Laureline Simon urges us to treat the root cause of the ecological crisis, our damaged relationships with ourselves, others, and nature.
This conversation is deep. Existential. Radical. Why? Because Laureline Simon speaks to the root cause of the harm that’s impacting on each of us, every community and ecosystem across the breadth of our shared planet. This conversation hits home, in a nurturing, generative way, as Laureline speaks from lived experience striving in global systems and shows meaningful examples of how this harm can be repaired.
It’s been an honour to cocreate many wonderful conversations on Better World Leaders over the past two years. In that time there’s been many a dialogue which has given me cause for reflection, and this conversation with Laureline crests the list of those that have. Her openness to explore deeply personal experiences, the range of her experience working through the United Nations across the globe, and the frankness of her insights speak to the fundamental nature of how we must change if we are truly to become resilient as individuals, societies and as a species once again.
Laureline Simon is the Founder Director of One Resilient Earth, a European based Not-for-Profit who partner with numerous global and hyper-local organisations on multi-level, systemic initiatives to enable resilient communities by nurturing shifts in mindset, community connection and ecosystem restoration. This work is as inspirational as it is transformative, and provides a wonderful example to us all of how nurturing conditions for interdependent complexity to thrive is vital for the wellbeing of our beings, and the planetary system that sustains us all.
I hope our conversation brings you both contemplation and inspiration. It was a great joy speaking with Laureline and I was both validated and informed by our discussion. We both welcome your thoughts and reflections via the connection links below if you’d like to reach out.
Here’s a review of the key messages from this episode, based on extracts from the dialogue;
Shifting mindsets
– It’s a big moment when we realise how much we need to unlearn and decentre our worldviews
– Is it just industrialisation, or is there a deeper worldview that enables industrial exploitation of the world’s resources?
– What if we weren’t thinking about nature & people as resources?
– What if the idea of separation of ourselves from nature, which is a mindset, is the root cause of the crisis?
– Climate change is a symptom of the crisis of relationship we have with the world and nature
– The ecological crisis is a crisis of relationship
– We wouldn’t be exploiting people if we didn’t consider them to be different from us
– We need to build capability to operate on multiple levels at the same time; that’s why we work with resilient mindsets, thriving communities and restoring ecosystems
– People may not realise that a lot of the decisions which are made in response to climate change are coming from a threat response.
– We have one Earth and many worlds
Actions for impact
– You can have global actions that have little impact, and you can have local actions that have real impact
– It’s more about coalitions or networks and experimenting with ways of being more radical
– It’s about addressing the root causes of an issue, otherwise everything you do is cosmetic
– There’s nothing worse than feeling that you’re taking positive action, when in actual fact all that you’re doing is reinforcing a system that is causing harm
– The actions we need to take are much deeper than reducing greenhouse gases, we have to repair our relationships with ecosystems and people who have been harmed
Systemic change
– I’ve been into the systems, and the premises are flawed
– We are too resource dependant, and are not even nurturing the ecosystems that provide our resources
– How can we change in a way which is commensurate with the change that’s coming?
– We’re actually really good at adapting to complex systems when we are deeply connected to them and sensorily aware of their existence
– We need to build communities of support as we go through radical shifts
– It’s about a deeper societal transformation, a cultural transformation
– Having a more regenerative approach, building our relationships, developing new relationships with ourselves, to our fears, our pain and discomfort, if we are going to become the people who can deal with the scale of change
Nurturing conditions
– The conditions we need to nurture depends on the people and the context- If we don’t look at the health of ecosystems we’re not going to nurture conditions for the systems that sustain us.
– We need many different approaches working together, with people nurturing the conditions that are best for them
– The conditions we need to nurture depends on the people and the context
Find out more about Laureline and her work here:LinkedIn profile – https://www.linkedin.com/in/laureline-s/LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/one-resilient-earthInstagram page: https://www.instagram.com/oneresilientearth/YouTube page : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkxlFnIdd3wdzbjv8ZhUVCA
One Resilient Earth – https://oneresilientearth.org/
- Our climate circles: The Climate Workers Circle and the Youth Climate Circle
- The Youth Learning Journey for Climate Resilience and Regeneration (September –
October 2022)https://oneresilientearth.org/the-youth-learning-journey-for-climate-resilience-regeneration-2/
- Our certified course in partnership with the UNESCO chair at Hanze University, titled:
Futures Literacy for Climate Resilience and Transformation (27-29 June 2022)https://oneresilientearth.org/futures-literacy-for-climate-resilience-and-transformation/
- Other local events that we advertise on the website such as our Ecotopia exhibition in
Berlin from mid-May to earl-July 2022https://oneresilientearth.org/taking-part-in-ecotopia-in-berlin/For other events: https://oneresilientearth.org/news/
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Episode Pages for this episode and all previous Better World Leaders conversations available here;4ileadership.com/category/better-world-leaders
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