I'm a leader to nowhere without you.
I'm a poet on a stage making very little difference.
A consumer sold to caustic contrition.
A person with fear, ready to be fought.
A person with ribs, prized open and heart bloodied
and worried, but beating for cause.
A dreamer that can't actually remember the last time
An eternal optimist until considering my morbidity
and mortality meshed into one.
I don't know who we've become.
Do you remember the moment you lost who you were?
Can you find the very second, the final swipe?
The minute you unowned your innate wisdom
to swallow something futile that tricks you that it's right.
That tricks you that the false is true.
That the only thing important in the universe is you.
Perhaps it was a week or maybe a decade of thought.
It was a passive aggressive waitress
or when someone gave you less
when you knew you deserve more.
It's incredible how easy apathy arrives
when we get entangled in the interest of us thriving.
Who has time to consider others surviving?
There's bills to pay, football to shout out,
women to woo there's a new pair of shoes,
there's that guy in accounts,
and new restaurants just opened.
The universe constantly finishes the conversation
before you've even spoken.
It's tiring being the most important person.
Pull off your misguided and your brand new trainers,
spit out your ego with your Hollywood white retainers,
close the door on this exhausting performance,
so you can open one wide for your neighbors.
That actually offers up something inviting.
What you've shunned for so long
is actually the most exciting thing about you.
Your compassion and tenacity for love,
the space inside of you with its black hole glitter
that carries the weight of a world unimagined above.
You can get there without Bezos,
A rest is as good as a rest.
Who cares if you look good for your age
if the earth doesn't exist for you to stand on it
If glass ceilings are great,
then why when they're pressured with a woman's weight,
they splinter you down and you shatter?
Funny how imperfect the world is
when suddenly you're not just the one who matters.
You can take it for granted,
find shelter in a home without bricks of mortar.
Try articulating your needs without education.
Then find balance on a tight rope of systemic segregation.
Can your life be because it just is,
without your own personal sense of justice?
Let the nightmare of history bombard you awake,
for the potency of potential when you extend your hand,
not just to take, but to promise and shake on agreements,
that you're not just one, not a number,
but the whole sum of the actions you choose.
A participant for participating sake,
not a slider on a spectrum of win or lose.
It might be uncomfortable, perhaps frighteningly new,
but dare to be something much bigger than you.
Dare whilst there's choice and you've got chance to choose.
Dare to consider that the decisions you're making
Go on, see lots of opened eyes.
Take this moment as the start.
Then in your vulnerable state,
in your whittled, smooth heart,
imagine a galaxy salted with stars.
focus on the blue that swells around the green,
held together and turning with a gravitational blue.
Have a moment alone with the world at your feet,
She's seducing you with reduced inequality
and clean drinking waters.
She's a flirt and she's pulling you in.
Before you trip on your tongue
she puts it in a tall glass of fizz
that shatters your mouth to bits.
She cackles and size at your gumption.
See? Things fall apart without responsible consumption.
Something sparkling passes you just like a starship.
A bustling boardroom discussing strong partnerships.
You catch back your breath and she shows you a country.
When you thought you knew, but this one is thriving,
no one's poor, no one's hungry.
The signs of industry and innovation.
My God, is that infrastructure?
You can't wait to tell your mates.
You've seen the sick prioritized and looked after.
You're mustering the courage to ask this new earth
but before she can decline your offer of relations,
she smacks you with a book titled quality education.
Give it to those kids, she says.
Look how tall you'll help them stand.
Geez, you think, a sense of normal is bad.
You imagine even life below this water
is better than life on our land.
She twists you and she swings you
a whole turn then a fraction,
as you dance to her singing innate climate action.
She throws you with her all.
made the jumpers in the field that you fall.
do some work in economic growth, as he scores.
You dribble the ball, the same shape as the earth.
It really is at your feet and you're pimpled with nerves.
You pass it on gently and see how good it feels.
This time, it volleys way overhead.
Back into the sky, you're back in the present.
Burning with an idea of new.
Growing with an optimism.
We love to joke that we loath, but that was the old you.
Now you're someone who can strip their title of importance
and instead, stick it back on to the next thing that you do.
But with a fierce expanding capacity that wants better,
It really is life or death.
(audience cheers)
(audience applauds)
So again, thank you so much to the wonderful Charly Cox
for joining us, and opening with that incredible poem.
I hope that you take some of those amazing words to heart.
We will be sending a copy of that to everybody
So please reread it at your leisure,
and very, very wise words.
on what promises to be the most incredibly
inspiring conversation around youth mental health,
we wanted to raise another issue around mental health.
Mental health covers all of us,
every demographic, every country.
that's been incredibly important to Salesforce
So much so that with our friends at WEF,
and Deloitte, and UNICEF,
we launched the UpLink Global Mental Health Challenge.
This challenge was to bring together
organizations' concepts, and innovators
to support solving and finding incredible innovations
to help one of the greatest issues of our time,
and that is mental health.
We're so proud that we recently announced the winners
of this mental health challenge.
And we wanted to take the opportunity today
to introduce you to one of those.
All of these organizations
have been working tirelessly to create solutions
to fill the gaps that we're going to hear about today.
The gaps in providing mental health services
across all demographics, to all communities.
I would be delighted if we could be joined on stage
the president of Institutional Partnerships
one of the amazing winners of this UpLink Challenge,
and he's going to tell you a little bit
about why this subject is so important,
and why the UpLink Challenge
has been such an incredible program to work on.
Please join me in welcoming Muneer.
That was such an incredible poem, thanks for that.
I especially appreciated the moment to breathe.
It's a little bit nerve-wracking when you come up here,
in front of a lot of people
and have to speak about the work that you do,
thank you to UpLink, and to Salesforce,
for recognizing the Trevor Project's work.
I work with the Trevor Project.
We are the world's largest suicide prevention
and crisis intervention organization
for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,
queer, and questioning young people under the age of 25.
We have been around for 25 years
and we are serving many thousands of people
Our research has found that
there are 1.8 million young people, LGBTQ young people,
who are attempting suicide in the US alone
We're reaching about 200,000 of them,
but we obviously are not reaching 1.8 million people.
Globally, there are 40 million LGBTQ young people
who are considering suicide every single year.
And as I speak just about the US,
when you actually do the math,
every 45 seconds, an LGBTQ young person
is attempting suicide in the US.
So this issue is actually quite massive,
and the scale of this problem is huge.
the work that we do is, of course,
focused on LGBTQ young people,
but mental health affects us all.
And one of the reasons why we are here at Davos
is to center mental health as a core humanitarian issue.
We believe that we need to talk about mental health
as a conversation, as a cause area
when we talk about disease, poverty, inequality,
climate change, and any other issues that we're considering
and talking about at Davos.
We did a research survey last year with 35,000
LGBTQ young people in the US.
We found that 60% of them wanted mental health care,
but could not receive it.
And that's a little scary right after COVID.
When you think about the challenges that young people face,
LGBTQ young people are four times more likely
to attempt suicide than their straight and cisgender peers.
Almost half of all trans people have attempted suicide
at least once in their life before the age of 25.
So what we are trying to do
is make sure that young people have somewhere to turn
in their darkest moments.
They have somebody to talk to,
an empathetic person in an apathetic year.
In a few years, we're expanding our work globally.
We're launching in Mexico this fall,
and hopefully launching in four other countries
because obviously this is a global problem.
And our goal is to make sure that as many people
in this room and broadly at Davos
are talking about mental health as a core cause area.
So if there's one thing you can take away from my remarks is
when you're having conversations about any other cause,
ask the questions about how can we talk about mental health?
How can we center mental health as a conversation
to better understand the issues we're trying to cover?
One of the things that we talked about yesterday,
was also hosted by Salesforce, was about climate change.
And a young person gave a great example of how girls
are having to skip schools to take care of their cattle
or take care of their families.
Now, of course, she's likely suffering
some mental health concerns,
but also her parents are as well, right?
So we have to talk about the consequences
of the realities that people are facing every day.
So I'm really excited to be here.
And if you want to learn more about the Trevor Project,
And now without further ado,
I'd love to welcome Zahra to the stage
who is going to start off our fireside chat.
Just need to get comfy, going to be here for a bit.
I'm the CEO of Salesforce
And I am thrilled to be here having this discussion
But before we get to that,
I just want to set a bit of context.
Now, you heard the most amazing story
but let's just talk about the mental health crisis.
We are in the midst of a mental health crisis.
There's nothing glamorous about it.
It's not a social cache to be mentally ill.
It's glamorized in some ways,
but let's just be really clear.
and we're seeing more and more incidents
of mental health cases and mental health issues.
And when we think about our backdrop,
and I was commenting, I was at a dinner yesterday,
and the speakers that were there
were really, really stimulating, but I left with no hope.
It was pretty, pretty gloomy.
And I don't think I've ever experienced
an uncertain world in my lifetime
as much as we are experiencing now.
And if I think about our young people today,
actually, all our people today,
but particularly our young,
we are absolutely seeing an onslaught of challenges.
You know, mental health issues, of course,
exacerbated by the pandemic,
lack of access to equal opportunities,
raging racial inequality, raging racial inequality,
deep-rooted anger, deep-rooted mistrusts.
And compared to all of those things that, you know,
we don't have, we don't see the respite.
People don't have respite
from this onslaught of information,
whether it's false or whether it's true,
it's here, it's relentless.
And actually against that backdrop,
increasing pressure on the systems
designed to support people with mental health.
So we've got more cases, more incidents,
and a really tragic stat is that 75% of young people today
or are not getting the help they need
for their mental health issues.
That's quite an alarming stat.
And over 50% of people are still ashamed or embarrassed,
the stigma is real, embarrassed to ask for that help.
And if I focus on two key issues, one of many,
don't worry, there will be hope
in the form of my guest speaker,
I'm not going to depress you all, but if I think about two,
my generation and the generation before me
need to take notice, the actions of our generations
have impacted future generations.
And I'm not sure everybody understands
that the anxiety that young people feel today is real,
and Lancet did an amazing piece of research,
and they said that 84% of young people feel genuine fear,
anxiety, sadness, uncertainty around climate,
the state of the climate today.
That's not good enough, actually that's not good enough.
And nearly half of those young people surveyed
felt that it had a lack of climate action
or climate fear had a real negative impact
on how they were living their life today.
So we have to take notice, we have to take notice of that.
Businesses, you know, Charlotte mentioned,
Salesforce take wellbeing very seriously.
Actually, many businesses are doing great things.
They take wellbeing very seriously.
But if I look at the UK, just the UK economy alone,
70 billion days are lost,
yet mental health is the leading cause of absence,
so that's the leading cause of sickness absence.
That amounts to about 2.4 billion pounds to our economy.
But actually, the cost is much wider
it erodes organization's ability to innovate,
it just has so many knock on implications,
But as I said, there is hope,
there is hope in the many young voices out there.
It comes from people like Vanessa Nakate,
a climate justice activist, sorry, can you hear me?
Elizabeth Wathuti, a brilliant climate activist and poet,
Jazz Thornton, a health activist,
and the March for our Lives Anti-gun activist,
and my very special guest today, Jack Harries.
Having grown up in a family of filmmakers,
Jack, you understand the power of storytelling,
whether you're campaigning for the future of our planet,
or creating the brilliant content that you do,
you really do shine a spotlight on global issues,
social empowerment, and environmental education.
You give a voice to those that really need it.
And you tell stories that really need to be heard.
So before we do that, let's roll a brilliant clip.
It's not an easy thing to talk about.
But what's become clear to me is that it's a huge issue
for people all around the world.
Knowing what's coming is really frightening.
Someone is sitting on my chest.
How much I worry, how much I fear.
What can I do? What's going to happen?
And so I want to understand what we can do about it.
It's so important that we use this anxiety
And how ultimately, we can build tools for resilience.
Grief is a good feeling to go through,
because you'll come out of it stronger.
No matter who you are, it's becoming clear to me
that climate anxiety is easier to cope with
when you know others also share those feelings.
It is not something that we are alone in.
We are all fighting it and feeling that anxiety together.
We could be on the sustainability revolution.
This shared climate anxiety by my generation,
that is going to be a massive force of willpower
to push us in a positive direction.
if it's possible to turn climate anxiety
from a rational but paralyzing fear into a force for change.
Please welcome, Jack Harries.
Hello, my lovely, come sit down.
We are so inspired, you know.
I've had the pleasure of even just seeing you in action
these last couple of days,
and you know, we're going to talk about
your brilliant Seat at the Table Series
but can you start by telling us,
you know, how did your journey begin?
What was your calling? Why this?
Yeah, I mean, firstly, I'd like to start by just saying
thank you for creating this space to have this conversation.
As you said so brilliantly in your introduction,
it's not an easy conversation to have.
And it's so important to create space
for conversations like these at major events like these.
And it's amazing to be in the room,
joined by young people I can see sat over there,
amazing youth activists over here,
and people representing organizations
like the Trevor Project, unbelievable organizations
that are literally changing lives,
so it's an honor to be in this room.
My journey, how did it start?
In a very unassuming way.
meant to be revising for my A levels,
and procrastinating by watching YouTube videos.
And this was back in 2011.
It's sort of hard to imagine now,
but YouTube was in its sort of nascent stages then
in terms of like, there was no such thing as a YouTuber,
I don't think the word influencer was around,
which I think, you know, was a better time, but anyway.
And to me, it seemed like just an incredibly exciting space.
Like I started to watch these videos,
and I would see young people sharing stories
And the idea that you could broadcast a message
from your bedroom and reach a global audience
to me just seemed so incredibly exciting,
and it was creative, and it was free form,
and it really got my imagination going.
And so the day I finished my A-levels,
I sort of passed by the skin of my teeth,
and created a YouTube channel.
And I called it JacksGap, 'cause I had a gap year,
you know, you take a year off after school.
And the name tells you the longevity I imagined this having.
I thought it would just be maybe for that year,
I'd make some silly videos,
you know, share it with friends and family,
But here I am, 10 years later.
You created a new career niche, you know.
And what I really like is that
you do focus on mental health.
You do spotlight on mental health.
Why was it so important to do that?
I think I've always felt that there's a real chasm
in terms of support and tools,
particularly for young people dealing with mental health.
It's something I've had experience of myself
throughout my whole life,
And I became particularly aware of the dichotomy between
the self that I was presenting on social media,
someone who was always happy, doing interesting things,
and how I was feeling inside.
And I always remember going to a school reunion
like four or five years into running the YouTube stuff,
and I'd been battling, you know, major depression that year.
And I had friends come up to me and they were like,
god, you're doing so well, you seem so happy.
And I suddenly became so aware of the distance between
the reality of what was happening.
And so I decided to make a video just talking about
And it always blows my mind.
Like I did that one video,
but weekly, I still get emails today about that video.
And I don't think there's anything special about it.
I think it just shows you
what a lack of resources there are out there
of people talking about mental health.
And I think what makes mental health worse
is the idea that you're the only one experiencing it,
the sense of isolation you feel
when you're going through it.
And so in that sense, the solution is pretty simple,
is in that we just need to talk about it,
and to validate how people feel.
And, I think, in me taking a step to just share
I started, then when I would go to social events,
meet friends, and they would say like,
I'd say, actually, you know, I've really been struggling.
And the most amazing thing would happen
is their shoulders would drop.
And they would say, oh my god, me too, yeah.
And this incredible bond was formed.
And you suddenly realize there's so much power
in being vulnerable when sharing your experience.
It's like the pretense drops, which is so, so important.
It's really interesting you say, you know,
that the platform of social media
enabled you to amplify the power of storytelling
and reach people, and yet it's also, you know,
in contrast amplifying some of these things
that people can't feel any respite from.
It's a very powerful tool set.
You're going to say something?
Oh yeah, yeah. It's a total contradiction in that sense.
But I think that's why it's our responsibility as creators,
people who are on these platforms
to sort of break through that sort of shiny veneer
that perfectionism that, I think,
we're all guilty of portraying
and sort of perpetuating and to be more real.
And it's something I sort of try
and challenge myself to do every day.
And I think it would make social media as a lot better
And I was going to say that if I focus on,
if we just focus on youth mental health challenges,
it's really important that, you know,
other people that don't necessarily feel that experience
it's important that they don't dictate
It's really important that young voices
can have a seat at the table as it were.
So if I think to your Seat at the Table, tell us about this.
Yeah, so Seat at the Table is a mad idea
that I had with Colin Butfield.
I don't know if he's here, but he's here at WEF.
He's one of the amazing people behind Studio Silverback,
the company that do a lot of David Attenborough's programs,
Our Planet, A Life on our Planet, Blue Planet,
all the programs we've grown up watching
and learning about the natural world.
And he came to me a year and a half ago and said,
you know, did I want to do something on YouTube
And it's long been a passion of mine.
And we were in the run-up to COP26 at that point.
And so we came up with this idea
of trying to platform the voices
to reframe climate crisis as a social justice issue,
you know, climate justice,
an urgent issue of social justice and human rights,
and really putting the humans at the forefront
And we were very aware that, you know,
at really sort of high-level events like this,
often those who are most impacted aren't represented,
they don't have a seat at that table
or that negotiating table.
And so we spent six months traveling the length for the UK.
I went on a journey from the very bottom of the UK
to the top to get to COP26.
And we connect with filmmakers
and activists and storytellers all around the world
to capture their voices, their experiences of what it's like
to live on the front lines of climate change.
And hopefully, it's an urgent reminder
that climate change isn't this far off distant thing,
you know, perhaps it is for us living here
in this sort of wealthy Global North,
but for many people, it's already an everyday reality.
And the mental health impacts of that are severe
So we collected these voices and we took it up to COP26.
And we were lucky enough to be able to project that film
onto the side of the conference.
I don't if anyone saw Sir David Attenborough's
opening speech, but within that,
the footage that we captured was featured,
and although Sir David Attenborough's speech
was so mind-blowingly powerful,
for me, the most powerful moments
were when he stopped speaking,
and he gave the stage to the voices
of the climate heroes that we had connected with
And we also had a chance to have a room inside
the blue zone, the seat at the table room.
And in there, we had the chairs of all of our interviewees
and we had our film playing on the wall.
And so even though our characters
weren't able to physically be there,
they were watching as the negotiations physically happened
Do you think it resonated?
it wasn't about me being heard,
but our characters being heard,
and yeah, I felt very emotional stood in that room,
actually seeing the faces of these amazing characters
that we spent six months connecting with,
and to see them representing in the room,
and to speak to Alok Sharma, for example,
and to see him watch the film and how that impacted him.
human stories move us, they move us to act,
and that's what we have to do with the climate crisis.
And we have to remind ourselves
the severity of this situation
and the people who are being affected.
And God knows if it made a difference,
but I think we tried our absolute best.
what you saw there was sort of two additional episodes,
which YouTube commissioned about climate anxiety,
which released for Mental Health Awareness Month,
And that came about because out of everyone we met,
the consistent theme was this sense of paralysis,
the disconnect between what they knew was happening
in the world and the lack of action
that was happening at events like COP.
And so we made these two episodes.
And that was a really catharsis process for me,
a cathartic process for me, making those.
I love how you say you take the paralysis
and you turn it into a force for change
And so on that topic of climate anxiety,
at the beginning I said, look, it's real.
And I'm not sure everyone understands that.
And I don't mean to talk on behalf of folks,
but, you know, you hear different perspectives.
And it's here, and it's affecting people,
and you refer to it in your own series.
And you've talked about it now.
Is it real? Is it a reality?
And what do people need to understand,
or is it that young people now have more access
to information and they're more aware,
Yeah, I think, it's often,
there's often a really oversimplified,
and sort of quite damaging narrative
that people are just more like,
young people just have more mental illness these days,
which I think is totally the wrong way to look at it.
And you mentioned the report at the start,
in your opening thing, The Lancet Report.
So one of the amazing people we interviewed
in our documentary was a woman called Caroline Hickman.
She's been looking at climate anxiety for the last 10 years.
And it was a global report that surveyed 10,000 young people
on the topic for climate anxiety.
And as you said, it found,
I don't know the exact numbers,
but, you know, way more than 60,
84% of people were worried or extremely worried
They expressed particular feelings of anxiety,
fear, grief is a big one, sadness,
but also these emotions of guilt and shame,
which I think are really interesting ones to think about.
And I think it was like 65% felt,
said that they felt humanity was doomed, which is like,
just think about that statement for a moment.
It's a sort of devastating thought. But just to add to that,
why I think was the much more interesting part of that study
was when they looked at young people's feelings
about government in action.
And the sense of betrayal, right?
And 68% of young people felt
they had been betrayed by governments,
and for future generations,
are far more than that felt the governments
And so it's to come back to that point that,
it's not just an anxiety about what's happening
it's seeing what's happening in the world,
For many young people in the Global South,
witnessing it is an everyday reality.
And then seeing the total lack of action from governments
and corporations, that's where the anxiety sets in.
It's this discombobulation,
almost as sort of gaslighting by world leaders
to sort of pathologize these feelings,
oh, it's okay, it's not that bad.
And Caroline Hickman says this thing,
which I think is so powerful, she says,
we have a crisis of sanity in young people.
Like you should be feeling this way.
This is a sane, rational or sanity.
It's a legitimate feeling.
Yeah.
It's a sane and rational way to feel
when you're reading this stuff.
And so I think the first step
is just to make space for that,
to allow young people to feel these feelings,
to validate them in their feelings,
to say, it's okay that you feel like that.
It's natural that you feel like that.
In fact, I think we need to move through those emotions
in order to truly start to take action.
And actually, everyone else needs to notice,
Can I go back to social media for a second, Jack,
how powerful that is for you in spreading your message.
You know, I was asked to ask you,
you know, what key takeaways have you learned
You've used it as a force for good.
So what can we all learn from that?
Yeah, I have a complicated relationship with social media.
But you know, what I will say on that,
I think over the last few years in particular,
I've watched social media really transform
And I saw that really happen around
the brutal murder of George Floyd.
I think we all remember that time when we were in lockdown,
you know, of course, as well,
we were all sort of suddenly restrained at home.
And I feel like young people,
you know, we're faced with the greatest challenge
of any generation to come before us,
but we also have more tools than any generation before,
and social media is one of those incredibly powerful tools.
And it feels as though young people are waking up
to the power of social media as a space for activism,
as a space to educate one another and to organize,
and so sort of riding off the back of that change in 2020,
I created a platform called Earthrise,
which just started off as an Instagram account,
and it's gone on to grow to be much bigger.
But that is a platform to do just that,
to educate young people about climate change,
to make it more accessible as well,
'cause I think many young people,
it's an incredibly overwhelming topic.
And when you learn about it,
you're made to feel like you don't know enough,
you're made to feel like you're a hypocrite.
That it's not really as bad as you think.
And so we wanted to create a space
that would welcome young people and say,
it's okay that you don't know enough.
It's okay that you're overwhelmed. We all are.
Let's go on this journey together and learn.
And we've grown that to a community of over 260,000 people.
And it's been a real catharsis for me actually,
having those conversations with young people.
We're so much stronger when we go in it together.
And it's the sense of isolation that makes it so much worse.
I was going to say, you think it makes people
feel less lonely, you know, when they're part of this?
And we get that feedback a lot.
And I think that's the key of tackling this,
the climate crisis, remembering our sense of community.
Now you are an inspiring character and you get out a bit,
but is there somebody that strikes you
I know you meet a lot of inspiring people,
but who sticks out for you, and why?
What's their message you'd like to share here?
That is a really hard question.
I mean, without a shadow of a doubt,
the only thing that gives me hope in this space
is young people. And that's not to put it on young people,
'cause I think often, as well older generations can be like,
it's okay, young people are,
they're tackling it, they're out on the streets, right?
I don't think it should be their responsibility.
But it is young people that inspire me.
And it's in particular youth activists,
people like Helena Gualinga who's here somewhere,
it's people like Vanessa Nakate you named,
but it was also people that I met on my journey as well,
I met an amazing array of young people
who were taking matters into their own hands.
And the point I want to make on that is activism
can look like so many different things.
It can look like what Helena and Nina
going around the world, joining protests,
you know, holding leaders to account,
but it can also just look like
having a difficult conversation with a friend
It can look like tending to a vegetable patch
It can look like working in a local renewable energy
You know, I remember one of the most impactful experiences
I had on that journey across the UK
was up in the Orkney Islands,
which is one of the most northern tips of the UK.
And I met a young man called Ryan.
He was working on something called the orbital two,
which is a tidal turbine,
so it's like a renewable form of energy.
And he was 27, so a year younger than me.
And we stood on this giant yellow floating thing,
that was creating this renewable energy.
And he didn't really know my background.
And he said, 'cause I was very involved
with Extension Rebellion for a while,
and he was like, I just don't get all these young people
getting out the streets and getting arrested.
They're wasting their time.
Why don't they just get on with it and do something?
And I looked at him, stood on this amazing tidal turbine,
Like Ryan has just got on with it and done it.
And so those are the people that inspire me.
And it doesn't have to be big and sexy
kind of type of activism.
It could just look like taking action in your own community
and that's the way we're going to create change.
So take action and be more Ryan
is what we need to take away from this.
Now, you talked about your wonderful experience with,
you know, David Attenborough's production crew,
Does this mean you're kind of stepping up
to be the next David Attenborough?
Is that what we are to expect from you?
There's only one David Attenborough.
Not for a second to entertain the idea
that I could fill those shoes.
But what an absolute privilege it's been
to be able to have a chance to meet him.
I've met him three times now,
and every time I'm just as nervous as the last,
you know, it's literally like meeting royalty.
The presence that man has is amazing.
And just to think about his lifetime as well, you know,
both in the sense of like as a broadcaster,
he put color television on in the UK
And think about the journey he's been on.
He is the OG broadcaster, you know,
he has learned how to communicate these messages,
and, I think, he's caused all of us to fall in love
And, you know, he's a champion of hope and humanity,
and such an inspiring storyteller,
but also what he's seen in terms of the environment,
I think no one will ever witness
what's the David Attenborough has witnessed
and that he saw the kind of nature at its most flourishing,
you know, like before they really understood
the climate ecological crisis we're facing,
and he's watched that incredibly rapid decline.
And I see him wearing this sort of role as an activist.
And I don't think it comes to him naturally.
I don't think it's what he ever set out to do,
but he understands the importance of it
and the importance of using his voice,
and yeah, he's a huge inspiration to me
and I know for so many people around the world,
and people like him and Jane Goodall will live on forever.
Yeah, what is next for you then?
So if it's not the next David Attenborough,
are you allowed to say, or should we move on?
Can I just tell you, can I just tell you,
I actually remember black and white TV,
this is really depressing.
Things changed so fast, you know.
It was only 10 years ago that YouTube started
and social media and it's hard to,
I was watching documentary where
two people were talking about having created email,
like they were the first people to make email,
But what's next? What's next?
Just on that point though,
I think there's a catharsis in that is that like,
it's very recent that we got ourselves into this mess.
We've only had fossil fuels for 150 years,
like that's a really mind-blowing thought,
this way that we all live in this
completely globalized world is very new and very recent.
And it gives me hope that if we've got ourselves
into this mess in one human lifetime,
we can get ourselves out of it in less.
You know, we want to keep growing Earthrise
as a platform to communicate climate.
I'd like to do a lot more about mental health.
I'm really interested in the intersection
between mental health and the climate crisis.
I think the change that we need to see in the world
and so I want to do more work around that.
I'm currently working on a series called The Breakdown,
which is a sort of like an explainer series
about climate change for water and network,
and a few other things that we're cooking up at the moment.
We can't wait. We can't wait.
We anticipate all of that with joy.
If there's one thing you want this room,
this room of esteemed and lovely people,
you want them to take away, what would it be?
Yeah, god, that's a very hard thing.
You can say whatever you like.
I think the first takeaway
that I'd like to leave you guys with is,
I feel like a theme of the conversations
I've been having here at Davos,
and I've seen other people having, is listening.
You know, we've done these amazing listening sessions
and learning to listen to one another.
And I'd like people to listen more to young people,
and not just to listen to young people,
but like listen really deeply
at what the young people in those clips are saying,
the fear that they're experiencing,
Don't pathologize it, you know, they're not ill.
They're really feeling what's happening in the world,
and let's use that emotion to act, to really take action.
And so, that's the main thing I would say.
But alongside that, there's three H's,
which I think are really useful.
Humility, Humanity, and Hope.
I think we all need a greater dose of humility
to accept that we haven't got it right,
that a lot of the stories we've been telling are broken
We need humanity to put the people
at the forefront of those stories,
those who are on the front lines of this crisis
but also the amazing people who are coming up
let's lift up their voices.
And by the way, that's often indigenous communities,
people who have had that ancient land knowledge
We need an active sense of hope.
And Jane Goodall talks about that so brilliantly.
And, you know, let's not sugarcoat it.
We're facing a collapse of our climate and ecosystems,
that's a very real reality, but what comes after that
is a reorganization and a regrowth.
And so let's think about,
what is that world we want to create
on the other side of this?
How do we put people at the heart of that world?
How do we put planet at the heart of that world?
And I truly believe that these ideas aren't new ideas,
they all exist in the world already,
and many of them have existed for a long, long time,
we just need to bring those ideas to the forefront.
Now, Charlotte's going to kill me,
'cause I actually missed one of the clips.
She's glaring at me right now,
so I'm really sorry about that.
But we are going to go to one final clip.
The thing about this issue is that
it isn't going away anytime soon.
In fact, it's likely going to get worse before it gets better.
For me, I think, the thing that
I'm going to take away the most from this journey
is just voicing how I feel,
taking the time to check in on your friends and ask,
And allowing space for us not to be okay as well,
just to express that you're struggling,
because that's not only okay,
but it's natural in the face of this crisis.
For so long, I've allowed my climate anxiety
It lightly will, at times, again in the future.
But now I feel I have the tools to move past
None of us can save the world on our own,
but I've found that by realizing my anxiety is shared
by many other young people around the world,
by grieving for what I know will be lost,
and by joining many others in taking action
where I live, I find it easier to cope.
And even more than that, it's given me the belief that
from our generation's climate anxiety
can come the determination to really change our future,
and look after each other whilst doing so.
Before we say goodbye to you,
I think we've got time for Q and A.
And I'm sure like everyone else
who is not a young person in the audience,
we want to know how can we amplify youth voice,
not just in the ways that you've said,
or are there any other things that we can do
in whatever role, or whatever influence, or whatever power
that we have to make sure that those voices,
or do you have any concrete suggestions?
Yeah, wow. Big question, big question.
Yeah, it's filled me with so much joy to see young people
infiltrating events like this.
Well, infiltrating is the wrong word,
but to see young people dotted around,
and like to have their presence to events like this,
I think is so, so important.
And just to give space for that, you know.
And I was up at COP26 last year,
and there's an amazing youth presence there
out in the streets, outside the walls of that conference,
you know, I marched with thousands of young people
from all around the world, making their voices heard,
but there are very few people inside the walls,
inside the conference, as a part the negotiating table,
having an actual seat at that table.
It's their future that's at stake here.
And I think young people have this sort of audacity
to dream up another world.
sort of like childish, like imagination and naivety
because we have to question everything.
And so just inviting young people into those spaces.
And that fills me with hope to see.
people like Helena and Nina and, you know,
people who are on the reality,
on the frontline of this reality already.
I'd love to see more of those at the negotiating table.
Thank you so much. I did also hear one thing
that it's not just one token young person as well,
it's having a few that gives that,
not just that feeling that it's on this side
so I agree with that, 100%
I'm going to take her home.
Good, but I have a question for you.
How long are you a YouTuber for some years or so?
How long have I been doing it?
I've been doing it for 10 years.
So I started when I was 18 and I'm 29.
So such been doing it for 11 years.
But I love it. I feel very lucky to do something
that I feel passionate about.
you have so many tools at your fingertips to go and do
what you're passionate about.
So you should pursue that.
Are you inspired by Jack?
Winner. Thank you so much.
How does it feel like to be a YouTuber?
It feels really good to be a YouTuber.
I think it feels really good to use social media
to connect with other people,
'cause it reminds you that you're not alone.
I think that's the most amazing thing about social media
is that you can broadcast from your bedroom
and you can connect with amazing people around the world.
And for me, it felt like the world opened up
when I started making films online.
I got to meet amazing people from all sorts of countries,
people I never would've met otherwise,
and it's taught me so much about the world and about myself.
So I would encourage yourself to do that, and to travel,
'cause you'll never know what will inspire in you.
Are you going to be a YouTuber?
You have to think about it, I think.
In which country do I live?
But I've been fortunate enough to travel
and see a few different countries.
Do you want to start a YouTube channel?
What would you make YouTube videos about?
Yeah, I really like ponies.
I think we need more pony content on YouTube.
I have one more question.
What do you do when you're not on camera?
So, I'm really boring when I'm not on camera.
What do I do when I'm not on camera? I don't know.
Spend a lot of time editing the videos.
That takes a little bit of time.
But my favorite thing is to be on camera,
'cause then I get to be my truest self
and I get to communicate and connect with people.
But other than that, I just sat on my bedroom
These were great questions, Lucy.
I can see you're thinking of another one.
(Ryan and audience laughing)
Are you going to do another one?
because when I'm not playing what I use,
what I like to play, then when it's really hot,
then I'm in the pond or something like that.
So you play in the pond and that cools you down?
Or when I'm not in school.
When you're not in school.
Oh, is that mine or is that yours?
Lucy, thank you.
Lovely to meet you, Lucy.
Should we give you another mic?
I think you can take that to Charlotte, I've got one here.
Everybody, a round of applause for Lucy.
(audience cheers)
(audience applauds)
I'll look out for that YouTube channel,
the pony YouTube channel.
They were great questions.
Oh, we've got one over here.
Ah, yes. Thank you so much, Jack.
I'm Joshua, I'm with Misawa,
the mental wellness impact investing fund.
And we are looking a lot at
how do we also invest in working on youth and mental health,
or child's mental health.
We know that 50% of mental illness happens before you're 14.
So that is a huge thing that we need to be focusing on
in connection, which you're doing so well,
with weaving all of the areas of mental health
and climate change, et cetera together.
In your experience, what have you found has been the fulcrum
to get more traction on weaving these areas of mental health
And as we, older people, what should we be doing more?
Can you explain the question a bit more?
What have been the things that you've found have had
and it has been a fulcrum point to be able to
get through that resonance that you're looking for,
as you're connecting mental health climate anxiety
I think, just speaking about it,
just like being vulnerable with how we feel.
I think there's a huge taboo around mental illness,
and talking about our mental health, I think,
'cause we're afraid that it makes us seem weak
and not worthy I feel like.
Particularly, in young men, I think,
that they're sort of very stigmatized.
And just talking about it
is the only sort of solution I have,
'cause I think when you speak about it,
it gives other people permission to talk about it too
And I think we need to make more spaces to do that.
I don't know if that answered your question.
I think this gentleman in the blue?
I'm coming to you in a minute.
So my name is Fatima Zahari,
and I'm a global shaper from Morocco.
So when it comes to advocacy for both climate
and mental health, we need storytelling.
We need that narrative shift to happen.
And, I think, as advocates,
we need to also work on building our own narrative
and then connecting it to that global narrative.
So I think kind of, you know,
you as a storyteller have been doing that
what advice would you have on,
how to shape your own personal narrative
and connect it to that global narrative
in a meaningful way that, you know,
gives you purpose and keeps you going despite the hurdles?
Hmm, yeah, that's a really good question.
I love your global shaper.
Is that what you introduced?
Yes.
That's such a cool title.
I want to be a global shaper.
Yeah, there was one clip that was missing from that,
which I think might have given more context to that.
But I think it's absolutely vital
when it comes to this issue,
that there is a greater diversity of stories
It's not just for people who look like me
to be telling stories. And I think that was the central aim
of Seat at the Table, was to lift up voices
from all different walks of life and to empower.
Everyone's a storyteller.
Everyone has a story to tell.
And I think we need to create more tools to empower people
to tell those stories, to give permission
for them to tell their stories,
we talked about listening,
we talked about validating people.
I think people really feel validated
when they see themselves in something.
And I had an opportunity,
last month, I went to Antarctica on a ship
to go and look at the effects of climate change.
And on that ship, were 100 youth activists
from all around the world.
And we screened the final Seat at the Table film we made,
which is comprised of voices from all around the world.
And it was amazing to watch the impact that had
on the people in the room,
'cause I think for the first time,
a lot of them saw themselves up on the screen,
they saw themselves reflected in that narrative,
and the power of that can't be underestimated.
And so, I think, we need a greater diversity
And I think that's what's amazing about platforms like
is it sort of democratizes storytelling to a degree,
but I think greater support needs to happen
for storytellers to be able to tell their own stories.
And that's changing, you know,
I think the pandemic has helped that as well in a way is,
we don't need to fly around the world to tell stories.
We can empower local storytellers.
We don't need to burn fossil fuels to tell stories.
And, you know, with equipment becoming cheaper,
more accessible, I think, that's easier,
but there's a lot of work to be done there, I think, yeah.
Okay, we got time for one more before we wrap up.
We've got the gentlemen here in the blue.
And these are questions that not I'm asking,
but these are questions that you could be asked
And it's very easy to collect ourselves in this room,
and on a scale from -1, 0, 1, where one is advocate,
and what you're doing -1 is, what if we fail?
All of us here are zeros and ones,
how do we speak to the minus ones?
How do we get them on board?
How do we get the people who are resigned
from believing that it will change?
Thank you for that question.
I think it's a good question.
And I have many days where that question comes into my mind.
that way of thinking of like,
what if we fail, what's the point?
It's just another form of denial.
It's the flip side of this isn't happening.
And I think there are many people
that went from climate change isn't happening to,
so there's nothing we can do about it,
so I'm not going to take action.
It's a cheap way out, you know.
We can't afford to think like that.
And also I would ask like, what do you mean by failure?
Like, are we going to stop climate change?
No. It's here, it's happening. And as I said in the clip,
it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
But that isn't the end of things, right?
There is like, we talk about this idea of collapse
and something, I think is a really interesting theory,
which is worth looking more into
is the idea of the adaptive cycle,
and it's something that happens
throughout the natural world all around us.
Think about an ant colony.
It'll grow and grow and grow until it gets too big,
and then it'll reorganize itself,
and then it'll grow again.
And it's a cyclical cycle.
There is no endpoint. There is no failure.
It happens throughout the whole of the natural world.
And it's quite terrifying thought, in some ways,
but there's also a lot of hope in that thought.
Let's think about what comes on the other side of this.
Let's not get stuck on that sort of fear
and that sense of paralysis,
which is easy to do when you think about this topic,
because it's completely overwhelming,
and that can you have that flight or fright, right?
either want to run away from it or you just completely freeze,
but we need to move through that,
and think about what comes on the other side.
And I just think it's a cheap way out,
so if you're like, well, we've failed,
you know, there's nothing we can do,
'cause there's so much we can do.
And there is another world on the other side of this
and it's up to us entirely,
to make it more beautiful than the one we have today.
And then I'm sure Jack will be able to come
and talk to anybody else,
I'm promising you to people,
that have further questions.
Hi, my name is John Paul Jose,
I'm an activist from India,
and also a youth ambassador with Arctic Basecamp.
we could ensure the authority,
and also have power and resources bring the change,
because youth activists are becoming like a class
like, we have business class, political class.
there might be more youth activists,
but we are aiming for change,
but it is like the current reality is dragging us,
everything into this crisis to follow this class,
to be that youth activist.
we don't have time, so we need to act now.
So as a class of youth activist grows,
how could we like contain to be a youth activist?
and like making young people to shrink their normal life.
So how could we ensure that from this second onwards,
those who have resources and those who have power,
like act now, how could we ensure that,
rather than we all becoming activists for years and years?
Yeah, it's a good question.
We don't have time for everyone to sort of grow up
and become a youth activist and take action,
we have to take action now, yesterday,
I think it requires all of us to become activists, you know.
And we've talked a lot about young people today,
but it isn't just the responsibility of young people,
it's the responsibility of all of us to take action.
And I think, if I look at what's happened
I think what young people have been so successful at,
the school strikes, Greta Thunberg, is sounding the alarm.
It's like a huge alarm bell has gone off,
and I think we're all feeling it.
We're seeing those ramifications happen
throughout events like WEF.
What we need to do now is take action.
We need to point people towards the exit.
So we need to start to move,
because we understand the house is on fire,
and that's going to require every single one of us to mobilize.
So I think we need to rethink a little bit
about what our activism is, you know.
It isn't necessarily just getting out in the streets,
and that is impossible as well,
it hasn't been possible with the pandemic.
It requires all of us to make change
within our local communities,
and I really think that's at the heart of the transition
is starting local within communities,
not waiting for that sort of top down change,
It's not going to happen.
We're too entrenched within the system we have,
and there's too many people who
are sort of benefiting from the system as it is,
from this destructive system.
So I think we just need to get on with it
and start to make change in our own communities.
And that can happen all around the world.
Everyone can be and has to be an activist in that sense.
Thank you for your questions.
Thank you for your questions, everybody.
Thank you for creating the amazing platforms that you do,
for reaching the people that you do,
and for joining us here today.
I'd take that away, you know,
take that away in my heart for sure.
And, you know, I'd love all of you to please give Jack
a very, very warm round of applause to say thank you.
Thanks so much. Thanks for making this space.