How To Save The World – Find A Great Question!

Posted
27/11/2015
Author
Chris Taylor

The official UN Climate Talks, known as the COP (Conference of Partners) is preceded by a Conference of Youth, known as the COY. This is a UN sponsored event that here in Paris has brought together 5,000 young people from around the world.

 

The atmosphere is fun, unconventional and creative. The workshops include a mixture of learning sessions, activism training and using creative talents to tell the story of climate change.

I am here on behalf of Oasis to support a group of young people who are running a workshop on the future of management education. They care passionately about creating a different kind of education to produce a different kind of decision-maker for the future – but more about that in my next blog.

What has struck me so far has been the quality of the questions that young people are bringing to the table. I mentioned some of these in a recent Facebook post:

  • How do we overcome a sense of separation from the natural world?
  • What do I really love and want to protect from the effects of climate change?
  • How do activists stay connected to the wider population?
  • How do I embody an approach to change that writes the new story rather than perpetuating the old?

I suspect any of us could pick just one of those questions and it would prove a fruitful source for reflection and growth.

The young people here are bringing so much to the process of addressing environmental destruction. They are bringing hope and energy, storytelling and theatre, protest and activism. And crucially they have no stake (yet) in the status quo. This means they are thinking about what comes next, rather than what has been.

But perhaps more important than all this, they are bringing questions that call for deep consideration.

How to Save the World? Find a great question.

Chris Taylor

Associate

Leading on social and environmental change through group processes and personal transformation

Chris Taylor