# Transcript: Why we don’t act on what we know

## Description

In Brain&Breakfast, we explore the communication aspects of situations and major societal issues where a group of people knows how to solve them but doesn’t act accordingly.



We focus on the ways communication within groups can block problem-solving and what we can do to get things moving.



Who is Ondráš Přibyla?



Ondráš Přibyla is the founder of the Fakta o klimatu project and recipient of the 2020 Award for communication of global climate change. Ondráš studied theoretical physics but around 2006 switched tracks from a scientific career to focus on communication. He initially worked as a popularizer and instructor (teaching, among other things, the Climate Change course at Masaryk University in Brno), later expanding his expertise to include nonviolent communication methodology, conflict mediation, and working with communication culture in organizations. In the Fakta o klimatu project, he and his team create visualizations of available data on climate change and possible solutions, aiming to contribute to the quality of public discourse.

## Transcript

**[00:00:00]** Hello and good day, my name is Honza Mašek and welcome to another Brain & Breakfast.

**[00:00:24]** I just read on LinkedIn that some companies already see it as a kind of iron tradition,

**[00:00:30]** because we've been broadcasting Brain & Breakfast for 8 years now, always trying for the third Thursday of the month,

**[00:00:36]** so we haven't taken a single break, and I hope we will continue like this.

**[00:00:41]** What Brain & Breakfast is about, you saw in the slide deck that just ended.

**[00:00:47]** And I might remind you that we really want you not to stop just at,

**[00:00:54]** listening to an interesting lecture, listening to this thing here,

**[00:00:59]** which inspires you, but to go a little deeper.

**[00:01:03]** And for that, we have small things that are tricks in the learning process.

**[00:01:13]** That means, you surely know today is Earth Day, you surely know today will be about communication,

**[00:01:18]** you probably know it might be about the Facts about Climate project, so maybe you studied something,

**[00:01:24]** you looked ahead, and that was a good move.

**[00:01:27]** Then after the lecture, we highly recommend you connect with your colleagues

**[00:01:32]** or just some acquaintances who watched it and talk a bit about the topic.

**[00:01:38]** And then in about 14 days, on May 6th, we will hold a moderated discussion,

**[00:01:47]** where not only will our guest, whom I will welcome shortly, speak,

**[00:01:52]** but we will also welcome Soňa Jonáševá from the Institute of Circular Economy,

**[00:01:56]** Péťa Vítek from Impact Hub, and Ludzka Mádlová from the Association of Social Responsibility,

**[00:02:02]** and we will discuss the topic a bit more in depth.

**[00:02:07]** Because you know, the breakfast format is about an hour, some lecture,

**[00:02:12]** to get sufficiently deep into the topic,

**[00:02:15]** but at the same time, we want it to be interactive,

**[00:02:18]** so the following half hour is adjusted to your questions.

**[00:02:23]** So please, take your mobile phones and go to www.slajdu.com

**[00:02:29]** hashtag Brain or under the broadcast, if you are watching on Edu,

**[00:02:34]** there is a window where you can submit your questions.

**[00:02:37]** I put a warm-up question there at the start,

**[00:02:40]** if this is your first time at the breakfast,

**[00:02:43]** I see we already have 60 people voted and it's about 50-50,

**[00:02:48]** which makes me happy because that means half are new people

**[00:02:52]** coming to check out our breakfast, which is great.

**[00:02:55]** So in a moment we will close this,

**[00:02:58]** and then you'll be able to ask questions,

**[00:03:01]** so this is just the intro.

**[00:03:05]** Now I would like to welcome a person I actually met

**[00:03:11]** in a slightly different context than what I talked about today,

**[00:03:15]** about Earth Day, facts, climate.

**[00:03:17]** I would like to welcome Ondráš Přibyla.

**[00:03:19]** Ondráš, please come take a seat here behind me.

**[00:03:25]** Good morning.

**[00:03:27]** Good morning.

**[00:03:29]** I met Ondráš in connection with the topic of nonviolent communication

**[00:03:35]** and communication in general.

**[00:03:37]** And then I actually found out

**[00:03:39]** that you are the author of the portal Fakta o klimatu,

**[00:03:43]** because we said that since it falls on Earth Day,

**[00:03:46]** I don't know exactly how long, maybe about a year ago,

**[00:03:49]** it could be a good idea.

**[00:03:51]** You called me sometime in September, so quite a while ago.

**[00:03:54]** So it's not always a coincidence, the things that happen,

**[00:03:58]** sometimes they are planned.

**[00:04:00]** Ondráš, I'm really looking forward to your lecture,

**[00:04:02]** because when we talked about it,

**[00:04:04]** combining communication and so on

**[00:04:07]** with today's day will be a great experience for me.

**[00:04:11]** So I hand you this imaginary baton.

**[00:04:14]** You have it under control, now it's yours, thanks.

**[00:04:20]** Thank you for the introduction. Hello again.

**[00:04:23]** I hope I manage to meet expectations

**[00:04:26]** and at the same time I always need to remind myself,

**[00:04:29]** I have one hour for this lecture today,

**[00:04:32]** so I can't do something as deep as

**[00:04:36]** a month-long nonviolent communication course

**[00:04:40]** or a semester-long climate change course.

**[00:04:44]** I will try to combine both aspects in what I talk about.

**[00:04:46]** So what will it be about today?

**[00:04:50]** Communication and climate.

**[00:04:52]** Earth Day has been celebrated roughly since 1970,

**[00:04:59]** and this photo of Earth is from Apollo 8,

**[00:05:05]** when it orbited the moon.

**[00:05:10]** And at that time, for the first time, people began to realize,

**[00:05:13]** around that time, people first started to realize

**[00:05:16]** that our planet, which, when we stand on it,

**[00:05:19]** seems unimaginably large

**[00:05:24]** and it's actually hard to grasp that it's round.

**[00:05:28]** When you try to explain to children that the planet is round,

**[00:05:34]** you get questions like, what's underneath?

**[00:05:38]** And around the time when space flights began,

**[00:05:42]** people started to realize that our planet is round,

**[00:05:50]** that it is actually relatively small and maybe quite fragile.

**[00:05:54]** And back then they came up with the idea to celebrate or dedicate a day,

**[00:06:02]** on which we can somehow think about the planet

**[00:06:06]** or realize how fragile our planet is.

**[00:06:10]** And it concerns not only the planet but the general environment.

**[00:06:15]** And today I will focus on climate on one hand.

**[00:06:24]** As Honza already said, I lead the project Facts about Climate,

**[00:06:28]** where we try to present data about climate change

**[00:06:32]** in an understandable way so that it is publicly accessible.

**[00:06:36]** And because I wanted it to be useful

**[00:06:42]** also for you in organizations, and not just a reminder that

**[00:06:46]** climate change is happening, and because I wanted to meet Honza's

**[00:06:51]** request to add the topic of communication, I included some ideas

**[00:06:57]** from communication. It won't be entirely about nonviolent communication,

**[00:07:01]** but about how these two topics intersect for me.

**[00:07:07]** And probably the best way to start talking about it is with a story.

**[00:07:12]** You probably know Easter Island mainly because of the statues,

**[00:07:17]** which stand there, with their long noses and long faces.

**[00:07:21]** But Easter Island is also, for me, an example of an ecological disaster,

**[00:07:26]** because at the time when its inhabitants built those statues,

**[00:07:33]** the island was forested. And now it is not.

**[00:07:38]** Research has shown that the forests and trees were actually cut down by the original inhabitants.

**[00:07:47]** And I often try to imagine what it was like for those inhabitants.

**[00:07:54]** When they saw on the island how many trees there used to be.

**[00:07:59]** The island is not big, you can walk around it in a day, it has three high mountains,

**[00:08:03]** from which you can see the whole island.

**[00:08:14]** I often imagine what it was like for the island's inhabitants.

**[00:08:18]** To see how many trees there used to be, to see that they have the last 300 trees.

**[00:08:24]** And maybe they have the last tree.

**[00:08:26]** And I imagine the conversations they might have had, the communication.

**[00:08:31]** When maybe a man appeared there who said,

**[00:08:34]** hey, we have the last tree here, let's not cut it down.

**[00:08:39]** And something caused them to cut it down.

**[00:08:41]** Something caused them not to be able to stop the change that was coming.

**[00:08:49]** And I am fascinated by thinking about those questions, what actually happened there.

**[00:08:54]** And I am fascinated by the effort to imagine what it was like when they tried to say,

**[00:09:05]** we simply won't cut down that tree.

**[00:09:09]** And these are questions we will never get answers to.

**[00:09:12]** But they lead us into the topic.

**[00:09:16]** Climate change and the narrative world.

**[00:09:20]** When I say the term narrative world, I actually mean the world of stories,

**[00:09:26]** that we tell each other on formal occasions.

**[00:09:31]** It can be meetings at a company, or informal occasions

**[00:09:38]** by the coffee machine, in the kitchen, on the way home.

**[00:09:42]** But I also mean the world of collective thinking.

**[00:09:45]** In fact, people, especially in groups, often think by

**[00:09:52]** talking and sharing stories.

**[00:10:00]** I would like to try to answer the question a bit,

**[00:10:04]** why in some cases we don't actually behave according to what we know.

**[00:10:09]** And what role communication plays in solving or not solving climate change.

**[00:10:16]** And probably many other problems,

**[00:10:18]** because climate change is a problem similar to many others.

**[00:10:31]** I want to introduce you to a simple model,

**[00:10:37]** which will include the physical world and the narrative world.

**[00:10:40]** And when I was reviewing the lecture last night,

**[00:10:43]** I realized that the physical or rather the physical world

**[00:10:50]** and the narrative world are two worlds I have moved between during my life.

**[00:10:57]** Basically, until I was about 25, when I studied theoretical physics,

**[00:11:02]** I perceived the world through equations, data, numbers.

**[00:11:05]** And the things I saw around me, the problems I saw around me,

**[00:11:11]** I perceived as optimization problems,

**[00:11:14]** that can be solved and for which it’s good to try to find equations.

**[00:11:18]** Back then, I wasn’t much fun to be around.

**[00:11:22]** At the same time, I realized that not every problem is suitable to be solved this way.

**[00:11:28]** For example, you can’t solve loving the earth with equations.

**[00:11:33]** Then, by some twist of fate, life led me to nonviolent communication.

**[00:11:42]** I completed training in nonviolent communication,

**[00:11:49]** got an international certification in nonviolent communication.

**[00:11:53]** Then I taught courses on communication in conflict situations for a long time.

**[00:11:59]** I did mediations in companies, worked with conflicts.

**[00:12:08]** Gradually, I expanded those conflicts and started working with complex communication situations,

**[00:12:21]** which are complex either because you have a complex topic, like climate change,

**[00:12:29]** or something that is hard to describe.

**[00:12:31]** Or they are complex because emotions are involved, making it a classic conflict.

**[00:12:36]** Or they are complex because there are many people and we need many people to agree.

**[00:12:41]** These two worlds, the world of physics and the world of communication, conflict mediation, and so on,

**[00:12:51]** came together for me sometime in March 2019.

**[00:12:58]** When I was at the Fridays for Future strike, because I was interested in how the newspapers would write about the strike,

**[00:13:07]** which tries to raise awareness about climate change,

**[00:13:10]** I started asking journalists who were supposed to report on the strike

**[00:13:16]** and what they know about climate change, what they found out, how prepared they are to report.

**[00:13:23]** And I found out that they actually know almost nothing. They just read the strike schedule.

**[00:13:29]** So I asked what caused them not to prepare better.

**[00:13:35]** And they said, well, we don't have time, we have to do several reports a day,

**[00:13:40]** so it's quite difficult to gather and prepare data.

**[00:13:45]** And for me, that was a strong moment, an insight when I realized,

**[00:13:50]** that if journalists don't have accessible data about climate change,

**[00:13:54]** they will write stories about what Greta had for lunch,

**[00:13:59]** and climate communication won't move forward.

**[00:14:03]** It will remain unconstructive.

**[00:14:06]** Because to write a story about what Greta had for lunch,

**[00:14:10]** all you need is an opinion and some gossip.

**[00:14:14]** But to write something about climate change

**[00:14:18]** and help people understand it, you need to do quite a bit of research,

**[00:14:23]** you need to do a lot of work here.

**[00:14:26]** So that's how the project Facts about Climate was born,

**[00:14:29]** where we started collecting available data about climate change

**[00:14:36]** and creating visualizations that could be understandable for ordinary people,

**[00:14:40]** so that they would be in one place and publicly accessible.

**[00:14:48]** The physical and narrative world. What do I actually mean by that?

**[00:14:52]** I'll try to give some examples rather than academic definitions.

**[00:14:58]** The idea that these two worlds meet and influence each other,

**[00:15:04]** I encountered when I was doing a project in a large corporate company,

**[00:15:14]** where they had high disengagement.

**[00:15:18]** By then, I already knew it was worth listening to conversations in the break rooms,

**[00:15:24]** so I walked around the company and listened to what people were talking about.

**[00:15:30]** I found it interesting that they often talked about how bad the coffee was.

**[00:15:34]** Not because I thought bad coffee caused

**[00:15:39]** employees to be unhappy, but because the coffee machines they had

**[00:15:45]** and the coffee they bought were actually quite good quality.

**[00:15:52]** At that time, I thought they had good equipment.

**[00:15:59]** Why do they talk about having bad coffee?

**[00:16:04]** And we couldn't think of anything better than to directly ask about it in focus groups.

**[00:16:08]** So we included a question in the questionnaire.

**[00:16:11]** When we talk about having bad coffee here,

**[00:16:14]** is it actually a substitute topic for fill in the blanks.

**[00:16:18]** And surprisingly, the results of all those focus groups were completely consistent.

**[00:16:24]** In different words, people said that when they talk about bad coffee,

**[00:16:29]** they are actually naming, or it's a substitute topic for a feeling,

**[00:16:42]** the feeling that he is a corporate slave in that company.

**[00:16:48]** That the foreign company, the foreign parent,

**[00:16:55]** doesn't care about them.

**[00:17:02]** And for me, it was an interesting insight to realize,

**[00:17:06]** that people somehow talk, express themselves,

**[00:17:10]** and somehow have that collective thinking.

**[00:17:13]** And on the other hand, there is the physical world of coffee machines

**[00:17:17]** and employee salaries.

**[00:17:29]** And these worlds somehow influence each other.

**[00:17:33]** In the narrative world, we have stories and collective thinking,

**[00:17:37]** and when people say we have lousy coffee,

**[00:17:41]** it can mean not only that they think the coffee is bad,

**[00:17:46]** but it can have different layers of meaning.

**[00:17:49]** In the physical world, we have data, numbers, and these two worlds influence each other.

**[00:17:56]** And the problems we solve in the narrative world,

**[00:18:00]** which are typically conflicts, often somehow relate

**[00:18:04]** to the physical world.

**[00:18:07]** At home, you won't often have a conflict with your wife

**[00:18:11]** just because you left a towel in the bathroom.

**[00:18:14]** And conversely, conflicts in the physical world are influenced by the narrative one.

**[00:18:22]** Let's move from abstraction to some concrete things.

**[00:18:25]** The physical world during the recent pandemic, or the still ongoing pandemic,

**[00:18:32]** can be seen as an optimization problem,

**[00:18:35]** where we have some resources, like the number of masks,

**[00:18:40]** the number of ventilators, we have people, doctors, patients.

**[00:18:45]** We have some limits, for example, the number of patients per doctor,

**[00:18:51]** meaning the number of patients one doctor can handle.

**[00:18:55]** And the physical or physical-biological-medical world,

**[00:19:00]** simply this world of objective data, you could say,

**[00:19:05]** is the world of Captain Spock, who perceives this type of problem

**[00:19:10]** and doesn't have many human emotions.

**[00:19:15]** On the other hand, many stories circulated about the pandemic.

**[00:19:23]** People said, it's just a little flu,

**[00:19:26]** or my mask protects you, which is also a story,

**[00:19:29]** a kind of thinking pattern.

**[00:19:33]** One of the latest stories,

**[00:19:36]** one of the latest thoughts or ways of interpretation,

**[00:19:39]** was that people behave irresponsibly.

**[00:19:44]** These are examples of what I mean by the narrative world.

**[00:19:53]** I said that the narrative world contains the stories we tell ourselves,

**[00:19:58]** and also collective thinking.

**[00:20:00]** And I would like to emphasize that thoughts in the narrative world are often conveyed

**[00:20:05]** through symbols, images, or short messages,

**[00:20:11]** which are not just the sentence we say, like 'it's just the flu,'

**[00:20:15]** but the whole meaning behind it, where the message is just the flu,

**[00:20:20]** actually says much more than just comparing coronavirus mortality to flu mortality.

**[00:20:31]** The physical and narrative worlds influence each other.

**[00:20:36]** That is probably not surprising.

**[00:20:39]** If you want to convince people that your product is great so they buy more of it,

**[00:20:45]** your product is great, the story people tell about it is from the narrative world,

**[00:20:50]** and the fact that people buy more of it is from the physical world; that's called marketing.

**[00:20:56]** If you want to convince people that some nation is hostile to your nation,

**[00:21:02]** that might cause a war.

**[00:21:06]** Hostility is something in the narrative world, the concept,

**[00:21:12]** the stories about injustice and so on.

**[00:21:15]** And the number of victims or bullets fired

**[00:21:19]** are matters of the physical world.

**[00:21:22]** I was talking about how the physical and narrative worlds influence each other,

**[00:21:26]** the world of objective manifestations of things and behavior

**[00:21:32]** and the world of stories and thinking.

**[00:21:35]** And at the same time, something was happening here in the studio,

**[00:21:38]** and I really wish you could see not only me searching for words,

**[00:21:45]** but also see the guys' expressions as they were feverishly talking on their phones.

**[00:21:52]** When something in the physical world caused

**[00:21:57]** the signal to not reach you.

**[00:22:01]** The fact that the guys were talking about it was something

**[00:22:06]** that distracted me.

**[00:22:09]** And I was thinking, what are they dealing with?

**[00:22:11]** It must be something really important.

**[00:22:14]** But I didn't know what.

**[00:22:16]** So about 30% of my mental capacity

**[00:22:20]** was occupied with what was happening, what they were dealing with.

**[00:22:24]** Probably something important. Why don't they tell me?

**[00:22:27]** Or something like that.

**[00:22:33]** It seems to me a perfect example of

**[00:22:36]** what can happen in people's minds

**[00:22:41]** when they don't know what others are talking about.

**[00:22:47]** Or when they don't know what plan we have

**[00:22:52]** to get out of the problem we have.

**[00:22:55]** That is, the importance of a well-communicated vision.

**[00:23:00]** And of course, that then affects their performance.

**[00:23:03]** So it affected my performance.

**[00:23:07]** I hope we're back on a good stream now

**[00:23:11]** and that I will have full attention to deliver the message.

**[00:23:17]** I also hope it's not too abstract.

**[00:23:22]** I started talking about how the physical and narrative worlds influence each other.

**[00:23:25]** And about how, probably for marketers

**[00:23:27]** or people working in propaganda or politics,

**[00:23:30]** these are known and unsurprising things.

**[00:23:34]** I want to highlight two interesting patterns

**[00:23:37]** that may relate to both the climate crisis

**[00:23:41]** and, for example, the current epidemic crisis.

**[00:23:45]** One pattern of influence between the narrative and physical

**[00:23:48]** could be called a self-fulfilling prophecy.

**[00:23:52]** Basically, if people say to themselves,

**[00:23:57]** 'Hey, it's pointless to try, destruction is inevitable,'

**[00:23:59]** then they won't try, and destruction will come.

**[00:24:02]** It's like driving on a highway,

**[00:24:05]** seeing a traffic jam ahead and thinking,

**[00:24:08]** 'The jam is too close, no point in braking, we'll crash anyway.'

**[00:24:11]** You don't brake, and you crash.

**[00:24:15]** A self-fulfilling prophecy is a thought, collective thinking,

**[00:24:17]** or collective story that fulfills itself precisely because it causes inaction.

**[00:24:21]** On the other hand, the second pattern I want to highlight

**[00:24:25]** is the apparent uselessness of prevention.

**[00:24:29]** A story people might tell themselves is,

**[00:24:33]** 'Hey, no need to panic, the threat isn't big.'

**[00:24:37]** Sorry.

**[00:24:39]** I just mixed up and started saying self-fulfilling prophecy.

**[00:24:44]** Apparent uselessness of prevention.

**[00:24:49]** We see a threat, start reacting to it,

**[00:24:54]** take strong preventive measures, and as a result, the threat doesn't materialize.

**[00:24:56]** And the story that then appears,

**[00:25:01]** I hope I'm saying this clearly now,

**[00:25:04]** the story that then appears is,

**[00:25:06]** 'Hey, it wasn't necessary to panic like that,'

**[00:25:08]** 'because the threat obviously wasn't that strong,'

**[00:25:10]** 'it didn't materialize.'

**[00:25:19]** And this is something known to preventive doctors,

**[00:25:22]** but also to epidemiologists,

**[00:25:25]** when it actually shows

**[00:25:27]** that preventive measures have an effect,

**[00:25:31]** and that's why people think

**[00:25:33]** that it was pointless to take them.

**[00:25:40]** You can observe the narrative world in your own organizations too.

**[00:25:45]** For me, this was for a long time the main work

**[00:25:48]** that I did.

**[00:25:50]** And you can ask yourself questions.

**[00:25:54]** Is the organization homogeneous,

**[00:25:57]** or does it contain different tribes?

**[00:26:02]** What are the topics people talk about?

**[00:26:05]** What are the topics that drive communication?

**[00:26:10]** Last week it seemed

**[00:26:12]** that the main topic would be

**[00:26:15]** football and Glasgow.

**[00:26:20]** People asked me,

**[00:26:22]** what do you think about it,

**[00:26:24]** about the courts and resolving some insult.

**[00:26:28]** Now it looks like

**[00:26:30]** the main topic to be addressed

**[00:26:33]** will be the question,

**[00:26:35]** are you pro-Russian or anti-Russian?

**[00:26:38]** For some time it won't be possible

**[00:26:40]** to avoid that question.

**[00:26:42]** These are the driving topics.

**[00:26:44]** It's also interesting to find out

**[00:26:46]** what topics are not talked about.

**[00:26:48]** What are the blind spots, blind areas?

**[00:26:50]** When something is not talked about,

**[00:26:52]** it can mean

**[00:26:54]** that it is not being addressed, even though it should be.

**[00:26:57]** What meanings do those stories carry?

**[00:27:02]** What actions do those stories encourage?

**[00:27:08]** These are questions that come to me,

**[00:27:10]** and I don't have answers for your organizations,

**[00:27:12]** but you can start looking around you.

**[00:27:15]** Let's make some kind of exercise out of this.

**[00:27:18]** Let's try to imagine a few spaces,

**[00:27:22]** in which events take place

**[00:27:24]** in institutions, events in companies.

**[00:27:26]** Let's try to realize

**[00:27:28]** what limitations those spaces bring.

**[00:27:33]** What happens when you have an office

**[00:27:35]** with long corridors

**[00:27:37]** and separate rooms?

**[00:27:41]** People don't meet, meaning the office employees,

**[00:27:44]** don't meet each other much.

**[00:27:46]** If they do meet, they meet

**[00:27:48]** in those separate rooms,

**[00:27:49]** because there is no common café.

**[00:27:51]** So you have great privacy,

**[00:27:54]** but the departments are truly separated.

**[00:27:57]** Such an office tends to have

**[00:28:00]** employees communicating little with each other

**[00:28:03]** and that communication is actually ineffective,

**[00:28:05]** because informal connections are missing.

**[00:28:10]** A contrasting example is an open space.

**[00:28:15]** When I was running a long training

**[00:28:19]** on nonviolent communication in a company,

**[00:28:22]** around the sixth day,

**[00:28:25]** the people in the course

**[00:28:29]** said, well, this is all great,

**[00:28:32]** what you're teaching us.

**[00:28:33]** We can use it at home,

**[00:28:34]** but we can't use it here

**[00:28:36]** in our company.

**[00:28:38]** I asked why, for heaven's sake.

**[00:28:40]** And they said, look around, this is an open space.

**[00:28:43]** Whenever you want to say something to someone here,

**[00:28:46]** a whole bunch of people listen.

**[00:28:49]** There is basically no privacy here.

**[00:28:52]** It's very hard to create a private space,

**[00:28:54]** which has consequences.

**[00:28:56]** And it had consequences here,

**[00:28:57]** because conflicts in this company

**[00:29:00]** actually remained unresolved,

**[00:29:02]** because there was no sufficiently private space

**[00:29:05]** where you could openly address the conflict.

**[00:29:07]** And when people started thinking something about you,

**[00:29:09]** they started listening to you

**[00:29:12]** and some rumors began to spread

**[00:29:15]** that someone hinted at something crazy.

**[00:29:24]** Due to our technical problems,

**[00:29:27]** I'll try to speed up a bit,

**[00:29:29]** so I can cover everything I want to tell you.

**[00:29:32]** I'll add one more example.

**[00:29:35]** When I was doing,

**[00:29:42]** I wouldn't exactly call it dispute mediation,

**[00:29:44]** but I was involved in strike readiness

**[00:29:47]** at the South Moravian ambulance service.

**[00:29:49]** From the perspective of the physical layout of the organization,

**[00:29:56]** there was a remarkable feature.

**[00:29:58]** The ambulance service

**[00:30:00]** has 23 dispatch stations across the region.

**[00:30:05]** At these dispatch stations, people work in shifts.

**[00:30:10]** And if you were the director of such an organization,

**[00:30:13]** and visited one dispatch station every day,

**[00:30:17]** you wouldn't cover the whole region in a month.

**[00:30:21]** And you would do nothing else but travel to those dispatch stations.

**[00:30:24]** In other words, this kind of space where the organization operates

**[00:30:31]** makes it very difficult to maintain contact between management and the people.

**[00:30:36]** It's actually very hard to keep a shared organizational culture.

**[00:30:46]** So, what I want to offer here in this example,

**[00:30:50]** I hope can be at least somewhat practical for you.

**[00:30:54]** Try to look at where your organization operates,

**[00:30:57]** in what time-space.

**[00:30:58]** And time-space means not only space but also time, meaning rhythm.

**[00:31:04]** How often people meet, where they meet.

**[00:31:07]** And how that actually affects the narrative landscape.

**[00:31:09]** How it influences the stories people tell each other.

**[00:31:12]** How it affects collective thinking.

**[00:31:14]** Some spaces, like OpenSpace,

**[00:31:20]** block things from happening in that narrative landscape.

**[00:31:26]** For example, open conflict resolution.

**[00:31:31]** On the other hand, they enable something.

**[00:31:34]** So the arrangements of time-spaces influence how people think.

**[00:31:44]** We often want to influence that narrative landscape somehow.

**[00:31:52]** A term that for me is connected with this,

**[00:31:55]** There are thematic anchors and topic management.

**[00:31:58]** But calling it management is an inaccurate term.

**[00:32:02]** Because it's actually something similar to gardening.

**[00:32:07]** You can't control the topics people will talk about.

**[00:32:12]** But you can somehow help

**[00:32:14]** so that some topics get more attention.

**[00:32:17]** And some topics become harder to address.

**[00:32:20]** This is important not only in conversations with your boss or your wife.

**[00:32:25]** Choosing the topics you want to invest energy in.

**[00:32:28]** But it's also important in companies, organizations, institutions,

**[00:32:33]** or even entire nations on the planet.

**[00:32:37]** What we talk about influences what we devote our energy to.

**[00:32:50]** A metaphor that might help you think about this is a bit warlike.

**[00:33:02]** In the work Art of War, it talks about the importance of choosing battles.

**[00:33:12]** In conflicts, it's important to choose the topics

**[00:33:16]** to which you want to devote your energy and time.

**[00:33:26]** And within organizations, how to cause

**[00:33:29]** some topics to get more attention

**[00:33:33]** and possibly to tone down some topics.

**[00:33:37]** The principle that is absolutely most important here

**[00:33:41]** is sometimes called the triviality principle or the bike shelter color principle.

**[00:33:46]** It basically says that people talk easily about things

**[00:33:49]** that are easy to talk about.

**[00:33:53]** The name bike shelter color principle came from a university

**[00:33:57]** where the local academic senate spent hours deciding

**[00:34:01]** what color the bike shelter should be.

**[00:34:05]** While the faculty budget was approved in five minutes.

**[00:34:12]** And this doesn't really reflect the reality that

**[00:34:16]** the bike shelter color was truly important or controversial,

**[00:34:20]** while the budget was completely unproblematic.

**[00:34:25]** It reflects the fact that it's easy to talk about the bike shelter color.

**[00:34:31]** We've all seen one, we all have some opinion,

**[00:34:35]** so it's easy to discuss.

**[00:34:39]** While the faculty budget is a complex, complicated matter

**[00:34:42]** and it's hard to talk about.

**[00:34:44]** That's why people much more easily slip into topics

**[00:34:50]** that are conversationally easy.

**[00:34:53]** That's why it's easier to talk about what someone had for lunch somewhere

**[00:34:56]** than about the sources of greenhouse gas emissions

**[00:34:59]** in the Czech Republic.

**[00:35:01]** But if we want to do something about it, we need thematic anchors.

**[00:35:06]** Simply put, we need something

**[00:35:11]** that makes it easier to talk about a complex topic.

**[00:35:14]** If I wanted to talk to you about emissions in the Czech Republic,

**[00:35:18]** about where emissions in the Czech Republic come from,

**[00:35:20]** I would use this chart.

**[00:35:22]** By the way, you can find it on the fakta o klimatu CZ website.

**[00:35:25]** It shows the sources of emissions in the Czech Republic.

**[00:35:29]** You would probably need to look at it for a while,

**[00:35:35]** to read it properly and understand it.

**[00:35:37]** But if I print this chart out for a conversation,

**[00:35:43]** and lay it in front of me on the table,

**[00:35:46]** it really helps me point things out.

**[00:35:51]** Look, here’s air transport,

**[00:35:53]** which accounts for about 1% of the Czech Republic’s emissions,

**[00:35:56]** while the Prunéřov or Počerad coal power plants

**[00:35:59]** have emissions comparable to, say, freight bus transport.

**[00:36:06]** You can see that, and it lets you draw attention

**[00:36:09]** to topics like these.

**[00:36:12]** That’s one thematic anchor.

**[00:36:15]** Another example you all know.

**[00:36:17]** If you want to plan a trip,

**[00:36:19]** it’s good to have a map in front of you.

**[00:36:23]** Then you can talk about the route you’ll take

**[00:36:26]** and point to the paths on the map.

**[00:36:31]** If we wanted to talk about energy,

**[00:36:35]** for example energy in the European Union,

**[00:36:38]** I would bring a chart like this, showing

**[00:36:41]** electricity consumption and production

**[00:36:45]** in individual EU countries

**[00:36:48]** per person per year.

**[00:36:52]** You can see, for example,

**[00:36:55]** that Sweden has very high production and consumption,

**[00:36:59]** while some other countries,

**[00:37:02]** like Lithuania, have high consumption

**[00:37:06]** and minimal production, so they have to import energy.

**[00:37:09]** You can also see an interesting detail.

**[00:37:13]** The Czech Republic produces more coal-based electricity per person

**[00:37:19]** than Poland,

**[00:37:22]** even though Poland gets 80% of its electricity from coal power plants.

**[00:37:27]** The reason? The Czech Republic also has

**[00:37:31]** twice the total electricity consumption

**[00:37:35]** per capita compared to Poland.

**[00:37:38]** We can show these details when

**[00:37:42]** we have the chance to have a long enough conversation,

**[00:37:47]** so we can get to these details.

**[00:37:50]** So here’s a challenge for you,

**[00:37:53]** if you need to talk about something complex,

**[00:37:56]** you need a conversation that lasts longer than 20 seconds,

**[00:37:59]** but helps you get in-depth.

**[00:38:02]** Think about some thematic anchors

**[00:38:05]** that allow you to go deep,

**[00:38:09]** and I hope I can briefly summarize this case study,

**[00:38:16]** so I can also get to the climate topic.

**[00:38:20]** One of the few things I can share publicly

**[00:38:24]** is our work at the Faculty of Informatics at Masaryk University.

**[00:38:30]** The Faculty of Informatics at Masaryk University has a special feature,

**[00:38:34]** many courses include exercises.

**[00:38:40]** And because there are many students, there are many groups for these exercises.

**[00:38:45]** So you are a lecturer and need to coordinate many exercise leaders.

**[00:38:49]** But the problem is that these lecturers don’t meet each other.

**[00:38:53]** They don’t talk about how they coordinate courses for 400 people.

**[00:38:58]** Why would they?

**[00:39:00]** They are in the same lab, don’t attend each other’s lectures,

**[00:39:05]** there’s no reason for them to meet like that.

**[00:39:07]** At the same time, we wanted to somehow help set the culture,

**[00:39:12]** how to handle these large numbers of exercise leaders.

**[00:39:18]** And the idea a friend Martin came up with was,

**[00:39:22]** let’s use the kitchen, because people meet there.

**[00:39:27]** Let’s put simply processed results

**[00:39:33]** of a short survey asking how they manage their exercise groups.

**[00:39:38]** We just placed the survey results on tables in the kitchens.

**[00:39:43]** And the effect came.

**[00:39:46]** Because when people met and saw the results,

**[00:39:50]** they asked what it was. They started looking at it.

**[00:39:54]** And they started talking about how they run their exercises.

**[00:40:00]** Sharing experiences, standardizing, and good practice examples

**[00:40:10]** from one course transferred to another.

**[00:40:14]** And what was needed for that?

**[00:40:17]** To place suitable thematic anchors in places,

**[00:40:21]** Again, a physical space where people meet.

**[00:40:25]** You can think about the role of kitchens in your institution

**[00:40:30]** and what kinds of conversations you want to plant

**[00:40:34]** and therefore, what conversational anchors you might want to place in the kitchens.

**[00:40:44]** Let's now focus on how we actually talk about climate change.

**[00:40:49]** What are the stories, what are the narratives that appear in our space?

**[00:40:56]** Now, here's a chance for you to reflect and try to guess,

**[00:41:05]** how many Czechs do you think would agree with the statement

**[00:41:09]** that the Czech Republic should reduce greenhouse gas emissions,

**[00:41:13]** regardless of how other countries approach it.

**[00:41:16]** This is a question from a recent study,

**[00:41:20]** so we actually have data on this.

**[00:41:25]** Try to make a guess.

**[00:41:27]** Do you think 30%, 40%, 60%, or 70% would agree with such a statement?

**[00:41:35]** Make your guess, and in a moment I'll tell you what the study actually found.

**[00:41:50]** What narratives exist around the topic of climate change?

**[00:41:56]** One narrative is apocalyptic: doom awaits, nothing can be done.

**[00:42:03]** Other narratives are more skeptical, uncertain,

**[00:42:08]** just a bit of warming, it was like this before, it will be like this again.

**[00:42:11]** These are the stories people tell themselves about what is actually happening.

**[00:42:17]** Other stories that appear, and thus shape our collective thinking,

**[00:42:22]** focus on what Greta said or who Greta is.

**[00:42:25]** Whether you think Greta is great or terrible,

**[00:42:29]** it doesn't really concern the climate.

**[00:42:33]** It's actually focusing on the person, the messenger who brings a message,

**[00:42:40]** and not on the message itself.

**[00:42:43]** Other narratives that appear.

**[00:42:47]** Young people often say that boomers are corrupt,

**[00:42:51]** destroying our planet. Capitalists are to blame.

**[00:42:56]** Or conversely, that green activists want us to go backwards.

**[00:43:01]** These are the stories we tell ourselves. These are things in our collective thinking

**[00:43:05]** and in our narrative world that may not correspond at all

**[00:43:11]** with the data.

**[00:43:15]** We look at how to solve it. Sometimes we say everyone must start with themselves.

**[00:43:20]** What are you doing? That's another example of the narrative.

**[00:43:24]** What are you doing? I decided to be vegan.

**[00:43:28]** These are things people talk about regarding what to do about climate change.

**[00:43:33]** Others say technology will solve it. We don't have to do anything.

**[00:43:39]** The market will solve it.

**[00:43:41]** Or another story is that people will understand and start living modestly.

**[00:43:46]** Actually, it's a kind of vision. There will be 8 billion Mirks Dušíns on this planet.

**[00:43:53]** Another story I've noticed is that politics is dirty.

**[00:43:56]** We need to meditate more. We need to become those good, enlightened people.

**[00:44:01]** I don't know what stories are in your bubbles. You probably encounter them.

**[00:44:05]** And you can spend a lot of energy agreeing, disagreeing, refuting those stories.

**[00:44:10]** But it's energy spent on that narrative world,

**[00:44:13]** which doesn't necessarily reflect in any way on

**[00:44:16]** what happens in the real world. The physical world.

**[00:44:23]** When I worked with conflicts, one interesting observation is,

**[00:44:31]** if you ask people why they have a conflict.

**[00:44:34]** If they start telling you it's because Pepa caused it,

**[00:44:39]** or because of history, because we've hurt each other.

**[00:44:43]** So if the focus on the question why we have a conflict is still on history.

**[00:44:49]** Or if the focus on why we have a conflict is

**[00:44:52]** because we need to agree on how to raise our children.

**[00:44:56]** So if the focus shifts to the future.

**[00:44:59]** If people can talk about what we will do about it,

**[00:45:02]** not how we hurt each other in the past.

**[00:45:05]** As long as people talk about history, they don't solve the problem.

**[00:45:10]** History won't change.

**[00:45:13]** And therefore, no steps come about

**[00:45:17]** to change the state we're in.

**[00:45:20]** To change the conflict we're in.

**[00:45:23]** When it succeeds, for example in mediation, to shift attention

**[00:45:26]** to discussing what we will do, what solution we want.

**[00:45:29]** Basically shifting attention to some future scenarios.

**[00:45:33]** And then usually the conflict somehow starts moving

**[00:45:36]** and begins to develop and change.

**[00:45:43]** Other narratives you might encounter are ideas about

**[00:45:48]** whether people want climate action or not.

**[00:45:52]** Or whether it will be economically beneficial or not.

**[00:45:55]** And these are all stories we tell ourselves.

**[00:45:58]** Which brings us back to our survey.

**[00:46:03]** I'll probably return to this.

**[00:46:05]** We are getting back to our survey.

**[00:46:07]** And how do you think the survey turned out?

**[00:46:11]** Let's show the results, if we may.

**[00:46:14]** OK.

**[00:46:17]** So it will probably be very surprising for you,

**[00:46:20]** how much your perception of the narrative world doesn't match

**[00:46:26]** what comes out in the research.

**[00:46:32]** Research, I will add the author right away, Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University,

**[00:46:41]** group of Jan Krajhanzl, shows,

**[00:46:45]** so I can, so here.

**[00:46:49]** Among other things, that 80% of Czechs believe climate change is already happening.

**[00:46:54]** And 70% of people rather or definitely agree

**[00:47:00]** that the Czech Republic should reduce emissions regardless.

**[00:47:03]** And that other countries will also reduce emissions.

**[00:47:06]** And what is noteworthy is that the media image,

**[00:47:11]** what politicians talk about or how the media present it,

**[00:47:16]** actually does not correspond to this reality.

**[00:47:22]** I would say it corresponds to a reality about five years old,

**[00:47:24]** when Czechs were truly very climate-skeptical.

**[00:47:28]** But probably the dry years, the bark beetle calamity,

**[00:47:32]** and maybe to some extent the striking students.

**[00:47:37]** And they actually shifted the Czech narrative landscape a lot.

**[00:47:42]** But we don't know that yet.

**[00:47:44]** In other words, if you feel that climate change is a big problem,

**[00:47:51]** maybe you feel alone with that, but you are much less alone

**[00:47:57]** than it actually is.

**[00:48:02]** And one could further speculate that

**[00:48:04]** the few people who disagree with climate change,

**[00:48:10]** who think it is not happening, are actually loud.

**[00:48:13]** And that's why they are more heard and why we think there are many of them.

**[00:48:18]** But let's know that how people, at least in the Czech Republic,

**[00:48:25]** view climate change has already changed a lot.

**[00:48:28]** And if you think climate action is important,

**[00:48:31]** then you are definitely not alone.

**[00:48:41]** How to think about narratives around climate change?

**[00:48:44]** The key questions are not so much about

**[00:48:48]** whether I agree with what the person says,

**[00:48:50]** or disagree with what the person says.

**[00:48:52]** If I argue with them, I will probably spend

**[00:48:56]** energy on conflict and persuasion.

**[00:49:00]** But we might not move much in action.

**[00:49:07]** I am actually getting used to the idea that we will disagree.

**[00:49:11]** That is a basic assumption.

**[00:49:13]** When I come somewhere, whether to a group of ecological activists

**[00:49:19]** around the climate coalition, or I come somewhere in business,

**[00:49:23]** we will definitely find things around climate change

**[00:49:26]** and probably about anything else,

**[00:49:28]** about which we will disagree.

**[00:49:32]** And I don't expect us to agree.

**[00:49:36]** The question that is important to me is,

**[00:49:39]** what are the things we should talk about, where to focus our energy.

**[00:49:43]** And if we tell ourselves some narratives,

**[00:49:45]** now I can observe the stories we tell ourselves,

**[00:49:49]** how consistent they are with the physical world.

**[00:49:51]** If Honza now started telling me,

**[00:49:53]** hey, it's 35 degrees outside, terribly hot,

**[00:49:58]** just open the window.

**[00:50:00]** and let the cold air from outside blow on you.

**[00:50:04]** And I find that the narrative is quite a dream, an idea, not true.

**[00:50:11]** Truthfulness, consistency with the physical world is one important thing.

**[00:50:16]** And how much the narrative blocks us from doing something,

**[00:50:20]** or how much it helps us to do something.

**[00:50:25]** I mentioned self-fulfilling prophecy,

**[00:50:28]** an apocalyptic narrative, if we say,

**[00:50:31]** hey, it's all high, the planet will burn, there's no point in doing anything,

**[00:50:35]** let's enjoy life, most likely that will cause the planet to burn.

**[00:50:41]** We really need to do something in the physical world as well.

**[00:50:48]** We can ask what narratives are missing, what is not talked about but should be.

**[00:50:53]** From this perspective, one of the things not talked about,

**[00:50:57]** is that the solution technologically exists,

**[00:51:00]** meaning it is possible to decarbonize society by 2050.

**[00:51:05]** And what does that solution look like?

**[00:51:07]** We often present climate as a problem, as a threat.

**[00:51:11]** And few talk about climate as a path to the future,

**[00:51:16]** which is imaginable, because we have studies, we have research,

**[00:51:22]** that somehow show that such a future,

**[00:51:25]** where we do not burn fossil fuels, is possible.

**[00:51:33]** What we try to do with climate facts,

**[00:51:36]** is actually to help the narrative world a bit,

**[00:51:43]** to start talking more about data,

**[00:51:46]** to start talking more about climate change,

**[00:51:50]** and to start talking more about solutions that exist.

**[00:51:53]** We would actually like journalists to write not only about opinions

**[00:51:59]** about various personalities and what someone said,

**[00:52:01]** but we would like journalists to write and explain

**[00:52:05]** the basic things we need to know,

**[00:52:09]** so that we understand the problem of climate change.

**[00:52:17]** So I will try in the remaining eight minutes or so

**[00:52:23]** to show or mention a few things that I think you should know.

**[00:52:29]** And an important realization related to this,

**[00:52:33]** journalists tend to mention news.

**[00:52:38]** What journalists are not very good at is showing the basics.

**[00:52:45]** The basic things you need to get oriented.

**[00:52:53]** So, the slides aren't working here, I don't know what happened.

**[00:52:56]** So, basic facts about the climate situation. I needed this. Thank you.

**[00:53:02]** Six questions or six important points.

**[00:53:05]** First, burning fossil fuels changes the composition of the atmosphere.

**[00:53:09]** Second, the more fossil fuels we burn, the higher the warming will be.

**[00:53:15]** Third, the Paris Agreement sets some limits,

**[00:53:19]** which are important not to exceed.

**[00:53:25]** It's good to know where those limits came from.

**[00:53:29]** Fourth, different places on the planet warm at different rates.

**[00:53:32]** The Czech Republic is warming twice as fast as the global average.

**[00:53:37]** Know what a carbon budget and neutrality mean.

**[00:53:40]** And actually, an important question is how much such carbon neutrality will cost.

**[00:53:46]** Burning fossil fuels changes the composition of the atmosphere.

**[00:53:50]** What you see here is a record of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere

**[00:53:57]** over the last 800,000 years.

**[00:53:59]** And you can see that current concentrations,

**[00:54:04]** which are around 415 ppm in Antarctica,

**[00:54:08]** sufficiently far from all sources,

**[00:54:11]** are higher than at any time during human existence.

**[00:54:15]** If we wanted to go back in history to a point

**[00:54:18]** when similar concentrations existed, we would have to go about 4 million years back.

**[00:54:22]** At that time, the planet was about 3 degrees warmer

**[00:54:24]** and sea levels about 20 meters higher.

**[00:54:28]** So, we are now experiencing a period with an atmospheric composition

**[00:54:32]** unlike any time during human existence.

**[00:54:36]** What does burning fossil fuels cause?

**[00:54:39]** This is something we also know with great certainty.

**[00:54:43]** And actually, it's not surprising.

**[00:54:45]** If you remember Christmas, you had a candle on the wreath,

**[00:54:47]** the candle burns for a while, burns and then goes out.

**[00:54:50]** Where does the mass from the candle go?

**[00:54:55]** Into the air.

**[00:54:58]** Burning the candle means you created CO2, carbon dioxide, in the air.

**[00:55:03]** Humanity burns 8 billion tons of coal annually,

**[00:55:07]** 4 billion tons of oil, 3 billion tons of natural gas.

**[00:55:12]** That carbon dioxide enters the air and is partly absorbed by the ocean,

**[00:55:17]** and it can be directly emitted in various ways,

**[00:55:21]** showing that the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

**[00:55:23]** is truly caused by burning fossil fuels.

**[00:55:26]** So, first, burning fossil fuels changes the composition of our atmosphere.

**[00:55:31]** Second, the more fossil fuels we burn, the greater the warming will be.

**[00:55:37]** What you see in the graph are concentrations of carbon dioxide

**[00:55:41]** in the atmosphere along with temperatures.

**[00:55:44]** You can actually see that in 2020 the concentrations were,

**[00:55:49]** and you can read this on the lower axis, around 415 ppm.

**[00:55:55]** And in 2020, warming compared to pre-industrial times reached

**[00:56:01]** 1.2 degrees Celsius.

**[00:56:04]** You don't need to remember 420 ppm, or 415 ppm and 1.2 degrees Celsius.

**[00:56:09]** What you see, and what is very well confirmed,

**[00:56:14]** both by historical data and future modeling,

**[00:56:21]** There is a direct proportionality, roughly meaning

**[00:56:26]** that an increase of 10 ppm causes a temperature rise of 0.1 degrees.

**[00:56:35]** How high do we want temperatures to rise?

**[00:56:40]** The Paris Agreement set a goal to keep the average global temperature increase

**[00:56:48]** below 2 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels.

**[00:56:53]** And to make a strong effort to keep the increase from exceeding

**[00:56:59]** 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial times.

**[00:57:02]** I mentioned that current warming was about 1.2 degrees in 2020,

**[00:57:07]** so we are approaching that 1.5-degree limit.

**[00:57:10]** But it is important to know that these limits are not set by some gentleman's agreement,

**[00:57:17]** like when borders were drawn on a map in Africa.

**[00:57:22]** These limits, which it would be good not to exceed,

**[00:57:27]** are actually based on the fact that

**[00:57:32]** if the 2-degree limit is exceeded,

**[00:57:37]** the Earth risks hitting many tipping points.

**[00:57:43]** What are tipping points?

**[00:57:45]** Everyone who has ever climbed with a rope knows about ecosystem or climate system tipping points.

**[00:57:49]** When you climb with a rope, a branch can hold a certain load,

**[00:57:51]** but if you load it beyond a limit, it breaks.

**[00:57:56]** Systems on the planet that can break like this

**[00:58:01]** include some small ones, like the meadows in the Krkonoše Mountains.

**[00:58:12]** When it gets much warmer, the climate there changes

**[00:58:16]** and the species that grow there can no longer survive.

**[00:58:19]** But some are huge.

**[00:58:24]** Coral reefs have a tipping point around 1.5°C warming.

**[00:58:28]** Once the planet's temperature exceeds about 1.5°C,

**[00:58:32]** practically no coral reefs will survive.

**[00:58:35]** We will almost certainly surpass this tipping point.

**[00:58:39]** Other major ecosystems, Siberian forests, the Amazon rainforest,

**[00:58:44]** have tipping points somewhere above 2 to 2.5°C.

**[00:58:49]** If we want to preserve them, so that Siberian forests don't suffer

**[00:58:55]** a fate similar to Czech forests after the bark beetle calamity,

**[00:59:00]** it's important to keep global warming

**[00:59:03]** below 2°C, ideally 1.5°C.

**[00:59:09]** The difference between 2°C and 1.5°C is quite significant in terms of impacts and economics.

**[00:59:15]** But above 2°C lie tipping points of large systems,

**[00:59:20]** ecosystems, but also climate systems,

**[00:59:25]** like the Gulf Stream.

**[00:59:27]** In other words, if it warms a lot,

**[00:59:30]** and the Gulf Stream's threshold is quite problematic,

**[00:59:33]** but if it warms enough, it could stop the Gulf Stream.

**[00:59:38]** The Czech Republic is warming twice as fast as the global average.

**[00:59:43]** The Czech Republic has warmed by 2°C in the last 60 years.

**[00:59:48]** The world has warmed about 1.2°C in the last 120 years.

**[00:59:52]** So it holds that the Czech Republic is warming roughly twice as fast.

**[00:59:57]** And that's not surprising.

**[01:00:00]** If you have someone above average in a class,

**[01:00:05]** you also have someone below average.

**[01:00:07]** Oceans warm more slowly than the global average.

**[01:00:11]** Continents warm faster.

**[01:00:13]** Especially northern continents, like the Arctic,

**[01:00:17]** which is warming almost four times faster than the global average.

**[01:00:21]** What does this practically mean?

**[01:00:23]** If we talk about the 2°C global warming limit

**[01:00:29]** under the Paris Agreement,

**[01:00:30]** for the Czech Republic this means warming of 4°C.

**[01:00:34]** So the warming here is actually more pronounced.

**[01:00:36]** You might think 2°C is little,

**[01:00:38]** but for the Czech Republic it's twice as much.

**[01:00:43]** Besides, such warming will likely mean

**[01:00:49]** much less snow in winter,

**[01:00:52]** it can also cause shifts in areas

**[01:00:57]** where wine can be grown.

**[01:00:59]** I am from South Moravia.

**[01:01:02]** In the past, mainly white wine was grown in Moravia.

**[01:01:05]** Now more red wine is starting to be grown there,

**[01:01:09]** because red wine needs higher temperatures.

**[01:01:13]** Emission scenarios show that if humanity does not limit

**[01:01:20]** the burning of fossil fuels,

**[01:01:23]** it could happen that by 2100

**[01:01:25]** South Moravia will be completely unsuitable for growing any wine.

**[01:01:31]** And white wine in the Czech Republic will thrive somewhere on the peaks of Vysočina

**[01:01:34]** and in the foothills of the Krkonoše Mountains.

**[01:01:37]** This is actually a big change.

**[01:01:39]** You might think it's great, I'll be able to grow wine in the Krkonoše.

**[01:01:42]** But consider what the landscape looks like where wine can no longer be grown.

**[01:01:48]** If this increase is not stopped,

**[01:01:50]** we face a major environmental change,

**[01:01:55]** a major change in the landscape of the Czech Republic.

**[01:01:58]** What is needed to stop the temperature rise?

**[01:02:01]** As I mentioned, the more emissions we burn,

**[01:02:05]** the higher the temperatures will be.

**[01:02:06]** So we need to achieve carbon neutrality.

**[01:02:09]** And what you see here in this graph

**[01:02:11]** is the goal to keep temperatures from rising above 1.5°C,

**[01:02:16]** to limit the temperature increase below 1.5°C.

**[01:02:19]** It is necessary to reach carbon neutrality,

**[01:02:21]** meaning zero emissions, sometime around 2050.

**[01:02:27]** If we accept a higher risk

**[01:02:32]** and a temperature rise around 2°C,

**[01:02:34]** carbon neutrality needs to be reached roughly by 2070.

**[01:02:40]** But it's not just the timing of reaching carbon neutrality that matters.

**[01:02:45]** What matters is how much emissions we burn.

**[01:02:52]** Since the Industrial Revolution, humanity has burned just over 2,000 billion tons,

**[01:02:59]** or 2,000 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.

**[01:03:06]** To avoid warming above 1.5°C,

**[01:03:09]** we have about 500 gigatons of emissions left.

**[01:03:14]** We emit around 40 gigatons of CO2 annually,

**[01:03:18]** so that's a bit more than 10 years at this rate.

**[01:03:22]** If we say we really want

**[01:03:26]** to keep warming below 2°C,

**[01:03:30]** So we have about 1500 gigatons left.

**[01:03:36]** The problem is that fossil fuel reserves,

**[01:03:39]** discovered so far on Earth,

**[01:03:43]** are around 4000 gigatons.

**[01:03:47]** That means, if we want to limit warming,

**[01:03:51]** most fossil fuels must stay in the ground.

**[01:03:56]** This concept is called the carbon budget.

**[01:04:00]** When you have a budget, it tells you

**[01:04:04]** what you can spend your money on.

**[01:04:07]** The carbon budget tells us,

**[01:04:10]** if we want to keep warming under 1.5°C,

**[01:04:14]** the world can still emit about 500 gigatons of CO2.

**[01:04:22]** No more.

**[01:04:24]** The question is how we divide those 500 gigatons.

**[01:04:28]** Between countries, technologies, and uses.

**[01:04:36]** Too detailed to cover here.

**[01:04:40]** One last question.

**[01:04:42]** Is carbon neutrality achievable and what would it cost?

**[01:04:46]** The technologies are available.

**[01:04:50]** We have studies showing it's possible to build a society

**[01:04:55]** with zero carbon emissions.

**[01:04:59]** People often expect the cost to be a percentage of global GDP.

**[01:05:04]** But more accurate estimates show

**[01:05:09]** it would actually cost zero.

**[01:05:13]** If we decide to do it.

**[01:05:17]** A McKinsey study

**[01:05:19]** examining carbon neutrality options in Europe

**[01:05:21]** concludes that we can achieve, they say, net zero emissions at net zero cost.

**[01:05:26]** Meaning we can reach climate neutrality with zero CO2 emissions.

**[01:05:29]** Some areas will require investments,

**[01:05:35]** but roughly the same amount of money will return from other areas.

**[01:05:41]** So decarbonization will also bring significant benefits.

**[01:05:46]** It would be worth discussing in detail

**[01:05:52]** how decarbonization is possible and what it requires.

**[01:05:58]** I think the most accurate message is that we need to decide.

**[01:06:02]** We need social will.

**[01:06:06]** And social will means we need to talk about climate.

**[01:06:11]** We need to talk about solutions.

**[01:06:21]** That we need to change the narrative world.

**[01:06:24]** And start seeing as a society,

**[01:06:26]** that the path to the future is possible and achievable.

**[01:06:30]** Although I have a few slides prepared here,

**[01:06:35]** I actually don't know how much time we have now.

**[01:06:41]** Five minutes? Okay, three minutes.

**[01:06:46]** The key question that always comes up is, what can we do about it?

**[01:06:49]** It would probably come up in the following discussion as well.

**[01:06:53]** So I'll use three minutes and try to at least give a basic outline.

**[01:07:03]** What can we do to reduce emissions in the Czech Republic?

**[01:07:07]** We can compare both changes in consumption habits

**[01:07:11]** and systemic changes.

**[01:07:16]** If we caused people to travel less by car,

**[01:07:20]** driving half the distance,

**[01:07:23]** that would save about five percent of the Czech Republic's emissions.

**[01:07:27]** There would be some emission reduction if,

**[01:07:31]** we changed our eating habits,

**[01:07:34]** but it's very little compared to decarbonizing energy.

**[01:07:39]** In fact, we can, and energy scenarios show,

**[01:07:44]** that the Czech Republic can do a coal phase-out,

**[01:07:49]** move away from coal,

**[01:07:58]** and save roughly 15-20% of its emissions by 2030.

**[01:08:04]** We calculated these emission reduction potentials for the Czech Republic

**[01:08:10]** for the year 2030.

**[01:08:13]** So what does that mean?

**[01:08:17]** Changing your consumption has an effect.

**[01:08:21]** At the same time, if we really want to reduce the Czech Republic's emissions,

**[01:08:26]** we need to change the energy sector as one of the first things.

**[01:08:28]** That's a big systemic change.

**[01:08:31]** Few people have a switch in their bedroom

**[01:08:34]** that could turn off a brown coal power plant,

**[01:08:38]** so we need to strive for systemic change somehow.

**[01:08:41]** The last inspiration I want to offer you here

**[01:08:45]** is how society is interconnected

**[01:08:48]** and what can be done for those systemic changes.

**[01:08:50]** At the top right, you see

**[01:08:54]** that systemic change will mean

**[01:08:57]** we will need some laws

**[01:09:04]** that will prevent fossil fuels from being extracted.

**[01:09:08]** At the top left, you see

**[01:09:11]** that media can contribute to it.

**[01:09:13]** And what is in the middle is culture.

**[01:09:15]** Culture means the stories we tell ourselves.

**[01:09:20]** How we think collectively

**[01:09:23]** about the things that need to be done.

**[01:09:27]** And what motivates us to change.

**[01:09:30]** So what we do at Fakta o klimatu is

**[01:09:35]** we try to enable the media to focus more on climate as a topic

**[01:09:42]** and to show more how the situation can be addressed.

**[01:09:49]** And if you are in business, finance, education,

**[01:09:55]** or any of these other areas and want to get involved,

**[01:09:59]** then maybe you can help the most

**[01:10:00]** by doing what your sector offers.

**[01:10:06]** By helping build infrastructure that enables greater electromobility.

**[01:10:13]** By trying to create startups that enable a low-interest future.

**[01:10:19]** Thank you.

**[01:10:49]** Thank you.

**[01:11:19]** Thank you.

**[01:11:49]** Thank you.

**[01:12:19]** Thank you.

**[01:12:49]** Thank you.

**[01:13:19]** Thank you.

**[01:13:49]** Thank you.

**[01:14:19]** Thank you.

**[01:14:49]** Thank you.

**[01:15:19]** Thank you.

**[01:15:49]** Thank you.

**[01:16:19]** Thank you.

**[01:16:49]** Thank you.

**[01:17:19]** Thank you.

**[01:17:49]** Thank you.

**[01:18:19]** Thank you.

**[01:18:49]** Thank you.

**[01:19:19]** Thank you.

**[01:19:49]** Thank you.

**[01:20:00]** But actually, in a crisis, it is important to stabilize the situation enough so we can act.

**[01:20:09]** And then we need to act, we need to talk,

**[01:20:16]** to think together about what we will do when we have the time.

**[01:20:20]** Does that make sense? Askni as a kind of answer.

**[01:20:21]** Yes, it makes sense to me. Gaining time is definitely good.

**[01:20:27]** I'm still thinking about the fact that

**[01:20:31]** you showed us some data.

**[01:20:33]** You yourself said that your father, when you discussed together,

**[01:20:36]** he kind of guessed something about the data.

**[01:20:38]** Or he simply asked where it came from, something like that.

**[01:20:41]** Now imagine situations where experts say,

**[01:20:49]** this data is good, that data is bad,

**[01:20:52]** this data should be used for this.

**[01:20:54]** How do you deal with that?

**[01:20:58]** You can't make sense of it, and that's not a task for a person.

**[01:21:01]** And I think that's another thing

**[01:21:04]** that could be talked about at length.

**[01:21:06]** We live in a world where none of us

**[01:21:09]** can understand all the connections,

**[01:21:12]** all those things.

**[01:21:14]** A friend says we live in such a complicated world

**[01:21:17]** that each of us is at least an hour a day a fool.

**[01:21:22]** And that's just how it is.

**[01:21:25]** I actually don't understand a lot of things,

**[01:21:28]** things related to politics, economics,

**[01:21:32]** or how the clothes I'm wearing are made.

**[01:21:35]** And I rely on other people in society,

**[01:21:37]** who understand those things, to do a good job.

**[01:21:40]** So I disconnect very differently.

**[01:21:44]** The narrative that is very strong in today's society

**[01:21:51]** is the narrative Everyone for themselves,

**[01:21:55]** which basically says,

**[01:21:58]** your effort determines how you will live your life.

**[01:22:01]** What I'm trying to say here is,

**[01:22:05]** look, you can't do it.

**[01:22:08]** The world is so complex that as an individual you can't

**[01:22:10]** understand everything, make sense of everything.

**[01:22:14]** We have to function as a society

**[01:22:17]** and rely on each other somehow as a society.

**[01:22:20]** And that actually means that what I do affects you.

**[01:22:23]** I can help you make sense of some data.

**[01:22:27]** And at the same time, what you do affects me in some way.

**[01:22:31]** This narrative of mutuality,

**[01:22:35]** or the idea that we are interconnected,

**[01:22:41]** There is something that ads maybe tell us too little about.

**[01:22:45]** Ads say: enjoy yourself.

**[01:22:48]** You are the person who decides with your wallet.

**[01:22:56]** The shift from 'I' to 'we' is very complicated,

**[01:23:00]** because it also relates somewhat to a feeling of scarcity,

**[01:23:04]** abundance, and some kind of Maslow's pyramid,

**[01:23:07]** satisfying some lower-level needs.

**[01:23:10]** We could talk about this for a long time.

**[01:23:13]** I would try to say that here in the Czech Republic,

**[01:23:16]** with the real problem of water and wells, it will get worse.

**[01:23:21]** Within the Czech Republic, there are significant differences in how

**[01:23:25]** this will develop.

**[01:23:32]** I would say I don't know here.

**[01:23:35]** And actually the best I can say is,

**[01:23:39]** if you want a quick answer,

**[01:23:42]** check out the Czech Globe website,

**[01:23:45]** zmenaklimatu.cz, where there are some

**[01:23:48]** forecast maps and scenarios for the Czech Republic.

**[01:23:51]** But it wouldn't be fair for me to act like an expert on water

**[01:23:55]** and things related to those forecasts.

**[01:24:01]** So I have some guesses, but it's good to say, I don't know.

**[01:24:08]** I don't really understand, because the fact that the climate is changing is a problem.

**[01:24:12]** There won't be Siberian forests, but there will be different vegetation.

**[01:24:16]** Yesterday you were probably fine with that, right?

**[01:24:23]** That would be fine if there weren't people living there,

**[01:24:30]** who need it to make a living.

**[01:24:34]** Maybe Siberian forests, Siberia is sparsely populated,

**[01:24:38]** so you might say, well, it doesn't matter.

**[01:24:42]** Siberian forests are important for the carbon cycle,

**[01:24:45]** so they absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, so it has an impact.

**[01:24:49]** A much better example might be mountain glaciers.

**[01:24:54]** Mountain glaciers in the Himalayas, the Andes, in South America feed rivers.

**[01:24:59]** If mountain glaciers melt, those rivers won't have water.

**[01:25:04]** Or, in other words, the water regime of those rivers will change drastically.

**[01:25:10]** And basically, agriculture in those areas will become impossible.

**[01:25:14]** But here we're talking about Southeast Asia,

**[01:25:17]** like India, Vietnam, Burma, these areas.

**[01:25:23]** We're talking about South America.

**[01:25:26]** Where will the people who lose their livelihood go?

**[01:25:30]** So why should we care?

**[01:25:32]** So maybe we in the Czech Republic don't need to worry about it much.

**[01:25:36]** Our spruce forests here have been destroyed by bark beetles.

**[01:25:39]** That's no longer a problem.

**[01:25:42]** There will probably be more or less some water here.

**[01:25:46]** Probably less of it.

**[01:25:49]** We don't have glaciers here, we don't have coral reefs.

**[01:25:52]** It's probably fair to say that the Czech Republic won't have

**[01:25:56]** any severe impacts compared to other parts of the world.

**[01:26:01]** But the impacts might be on the level of migration

**[01:26:04]** and geopolitical problems.

**[01:26:06]** Why should we care? Maybe for this reason.

**[01:26:11]** A few people are watching us.

**[01:26:14]** Try to end on an optimistic, positive note.

**[01:26:23]** Optimistic and positive.

**[01:26:26]** We repeatedly discussed with the Fakta o klimatu team,

**[01:26:34]** that when we talk to someone, people feel

**[01:26:37]** that talking about climate change is hard.

**[01:26:40]** That it's a tough topic, you have to brace yourself,

**[01:26:43]** that it will be depressing and stuff like that.

**[01:26:46]** And I actually think it's a shame that a lot of communication

**[01:26:48]** about climate change goes in that direction,

**[01:26:51]** be afraid, be depressed, apocalypse is coming and the world will burn.

**[01:26:55]** At the same time, when I watch closely,

**[01:27:01]** I see quite good signals.

**[01:27:03]** Europe reduced coal power generation by 25% in 2019,

**[01:27:09]** in just one year.

**[01:27:11]** Something big is happening here.

**[01:27:13]** China launched an emissions trading system this year

**[01:27:16]** and last year committed to carbon neutrality by 2060.

**[01:27:20]** Korea and Japan have already committed to carbon neutrality by 2050,

**[01:27:24]** last year, and so has the European Union.

**[01:27:26]** Suddenly, we have a huge societal movement,

**[01:27:30]** which two years ago no one could imagine happening.

**[01:27:32]** So one positive thing.

**[01:27:33]** Look, it's starting to go in the right direction.

**[01:27:35]** Maybe not fast enough, as we would need,

**[01:27:38]** but the basic movement is already there.

**[01:27:40]** Even in the numbers, the change in societal mood,

**[01:27:43]** and that Czechs are not as climate-skeptical as they used to be.

**[01:27:51]** The second thing.

**[01:27:53]** We actually need to talk more about it.

**[01:27:55]** It's something we're preparing, and hopefully it will come out this summer,

**[01:27:58]** so it's probably okay to mention it here.

**[01:28:00]** We're preparing a podcast about climate change,

**[01:28:02]** in which we'll try to show

**[01:28:05]** how society can be decarbonized,

**[01:28:08]** how it's possible to achieve a future

**[01:28:12]** where we won't be flooded.

**[01:28:15]** Thank you very much.

**[01:28:16]** I'll just borrow the clicker from you, if I may.

**[01:28:20]** So, thanks.

**[01:28:24]** We apologize a bit for the technical issues.

**[01:28:26]** Please try to vote on how you liked it today.

**[01:28:30]** For me, it was a wonderful breakfast,

**[01:28:33]** which I will definitely have again,

**[01:28:36]** because there is a lot of data and many things

**[01:28:39]** I want to think about more deeply.

**[01:28:45]** If you felt the same or similar to me,

**[01:28:49]** try to look at those aha moments,

**[01:28:52]** something that surprised you.

**[01:28:54]** Whether as part of the reflection, download the questionnaire

**[01:28:58]** or write your reflections directly here on the edu pages,

**[01:29:02]** or try to come back to this with us

**[01:29:06]** and really talk more deeply about these things.

**[01:29:10]** Let's take a bit more time again.

**[01:29:13]** It will be on May 6th at 5 PM,

**[01:29:17]** so be sure to register again on the edu platform.

**[01:29:25]** I'll add a few more things, a bit traditionally.

**[01:29:29]** Maybe some of you know,

**[01:29:31]** but edu and Brain and Breakfast

**[01:29:34]** are actually part of the Red Button ecosystem,

**[01:29:37]** which also features the Book of the Month.

**[01:29:40]** Evolution by its own creator by Miroslav Weverka

**[01:29:43]** is the Book of the Month for May,

**[01:29:46]** recommended by Jirka Breda,

**[01:29:48]** so definitely check the pages and the video Why?

**[01:29:51]** and What kind of book it is.

**[01:29:53]** And at the same time, if you'd like to dive into edu

**[01:29:57]** and check out other shows that...

**[01:30:00]** They cover business topics in various areas,

**[01:30:04]** like digitalization, leadership, company culture, and so on,

**[01:30:07]** so definitely, you can do more than just watch those shows,

**[01:30:11]** go deeper, reflect,

**[01:30:15]** take on challenges and discuss these matters,

**[01:30:18]** as has already been mentioned here.

**[01:30:20]** This is exactly what we want to do at EDU.

**[01:30:23]** And I have nothing more to do,

**[01:30:26]** than to wish you a wonderful day and invite you to the next breakfast,

**[01:30:32]** which will be about something I truly respect,

**[01:30:39]** and that is company culture.

**[01:30:41]** Michal Didaj will come to talk to us about company culture,

**[01:30:45]** he is the CEO of Tatra Banka, where, by chance,

**[01:30:49]** we are involved enough to know,

**[01:30:53]** that it won’t be a corporate presentation,

**[01:30:56]** and that it will really go in-depth.

**[01:31:00]** For your information, Tatra Banka is

**[01:31:07]** and the way they approach it is really fascinating.

**[01:31:10]** So if you’re interested, we’ll see you live on the 25th at 8:30.

**[01:31:12]** Thank you for watching.

**[01:31:18]** Once again, I apologize for the technical issues.

**[01:31:21]** Have a great day.

**[01:31:25]** Thank you too, Hondaraš.

**[01:31:27]** Goodbye and see you.

**[01:31:29]** www.hradeckesluzby.cz