- “It’s easy to feel totally overwhelmed. Maybe a bit helpless. Powerless. Angry. On fire. Numb. Disconnected. Perhaps all of the above.” My question is, is this how she felt before making this Ted Talk? Is the reason she made the Ted Talk because she felt all of these feelings? I think this a very relatable statement for many people. Personally, I sometimes do feel helpless and feel like one small thing that I do is not going to change anything.
- “And I felt as if I had been dropped into a dark tunnel, given no tools to get out and yet expected to carry on with my everyday life as if everything was normal.” My question is did she have an idea that this is what our World was like before she was in college? Was this the first time she was hearing or learning about the damage that humans were outputting on Earth? I picked this quote because this is something that I can relate to right now. Dealing with the pandemic I too feel as if I have been dropped into a dark tunnel, unsure of how to get out and yet I am told that I need to carry on with my everyday life as if the world around me is not turning into chaos.
- “And so something like climate change, with every new scientific report, documentary, connecting the dots between, you know, what we’re doing and the impact it’s having, it can collectively be pushing us outside of our window of tolerance. And we lose that capacity right?” Since she believes that climate change may be pushing us outside of our window of tolerance, is there anything that can be changed about the way the damages of climate change are being shown to the public that would reduce the fear or denial in order to keep society inside our window of tolerance? Would doing this affect the way people think about climate change, if so how? I think that this quote has truth behind it. If we lose the capacity to be resilient against climate change then there is no way anything is going to change.
- “It’s a very intolerable human experience. And we will do anything to get rid of it and just push it away. And so all that care and concern, it’s there, it just goes down, it goes underground.” How can we make a change so people don’t have to have the feeling of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t?” This quote is very insightful to the psychology behind the stigmas or opinions on the very real topic of climate change.
Thesis – I think this speakers thesis would be something like, “In order to combat climate change, we must come together and look deeper within ourselves to find the answers that have been there all along.”
Yes, she does offer an action plan which is that in order to make change we must all come together and support one another in taking on this challenge. She also says that we must have compassion for ourselves so that we can process these hard times. I do agree with this action plan because I think that if everyone does there part than there will be a dramatic change. Without the help of everyone, climate change will keep getting worse until eventually the Earth is an unsuitable environment for humans. The only thing I think could be added to her action plan is getting exposure. Especially in our generation gaining followers on any social media platform will boost the support that this situation needs.
