Meet the Climate Minister With Me! Parliament Vlog and Climate Education Interview

I'm glad. Look, I'll take it away and and I'll go and ask because I think the thing is if there's areas where this is not working. — If you've been following me for a while, you would know that I'm really passionate about making the education system more human, not just an exam machine. And today might be one of the most exciting days of my career so far. As part of my goal to make sure education teaches young people the skills they actually need to thrive in the world, climate Minister Katie White reached out and asked if I want to come for a casual private meeting with her in Parliament. I hope you guys enjoy this very abnormal day of my life and that you gain new insights from the interview questions that I got to film. Keep talking about the change you want to see in the world. And like me, if you're lucky, there will be people in positions of leadership who want to listen to you. I know a full white suit gives marriage, but I just love it. I love it. So, I'll be wearing my full white suit. Yay. I just did my makeup and I'm nervous, but I'm masking my nerves by dancing and singing and hyping myself up. I cannot believe I'm going to parliament. I have never been to Parliament in my life. I have a lot of friends who are civil servants and that has demystified government a bit. But I can't I still can't believe that I am going because I have been personally invited by an MP. So I'm trying to also not be too nervous because she wants me there if you know what I mean. Like I don't have to prove myself. Like I'm not going to be debating. I'm going to ask her questions and I'm going to challenge her but I'm also going to be nice. So much stuff. So pretty. This is stunning. I cannot believe people just casually work here every day. Actually, I could have done, you know, — we talk a lot about green jobs, but are we actually giving young people the skills and the motivation to go on to do them? Today I have the absolute honor of being with Katie White who is actually I know a lot about Katie almost more personally because um some of my best friends work in the civil service and I don't know if you realize this but people really look up to you like one of my best friends you are her role model. She's worked in climate her whole career and yeah just the route that you have taken through your career is really aspirational to her. So thank you so much for all that you do. If you guys don't know, Katie has a very interesting path into government. She started kind of doing a lot more climate activism work in 2008. She was involved in pioneering one of the most important climate acts in the UK and she was also executive director of WWF. So fancy stuff. She cares a lot about the planet and animals and people and green jobs. So I'm very excited to chat with her more today. Katie, my interest is kind of more in the education space. Is there one thing you wish you'd learned at school that you didn't? — Oh goodness. I just had a little moment there when you were saying you had a friend which I didn't know in the civil service. So, shout out to your friend. And I thought there's that moment of going, "Oh goodness, is this a good story or a bad story? " Oh, loads of things. These days we do you see more of these sort of outdoor learning experiences whether it's forest schools things like that and the children I know love them and I think more actually grounding in systems thinking and in nature — is incredibly important you know and we're for multiple different reasons. It helps your cognitive structuring and your executive function, but it's also around our connectedness to the world, which I think is — so important for new ideas, but also for our own sanity. — I actually had a lot of questions from my audience about a nature-based education. Someone brought up the idea of forest schools and one of my subscribers talked about how she wished she had been taught to grow food at her school and wished they'd had a garden or even a lesson in farming and how, — you know, having to tend to seeds and then watching it mature and grow and then to be able to eat that at lunchtime. Um, how that would have taught her so much more about the

natural world and to feel this connection as opposed to just learning it in a theoretical manner. Um what do you think about that idea of yeah experiential nature-based education? — Love it. And actually um in a different previous role I talked to a gentleman in Wales who was doing something similar but he was doing it he was teaching systems thinking through food and exactly as you say it was but it went even one step further because it was around growing food within schools eating food within schools and then using the food waste. So actually there was a whole you know exactly and I think if there is ways of us teaching some of those systemic thinking you know nature is just incredible like it's absolutely incredible and the things that happen you know what to appreciate that on a day-to-day basis I think would you know inject a sense of joy and wonder in our day-to-day being that sometimes we miss. Something I love about the way you portray yourself online is that even though you are a climate minister and every day you are thinking about quite heavy topics, right? We all know climate's not is not doing amazingly. There are there's a lot of somewhat evil feeling forces in the world that are trying so hard to prevent meaningful change happening. And what I love about you is that even though you're at the you are at the forefront of making that change happen, you still try and bring in so much optimism and joy. And I would love if you could speak to the role of optimism in our climate futures. — I am scared and I'm not going to deny that. And I don't want to tell anybody on truths like the reason I am motivated originally because of the impacts of what could happen. But my much bigger force of is that I think the opportunities to sort of refresh, renew, regenerate our country and our society through this transition are immense. One of the big joys of doing this job is going out and meeting people and every time we go out and meet different people and there's always somebody's story that you don't expect. That is the magic. And the scientists, the scientists make me so excited. — Tell me about the scientist. — I love the scientists. like um I I've got a particular one in mind and all my team will know exactly who I mean because we've got this really cool scientist and there's loads of them but he's sort of the personification for me in that he's like one of the world's leading scientists on climate change absolutely renowned all over the world you know is recognized in this country and internationally as one of the best if you met him he's the most humble person you would ever meet you have no sense but also he has got the curiosity of a young child of a young enthusiastic child. I'm really glad you brought up science and the role that scientists have to play in um better climate futures because I actually had a few of my audience reach out and they were saying like Jade science education is in kind of a dire state like saying oh so difficult to find and retain physics and math teachers. Have you got any interesting ideas for how we can ensure that uh climate science is foregrounded in how we're creating the education system? Big question. — I'm glad. Look, I'll take it away and and I'll go and ask because I think the thing is if there's areas where this is not working, then we need to just got a new uh chief scientific adviser, Emily Shukbra, who's fantastic in the department and she's been at the forefront of, you know, doing this herself, but also she's now doing it. Let me take it away and we can come back to your — what a lovely answer. Thank you. — As a climate minister, if you could design a new subject in school, what would it teach and why? So, I actually wrote a course once, but it was on change making. I really like bringing together different elements of things because I think sometimes we're so siloed — and also Io think you just don't get the beauty of life because actually it's around the — interdiciplinarity is everything. — Totally. I mean I think we probably could do with better listening skills. It's a sort of first totally it sounds like a fluffy soft skill right but it's everything like being able to listen to different people's perspectives even those you disagree with. trying to find common ground not just rushing to you know get your point heard it's so important — totally so I think there's a bit around listening a bit around cognit understanding the brain can understand ourselves and each other better because you know I get people coming to see me in all different ways and understandably they are triggered and I think if I understand they are triggered the least I can hold that space and think okay fine let's wait and come back to this and obviously a lot of the time in our sex people are scared and I understand that trying to appreciate the breadth of a human and therefore how we can work together and so there's a bit around learning about

ourselves that I think would be really good and then we said look I think learning about nature is really important I don't think I did used to appreciate this you all know about this biomimicry stuff I think the biomimicry is so cool you know so cool the idea that we can learn different engineering ideas from nature. Like that is just so cool. And then I think the sort of intersection of those two things of learning about yourself and learning about the natural world and the impacts that we're sort of having on that you know what is our impact on the world but on ourselves and on other people and that sort of impact is at the intersection and to know that at all times you can have a massive impact but you are also very small and I think holding that breath is a really great humility of you know we are everything and nothing. And I love that. — I was literally going to say that exact phrase. There's this Buddhist philosophy of I am nothing and I am everything. And it's so wonderful to know that you are capable of having a really profound impact on the world. You the idea of a butterfly flaps its wing and then it causes a tornado elsewhere. And so to understand that even your day-to-day actions really do have a massive impact on the world, but at the same time to not feel the entire weight of the world only on your shoulders and instead to learn to lean on community and to know that so many other people also do care and also are trying to make that work happen. I'm very glad that you brought up cognitive science and learning about the brain because I did a degree in cognitive science. Yay. Thank you. Amazing. We love education. Um, and it taught me so much about how humans make decisions, how most of the time it's actually never about you. Like any harm that is done to you is normally because of them and their problems. And I think when we think about improving the climate through a long-term perspective of how we should educate young children, it should be with this lens of understanding themselves and their emotions and as you say the impact that they can have on their small circles and how those can ripple out into the rest of the world. I'm aware that a lot of people are struggling a lot with something called climate anxiety. The natural world is struggling. You know, there's a lot of corporate interests that mean it can feel a lot of people feel very hopeless when they think about the climate crisis. And I know that you're a passionate advocate of mental health. You sit on I believe on the board of the mindfulness initiative. — What would you put into schools or what advice would you give young people to continue caring for the planet but also to be able to care for their mental health and function? — Do I think this is the most difficult question? I have personally found mindfulness and meditation a really helpful tool in my kit bag — and I think regardless of climate change it's really important to find your own tool kit and I think for any young person navigating this world you everyone needs their own toolkit of ways to support themselves to understand what they need in the world to nurture themselves and to nourish themselves can be schools it can be parents or I'm not trying to overburden anyone But be curious about where you can find your toolkit. I feel more hope than fear. But I also want to hold space for that fear because I think it's real. It's true. And we need to listen to what's happening out there in order to act. If there's a way of not being paralyzed by those challenges, everybody has a role to play. Everybody's role is important. I believe in humans. I believe in the positivity and that we can work through this you know and there will be challenges there already is challenges happening and I don't want to deny those and or not hold the pain that is but at the same time we have risen to challenges before know as nature reemerges I think you know we can as a collective humanity work through this together but I think be kind to yourself, look after yourself and look after your community and be curious and open that there are positive messages. You know the brain as you will understand probably better than any change unfortunately our brains on the because of how we've evolved the negative messages are much more powerful than the positive. So I think we have to make sure that as well in our own minds we're planting those seeds of joy. That's not to be toxically positive or to have false hope or whatever, but just to be mindful and I think that's the only way. But if you look at the statistics of what is happening, the reality is pretty amazing and the river is running in the right direction and we just need everybody to get on board, but do it in your way and look after yourself. — Amazing. Thank you so much, Katie. Yay.

Hi. I just got back and it's so sunny now. So beautiful. Um, so that was kind of wild, guys. wild. I have no idea how people can work in that building every day. It's like working inside the world's best art gallery. Like the grandour is on another level. But yeah, I got just under an hour with Katie White, who is a newly appointed climate minister, and she was honestly great. I'm not just saying this, but I really think we need more ministers like her. Firstly, a lot of ministers end up doing work in a sector that they have no experience in. But Katie was a climate activist. She worked for Friends of the Earth, was the executive director of WWF, which is a charity that supports biodiversity that raises money for endangered species, and her whole career has been climate adjacent. So, dare I say it, she does something that not enough politicians do, which is she really cares. She was so bubbly and down to earth and present. I just I really warm to her, to be honest. And sometimes I have to catch myself. I'm like, am I just being too nice? Am I doing this thing called fning, which is where you act really sweet in front of people in positions of power and positions of authority, which I know that I like is a problem of mine in general. I'm too nice. I struggle with people pleasing. I was also raised in the UK, which teaches us to bow to authority. So, I'm still unlearning a lot of that. But I don't think I am just being biased. I mean I have friends, so many friends who work in climate apparently have a thing for climate people and the sentiment of friends who are much more knowledgeable than me is that she's a really great minister doing a great job and she's also the only female minister out of eight I want to say. So yeah, it was really amazing talking to her about climate education and some of the things that I raised she promised that she would go and talk to the department of education in her weekly meetings with Bridget Philipsson about. So that makes me feel like I have moved the needle forward a little bit and I've advocated for teachers and students in the way that I want to. Am I under the illusion that our meeting today will tangibly change anything massive in the world? No. But do I feel that I can do some helpful advocacy and hopefully have shifted her opinion and got her to think about things in a different way a little bit? Yeah, I actually do. So I feel endlessly grateful for the opportunity to go there. I really never thought I would be in Parliament. I have learned a lot and grown a lot in the last decade and I felt like I was really able to hold my own in that space which was great. Can't believe that just happened. Oh, I am just beating myself up a bit though. Like there's so many things I wish that I'd asked or I'd said in a better way. But hey, I'm 25. I don't need to have all the answers. be perfect. I am out here doing my best. I genuinely care and that is worth something. Oh my god. Okay. I feel so grateful because two of my dear friends in Brighton texted me and they were like, "Jay, we should celebrate by going to the beach for sunset. " So, I'm going to do an hour of work and then go see them.