The following is a C and a podcast. I'm Jamie Hoh and welcome back to the climate conversations we've all heard about Greta Thunberg and what she's done to put climate change on the front and center. She was just 15 when she staged a protest for climate action outside the Swedish parliament in Stockholm in 2018. Now there are
hundreds of youth led movements globally. Singapore had won two in 2019 as G Climate Rally organized the country's first such rally, which was attended by two thousand passionate people who wanted greater climate action. COVID 19 may have put a damper on physical rallies for now, but activists have a powerful medium. Social media, of course. In 2020, ESG Climate Rally launched a virtual campaign called Take Back 2050, which invited people to share their vision of a sustainable Singapore.
Other activists use social media to break down complex climate issues, promote local grassroots events and even engage climate scientists in livestreams. But how effective are social media platforms in raising awareness and inspiring greater action? How do young activists track the impact that they're really convert naysayers, or are they preaching
to the choir? With me today is environmental activist whichI, and she runs the Instagram page, The Weird and Wild, where she educates people on all things environmental through illustrations, infographics and more.
Jian, welcome. Hi, thanks for having me.
Now I'm going to get to the first question. Yeah, we've actually seen that you said before. They've always been interested in nature growing up and specifically, you are huge. Steve Irwin fan. How did you go from being interested in the environment and nature to actively actually advocating for it to be right to all your followers?
For example, it was an entire journey, considering that I don't think I ever imagined myself to be where I am today as a kid. Growing up, my parents used to force me to read the newspaper just to improve my English. The only thing that I gravitated towards was small snippets in my relevant newspapers that were making me, and I only wanted to read about animals. And that led me to read a lot about deforestation. I watched a lot of Animal Planet. Steve Irwin was always on.
Seeing other people advocate for the environment eventually got me to think about it when I could see it and what I could do. So growing up, I was always volunteering, but I think it was only when I was in uni that I decided, you know, why not do something on social media because I was a very visual person? And I decided to have my hand in illustrating environmental news because I was like, You know, I think you might have seen enough of ice caps melting very typical pictures.
And why don't I just try something else?
I wanted to talk about immediate situation right now in Singapore and around the world as well, whether it was Greta Thunberg starting her school strikes a couple of years ago. Young people have always been organizing events on climate change and climate action. We also had our first climate rally in 2019. Looking at COVID 19, though, do you think that has therefore dampened the momentum in terms of activism and engagement, especially we have Glasgow coming up. Do you
think things have changed? Firstly, locally? And as you look internationally, what's your sense
starting out in COVID? I was concerned about the kind of attention that climate issues were going to get because at the end of 2019, things started to get a little bit more interesting, with more and more youth coming out to talk about environmental issues. And I mean, Kobe came in paradise, surprisingly got even more clear and everybody started to step up, I guess a lot more in
terms of climate issues. And you know, there were so many new sites covering climate issues, companies looking to declare a net zero and the kind of coverage I would've never imagined it ever in my life in the past. Strange times used to only run like a half page on less on climate change, and now it's everywhere. I would say that it's been nice to see environmental issues gain momentum, surprisingly, because I don't think people really expected it.
And also the fact that I did environmental studies in English and UC and we were always saying, you know, they're going to have no jobs, nobody wants to hire us. And now finally, sustainability is everywhere. So I was like, This is an interesting time for an environmental studies graduate to be job hunting, to be looking out and to be paying attention to LA.
Funnily enough, I've spoken to quite a few environmental studies graduates now on this podcast. So good for you. Yeah. So it's actually interesting to hear that you say basically the last 18 to 20 months of COVID 19 has, you know, we accelerate the at least action or at least public awareness as far as climate change is concerned. Is that your assessment?
Yeah, because I think it's not just about COVID. Unfortunately, I think it's a perfect storm of a lot of things I remember in early 2018. Just as COVID was hitting all of us, it was also where the Australian fires got very, very big and then there were fires in Thailand. Yeah, the situation didn't really get better, so it's almost inevitable that we're talking about climate change.
But we talked about a bit about your work specifically now before I get to larger issues. Just looking at your Instagram page, I mean, you've got a whole mix of drawings and illustrations, nature photographs. The scope of what you talk about seems to be quite large. You have sustainable energy, fast fashion. There's even something on impact of climate change, on beer production. How do you prioritize? There must be a range of issues out there, and there's
so much to be said. Firstly, yeah, how do you prioritize and which ones are closest to your heart? Then personally,
personally identify as a generalist, which is that I'm interested in everything and trying to find out as much as I can. It was hard for me to pinpoint my energy account a meter, a column. I couldn't decide on anyone and I said, You know, I know I just talk about everything in terms of priority. I used to be very reactionary where, you know, maybe this is the biggest news of the day. There will be an issue I cover, but I started to realise that it was
extremely not sustainable in terms of my own energy. It's impossible to follow so many things. I used to have a board called Moderate Risk keeping on my phone where I knocked down things that I found very interesting. Let's see if I'm talking about plastic. Is that interesting thought process that I came across our conversation I had that I wanted to talk about. So I'm trying to focus more on reflections and prioritizing what matters to me and what I think people should hear, and that's how my
content goes out. At the same time, it's also what I think people are interested in because I do get a lot of messages. See, can you explain this? Can you tell me about this? Can you explain that? There's never enough content.
Typekit a little bit about your style that obviously are very visual. I'm sure a lot of what goes on behind it. Do you think the visual style the visual element helps explain things far better, maybe to a younger audience, a different audience coming from the way I am? Is it easier for you sometimes to write an essay or an op ed or, you know, if not so serious
something on Facebook or medium itself capturing everything visually? Or maybe you think that visual element is the best thing and the easiest thing to do for different audiences?
Visuals are easier to find with something because I feel like, let's say, the climate strike. So I know it's the one way they document the temperatures of let's see the world or a particular country over time. I don't really know how someone can put them to work through the entire visualization of how temperature has changed over time. There are just some things that are easy to explain via
pictures or via visuals that over text. I sort of realized that when I was doing explainers like life-cycle analysis on plastics, I can give you like a three paragraphs on how the blasting is Chris ship consumed in Singapore and disposed off. Or I can just draw you one by one square Instagram, you know, showing you exactly the entire process. And I think you will get that better than sitting down for 15 minutes. One with all these jargon use visuals tend to be a lot more attractive.
And it's funny because I'm working on a separate project called Climate Conference, where I'm hoping to visualise a lot more things because I think sometimes concepts get too cerebral, too theoretical when we're talking or writing about it. But once I explain it to you, using visuals, you very quickly can understand what exactly is, let's say, carbon cycle or what exactly the circular economy really means. I see
a lot of value in visuals. Humans are naturally very visual creatures, and I think it's easier to digest an image that captures, I guess, a thousand words in this case than reading a thousand words itself.
That's a very interesting way to put it, and I definitely can agree with you on a lot of that. But maybe I'll tap your thinking on this, too. I wonder whether your intent is to be an activist to generate action. That's one intent. Then the other intent is just for information to build awareness understanding. Do you think sometimes the visual was the written either one, as you say, has its pros and cons because I imagine sometimes the visual element doesn't lend itself as well to nuance and
compromise and tradeoffs. And one thing balancing off the other, which you may want for understanding and information did not necessarily need for driving activism.
Yeah, you hit that on under here, which is that sometimes it's very hard for me. Let's say I was doing a piece explaining, you know, when the oil prices dropped below zero dollars and why that occurred and how it all. And there were just so many things about the economy of all there, the politics of all that, but I couldn't possibly capture in 10 Instagram slides. And I think sometimes I sit with it and I'm like, Oh my gosh, am I simplifying things too much? Yeah, well,
people lose their context. Then you just share things without realizing what's going on. And inevitably, you know, am I spreading some kind of misinformation by not presenting the full picture? So because of that, there are very strong indications because it's easy for visual things to go viral. And once that happens, you can really control the narrative any more. So this is a big con in trying to visualize things because you lose one sometimes, even though maybe people
might think differently. One of the things that you're doing right now is subject to interpretation from anyone they meet.
That's the eternal conundrum with social media, isn't it? Because on the one hand, yes, that's the most effective medium that we have now. You have the opportunity to go viral huge audiences, but it's not necessarily the best thing for deep understanding and nuance. I suppose for people like you who do have, I imagine, both an activist slant as well as Anita. You want to help people understand it can be a challenge using social media, isn't it?
Yeah. But I also would like to see that I think there are some things that visuals can capture that what cannot. So let's see. You know where there are issues that are a little bit more sensitive and requires new ones, such as emotions, values, something that also doesn't come across as well over text and visuals. When I can understand how I can play with emotions, I can relate that a lot more on why something is important versus saying that it is
coming from someone who loves political cartoons, for example. I think political context and a thousand things which two pages couldn't write exactly. I want to talk about your activism then and what you've achieved so far. Tell us some of the most meaningful outcomes that you've had. Were there moments where you said, you guys, Oh my God, what I'm doing really does make a difference. One Instagram post can, as you say, tell a thousand words and you realize
people suddenly understand something. How did these moments come to you and what do you feel at that time?
There are definitely some polls that do better than others. I tend to use metrics like the number of shares on likes that it gets to understand exactly how are people feeling about content. The ones that are most rewarding is where it leads to some outcome that I probably didn't expect. So we'll see. You know, the Australia fire was a big one, which is that so many Singaporeans
stepped up to get very involved. Perhaps, maybe not directly from what I was sharing, but everyone was talking about it. People in Singapore, when I think things to send overseas, there was so much organisation that I was like, Whoa, you know? It felt good that perhaps my post could have done a little bit more to send people to certain organisations or outlets that could have helped. To me, that was enough in that perhaps I spark that conversation
that wouldn't have happened. And I think there are some things that I had to debunk mainstream narratives. I think there was a famous article that came out to see single use plastic bags, maybe more environmentally friendly than the cotton port. And I just see it is. I probably didn't get it all right, but I felt my very strong need to see that is quite misleading, and I need to tell you why. And I will sit down with a chemical engineer friend who brought me down to
the nitty gritty of what the article said. And I do it all up and people are dropping me messages, commenting, saying, Hey, this helped to demystify a lot of the science. That was very rewarding because at least now I know this person is going to be an activist in their own right to tell their friends, Hey, you know, this article didn't capture the full picture or this is what you
need to understand. Those would be my best moments when people are able to take my resources and use it to be activists in their own right because then the work is amplified. I guess I'll facilitate that. Is that process.
I'm going to ask you as well. Obviously, when it comes to Instagram specifically and social media in general, you would be reaching a certain population, a certain demographic, right? Have you ever thought about, you know, do I need to reach out to an older audience, more mature audience? If you do have a message to convey and it's a compelling one, as you can tell from how your
audience has and your followers have reacted. Do you sometimes say, I wish I could reach out to the older ones because sometimes the ones we may need to hear it there as well, right?
I struggle with that because it makes me feel like, am I reaching the right people if I'm just talking to people like my age or younger? I've tried. I've been trying to giving talks to people of different demographics, and it made me realize that perhaps my skillset really lives with communicating with a certain demographic that just resonates
more with my talking style, my drawing style. And hopefully they inspire people to do that in their own communities because I wouldn't be the most effective spokesperson for someone older than me. I can easily share revision. I wonder, what else can I do? I even thought about, you know, maybe should I be learning other languages, dialects to be able to convey the message to another crowd? And I
think you'll always be a work in process. I would love to learn to be able to speak to more demographics, but at this point it's like, OK, I can do what's best. I'm good at it for now. And let's hope to expand this in the future.
Yeah, I mean, speaking of which, we saw your Instagram livestream with Dr. Winston Chao, who is a good friend. He's been on our show. Tell us how that came about. And did you think it was important to grow your content, so to speak, to start like during these dialogues with experts? Is this something that you hope to grow even more of going forward?
Yeah, it was a lot of planning. It was a planning on my part. It's quite easy to just be like, Hey, Dr. Winston child, do you want to get on this? It happened in a matter of days to me when I started my account. I felt that when I was learning about environmental studies in school, so much good research and learnings were stuck behind like scientific journals that you have to get access to. And I thought, why isn't it
accessible to more people? And jargon wise, I can convince some of these things in layman's terms that people can't understand. I don't understand why it's so complicated that sometimes. So when the IPCC report came out and I saw there was four thousand pages, I put it on Twitter and I was like, Is there anybody who can explain this to me? And since you are, be explaining to me, why not get on an Instagram Live so that more people can benefit from this content and wisdom very quickly?
I should say, you know, let's do this. He's worked on it and he knows it best. So I say, OK, let's get on it, and it was such a great conversation because he explains things so well. And I had so many friends who are working in various industries or schooling, who are kicking down notes and sending it to their own colleagues to say, Hey, this is what happened. Perhaps
you should pay attention to this. And I thought, like, Wow, they receive such a great response that I did another one with two oceanographers who explained specific chapters, and I thought I probably would have never been able to do this myself by reading it and translating it. So why not open my platform to experts who are better able to explain this? And I can just be the voice of people who don't know what's going on to say? Please explain this to me. I just don't get it.
So I thought that was really fun.
All eyes are now towards COP26 in Glasgow later this year. It's a big event for everyone interested in climate science and climate change. Are you doing anything exciting in the lead up to that and during the conference?
Oh, I would say that like a lot of my work, it's very heartening. Impromptu. I would love to. I have friends who are heading there, and you know, for me, the common practice is just to see my account is open. Whoever wants to use this to talk about this stuff, get on it. Even livestreaming, well, I was in Glasgow at that point. I'm guessing you'll be following closely, will you?
I'll be following it. We plan to send people there to cover it, so maybe you can speak to them.
Yeah.
And if you're interested,
yeah, of course I'm open to that and anything to make this information just more accessible to more people.
I'm going to get to, you know, a last question for you. Obviously, you've been described as an activist. You've also been described as a green influencer. First time at home. You know, someone who shapes how people think about climate change and sustainability. Do you see yourself as that? And is that something that you think you want to do for the long term? And you know, obviously you have a day job. We know that. At what stage do you think, you know, I think I want to do
this full time. And at what stage would you say I am ready to do this full time and it's worthwhile. I've got a good platform, and I think in terms of your work with NGOs or the government, it could do with a step up. Are you at that stage or is that something that you just want to take day by day?
In terms of the we are in, while it's currently something that I would do informally, I am definitely, you know, working on other projects that I will hope to take science communication on to a bigger platform to monetise it so that we can just open these two more disciplines, more talent who would be able to communicate better than I can. I don't think I'm the only person will
be interested to do this. But for now, on the Instagram page, I see myself as someone who has thoughts on climate issues and have a particular point of view. I always encourage people to not just read my stuff because I clearly have a bias. You can come here for that us, but to also know that I am in the process of learning a lot of new things, I don't think I always get things right, but I just hope that I can be someone who facilitate someone
else's money. Say to, you know, my peers online whether I'm going to do this full time. But for now, I'm happy keeping it part time because I think it allows me to sit and think about what I want to do, rather than be forced to have to continuously produce content just so that I can stay alive, you know?
Well, that's a great point. But in any case, even now, and as you get there, and if you do get there, we will certainly be in touch with you in this space. Thank you very
much. Thanks for having me.
And thanks for listening to the clever conversations. Stay up to date on CNN's coverage of climate change on CNN Asia. You can also find this and other CNN podcasts on our website and on iTunes and Spotify. The team behind this podcast are Christina Robert Insulin's and Erin Lowe. I'm Jamie Hall until next week.