Speaking Out for Sustainability: A tricky business

It turns out that having something to say is not the same as saying something. I was asked to do a TEDx talk. Great. I read the guidelines. They were clear that it is not enough to talk about things that are common knowledge and accepted world views. A TED talk has to go beyond reaffirming commonly held viewpoints. They are after challenge, inspiration and new thinking and I was instructed to create the "best talk of my life". No pressure there then. I started to create draft no.1 and I started to say something.

TEDx Keele University

The biggest question "So what?"

I do a lot of talks for the public on science and technology and have a reputation for giving quirky and engaging talks. I wanted this to be my best yet. I wanted to share my knowledge about renewable energy and sustainability. I wanted to express all of the things that I care about and the subjects that I teach on the MSc. Clean technology is evolving and new and exciting developments are happening all the time. I wanted to challenge our right to protest against clean energy development when we so desperately need to break from our dependence on fossil fuels. I had a lot to say so I wrote a few different talks, drafts 2, 3, 4 and 5 all really impressive and informative, I thought. Something was still not right. I watched several talks online and it dawned on me that the most engaging talks were not the ones that had the most technical detail, or the most innovative science. The best talks were often the ones that made me feel something. Speakers would give personal accounts, passionately describing how issues affected them and other people and they would answer the biggest question, "so what?". 

The Great Stuff Addiction

I looked again at my, now not so impressive draft talks. None of them came close to being the "talk of my life". They were OK. I thought about what I care about the most and started again and wrote a talk about stuff, our growing dependence and the sustainability challenges that this presents .. through my own eyes...on a journey through my life.  I haven't delivered the talk yet but I am ready as I am much happier with it. It is from the heart, an important issue told through my story. I have something to say.