The Social Business #61

How not to talk to people about climate change; exploring alternatives to car ownership; Yosser Hughes, and Gareth Southgate.

You may have noticed, if you’ve read previous newsletters, that one topic I keep coming back to is how we can get better at having conversations about the climate crisis.

I’ve acknowledged how hard these conversations can be.

And I’ve explored how you might start some better conversations - perhaps by starting by asking a question about what someone loves doing in their spare time.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Climate Change

So I’m always on the look out for ideas on how to have better conversations with people.

Last Wednesday I was in Manchester for a Carbon Literacy For Sport training session.

I went to the training as next month I’m running a series of free workshops across West Yorkshire, helping community sports clubs to explore how to come up with an Environmental Action Plan.

We watched this short animation during the training session.

The secret?

In short, don’t ambush people.

Instead, listen.

Your goal should be to have a decent conversation, not to convince the other person of anything.

Listen to them. Ask what they think, what they feel, what they’ve experienced.

And when the time’s right, ask permission to share your perspective.

This approach makes a lot of sense to me - and it’s very much in sympathy with what psychologist Renee Lertzman talks about here, when she talks about the importance of “attunement”, or tuning in.

Tuning in

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Imagining a city where you don’t need to own a car

Last Saturday I was invited to imagine a future where I could live in Leeds - and no longer own a car.

The Creative Assembly was hosted by INFUZE - a five year project in which Leeds University is one of the lead partners.

I’ve written before about my family’s nine years not owning a car - and our reluctant return to owning one during COVID restrictions.

The Social Business #59

I enjoyed the event - which brought together around 50 citizens from across Leeds to talk about thoughts, feelings, hopes and fears about how we get around our city - and how we might like to do that in the future.

My main reflection - and I thought the same after contributing to Leeds Citizens Climate Jury - is that when people are offered a space where they can reflect and thoughtfully discuss difficult topics, most people embrace that opportunity.

And as a result, we get richer conversations, where we listen to eachother, respect differences, and explore ways forward that could work for all of us.

We could certainly do with a lot more of that.

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Gizza job

I left my part-time Enterprise Coach role at the end of my contract last week.

I enjoyed the work a lot - and it confirmed for me how valuable tailored, person-centred support can be.

So I’m now #OpenToWork.

You can take the boy out of Liverpool, but you can’t take growing up in 1980s Liverpool out of the boy…

I’m keen to do more freelance work - and you can find out more about what I can offer on my website. I’m also busy applying for jobs - in areas like social innovation, climate action, and social enterprise support.

There’s more about me here, and my CV is here. Thanks for any help you can offer.

Find out more about what I can offer here.

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And finally….

I enjoyed Gareth Southgate’s Dimbleby Lecture a couple of weeks ago - on the challenges facing young men in modern society. I wrote some reflections here - in particular on the dangers of too much focus being placed on individual resilience, and not enough on the difficult context young people are growing up in.