From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
We mustn't focus exclusively on this threat, and it tends to be the case that the global elite does. I was at Davos in January 2020 and climate change was the agenda – and the pandemic had already begun! It was quite difficult to persuade people that there might be a nearer-term threat facing us than climate change.
We've lost our relationship with ourselves; and that is all-encompassing because without a relationship with ourselves, we can't then have a relationship with nature, with each other and the planet. Our rituals and practices often bring us home – they bring us back to what we knew as babies but couldn't clearly articulate.
We used to think life could only exist in a very constrained rage of parameters; between the boiling and freezing point of water, at neutral pH, without too much pressure, with access to sunlight. What we know now is that life is more robust, and more opportunistic than we could have ever thought.
There is a strong possibility that the relationship between humans and their environment would be so fundamentally changed that hundreds of millions of people, perhaps billions, would have to move. History tells us that this carries serious risks of severe and extended conflict.
People come to Glastonbury and can try out ways of living that can be rolled out across the country. If we can make a change at the festival, then why not across a whole city like Oxford, it's the same size!
We have the power of knowledge- for example to save the whales. The whales are obviously not going to save us. We need to have solidarity among humans, that the big problems we are facing, that affect all of humanity and we all equally have the responsibility to do something about it.
I was a young mother with 2 small daughters and saw that the planet I was bringing my children into was one that was already severely diminished compared to the planet I received from my parents. How can any parent want their children to inherit a planet that's worse than the one they received?
We have become the only species with chronically crooked teeth. Consequently, a smaller mouth leads to a smaller airway and various obstruction issues. We have become dysfunctional breathers due to our environment.
It's baffling that $1.8 trillion is still being invested in harmful sectors. As a member of the B-Team of business leaders, we've identified that $1.8 trillion a year is spent subsidizing industries that harm us, predominantly fossil fuels. Redirecting a significant portion of these funds could dramatically accelerate our transition.
For the first time since life began, a single animal is utterly dominant: the ape species Homo sapiens. Evolution has equipped us with huge brains, stunning adaptability and brilliantly successful technical prowess.
In my role, I assess new investments and innovations not just through financial lenses but also considering their societal and environmental impacts. This broader perspective is a key difference from the shareholder-centric approach.
In the end, what happened is I climbed Everest, I came back, and inadvertently I had transformed everyone that works at Arçelik literally from people who are working to earn money and live their lives, to people who are working to do their best they possibly could in terms of mitigating this climate crisis.