endless cycle of depressing news (gangs, knife crime, drought, wars, terrorism, unscrupulous politicians) doesn't just disempower people it is leading to a disconnect with society and mental health problems.  Here's an interview with Giselle Green on Islington Faces.

In summer 2014 the blog Islington Faces was born out of a frustration that the media wouldn't publish ordinary people's extraordinary stories. It now has close to 270 interviews with people who live or work in Islington, one very small patch of the world. Do go and have a look, it's https://www.islingtonfacesblog.com 

Obviously sharing a life story is not an original idea.

Go to any funeral and you often hear a summing up of someone's life, starting from the very beginning. There are highlights to the story but often the lives best lived aren't full of high drama; although they might be notable for the resilience that person has shown during their lifetime.

Scott Waide in Papua New Guinea using his journalism skills
to interview locals doing positive things is having a democratically
empowering impact in this South Pacific nation. See facebook
inspirational papua new guineans

And as for blogs. Well there's the amazing Humans of New York and here in London Spitalifeldslife.com.  The trend has even gripped Papua New Guinea! A friend has just sent this amazing link, see here http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-03/one-mans-mission-to-shine-light-on-ordinary-papua-new-guineans/9477894,  about Scott Waide who runs the Facebook site Inspirational Papua New Guineans with more than 5,000 followers. His interviews are fab.

By sharing stories of people in Papua New Guinea who've overcome all sorts of odds, or are doing amazing things to help their family and community, Scott Waide has realised something else - he's strengthening democracy.  In a newspaper interview he says:

"If you put out the positive and you put that out in public, people will connect the dots and then start demanding better services, start demanding those in power are held accountable for their actions." Scott Waide (PNG blogger).

I'm so impressed by Scott Waide.

Shared world

"If you're surprised, it means you don't see enough black people
in major roles," says Legally Black. Good point.

Today I also saw a fascinating news story about some BME teenagers who'd got so fed up with seeing themselves reflected in TV and films as gangsters, maids and drug dealers that they re-created some famous films using black models. In fact they used their friends and family. The story is in the Guardian, see here, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/03/young-brixton-activists-recreate-film-posters-with-black-leads created by @legallyblackuk

If you haven't understood how frustrating the male/female pay divide is (being revealed spring 2018); or the ethnic pay divide then keep it simple. If you are pale-skinned, try finding someone who looks a different colour to you in the lead role of a famous film. For me it was a wake up moment to see a young black woman depicted playing Bridget Jones.... Bridget is a white woman, about my size, and certainly on my clumsiness level. When the film came out I knew it was "for me", and in some ways sort of "about me".   But when I noticed the poster brilliantly re-done with a young black woman my first thought - a flashing drift through my head, and not said (at least I thought not) with prejudice - oh that's not a film for me, then I realised just how stupid I've been.

Their campaign has so worked for me. As Legally Black's catchphrase points out: "If our posters shock you, you're not seeing enough black faces in leading roles."

Life lessons
As a baby boomer it's perhaps no surprise that I've lived through several waves of feminism and yet  am still acclimatised to seeing men in the best jobs/situations/statues etc receiving the best pay.  I totally understand the structural reasons for this and why it must and should change.

But I hadn't quite cottoned on to the power that structural norms have - even if they are just as simple as images - in maintaining a racist (or racially prejudiced if you prefer) status quo.

Yesterday a friend told me she was reading the hugely influential book, Why I'm no longer talking to white people about race by Reni Eddo-Lodge. And my thought. Oh, I don't need to read that. I know that stuff.*

It's quite clear that I'm wrong.

We don't just need institutional change to create a more fair society, we also need to hear a far wider cross-section of voices talking about life as it is, and how it could be.

So let's keep hearing it from people living their lives and sharing their ordinary - to them - but extraordinary and powerful stories. The craze to share story telling is a wonderful part of this 21st century, long may it last. And let its potential to offer fair chances to us all, whatever our gender or ethnicity. There's an added plus, and that's this feeling of positive stuff happening which perhaps offers anyone the opportunity to see that if they can do this, then I can too, whatever that I can is.

==
*Clarification: I have actually seen the book and had a 30 minute look through it back in the summer. Clearly I need to revisit.

Climate Change: HRH, scientist & fashion voices in London

This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK in order to reduce our impact on climate change. So how do you get people to do something about their impact on the planet? Compare and contrast methods by HRH Prince Charles, climate scientist Dr Emily Shuckburgh and Pacific Islanders from Fiji, Samoa and Papua New Guinea. Words from Nicola Baird (see www.nicolabaird.com for more info about my books and blogs).

PNG style, model with London Pacific Fashion
Collective designer (r) Sarah Haoda-Todd
thinking clothes and climate change.
(c) LPFC

Give Dr Emily Shuckburgh a TV show.

That’s my verdict after hearing the British Antarctic Survey scientist, who measures trapped bubbles of carbon dioxide in million-year-old ice cores, describe the thinking behind the Ladybird Expert Book For All Ages – ClimateChange which she co-wrote with Prince Charles and former director of Friends of the Earth, Tony Juniper. The 24-page booklet, which crams in 200 words per page, was published in January this year (2017) and has become a best seller.

“We wrote the book to appeal to normal people. People think there is much less scientific agreement about climate change than there actually is,” says Emily who is an unusually plain-speaking professional climate scientist. “This is fuelled by the media and the way the BBC insists on [reporting it with for and against so climate change deniers are given airtime] and Daily Mail headlines.” 

She’s also able to make the science simple to follow. It’s not just the Ladybird book, which condenses many 3000-page reports, it’s also her ability to tell it as it is. She tells the Archway with Words audience that scientists are in agreement that the climate is changing, and that it is man-made.  She then explains that there are three major risks from the increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

1. Coral reefs are dying (she is very negative about this, “coral reefs are dead”)
2. Extreme weather
3. The collapse of the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet.

“If the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsed it would be irreversible. The sea would rise by two metres and change coast lines. This would bring the sea into London and up to Cambridge. Ely might be an island again,” says Emily. She has a way of speaking that talks truth, but without hammering it home with an explosion of facts. The risk is high – there’s a 1:10 chance. To make her point she explains that “When I was pregnant a 1:20 chance was high risk medically. You could say the world is in a high risk category of disaster.”

Scientists calculate that the maximum amount of carbon dioxide our atmosphere can hold is 3,000 billion tonnes. Two-thirds of that budget has already been used.

She’s willing to speak out because she’s also a mother. “It’s precisely because I’m fully aware it’s going to impact on my children’s future [they are 2 and 4 years old]. I don’t want in 20 years time for my children to say ‘You knew! Why didn’t you do more to communicate that risk?’. It’s a sense of duty.”

Emily Shuckburgh talks climate change at the Archway Methodist Church
(c) around Britain no plane

So who’s turned up to the Archway with Words Festival to hear this talk? The wrong generation, that’s who. Most of the audience are grey headed. Admittedly it’s a Saturday talk, kicking off at 6.30pm when families with young children are busy making dinner and those 20- and 30-somethings with jobs are Whats Apping their evening out plans. My teenage daughters have also found something better to do – one has just moved into new uni halls, the other is on a sleepover to Netflix binge. 

Behavioural psychologists might draw other conclusions, as George Marshall makes clear in his book Don't Even Think About It: why our brains are wired to ignore climate change.

“It’s quite demotivating,” admits Emily adding that "Martin Luther King didn't give an 'I have a nightmare' speech. “So in the book we wanted to emphasise that it’s not necessarily doom and gloom. Responding to the climate change challenge can bring huge opportunities. A low energy lifestyle could be an improvement. It could improve air quality which is good for people’s health and it could drive new technologies, for example electric vehicles.”

I’ve worked at Friends of the Earth in the past and know that stuff. But so do we all. What I hadn’t realised is that people measure the increases in climate change from 300 million years ago because that was the time of “the greatest mass extinction ever.”

Winnie Kiap, PNG High Commissioner. (c) LPFC

Despite the warnings from Emily Shuckburgh too many of us do too little. But that’s not the case for Pacific island countries.  “For us it is a matter of life and death,” says Winnie Kiap, the Papua New Guinea High Commissioner when I met her at the first fashion show I've attended.  “We already have climate refugees in the outlying islands of Bougainville, the Carteret Islands [1.5m above sea level see here ] . In PNG we use funds for building early warning systems and infrastructure to build resilience,” said the high commissioner.

Pacific art and fashion both include hashtag climate change.

Winnie was speaking at the London Pacific Fashion Collective which used their London Fashion Week runway to highlight #ClimateChangeInThePacific . At the far end was artist Rusiate Lali’s absorbing picture, Shark Attack (metaphor!) and against this fabulous outfits by designers Pania Greenaway (New Zealand), Robert Kennedy (Fiji), Warlukurlangu artists (Australia), Sarah Haoda-Todd (Papua New Guinea/PNG) and Lucie from Samoa displayed their work.

Winnie Kiap, PNG High Commissioner introducing the
London Pacific Fashion Collective designers with
Fiji's Robert Kennedy on the left. (c) LPFC

“Was it just lavalavas (sarongs)?” asked my eldest daughter imagining a collection suitable for humidity and the beach. The answer was absolutely no. London Pacific Fashion Collective – in particular the designers from Samoa and PNG – used their love of their country to create striking designs. The repetition of PNG’s national emblem, a bird of paradise, and patterns borrowed from weaving and cultural tattoos was a winning collection from Sarah Haoda-Todd.  Given the endless criticism of fashion shows that it’s a monoculture of anorexic white beanpoles, an added bonus was that almost all the models were women of colour and several were plus size.

London Pacific Fashion show focusing on #climatechangeinthepacific
 at the Lloyd George Room, National Liberal Club.
(c) LPFC

So who was at the London Pacific Fashion Collective show? All sorts – men and women of all ages, hopefully with some purse power. In contrast to the dour, worthiness of the audience at the Ladybird books (it’s ok I’m only thinking of me) the Polynesian and Melanesian islanders have played an excellent trick. Take the people what they want – beautiful clothes – add national pride and a dose of cultural chic, and then add on the awareness raising about #climatechangeinthepacific. 

“The most important thing you can do is vote. Environmental issues are not high up the political agenda so they don’t get addressed,” says Emily. And of course we all need to inspire people to get involved in the solutions. Bludgeoning us with facts hasn’t been a game-changer. But like the Pacific island nations Britain is an island – and one that has been increasingly blighted by flood damage - and that ought to make us all pay a great deal more attention to tackling climate change.  

In Prince Charles, Tony Juniper and Emily Shuckburgh's Ladybird Book the simple wins include turning down the thermostat (or using the timer effectively), using public transport or low-energy transport more often, take less flights (just one transnational flight uses all of your annual carbon 'budget') and eating less red meat. All of these changes also save money… and go a small way towards saving the world. 

And not just your world, but people living on the coastline like so many people in Pacific nations.

The public scepticism about whether climate scientists are in agreement or not has to be resolved, fast. So perhaps the take home message should be read and share the book. Or get it ordered for your library. And yes, several people have sent a copy to President Trump, and, just as importantly, ordered a copy for sceptical friends and family.

• Ladybird Expert Book for all ages - Climate Change by HRH Prince Charles, Tony Juniper and Dr Emily Shuckburgh
• www.londonpacificfashion.com