The planet hasn’t stopped burning

Leeds International Festival of Ideas event review

By Lucy Meredith: Imagine Leeds & Clean Energy Leeds

Members of the Imagine Leeds Team (From Left to Right) Back row: Anne-Lise Lancaster, Simon Dixon, Anzir Boodoo, Lucy Meredith. Front row: Sally Morgan.

Last week I attended a panel discussion titled ‘the Planet Hasn’t Stopped Burning’, part of the Leeds International Festival.

The Leeds International Festival of Ideas (LIFI) is described as “a platform for bold conversation, fresh thinking, and powerful ideas”, which it certainly lived up to.

I have attended LIFI in previous years and am glad to see it is still going strong and covering diverse and challenging topics. (Also on an unrelated note, I loved the branding for the festival. It had really strong graphics.)

I came along with fellow members of the Imagine Leeds team. Being part of Imagine Leeds, which is a community-focused venue for the city, we were keen to attend this event as climate, nature, and social justice are at the heart of the work we do. 

The questions posed at the event included ‘Why is no one talking about the environment anymore?’ This resonated with many of us, as climate activist burnout and being overwhelmed by all the news stories is something that is brought up a lot by people who come to Imagine Leeds.

The event had a stellar panel, hosted by the mighty Chris Packham with Dr Mya-Rose Craig (Bird Girl) and Jurgen Maier CBE (Great British Energy). They were very engaging with a lot of topics discussed, including how cool bird watching is!

So here are a few of my takeaways…

We are all drops in the ocean but the ocean is made up of many drops of water.

That I would like to spend more time celebrating the pure joy of connecting with nature.

Also the appeal of a world that is less car-centric and taking back urban spaces for nature and community use.

On the topic of what makes you hopeful about the future, Chris Packham said:

‘Our species isn’t great at prevention but we are brilliant at making cures.” 

Jurgen Maier made some interesting points about the idea of triaging the climate crisis and focussing on what is most urgent first, which I think is a great way of trying to make it all seem less daunting.

Also the idea of thinking about the language we use when talking about the climate crisis to make it less off putting. Terms like biodiversity and nature as alternative ways of broaching such a big subject.

I even got to ask a question during the Q&A. I was pretty nervous but managed to string a sentence together and clutch a giant squishy cube microphone (which was a great contraption!) designed to be throwable around an audience of 750 people in the Quarry Theatre at Leeds Playhouse.

Jurgen Maier, CEO of Great British Energy, mentioned that he had actually lived in Alwoodley and I was really pleased to hear that he knew about Clean Energy Leeds (Leeds’ community energy organisation)  and the work we're doing on community solar in Leeds.

So I asked him if he would like to visit us at Imagine and visit one of Clean Energy Leeds’ sites, to which his answer was yes! You are welcome anytime Jurgen.

Lucy being interviewed after the event by LIFI TV

Well done to the LIFI team for curating a great programme of events and I look forward to attending next year.

And remember ‘It’s just the start of the conversation’.

Our view of the stage for the Q&A!