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“The youth climate movement was effective at raising attention to levels that it had never been at before,” says Mexican-Chilean climate activist and member of the indigenous Mexican Otomi-Toltec nation, Xiye Bastida, on the Climate Curious podcast. Growing up in Mexico and experiencing a climate disaster for the first time at age 13, Xiye was determined to raise awareness of climate change; but with a difference. Her focus would be on justice for countries already experiencing climate impacts in the Global South, highlighting indigenous and immigrant wisdom. Enter her breakout moment, speaking at a UN conference aged just 15, organising a protest for school-kids in New York City, and setting up a foundation to fund climate solutions in the Global South from young people, The Re-Earth Initiative. Recorded live at TED Countdown 2025 in conversation with co-host Ben Hurst.
Watch Xiye’s TED Talk, ‘Your inner fire is your greatest strength’.
Check out Xiye’s foundation, The Re-Earth Initiative.
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Created by TEDxLondon
Executive produced by Josie Colter
Produced by Ben Beheshty
Curated by Deesha Chandra
Hosted by Maryam Pasha and Ben Hurst
Communications by Tara Cooper and Issey Gladston
00:00 Introduction
00:46 Fridays for Future movement
02:10 Organising climate strikes in New York
03:28 Challenges and realisations
03:45 The global climate strike
06:19 Media and identity
07:39 Pandemic and Global South challenges
09:26 Personal journey and family background
14:26 First UN conference experience
15:55 Finding my voice: the beginning of climate activism
17:01 Starting the Re-Earth Initiative
17:30 Funding and empowering the Global South
20:15 Youth climate movement: success and future
26:05 Indigenous wisdom and biodiversity
28:50 The interconnectedness of life
34:28 Final Thoughts
CC S06E16 – Xiye Bastide (EDIT 1)
[00:00:00] Introduction
[00:00:00] Xiye Bastida: This is from Indigenous Wisdom. We don’t operate in a growth mindset, like we don’t ask always what is better and better and better, and how we get more and more and more. What we ask is, what is good? What [00:00:15] is balance?
[00:00:16] Ben Hurst: This is climate curious. The podcast for people who are bored, scared, or confused by climate change.
[00:00:23] Maryam Pasha: I’m Marion Pasha, the director and curator at Telex London, and the co-host of this podcast alongside the amazing Ben.
[00:00:29] Ben Hurst: [00:00:30] Hi, I’m Ben Hurst, activist and advocate exploring what positive masculinities can look like and self-confessed climate norm.
[00:00:41] Ben Hurst: Ye, thank you so much for joining us on the [00:00:45] Climate Curious Podcast.
[00:00:46] Fridays for Future movement
[00:00:46] Ben Hurst: For people who are listening who don’t know, who’ve never heard of Fridays for Future or don’t know what that is, can you give our listeners a little bit of a, like a, a top line mm-hmm. Overview of what that was, um, and how you got into.
[00:00:58] Xiye Bastida: Yeah. So [00:01:00] Fridays for Future was a movement, uh, a climate movement, a climate strike movement. Mm-hmm. Where students would skip school every Friday to go protest at their local government that a climate emergency needed to be declared. Mm-hmm. That we followed the Paris Agreement, that we had to [00:01:15] stay below 1.5 degrees of warming, that we needed to start facing out fossil fuels.
[00:01:18] Ben Hurst: Mm-hmm.
[00:01:19] Xiye Bastida: Um, and it started with Greta Thunberg striking outside of her Swedish parliament. Okay.
[00:01:25] Ben Hurst: And.
[00:01:26] Xiye Bastida: It expanded into literally millions of people [00:01:30] across the world. What is this? In under a year? I mean, I think it’s one of the fastest growing movements, international movements that I’ve seen. Um, and I remember the first time that I saw Greta on tv, she was giving a, a speech about our houses on fire.
[00:01:42] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm. And we’re not acting like our house is on fire. [00:01:45] And my mom said, look, she’s your age. Why aren’t you doing something like that? Just
[00:01:50] Ben Hurst: the curse, the cursor of our immigrant parents. Migrant parents, they’re always gonna compare you to somebody else. Yeah, yeah.
[00:01:57] Xiye Bastida: Like there was this really famous Mexican girl who got on [00:02:00] TV for singing a cover up at that, an adult song, and mom was like, she’s your age.
[00:02:03] Xiye Bastida: Why aren’t singing? I’m like, I can’t sing Mom,
[00:02:06] Ben Hurst: mom. I literally can’t do that. I could
[00:02:07] Xiye Bastida: protest. So.
[00:02:10] Organizing Climate Strikes in New York
[00:02:10] Xiye Bastida: It, it, it, it all started, um, for me in my high school, seeing that our, our environmental club was, I thought so behind in what we needed to be doing. Mm-hmm. Because we were doing challenges of bring your own straw and be vegan for one day.
[00:02:26] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm. And let’s watch a documentary about the ocean, but not do [00:02:30] anything about it. Right. Mm-hmm. And coming from Mexico and seeing. The power that a city like New York can have. Mm-hmm. The media power, I was thinking we’re not really using the platform. That you have to [00:02:45] give a message that can, the world can hear.
[00:02:47] Xiye Bastida: Right. So I think coming from an outsider’s perspective, I just knew the power of New York.
[00:02:51] Ben Hurst: Yeah.
[00:02:51] Xiye Bastida: Um, and if you grow up there, you probably just think like New York, it’s every day New York. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
[00:02:55] Ben Hurst: yeah.
[00:02:56] Xiye Bastida: Um, so I started organizing my environmental club to go to Albany, which is the [00:03:00] state capital, to, uh, lobby for different types of.
[00:03:03] Xiye Bastida: Climate, uh, loss, for example, a law that would make it so that all the buildings in New York had to be retrofitted so that they wouldn’t emit that much carbon emissions. Because in New York, 70% of emissions come from [00:03:15] buildings. Okay? Which is a lot. So you retrofit all buildings, you actually decrease the carbon footprint of the city by a lot, right?
[00:03:20] Xiye Bastida: So we were doing that very technical lobbying and busing kids to Albany, three hours up town upstate.
[00:03:28] Challenges and realisations
[00:03:28] Xiye Bastida: And then I came to this very harsh realization that people and communities have been doing this type of work for decades. Yeah. And it hadn’t worked. Yeah. So we were, I kind of felt naive thinking that as a young person we would make a difference.
[00:03:43] Xiye Bastida: Yeah.
[00:03:43] Ben Hurst: Me doing it is gonna suddenly fix it. [00:03:45] Yeah.
[00:03:45] The Global Climate Strike
[00:03:45] Xiye Bastida: So when I heard the calling of the global climate strike, the first ever global climate strike on March 15th, 2019. Mm-hmm. I told my my environmental club, this is the next thing to do. We [00:04:00] started to self-organize the school. I would put posters up everywhere, come to the strike, come to the strike, and the next morning all ripped out.
[00:04:07] Ben Hurst: By students or by stuff, but not
[00:04:08] Xiye Bastida: by, by the, by the school.
[00:04:10] Ben Hurst: Oh my gosh.
[00:04:12] Xiye Bastida: And it was this kind of very weird thing where we’re [00:04:15] advocating for a future. Yeah. But then the school wouldn’t even let us organize. Right. So, and they literally
[00:04:19] Ben Hurst: set up a club for you to do it, and then they were like, but don’t actually do it.
[00:04:22] Xiye Bastida: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:04:23] Ben Hurst: Were, there were a lot of people in the, in the club. In the
[00:04:25] Xiye Bastida: club. I would say 15 to 20. Okay. So it was quite small.
[00:04:27] Ben Hurst: Cool.
[00:04:28] Xiye Bastida: Um, and when the day [00:04:30] arrived. I mean, I felt always like an out people who care about climate. I think we’ve always felt a bit of outsiders. Yeah. But that day, 600 of my classmates walked out.
[00:04:41] Xiye Bastida: Wow. Which is,
[00:04:42] Xiye Bastida: we were a school of, I think [00:04:45] 1200, but all the freshmen weren’t allowed to walk out because they were too young. Right. So I think like 600 out of 900 walked out. Wow.
[00:04:53] Xiye Bastida: And
[00:04:53] Xiye Bastida: when you see the popular kid walk out for a protest, you organized. Yeah. That is when, you know,
[00:04:59] Ben Hurst: I’m the popular kid [00:05:00] now. No, I’m joking.
[00:05:00] Ben Hurst: Kidding. Yeah. Yeah. I
[00:05:02] Xiye Bastida: mean, that’s when you know that something is exciting.
[00:05:05] Ben Hurst: Yeah. Incredible. And it
[00:05:05] Xiye Bastida: was, I mean, literally walking out of the school, all of us with, with our car, you know, our, um, placards. Placards,
[00:05:12] Ben Hurst: yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:05:12] Xiye Bastida: And walking to Columbus Circle and [00:05:15] then upwards to the museum.
[00:05:16] Ben Hurst: Wow.
[00:05:16] Xiye Bastida: And it was so beautiful.
[00:05:18] Xiye Bastida: And from that moment on, I, I heard my calling still. We got together all the, uh, high school, uh, leaders. Mm-hmm. From the whole city. And that’s when we [00:05:30] started Fridays for future New York City. Now, Fridays for future New York City was the biggest. Fridays for future in the whole country. Globally.
[00:05:38] Ben Hurst: Okay. In the whole country.
[00:05:39] Ben Hurst: Right.
[00:05:39] Xiye Bastida: But the biggest, brightest for future were in Europe. Okay. So Germany was [00:05:45] humongous. Uh, also Australia was really, really big. Mm-hmm. Um, the uk, France, Italy, they were, they would bring out every single week, 60,000 kids. Wow. And we were bringing, at the beginning, [00:06:00] 605,000 in Citywide. And I was thinking there’s a million students in the public school system in New York.
[00:06:06] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm. And we cannot break. 10,000. We cannot break 15,000.
[00:06:11] Ben Hurst: You are a motivated young person. My gosh. Yeah. [00:06:15] I, I would’ve been thinking, wow, this is cool. I’m done. But yeah.
[00:06:19] Media and Identity
[00:06:19] Xiye Bastida: Um, remember when Greta crossed the ocean?
[00:06:21] Ben Hurst: Mm-hmm.
[00:06:22] Xiye Bastida: When she crossed the ocean, obviously was a huge, medium moment, and I was there to receive her on the other side in New York.
[00:06:29] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm. So that [00:06:30] moment for me was very special because. I mean, first of all, the, the media around her, it was something unlike I had ever seen before. Mm-hmm. I think there were hundreds of cameras there, all so [00:06:45] concentrated on. This one girl. Mm-hmm. Which for me, I mean, I am glad the climate movement got that many eyes.
[00:06:51] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm. But the narrative that was being perpetuated over and over again was that Greta Thunberg is what a climate activist is. Right. So that’s [00:07:00] when I started to feel that the media was playing a part in this. That was actually the inservice of the movement. Okay. Because I started to be called the Greta Thunberg of the us.
[00:07:09] Xiye Bastida: And there’s countless articles, if you look up my name online. Mm-hmm. Uh, all the articles from 2019, [00:07:15] they’re all say Shia Baida, the Greta Thunberg of the US over and over again.
[00:07:18] Ben Hurst: How jarring?
[00:07:19] Xiye Bastida: And I started to feel very confused that my identity didn’t matter. Mm-hmm. It was what got clicks that mattered. So I wrote an op-ed called, my Name is Not Greta Thunberg, why [00:07:30] Diverse Voices Matter.
[00:07:31] Xiye Bastida: Right.
[00:07:31] Xiye Bastida: Which I showed to Greta before posting and she said, this is what we need because she’s very conscious of. The fact that we need a global face and a global movement.
[00:07:39] Ben Hurst: Right.
[00:07:39] Pandemic and Global South challenges
[00:07:39] Xiye Bastida: So I would say the pandemic really was the thing that made [00:07:45] Fridays for future not be able to do our job anymore. Because we couldn’t.
[00:07:49] Xiye Bastida: Yeah. ’cause we couldn’t strike. But that is the moment where we saw a lot of systems that were being perpetuated in the movement. For example, my friends [00:08:00] from Malaysia cannot strike. Mm-hmm. Because it’s illegal. My friends from India got arrested. Mm-hmm. And spent a couple weeks in jail. Wow. For being part of Fridays for future
[00:08:11] Xiye Bastida: students.
[00:08:11] Xiye Bastida: Students Wow. In jail, because they were part of this movement. [00:08:15] Mm-hmm. So you realize that the Fridays for Future Movement worked for the Global North
[00:08:19] Ben Hurst: for the specific context that it was in. Right. Okay. Exactly. I get that.
[00:08:23] Xiye Bastida: And. Everybody from the global south, not, maybe not everybody, but the vast majority felt like the climate movement [00:08:30] didn’t represent them.
[00:08:30] Xiye Bastida: Okay. Because it’s things that we cannot do in our countries, or maybe we can do, but we risk arrest, we risk violence. We risk murder, disappearance. You know, Mexico is right the most, one of the most dangerous country to be a, an environmental activist. Mm-hmm. In, [00:08:45] in all of the, the, the Americas.
[00:08:47] Ben Hurst: Mm-hmm.
[00:08:48] Xiye Bastida: So, and then the Philippines in Asia.
[00:08:50] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm. And then the list goes on and on. And so things get really real, really fast,
[00:08:55] Ben Hurst: and this is you still at 15, 16 years old figuring all of this stuff out in [00:09:00] real time. I want to know. About you and your people. I think everybody’s got like really different journeys into climate justice, climate activism, all of this kind of stuff.
[00:09:10] Ben Hurst: Um, I know for some people it’s like an ideological thing. For some people it’s like a passion [00:09:15] project. Some people, it’s a special interest. My understanding of you is that this is like quite deeply linked to your own. Displacement. This is linked to like actual things that really happened to you and your family.
[00:09:26] Personal journey and family background
[00:09:26] Ben Hurst: I’m wondering if you could give us a little bit of a, a backstory or a history of [00:09:30] who you are and what brought you to climate.
[00:09:32] Xiye Bastida: Yeah, of course. So my story I think is really special because. I was very lucky to grow up with parents who were so involved in the climate space. Mm. They met at the first Earth Summit in 1992.[00:09:45]
[00:09:45] Xiye Bastida: Oh. They met when they were in their twenties.
[00:09:46] Ben Hurst: Okay. Okay. So
[00:09:48] Xiye Bastida: it’s like if I, you know, I have a boyfriend, so it’s not like I would meet somebody. Right, right. But, but in theory as if, uh, I just met somebody at a conference that just inspired me so [00:10:00] deeply that. You just fall in love with them. Right, right.
[00:10:02] Xiye Bastida: That’s what happened with my parents. My dad was sharing his story. My mom was translating it ’cause my dad didn’t speak English. Wow. And that’s how she got to know him and tell the story to the world. Oh my God. Um, and my dad said the UN is not ready for [00:10:15] indigenous voices. So he walked out of the room.
[00:10:17] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm. And then my mom said the same thing in English and walked out after him.
[00:10:20] Xiye Bastida: Oh. So
[00:10:21] Xiye Bastida: they have like a very special connection in that sense. And I grew up in a home where both my parents had been to UN spaces [00:10:30] for already a decade.
[00:10:31] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm.
[00:10:31] Xiye Bastida: Imagine that where my dad is indigenous from, uh, the OT indigenous community mm-hmm.
[00:10:37] Xiye Bastida: My name Shia. It’s a way of reclaiming our indigeneity. It means soft rain. Mm-hmm. And all my cousins have OMI names. [00:10:45] Um, so the, the cultural context was very rich and I actually thought that everybody. Knew about the climate crisis. Right. Everybody because, and that’s all I heard about.
[00:10:56] Ben Hurst: Yeah.
[00:10:56] Xiye Bastida: And to my surprise, it was in the textbooks in school.
[00:10:59] Xiye Bastida: A little [00:11:00] square climate change question mark. Yeah. That’s all we got. So. Growing up in, in that environment where I was taught about reciprocity, about taking care of Mother Earth, about taking care of my culture because my culture [00:11:15] is tied to the environment. Okay? So giving up on the environment is giving up on us as a people, right?
[00:11:20] Xiye Bastida: That’s the intricacies of it. But then all around us factories, um, industrial parks, waste, pollution, [00:11:30] and then. Like you alluded to in 2015, when I was 13 years old, my hometown flooded.
[00:11:35] Ben Hurst: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:36] Xiye Bastida: And it wasn’t the water that scared us as much as it was the pollution in the water. Okay. And how it smelled and how we [00:11:45] felt like we could get sick from all of the pollution overflowing into our town.
[00:11:49] Xiye Bastida: Oh. So that is what people call, in the academic world, they call it the perfect storm. Mm-hmm. Which is just a fancy way of saying. People at the front lines suffer the [00:12:00] most from climate disasters. Mm-hmm. And disproportionate pollution. And we are targeted basically by these companies mm-hmm. As communities who are not seen as having enough political power to stand up for our rights so that we don’t get sick.
[00:12:14] Xiye Bastida: [00:12:15] So there are, people are healthy. So when that flood happened, um. I remember I was walking my friend because she came to, to my house and I was walking her to her to see her mom at the front of our, [00:12:30] the outskirt of, of my town, and we couldn’t get out because the water was so high and it was not that moment that brought to me this realization that we are in the [00:12:45] climate crisis.
[00:12:45] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm.
[00:12:46] Xiye Bastida: It was really looking back and realizing that I had lived through a climate disaster.
[00:12:51] Xiye Bastida: Right,
[00:12:52] Xiye Bastida: right. Yeah. And I think a lot of people who, thousands of people who have experienced floods in the past five years, wildfires, you [00:13:00] cannot really process it when you’ve just lost your home
[00:13:02] Ben Hurst: the in the moment.
[00:13:03] Ben Hurst: Yeah. Because you’ve got other stuff to think about in that moment. Yeah, exactly.
[00:13:05] Xiye Bastida: So that’s the, the beginning of my journey. It’s knowing all the information and then seeing the reality of it. And [00:13:15] realizing that the reason why people were not speaking about it was because it hadn’t happened to them.
[00:13:19] Ben Hurst: Mm.
[00:13:20] Xiye Bastida: But we don’t want a world where people
[00:13:23] Ben Hurst: only talk about,
[00:13:24] Xiye Bastida: we don’t want a world where people experience the climate disasters for them, for to matter [00:13:30] to them. Right. We want a world where the least amount of people experience a climate disaster.
[00:13:34] Ben Hurst: Yeah.
[00:13:35] Xiye Bastida: Um. And then after that I moved to New York because my parents got a job at the Center for Earth Ethics.
[00:13:40] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm. Which is its first ever of its kind Teaching earth ethics [00:13:45] as a, as a class, which is incredible.
[00:13:46] Ben Hurst: Shout out to your parents.
[00:13:47] Xiye Bastida: Um. And I mean, moving to a new country, anybody who’s an immigrant knows that just the language learning English, having to adapt to classmates telling me that I wasn’t good enough [00:14:00] to hold any position of leadership in my school.
[00:14:03] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm. Et cetera, et cetera. It was really difficult. And after that first year, um, I started to really think about where, like my identity. ’cause you have an identity crisis when you move to a [00:14:15] new country. Of
[00:14:15] Ben Hurst: course. Yeah.
[00:14:16] Xiye Bastida: And I realized that I was so lucky to have such deep roots, such rich culture and such rich identity.
[00:14:23] Xiye Bastida: Yeah. That we didn’t need to hide, we needed to embrace.
[00:14:26] Ben Hurst: Yeah.
[00:14:26] First UN conference experience
[00:14:26] Xiye Bastida: Um, in 2017, when I was 15 years old, my [00:14:30] dad was invited to speak at the a UN conference in Malaysia. Mm-hmm. And he said that he wasn’t able to go. So he asked the organizers to invite me and they said. Sure. Your 15-year-old daughter. Okay.
[00:14:44] Ben Hurst: Yep.
[00:14:44] Ben Hurst: That would be, [00:14:45] that would be,
[00:14:45] Xiye Bastida: and my dad asked me if I was willing to do it. And it was one of those times where you feel like your life is gonna change. Yeah. Like that Yes. Means a significant change in your life. Yeah. So I said yes, and I went to Malaysia by myself.
[00:14:57] Xiye Bastida: Wow. Crossing
[00:14:59] Xiye Bastida: the world. [00:15:00]
[00:15:00] Xiye Bastida: Wow. And getting
[00:15:00] Xiye Bastida: off the plane.
[00:15:01] Xiye Bastida: They picked me up and they said, you are up now. Like they’re waiting for you at the conference. Oh.
[00:15:06] Ben Hurst: So
[00:15:06] Xiye Bastida: with my sticky clothes, I go on stage and I speak to all of these UN people.
[00:15:10] Ben Hurst: No shower.
[00:15:11] Xiye Bastida: No shower.
[00:15:12] Ben Hurst: Oh my gosh. It’s rough that because you need [00:15:15] that shower when you get on. That’s a long flight as well, you think?
[00:15:17] Ben Hurst: Yeah. But you just went straight onto stage.
[00:15:20] Xiye Bastida: And I wasn’t prepared because I thought I would have at least a couple days. To write my speech. Right. To think about it.
[00:15:26] Ben Hurst: You had to read
[00:15:28] Xiye Bastida: the speech. I
[00:15:29] Ben Hurst: had to read the speech. Oh my gosh. [00:15:30] Oh my gosh.
[00:15:31] Xiye Bastida: And I spoke about maybe 10 minutes about things that. People weren’t talking about, I, I asked people, is the solutions really solar panels if the solar panels all have microplastics on it?
[00:15:43] Ben Hurst: Right. Good question.
[00:15:44] Xiye Bastida: I feel [00:15:45] like I was at a, my parents were talking about really climate, how climate solutions could also perpetuate injustice. Right. And that conversation was not being had back then.
[00:15:55] Finding My Voice: The Beginning of Climate Activism
[00:15:55] Xiye Bastida: Yeah. So it felt very empowering to see people in the audience feel like. A youth voice is saying things
[00:16:04] Ben Hurst: that they’ve not heard,
[00:16:05] Xiye Bastida: that we’ve not heard, but also that we haven’t even gotten the general public to care about.
[00:16:10] Ben Hurst: Right?
[00:16:10] Xiye Bastida: That’s when I found my voice. So my background empowered me [00:16:15] to that moment, and when I went back to New York, I started organizing the climate strikes. Okay. So that’s when that whole part that the world knows that story started. Um. And it started with seven [00:16:30] kids in a room in my high school. Right.
[00:16:32] Xiye Bastida: And then it just expanded to the biggest movement I’ve been part of.
[00:16:35] Ben Hurst: Oh my gosh. Okay. Thank you for, for, I mean, that’s an incredible story. And the, my next question was gonna be, uh, how does your [00:16:45] experience shape the way that you advocate for climate justice? But I feel like you’ve given us a bit of a sense of, like all of this for you is about.
[00:16:52] Ben Hurst: People who are not represented. It’s about people who are experiencing real consequences and advocating for those people, but also those people having the voice to [00:17:00] advocate for themselves.
[00:17:01] Starting the Re-Earth Initiative
[00:17:01] Xiye Bastida: In 2020, I was 18. Okay. So I had just turned 18. Right. And I had gone through all this realization at 17, uh, 18, and that’s when I started my nonprofit re earth initiative.
[00:17:11] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm.
[00:17:11] Xiye Bastida: As so as a way to bring the youth global movement [00:17:15] together from the global south. And make sure that the movement was inclusive, accessible, and really representative of who we are.
[00:17:21] Ben Hurst: Wow. And so the, the RER initiative now does what? That’s different to what you were doing before. [00:17:30]
[00:17:30] Funding and empowering the Global South
[00:17:30] Xiye Bastida: So we actually fund the global south.
[00:17:34] Ben Hurst: Yeah. Because funded is an important Yeah. Thing. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:17:37] Xiye Bastida: Um. Because you cannot call on the same type of activism, right? Yeah. So even if people call [00:17:45] themselves activist advocates or change makers, it might post a threat to them. Um, so we are focused on solutions. We’re focused on people in their communities, on the front lines, implementing solutions, and that can be funded and we fund in, uh, empowerment.
[00:17:59] Xiye Bastida: So [00:18:00] anything that you think will empower your community or yourself
[00:18:02] Xiye Bastida: mm-hmm.
[00:18:02] Xiye Bastida: Uh, anything that has to do with the restoration of nature and the protection of nature. Mm-hmm. Through intersectional areas with gender and indigenous peoples and youth, because I frankly believe that. [00:18:15] I am able to do my work because three people in a row believed in me.
[00:18:18] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm. So if we have these platforms, my job is to believe in the next person. Mm-hmm.
[00:18:25] Ben Hurst: Mm-hmm. And
[00:18:26] Xiye Bastida: to not just believe in them symbolically, but to give them the resources that they need. Mm-hmm. [00:18:30] To be able to be part of the global movement. Did you know that 87% of youth under 30 living the global south,
[00:18:38] Ben Hurst: 80, 87%?
[00:18:40] Ben Hurst: I’d literally no idea. That that was, is that actually true? Yeah. Are you sure? [00:18:45] How, how do, how do you know that? That’s crazy. 87% is so many people.
[00:18:51] Xiye Bastida: Out of 10 people nine are from the
[00:18:54] Ben Hurst: global south, live in the global south. Wow. And they’re just not getting any support. Wow. This,
[00:18:59] Xiye Bastida: the climate, the climate [00:19:00] movement, environmental movement gets 2% of environmental fund of global funding.
[00:19:04] Xiye Bastida: Philanthropy, youth in that 2% get. 0.76%. Wow. Of funding.
[00:19:11] Ben Hurst: And that’s going to Global North
[00:19:12] Xiye Bastida: and that’s going to Global North. Wow. [00:19:15] So we are shifting that, um, because I believe that if we’re not funding the leaders of tomorrow, then we’re, or at least building the community, which we’re doing both. Then what is the future of the global south in the climate [00:19:30] crisis?
[00:19:30] Xiye Bastida: Right. I mean, is it gonna be stories like mine over and over again where you see the ca catastrophe come to your doorstep?
[00:19:36] Ben Hurst: Yeah.
[00:19:37] Xiye Bastida: And then not like maybe you have a realization, but what do you do?
[00:19:41] Ben Hurst: Yeah. You have to rely on having parents that are in a [00:19:45] position to give you a platform to allow you to speak and be heard.
[00:19:47] Ben Hurst: Yeah. Or parents
[00:19:48] Xiye Bastida: knew enough to, for me to be informed.
[00:19:51] Ben Hurst: Yeah.
[00:19:51] Xiye Bastida: Because even if people have a climate disaster happen to them. They’re not gonna call it a climate disaster. In most cases, they’re gonna call it a natural disaster.
[00:19:59] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm.
[00:19:59] Xiye Bastida: Or they’re [00:20:00] gonna think that it’s just, you know, the wildfire season has always been a thing, so they’re just maybe thinking, oh, this wildfire season was harsher, but it’s climate fueled and it’s fueled by the fossil fuel industry.
[00:20:12] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm. And they knew and they have names and addresses, you know? Mm-hmm. [00:20:15] All this other,
[00:20:15] Youth climate movement: success and future
[00:20:15] Ben Hurst: so would you describe the, the youth climate. Action or youth climate justice movement as successful, because for me, I think the first time I really became aware of like climate, in terms of protest, in terms of direct action, was linked to young people.
[00:20:29] Ben Hurst: [00:20:30] I think until all of the, the Fridays for future stuff started happening, and I wasn’t really aware. Like I’d watched a couple David Attenborough documentaries, do you know what I mean? Like I’d seen some things about polar bears and whatever, but I don’t think it had ever. Permeated the zeitgeist in that way.
[00:20:44] Ben Hurst: [00:20:45] Do you view that as success in terms of the youth climate action movement? And then I guess adding to that question, what do you think the future of that movement looks like? Or what do you think that movement looks like moving forward? [00:21:00]
[00:21:00] Xiye Bastida: So it’s actually really great to hear your perspective because I think for a lot of us, we were teenagers.
[00:21:07] Xiye Bastida: Going into college, trying to figure life out. Right. And what we felt was, [00:21:15] we felt like we were just, um, invisible. Mm-hmm. Almost to the people making decisions, to the people negotiating our future, because that’s what people do at the un. It’s not negotiating climate targets, it’s [00:21:30] negotiating the future that we get to live.
[00:21:31] Ben Hurst: Yeah.
[00:21:31] Xiye Bastida: So the fact that that was happening, but then. You know, by 2100, that’s where the models go to. That’s it. We don’t know. We don’t have any models beyond 2100. Right. So are we [00:21:45] really thinking about the future? If we’re only thinking of the next maybe two generations? Yeah. We’re here for the long term.
[00:21:50] Xiye Bastida: Yeah. We want humanity to thrive for the long term. So I would say that the climate move, the youth climate movement. Was effective at raising attention, awareness.
[00:21:59] Ben Hurst: Yeah. [00:22:00]
[00:22:00] Xiye Bastida: To levels that it had never been at before.
[00:22:02] Ben Hurst: Mm-hmm.
[00:22:02] Xiye Bastida: I mean, if that is what we have achieved, I think we’ve been Yeah. Like we can say we changed a lot.
[00:22:08] Ben Hurst: Yeah.
[00:22:08] Xiye Bastida: Because now people are having much more meaningful conversations. Yeah. And if we protested about people, I’m talking about the [00:22:15] climate crisis, maybe people would feel like, why would you protest about that? We are already talking about it. Yeah. Which is good. Right. So, um, I think the future of the movement is.
[00:22:24] Xiye Bastida: In how we actually get the emissions down. Mm-hmm. And we get the adaptation up. And that is the biggest challenge [00:22:30] because, uh, the loss and damage fund, for example, is underfunded. Right. The, the problem is money now. Yeah. The governments are not putting money where their,
[00:22:39] Ben Hurst: their mouth commit is. Their mouth is,
[00:22:42] Xiye Bastida: they’re just not.
[00:22:42] Xiye Bastida: So, I think now it’s. I don’t [00:22:45] know how we mobilize finance. Maybe it’s not our job. All the bankers now need to come. And the accountants. Yeah. And the people who understand risk and the people who are staying, all, most of the homes in the world will be uninsurable. Like that’s a huge problem.
[00:22:58] Xiye Bastida: Yeah.
[00:22:58] Xiye Bastida: For if you [00:23:00] work your whole life to be able to buy a home, and then you cannot insure it and then you lose it.
[00:23:05] Xiye Bastida: Like people’s lives are on the line in that type of very realistic way. So how are not more people talking about it every day?
[00:23:12] Ben Hurst: Yeah. And so is, is it like a, [00:23:15] is this like moving from a, an awareness raising thing you said to, to finance and economics and is it about policy? Is that what we are looking at in terms of the, the future of this movement?
[00:23:25] Xiye Bastida: I think it’s definitely policy implementation. [00:23:30] It’s hard to believe that,
[00:23:32] Ben Hurst: yeah.
[00:23:32] Xiye Bastida: Policy implementation can happen.
[00:23:34] Ben Hurst: It’s gonna change anything also. So I
[00:23:36] Xiye Bastida: do think it’s the finance flows need to shift. Yeah. And also the way in which we measure our success, because we know that success has been measured in GDP, [00:23:45] um, carbon emissions and GDP have historically always grown the same.
[00:23:49] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm.
[00:23:49] Ben Hurst: I
[00:23:49] Xiye Bastida: think a couple years ago was the first time that GDP grew, but climate emissions went down. Mm-hmm. And that’s the type of decoupling of emissions from growth that we need to see.
[00:23:58] Xiye Bastida: Yeah.
[00:23:58] Xiye Bastida: But also. And [00:24:00] this is from Indigenous Wisdom. We don’t operate in a growth mindset, right? We operate like we don’t ask always what is better and better and better.
[00:24:09] Xiye Bastida: How do we get more and how we get more and more and more. Yeah. What we ask is, what is good? What is [00:24:15] balance? Mm-hmm. What do you need in your life to feel satisfied? Because in the current. World that we live in, it’s always unsatisfactory. You always want or need something more. You’re told you need something more.
[00:24:26] Xiye Bastida: Right. Which is why we have such a big consumption problem. [00:24:30] So right now the big issue is our level of consumption, our level of waste because of this consumption, how disposable our society has become. The fact that we’re not in circular economies or circular systems. Mm-hmm. So we are at the point where we are really [00:24:45] asking the people who run the economies of the world to rethink.
[00:24:49] Xiye Bastida: In the way in which it is, is shaped
[00:24:51] Xiye Bastida: right,
[00:24:51] Xiye Bastida: because it also goes back into how the global North has become so rich from all of the resources extracted from the global south, the [00:25:00] south, the terrain. Yeah. And taking it and taking it and draining and never giving back. So our values need to be about reciprocity.
[00:25:07] Xiye Bastida: Our economy needs to be reciprocal and circular. Um, I would love a world where we produce. Zero waste. Mm-hmm. Because all [00:25:15] of the things that we make come from the waste that we’ve already produced.
[00:25:17] Ben Hurst: Right.
[00:25:18] Xiye Bastida: And then we just keep
[00:25:20] Ben Hurst: reproducing from the same. Yeah. From the waste. Yeah. That’s what the earth does.
[00:25:23] Xiye Bastida: When a tree dies, it’s nourishment for the next cycle, for the next tree to come. Why are we not wiser to at least see what [00:25:30] the earth has learned Such a good in thousands of years.
[00:25:33] Ben Hurst: Such a good perspective, man. It’s, and it’s, so you are saying here, we’re talking about metrics of measurement. We’re talking about cold, hard cash.
[00:25:40] Ben Hurst: These are the things that we need. Yeah. And I also, I, I love this like [00:25:45] mindset shift from, uh, like a. I guess, uh, an abundance mindset or always wanting more, always taking more to a mindset where we’re thinking about what’s good and what’s better. And you mentioned your heritage being, or, or indigenous wisdom.
[00:25:59] Ben Hurst: [00:26:00] Mm-hmm. Being an indicator of what things there are that we need to shift or change or things that we can learn.
[00:26:05] Indigenous wisdom and biodiversity
[00:26:05] Ben Hurst: I’m wondering, uh, as, as someone from, uh, a Tommy Totek heritage, are there any. Critical lessons that you think are, we need to learn as a, as a planet, as a people. Mm-hmm. We all need to learn that we are missing because we are not looking in the right places or listening to the right people.
[00:26:26] Ben Hurst: And the people who I guess for a long time have been practicing what it means to look [00:26:30] after the planet in a way that’s sustainable. What it means to, uh, reproduce what it means to not drain resources and not take more than we can put back.
[00:26:38] Xiye Bastida: Yeah. Well, a lot of people don’t know that. The most biodiverse places in [00:26:45] the world are directly linked to the stewardship of indigenous peoples to that land.
[00:26:50] Xiye Bastida: Mm. So we think, I think of ourselves as humanity, our collective. Own perception is that we build things and we destroy [00:27:00] nature and we destroy ecosystems. Right. But indigenous peoples are creators of biodiversity, for example. Do you know that in one square kilometer in the Amazonian, Ecuadorian, Amazon, there’s more biodiversity than in all of Canada and the [00:27:15] US combined?
[00:27:16] Xiye Bastida: Wow.
[00:27:16] Xiye Bastida: There’s more biodiversity in one little place that was stewarded by indigenous peoples for hundreds of years. Mm-hmm. Than in two whole countries that are the majority of North America. In the Amazon, the Amazon Rainforest there is [00:27:30] about, I think I, it’s like two meters of topsoil. Mm-hmm. Um, that is only there because of land management by indigenous communities of slow burning and nutrients going into the ground and tending to the land so that [00:27:45] the top soil that exists today can support the Amazon rainforest.
[00:27:50] Xiye Bastida: Without indigenous land management, the Amazon Rainforest would not exist. Wow. In the way that it exists today.
[00:27:56] Ben Hurst: It’s so interesting. Yeah. Sorry to interrupt you because people, I think. For, [00:28:00] for lots of us, we believe that the forest is a thing by itself. Yeah. And it doesn’t need people or animals in order to be able to thrive, but everything’s connected.
[00:28:08] Ben Hurst: Right? Mm-hmm. In that way where people are maintaining that in a way that means that it can become what it needs to become.
[00:28:14] Xiye Bastida: Exactly. [00:28:15] Incredible. Exactly. And. 80% of the global biodiversity now is stewarded by indigenous people.
[00:28:20] Ben Hurst: Mm.
[00:28:20] Xiye Bastida: So without indigenous communities, I honestly don’t think we would even have a chance now of Wow.
[00:28:26] Xiye Bastida: Staying in our, within our climate goals.
[00:28:28] Ben Hurst: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:28] Xiye Bastida: So it’s, it’s [00:28:30] important that we recognize that because then we know that solutions are in investing in indigenous communities and their stewardship of land, our stewardship of land. Mm-hmm. Right now we think of conservation or protection of, of. Oceans or forest, [00:28:45] and we think of national parks and caging nature in and saying nature and humans are separate.
[00:28:50] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:50] The interconnectedness of life
[00:28:50] Xiye Bastida: From my Cosmo vision in, in Omi, our word for skin is the same as the word for the outer layer of the earth.
[00:28:57] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm.
[00:28:58] Xiye Bastida: Meaning that we are [00:29:00] extensions of life and we are part of the earth. Mm-hmm. We are part of all of, of the history of the surface of the earth. So. Included in our cosmology, in our deepest in language, which is our [00:29:15] form of understanding the world.
[00:29:16] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm.
[00:29:17] Xiye Bastida: We are an in, we’re nature. There is no word in most indigenous languages that. Separate nature from people.
[00:29:24] Xiye Bastida: Right.
[00:29:25] Xiye Bastida: It’s just life and movement in which is the language used by the [00:29:30] Aztec is a very popular language. The word, there’s no word for nature. Mm-hmm. The closest word for nature is ly, which means life and movement, and the word means family.
[00:29:41] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm. Which it means together in life and movement. [00:29:45]
[00:29:45] Xiye Bastida: Mm.
[00:29:45] Xiye Bastida: So, and that is us with the family of all living things.
[00:29:50] Xiye Bastida: Mm.
[00:29:51] Xiye Bastida: So we see ourselves as relatives to the mountains, relatives, to the ocean relatives, to every other living being, [00:30:00] and we recognize ourselves as just one part of my dad calls it the symphony of life.
[00:30:05] Xiye Bastida: If you see the world from that place, really what are we doing?
[00:30:10] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:10] Xiye Bastida: What are we doing thinking that we could ever, ever be separate from, [00:30:15] from this planet? Mm. That it is. Like, I really think we should think of ourselves as having little roots. On our feet because that’s how connected we are. Wow. Every other breath that we take comes from the ocean.
[00:30:25] Xiye Bastida: Without the ocean, we would not be here or we would live, have our lives. We would not [00:30:30] have the same lifespan or the same health. Um, every medicine that we have ever taken, anytime you’re sick comes from plants or from mushrooms or from, uh, things that they find in the ocean. I mean, the way in [00:30:45] which we’re able to live our lives is only possible because of.
[00:30:48] Xiye Bastida: This, this system that has developed for all of these hundreds of thousands of years.
[00:30:53] Maryam Pasha: Incredible.
[00:30:55] Xiye Bastida: We don’t understand that in our day-to-day lives.
[00:30:57] Ben Hurst: Yeah. I, I definitely don’t, ’cause it makes me think of like the [00:31:00] space race now, and I’m like, oh, people are trying to colonize other planets and find places that we can go and live and we could just escape the planet, but like.
[00:31:08] Ben Hurst: Obviously we can’t because there’s no ocean anywhere else. Like there’s no, there’s none of the things that we need to sustain life in any of the [00:31:15] other places apart from this planet. And this is the only planet that we have, which is really, yeah. Maybe a very important shift in mindset for us to make, I think for a lot of our listeners to, to make definitely, for me anyway, I’ve gotta do some more gardening, um, [00:31:30] while we’re doing, uh, or while our producers were doing.
[00:31:35] Ben Hurst: Their research to chat to you. They came across a phrase, and I dunno, this might be a, a moot question, in which case we’ll wrap it up here, but they came across a phrase which is, [00:31:45] we are the children of the keepers of the land. And I was wondering if you could maybe shed some light on what that phrase means or what that statement might mean to people or to yourself.
[00:31:56] Xiye Bastida: So for me, that statement means that we [00:32:00] are the children of people who understand the land and. I mean, anybody who’s ever, like you said, done any type of gardening or has any connection with the land, understands that a seed is representation of potential. That a seed [00:32:15] can either be a wonderful tree and give many, many seeds, or it could just stay in your pocket and never realize its potential.
[00:32:22] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm. So when you think of all of the children from people who are so wise and who have learned [00:32:30] how to live with the land. We are also those seats of potential.
[00:32:33] Xiye Bastida: Mm.
[00:32:33] Xiye Bastida: We are, uh, we have the incredible potential to be part of our ecosystem to grow into strong beings that live in harmony with everything around us, or we can stay in [00:32:45] someone’s pocket.
[00:32:45] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm. Right. So I think that it, when I hear that phrase, I feel a responsibility that I have a stake in my own potential to realize my own potential of being. A part of this planet [00:33:00] in the way that I was supposed to be. Mm. And you are that seed, and you are that seed, and everybody has the potential to realize ourselves to be, um, thriving together.
[00:33:11] Xiye Bastida: So that is what what comes to mind. And [00:33:15] it’s really the way that we live our lives because we not only think of myself as a seed, but the seed that comes after and after and after. Um, and then those who have. You know, under the ground, mycelium became a really popular term. Mm-hmm. [00:33:30] And a lot of people actually don’t understand.
[00:33:31] Xiye Bastida: Really, like cereal, everybody loves mushrooms.
[00:33:31] Ben Hurst: Yeah.
[00:33:32] Xiye Bastida: Um, but what happens with mycelium is that one tree will connect through under the land and give information about literally tips, how do you best grow? Mm-hmm. How [00:33:45] do you best absorb water? They’re exchanging information and we have that potential too.
[00:33:50] Xiye Bastida: Mm-hmm. To use. All of the things around us to exchange that information to be wise and learn from each other. There’s 400 year old trees that are giving [00:34:00] information to the seed that has just sprouted.
[00:34:02] Xiye Bastida: Mm.
[00:34:03] Xiye Bastida: That is the way in which we need to live our lives. What is the wisdom of the ocean that is billions of years old?
[00:34:11] Xiye Bastida: We have the gift to share a [00:34:15] planet with beings that are older than we could even fathom in a timeline. We are extremely lucky to be here. The least we can do is rise up to the challenge of reconnecting to the earth.
[00:34:27] Ben Hurst: Hmm.
[00:34:28] Final Thoughts
[00:34:28] Ben Hurst: I think that’s a a, a beautiful place to, to end. The best we can do, the least we can do is rise up to the challenge of reconnecting to the earth.
[00:34:37] Ben Hurst: And I, I just wanna say thank you so much for, for sitting with us. Thank you so much for joining us. I feel so, like, I feel, um, very [00:34:45] deeply inspired to, to do things, which is not something I always feel. Um, but I, I really appreciate. It’s such a beautiful. Journey and story that you’ve shared with us from the beginning of like being raised by people who care about this stuff [00:35:00] and also being impacted by it yourself, but then impacting the world in such a, a massive way, um, and mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people to also care in that same way and to have their own impacts.
[00:35:11] Ben Hurst: So I feel like it’s been a massive. Privileged to sit and chat [00:35:15] with you, and I’m so appreciative of you giving us your time. Thank you, Sheila. Thank
[00:35:18] Maryam Pasha: you. Thank you for joining us this week. We really hope you enjoyed this episode.
[00:35:23] Ben Hurst: If you did, please hit the follow button to make sure that you get next week’s releases.
[00:35:28] Maryam Pasha: And why not reach [00:35:30] out with your very own climate confessions?
[00:35:32] Ben Hurst: While you’re at it, please leave a rating and a review.
[00:35:35] Maryam Pasha: Now, let’s shout out to our fabulous team behind the pod
[00:35:38] Ben Hurst: executive, produced by Josie Colter,
[00:35:40] Maryam Pasha: produced by Ben Beheshty.
[00:35:42] Ben Hurst: Music, also by Ben Beheshty,
[00:35:44] Maryam Pasha: [00:35:45] communications by Tara Cooper and Izzy Gladston.
[00:35:47] Ben Hurst: Curation by Deesha Chandra,
[00:35:49] Maryam Pasha: hosted by Ben Hurst.
[00:35:51] Ben Hurst: I’m Maryam Pasha,
[00:35:52] Maryam Pasha: and
[00:35:53] Ben Hurst: remember, stay curious.
