87: Origami Action - Paperboats, The Arts, and Local Climate Action

Joining Becky and Fraser for the first episode of 2024 are Scotland's Makar (National Poet) Kathleen Jamie, and writer Sandy Winterbottom, who talk to us about 'Paperboats' - a campaign led by Scottish writers, poets and creatives, and about the need to repair the divide between the arts and science.

Episode Transcript:

[Music flourish]

Becky: Hello and welcome to the first Local Zero episode of 2024 with Becky and Fraser.

Fraser: Good to be back. Sadly, we don't have Matt today, but he will be with us for the next one. Today, we're talking about the role that artists and writers can have on climate action. In November last year, Paperboats, a collective of Scotland based writers, artists and activists focused on nature and environment, gathered outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh to demand cross party support for urgent action on the climate crisis.

Becky: Yes, and earlier today we spoke with two of the founding members of Paperboats. Writer Sandy Winterbottom and National Poet of Scotland Kathleen Jamie. They talked to us about the Paperboats [00:01:00] Initiative. They spoke about the very troubling divide between the science and the arts that desperately needs to be overcome.

And they shared their hopes and dreams for the future. We'll also hear a reading from Kathleen. So it's well worth sticking around for that.

Fraser: We strongly encourage listeners to get involved in the conversation as always, whether that's via x twitter at local zero pods, or you can email in episode suggestions and queries to localzeropod@gmail.com.

Becky: And as you'll have heard at the very beginning of the episode, local zero is looking for new funding to keep it going. If the pod has helped with your work or studies, please do get in touch to let us know. This helps us more than you might think.

Before we get into everything and before we play you our chat with Kathleen and Sandy, it's our first episode back after a very extended winter break. It's lovely to see your face Fraser. How are you?

Fraser: I'm good, Becky. I'm a bit wind swept and a [00:02:00] little bit damp from all the weather we've been having, but the break was nice.

I took off, um, a solid three weeks, which is the first time I think I've done that in my life and it was just really, really nice. How about you?

Becky: Yeah, it was lovely. I had a nice long break. Um, I think that, I mean, I always think with, Kids, like, is it really a break? Just one form of work to another. Uh, but it was lovely.

It was lovely to have that, uh, loud distraction in my life, but yes, it has been, uh, it has been interesting with the number of storms that we've got. And as we're, as we sat here recording this, we've just gotten through down in Cornwall, a number of days with sort of, you know, severe weather warnings, um, 70 mile an hour winds.

And this is not, this is not the first one. Like I actually am struggling to remember a time, uh, you know, in the last few months where it hasn't been this windy. And I think, I think our producer Patrick put this in the show notes. Since September last year, there have been 12 [00:03:00] named storms. That's got to be some sort of a record, right?

Fraser: Yeah, it's, it's scary. Genuinely scary. So where, where we are, I know you're down in Cornwall Becking, felt a lot of it. We're up, we're up in North East Scotland, and basically if you look at any severe weather map, the little red dot in the middle, we're, we're, that's just about my house. We have a collection of houses around it.

So we felt so many of them recently. I feel I'm, I'm someone who likes to feel sort of positive or at least, um, determined in the face of, of sort of climate crisis to get stuff done. That's the purpose of this podcast, right? But I find myself feeling increasingly anxious because it's just so consistent and we get, you know, we, we have storms over winter that happens, but this isn't when we talk to sort of people locally.

It's, it's like nothing anyone's seen before, just the frequency of it is, yeah, it's, it's so much.

Becky: Yeah, it, it's really bringing it home, I think, and making it a much more kind of visceral experience. Um, I mean, we'll kind of tap into some of that, I guess, when we, when we hear the conversation, uh, that we had with, uh, with Sandy and Kathleen, but like that real, that real importance of, of kind of connecting people, not just with the data, but with those lived experiences and, and what climate change really fundamentally is going to mean.

Fraser: Yeah, that's it. That's it. We're feeling it very, very sharply just now in a way that we probably haven't felt it in, in the UK. We had our last year, remember in the summer last year, There were fires and all kinds of stuff as well.

Now we're, we're looking at more and more flooding and something that, that we are, I don't know if it's the same for yourself, Becky, I'm sure it is, but that we're struggling with in this neck of the woods is because the storms have gotten so frequent, the damage done to roads, to trees, to sort of, , fields, the natural environment in general, it doesn't have a chance to repair, and the council doesn't have a chance to come in and fix it, and it certainly doesn't have the resource to fix it every single time it's happening.

And a lot of this, um, for this area of the country stems from the fact that we've done away with so much natural mitigation in the name of developing farmlands to make money. largely speaking, right? We didn't know what we know now back then when we were doing it in, you know, 17, 18 hundreds, but we did away with so much of this kind of marshland and this, these wetlands to, to make room for more farming.

So now we have less natural mitigation, but the impacts of that are, we simply don't have the resource or we're having to drum up a whole lot more resource to try and repair these things after the fact. So it's, it's this kind of, all of these decisions that we've made and again appreciate we didn't have the information way back in the agricultural revolution but all those decisions now are coming coming home to roost and it's it's a really serious serious issue especially for councils businesses and citizen communities first and foremost but councils who are struggling for cash in the UK already haven't to find this extra money it's uh Yeah, it's, it's, it's a lot.

Becky: Against the backdrop of, of course, the fact that, you know, people have been squeezed and squeezed and squeezed over the last, what, 12 to 18 months, hikes in energy prices, people not being able to afford fundamental things and the cost of living. And I guess sort of, you know, we don't want to start the year on too much of a downer. So I will sort of flip a little bit to some, some positive news. I was very pleased by an article I read talking about the fact that energy bills are finally expected to, to start dropping.

And so if this was a stemming from a piece of research that was done by Cornwall insight, who have now forecast that bills will fall by 16 percent compared, uh, to the, to the past quarter, and that's more than we had thought that they would last December. So a little bit of good and glimmering news amongst amongst all of this devastation.

Fraser: Yeah, I would definitely see. So I think the longer term forecast was in the region of about 20 percent out to next year. Obviously, that's a bit less certain in terms of what you can predict, but certainly a sign that the bills are are moving the way that they should be. Now, they'll still be higher than pre crisis, but that the trend in this direction is certainly a positive sign.

Um, I think now that, that means that we have to sort of figure out a lot of people have, you know, accrued a lot of debt. A lot of damage has been done in the last few years, but as bills comes down, come down, we can, we can start to think about more longer term, more sustainable solutions to getting everyone back up onto, onto that playing field.

So I would say work to do Becky, but certainly, certainly the right direction and it's good to see it last.

Becky: It is good to see at last.

Fraser: Something else that's, that's come out recently, Becky, that's, that's That's of interest to to the work in the energy space that you and I and you in particular are doing was a new report from the regulatory assistance project on unlocking flexibility and flexible technologies and flexible services in the energy system for a wider group of of people an exciting report, would you agree?

Becky: Yes, I was, I was very pleased to see this report come out. Really, really exciting stuff. Looking at how, um, we can start to think about that kind of flexible system that our, that our energy system is moving towards and that need for flexibility at the household level.

How we can really start to think about that in a far more socially inclusive way. So, you know, there is certainly a With the way that a lot of, uh, flexibility is being done and considered and offered that could effectively lock whole swathes of the population out of this, out of being able to deliver it.

And that could be because they rely on medical equipment that doesn't have flexibility, or it could be that they just can't afford to upgrade to the technologies to provide that flexibility. So all different sorts of reasons. And one of the things that has troubled me a little bit when I've, um, when I've discussed this with other people in the industry is the notion of like, well, you know, the system needs this flexibility and for people that can't engage in it, there are other mechanisms like Bill support, for example, or social tariffs that can overcome some of these challenges.

And, and actually one of the things that this report highlights is that that bill support won't be enough in the longterm to protect some of these vulnerable or disadvantaged households from missing out all of the benefits that can be brought by a clean, electrified, um, flexible system and actually to be truly inclusive, we really need to open up flexibility for everyone.

And, uh, and the report goes on to talk about different ways that we can think about doing that and, and what that really means as I guess providers are looking to build out policies and products for flexibility. So a very, very interesting report that I would encourage anybody that's working in the flexibility space, uh, space to read.

Fraser: I think a great summation and it is, it's interesting what I, what I liked about that support, um, that report, sorry, um, on top of the, the points that you've raised Becky is, is how it recognizes diversity of sort of, of, of need of circumstance, but it starts from a point really of flexibility, um, but In the first instance, meeting the needs of people in households and then building out from there rather than imprinting or imposing energy system needs or whatever external needs on to on to those groups.

And I think that's a nice way to frame it and a good recognition that flexibility or demand reduction as may sometimes be the case or. Uh, or whatever alternatives are included will look different for different people. And that's right. That's, it should, there's not going to be a one size fits all. Um, so yes, definitely encourage everyone to, to pick that up.

Becky: Yeah. And I love the idea of thinking about that. You know, how, how do you make things work for all different sorts of people? I guess one of the things that comes before that is shifting the Shifting awareness, shifting the dialogue, people engaging more in, in this kind of, I guess, new world that we're moving into.

If you, if you go back just what, five or 10 years, I can imagine that most people barely ever thought about energy. And if you go back a bit further, probably climate very rarely came up and building that awareness, building that engagement. Is, is so important and a really important first step and I think the conversation that we had with Kathleen and with Sandy from Paper Boat, which I think we should get onto it in just a moment, is absolutely fundamental to all of the work that we're doing around climate and energy. Because a lot of the changes that we, that we talk about, whether it's flexibility, whether it's, you know, ripping your old boiler out and putting in a new cleaner heating technology, whether it's insulating your home, whether it's shifting how you move around, or whether it's some of those broader collective and community actions that we take. We're never going to get into action without inspiration and without people becoming more involved and engaged in this dialogue around climate and energy. And so, you know, I think sometimes the kind of that very notion of, of how do you engage people? How do you reach people? We, we sort of forget that. And we start at the point of like, assuming that people are engaged in how they can take action.

So bringing all those things together. Those pieces together and joining the dots is, is absolutely critical.

Fraser: Hear, hear, hear, hear. And I think on that note, let's, let's get into it.

Sandy: My name is Sandy Winterbottom and I'm a writer and I'm involved in the Paperboats campaign.

Kathleen: Hello, I'm Kathleen Jamie. I'm also a writer, a poet, and uh, latterly been involved in the Paperboats campaign.

Becky: Brilliant. Thank you so much, Sandy and Kathleen, for joining us today. Hoping we could maybe start with perhaps a little bit of background about Paperboats.

So for those that might not know about it, can you just give us a bit of an insight of what it is and really kind of how it came into being? Maybe Sandy, do you want to kick us off?

Sandy: Sure. Yeah. Paperboats really came out of a collaboration of nature writers, loosely associated with Stirling University. Um, Chris Pavici there, gathered us together at the beginning of 2023 to discuss what, what, what we felt about nature and what we felt about the significant changes that we saw happening in nature.

And we sort of gathered numbed and erred. And as the summer progressed by about June, we, we were suffering from really dreadful droughts up in Scotland and some of our members were talking about, um, going out and ringing golden eagles and finding that the chicks were, some of them were dying on their nests and other, other people in our group were rescuing hedgehogs that were basically starving to death because there was no invertebrates for them to eat.

So we, we all recognise that we were entering very worrying times for the, for nature in Scotland. Obviously it's been worrying times for the global South for much longer than that, but we really wanted to add our voices to that. We've certainly all been writing along those lines for considerably longer, but it was how can we gather together and really raise our voices as to what was happening.

So we, we kind of did a very gentle, soft launch at the Edinburgh Book Festival. We made some Paperboats and took them without really much, much fear of what we were doing, to be honest. It was really just a question of wanting to speak out and trying to find a mechanism for that.

Becky: Kathleen, anything to add?

And maybe you could also tell us like, why the paper boat?

Kathleen: Well, I'm a poet. I'm actually Scotland's national poet at the minute. And after the COP26 summit, we all, I think, felt that feeling of deflation, you know, like what has been achieved here. And I thought, you know, I want to engage with this as a poet.

And so I wrote a poem called 'What the Clyde Said' after COP26. a poem about what, you know, what this post industrial river thought about all this stuff that was going on in its banks. And the poem was, um, if I say it myself, a great success. And, and the image, um, of Paperboats featured in the poem, and that's what the, the group picked up on.

So, so I was extremely moved when they suggested making this group called Paperboats from the image in my poem. And it went from there. And it's just a, you know, poetry works sometimes.

Fraser: So how has, how has Paperboats evolved then? What is, what is the state of the campaign today? What are some of the, the, the things that you're up to, Sandy?

Sandy: So we're still kind of finding our feet with Paperboats. It's still very new. We're only sort of six months into it officially, I suppose. Um, one of the things that we do is to publish writing on, on the climate crisis. So we have an online e zine. Um, effectively and we invite writers to, to write to our themes, which is climate action writing in Scotland.

So those are our kind of four remits, if you like, and, um, and we've had some fantastic writing that's really, um, got to the visceral heart of the climate crisis. Um, so that's one thing that we do and we, we pair that action or we try to pair the action up with on the ground action. Um, so one of the things that we've been doing is literally making Paperboats and sending them to politicians as a, as a message to say, look, this is what we're really concerned about. What are you doing about it?

Kathleen: I think it's, it's, um, evolving as a group for those people who are now really, really concerned, but who for many reasons can't or won't glue themselves to, to oil tankers.

Do you know, of a lot of time for the young people, that sort of passion, but it's not available to the rest of So we wanted to find a way that, um, where people could express this increasing anxiety and, you know, discomfort. People who have possibly never been engaged in any sort of activism before. And then the paper boat is such a lovely innocent wee symbol and anyone can make one and anyone can do it.

And it's, it's caught people's imaginations, I think.

Fraser: So Kathleen, from that, it sounds like a lot of the Paperboats campaign is, you know, partly about this kind of a different way of a voice in some of these issues, but it's also about. opening up the issue to a wider range of people with, you know, an easier way in to take action and to be a part of that movement.

Is that fair to say?

Kathleen: I think that is fair to say. And it's also that a place that I'm personally really keen on, which is where art and science and ordinary people meet, you know, and if there's anything good comes out of this climate crisis, it's going to be the healing of the divisions between especially the arts and the sciences, you know.

Cause it's, um, well, we have to, so yes, it's a place for, um, do you know what? It is at the minute, mostly older women, but if you want something done, you've got to ask older women.

Becky: Um hahah, I mean, I think this is a really, a really interesting point. And certainly, you know, my, my background is in a more technical subject, but I have moved on and work at that, I guess, at the boundary of, of some of the social sciences and the physical sciences, but art has typically, and I've seen it happen again and again, sort of left out of the picture.

Like folk don't, um, that are looking at some of the practical changes that need to happen on the ground often don't engage with the wider humanities. So I mean, how you're saying, you know, we need to kind of overcome this divide that we've seen. So what role do you think that the humanities or artists and writers such as yourselves can and should be having on climate action more broadly.

Like, is this a really important, um, way to help shape public opinion? What other sorts of roles do you, do you think need, uh, the sector can have?

Kathleen: Do you want my five minute rant? On how so many scientific projects have dumped, dumped the arts and dumped writers. At a time of extreme crisis, they've taken half of human imagination, half of human knowledge, half of human wisdom, and dumped it in a skip.

That's my rant. So absolutely, where are the artists on the scientific projects? Where are the people who can do the connective tissue, as I call it? Like Sandy and I do. Frankly, you know, it's, you can publish scientific monographs, which half a dozen other scientists might cite. And, and you can get painters, artists, filmmakers, poets on the scene with you, and they can do that stuff.

They can bring it to the public, you know, they can, they can transform. It's not our only task, but it's also something we can do. They can transform that data into lived experience. And. you know, half people read it on the bus. Right, I'll stop. I really am quite exercised about this.

Fraser: No, I think we would, we would certainly agree, rightly so, Kathleen.

And Sandy, I'd like to come for your perspective on that as well. It's, we, we, we know a lot about how science alone simply isn't, isn't enough to either communicate or to, to deliver, to deliver action on this. Is this a, a role that you see Paperboats have increasingly is joining up those dots, the connective tissue as Kathleen called it.

Sandy: Yeah, absolutely. I would 100 percent agree with that. And I, I, I agree with that as somebody whose background is a scientist. I was an environmental scientist for 20 years and I kind of jumped ship. Um, precisely for those reasons is that we, we've clearly failed to communicate. the urgency of this crisis, um, as scientists.

Um, so how, how do we reach out to people who, who don't have access to that scientific understanding that scientific reports need? I think I had some real wake up calls when I would show people graphs and say, look, isn't this terrible? And they would look at me as if to say, what, what, what on earth are you showing me here?

And we, we have that. I think as scientists, we assume that people have a level of understanding that, that can grapple with these really difficult issues. And they are really complex, difficult issues. And if IPCC reports, um, they're very dry. The language is, is. Somebody said to me the other day, the language is very mealy mouthed, you know, could, should, maybe, um, you know, percentage chances and all that, and how do we actually translate that into something that, that people really get and really understand?

So, part of the reasons I kind of jumped ship was to, to kind of get that across in a different way.

Fraser: I think that's, that's really important Sandy. And on, on the, I, I guess one of the, I know I'm, I'm conscious here. I'm not trying to step into a minefield, but one of the, the critiques often leveled at the arts and culture sectors broadly is, um, the issue of class.

And I think a lot of the same critique's leveled at, you know. I guess over reliance on, on scientific information and the, the, um, sort of higher education sector in general. Do you think campaigns like Paperboats are more effective at sort of bridging that gap beyond the, let's say, the people who are typically concerned about climate to reach new audiences and new people?

Kathleen: I don't know. Um, I don't know if I can say it in your, your podcast, but when we did our action outside the Scottish Parliament in November, it went down very well, except for someone that could be called us middle class wankers, you know, so.

Fraser: I think we're late enough in the podcast you can, yeah.

Kathleen: But yeah, I think there is a class issue, and it's, it's also to do with the pressures that ordinary people are under, and the last thing they can be thinking about, you know, is, is rising sea levels in, you know, somewhere else.

Their own houses, our own houses are now being flooded, you know, when it's really, it's really coming home now, these storms that we're having right now, this is not normal, but now it's starting to impact us in very real ways, perhaps that'll, that'll change and people will become, but as I say, folk have got a heck of a lot of other things to fret about.

Becky: I want to talk about maybe hope and despair, if that's okay. And how. For me, when I, when I've engaged with, and it's been more, um, I guess, visual portrayals rather than written ones that, that, that have struck me in my own past, I realized that there are a whole different ways, uh, different number of ways that people can engage, but often they've stimulated a lot of emotion, which has really helped overcome some of that kind of scientific barrier that you were talking about sounding like, what, what am I looking at?

And, you know, it's really helped connect me with the issue, but often in a way that leaves me feeling very Desperate and despairing. And I struggle with thinking about and translating that into hopefulness or action. How can we, how do you, and how do you see us being able to leverage the arts, leverage campaigns like Paperboats to really engage with people, but in a way that can help kind of drive positivity alongside the fact that we are in a crisis.

Sandy: Yeah, hope's a really difficult one and it's quite a difficult word because a lot of the time if you watch David Attenborough films and he tells you all about these dire things happening to the planet and at the end there's always this little bit, oh, but there is hope and you get this sense that everybody's just sitting back on their sofa going, oh, that's all right then, you know, it's all being solved.

So I, Hope comes from action. Hope only really comes from action. Unless we're taking action, there isn't going to be any hope. Um, and I, I think that's the real key message. And the paper boat is, gives some, everybody something really simple to do. One of the best things that we can be doing about the climate crisis is speaking out.

Um, and particularly speaking out to our political leaders and you can sign petitions, you can send template emails. Are they registering? Are they landing? But if a politician gets a paper boat in their inbox, well, that's, that's, it's just a slightly different way of, of communicating that, that might just make them sit up a little bit.

So I think Yeah, hope only really comes from action.

Fraser: To the earlier part of the conversation around the Paperboats and also just speaking about the issue, that kind of thing. You might not need every single person who can't afford their energy this month to, you know, be gluing themselves to an oil rig, but anyone who has the capacity and bandwidth can speak about it and engage in something like this.

And I think that's a, that's a nice message on action. And I think segues very clunkily into the next part of the conversation, but in terms of doing is a, is a good way to get things done, I like to think. But could you talk to us a little bit more about the work that you're doing specifically around sort of schools and libraries, how that's going and what your experience of that has been?

Kathleen: We've set up boatyards in schools and libraries, including the national library here in Scotland who are very receptive. And a boatyard is a simple table, you know, with paper and instructions and, and details of just how, how to do your origami, origami activism, how to make your paper boat, how to stamp or write a message to it, uh, addresses to send it to, which may be political people or it may be the group itself over planning an action.

And it's just been so. mild and imaginative and well taken up, I think. I don't know, Sandy, do you know how many of these boatyards we established?

Sandy: We'd certainly had 20 or 30 locations across Scotland that were, were making Paperboats in libraries and schools. And, and it was just such a simple thing. And one of our key things is that we're not using new resources.

So, You can make a paper boat out of anything, an old book, an old magazine, anything like that. Um, so we're not using up new resources. So we've, we encouraged schools and libraries to make their own paper boat yards, use whatever they have, make it imaginative, make it creative. And that, that was hugely successful.

So to my mind, just not using new resources for these things was really important. So we collected probably, we, we aimed for a thousand Paperboats, a thousand climate hopes was our campaign that we delivered to the Scottish Parliament. And we certainly collected a thousand Paperboats. We, we've published those hopes on our website.

It's been been fantastic to read those. So people do want a just transition. They do want green jobs. Um, adults in particular, they want warm homes. They want energy bills that are much lower and kids in particular want nature. They want trees and less pollution and less litter. So it was, it was a really interesting kind of stock take of what, what Scotland's climate hopes were.

Becky: And have you seen the politicians starting to sit up and listen to this?

Sandy: Because we're in Scotland, the Scottish government are actually taking climate change pretty seriously and they're doing some really good things. Our argument is that none of it has been done quickly enough, even in a country that's really committed to tackling climate change. Um, we, we know from the science that climate change is accelerating much, much faster than scientists predicted.

Um, so while in Scotland they're doing a great job again, it's, it's just not fast enough. None of it's fast enough. So we have seen engagement from our MSPs, but I wouldn't, you know, that's not just our campaign. There's a lot of campaigns going on in Scotland that are putting pressure on the Scottish government, the Stop Climate Chaos Scotland as well.

So, um, Yeah, and it's really just about adding our voices to that. So things are changing, politicians are beginning to listen, and the more people that raise their voice, the better.

Kathleen: Having said that, of course, we are part of the United Kingdom. It's at United Kingdom level the oil and gas licenses are being doled out willy nilly, so it's, um, it's not easy.

We should talk about our action outside the Scottish Parliament buildings, though, Sandy, shouldn't we? Because that was Yes,

Sandy: yeah, go ahead, Kathleen.

Kathleen: Early in November. Just ahead of the last COP summit, we had a Paperboats action outside the Scottish Parliament buildings in Edinburgh. If you don't know the buildings, they have a public space at the front with ponds, and we assembled all our Paperboats people and the thousand Paperboats that Sandy mentioned, members of the public, and a choir.

Great folk singer Corrine Polwarts and her partner Stephen Daisley turned up with a scratch choir. They had just rehearsed that very morning with a song, a paper boat song. So we had this wonderful choir singing, we had poems by myself and some other people, we had speeches, and then we sailed our Paperboats on the ponds outside the Parliament building, which was wonderfully, it was actually quite moving and very photogenic, you know.

So that was a lot of fun. And did any MSPs come and join us? Yes.

Sandy: Yeah, I think, I think two of them, two of them turned up, um, Ariane Burgess and Monica Lennon, um, but yeah, it was, um, we, we'd written to all of the MSPs and, uh, probably a handful replied, um, and two turned up. But, uh, we, we know they're busy, but it's, it's, it's a really vital issue.

Fraser: I wonder if some of them were maybe lost inside that horrible maze of a Hollyrood building. I guess, so from that action, having two turn up isn't, isn't a bad thing. And obviously the, the campaign has, has gained some, some momentum and some publicity. What's next for, for Paperboats? What are your hopes for this and where would you like to take it?

Kathleen: Well, we had a bit of a rest over Christmas and New Year, and um, we're just gathering ourselves for another meeting next month to see, you know, take stock and, and see what we can do from here. The, the website, um, is there with all the, the, wonderful writing and photographs on, so anyone can look at that anytime.

I think there'll be a call for new writing very shortly, so keep an eye on that website. It's paperboats. org if you're interested in submitting any work.

Sandy: Yeah, we, I think what we're doing at the moment is, is, we're quite a small group. We're unfunded. It's, it's all voluntary. So we're, we're looking. Um, at working with other groups that are running campaigns and how we can support that.

I think that's, that's the crucial thing that we can bring, um, is to, to other people's campaigns, bring that creativity and that, um, that artistry into campaigns that are, are running and to, to bring their campaigns to a wider audience ideally. So I think that's where we're heading is really looking at working with other organizations.

Becky: What are your hopes and dreams for the future. So going beyond the kind of immediate next action, if, if you could really, um, wave magic wand like, where, where do you really want to see, uh, to see all of this taking us?

Kathleen: How far into the future are you talking?

Becky: Far as you'd like to take us.

Kathleen: I'm interested in deep time, you know, by which I mean anything from a thousand to ten thousand to twenty thousand years hence, and that's, that's, I do wonder.

With some excitement, I'd quite like to pop back for an afternoon and see, you know, did we weather this? Did we manage it? Did we navigate through? What became of it? You know, I would love to, or maybe I wouldn't, I don't know, but, but yes, I like, I like conjuring with that idea. Over the next, uh much shorter time frame.

I would love to get a sense that this massive thing was turning around Maybe it is turning around and we're just don't know yet.

Becky: Sandy.

Sandy: Yeah Yeah, I think for me probably in the shorter term I guess is is to really put pressure on politicians for politicians to be signing up for example to the fossil fuel uh, non proliferation treaty that's um, being touted as a motion in, in the Scottish Parliament.

Um, I, I would love to see the UK signing up to that because it, it contains everything. It's got climate justice, it's um, you know, loss and damage and, and the fair transition. So I, I think for, for me, I think that's, that's one to really back and get behind, and I would love to see the UK Parliament signing up to that.

Kathleen: Well, that sounds achievable, unlike coming back in 20, 000 years to check in on it.

Sandy: Ever the practical. But no, I'd love to come back in a thousand years time and see, are we just a smear in, in geological time? That would be interesting.

Fraser: So this, this podcast, I guess, just to, to, to wrap is all about, or we try and make it as far as possible.

It's not a talking shop. We want to, as far as possible, make it about action and things that people can actively go out and do should they have the bandwidth and the capacity to do so. So for yourselves, we'll take Sandy first and then, and then finish with Kathleen. You had one message to, to people listening to this, interested in the campaign or your methods, what, what can they go out and do?

What's your, your sort of your provocation to them.

Sandy: Personally, I think the best thing that we can do is talk about climate change, um, but not just to the people in our bubble. I think social media keeps us very ensconced in a, in a small world. Um, I would say get out on the streets and talk to people.

I've done a lot of that kind of activism in the past and it, and it's astounding how, um, little people really know about they can do in terms of acting on climate change. Um, most people think climate action is recycling, but we're at a stage now that, that we need to, to really, recycling's brilliant, but we, we really need more urgent action on fossil fuels.

So, um, the Paperboat is, is a fantastic conversation starter. If you, if you go up to somebody and Ask if they want to talk about climate change, they'll walk away. If you go up to them and say, would you like a paper boat? Um, you're always greeted with a, a smile and a willingness to, to open the conversation.

So I think the most important thing is to talk about climate change and, and, and, and express our worries about it as well. Be really open and honest about how, how terrifying it is.

Fraser: And Kathleen.

Kathleen: I'll say what we cannot do. Sandy's very, very good at positive and practical actions. I would say what we cannot afford to do is despair and shrug, especially as older ones, because it's morally abhorrent to the younger people that we should just shrug and say, well, you know, nothing we can do. It's too bad. You know, I find that galvanizing. We cannot do that to the children. We have to keep positive. We have to keep finding solutions and finding actions just to demonstrate to them that all is not lost.

Becky: I'm hoping that we can, um, that we can give you one, um, final word, Kathleen, and whether you'd be happy to, uh, to share, to share a reading of, uh, the poem that you presented back in November outside Scottish Parliament.

Kathleen: I wrote this poem specifically for the Paperboats action outside the Scottish Parliament, and it's called What the Paperboats Said. When I was tree, I believed we'd stand forever, sighing consorts of wind and rain, till the felling came. When dragged from our hillside, we were stripped, pulped, milled.

Myself, I considered fortunate. I just lay blank in an upstairs room before I felt a scratching. Tears, then scorings out, Dear John, dear world, dear God, The empty skies, the poor drowned animals. But, ah, relief at last to know a little passion, A little hard won poetry. With that, my forest spirit quickened, As though the wind, prophesying friend, Had sought me out, saying, Prepare yourself, for soon you'll change again.

You'll be taken up, folded, creased, turned, folded back in yourself, till fitted out with bow and stern, you're cargoed with a world love and give a damn. Then set sail, few at first, but amassing into fleets, entire horizon filling armadas, launched from peoples everywhere, who cry, enough, fly your colours, paper boat, I'll speed you.

Demand a living earth.

Becky: Thank you. Thank you, Kathleen. And thank you so much to, to both of you. Thank you, Sandy. Thank you, Kathleen, for joining us and for sharing your, your passions and your inspirations and your concerns and your asks. I think it's really, uh, really beautiful. And I would say to anybody that was moved by the reading, like I was, I was definitely holding myself back.

Please do visit the website paperboats.org, or I believe that folk, um, can also email you helloatpaperboats.Org if they want to join in or to get a free digital Paperboats toolkit. So thank you so much for all of that.

Sandy: Thank you. That was fantastic. Thank you.

Kathleen: Thank you.

Fraser: You've been listening to local zero.

The number one way you can help this pod is to share it with someone that you think might like it. So if there are any other. Climate change, energy geeks out there that you think would be into the type of things that we talk about. Why don't you recommend us?

Becky: And please also remember to email us localzeropod@gmail.com if there's anything else you'd like us to discuss.

Fraser: But for now, thank you and goodbye.

Becky: Bye.

Produced by BesSpoken Media.