Planet Potluck Grace Nosek

Lawyer, climate storyteller, and founder of the UBC Climate Hub, Grace Nosek, joins host Am Johal on a mission — to publicly uncover feelings of ‘climate doom’ and ‘individual responsibility’ as narratives dispelled by the fossil fuel industry. While leading this charge, Grace speaks about Exxon Mobil at the forefront of climate science — spinning its narrative web that entangles any space from broadcasting and universities, to legislation.

Grace also discusses her work with the UBC Climate Hub, and the integral role that youth (as well as Indigenous and racialized people) have in this movement of anti-capitalist defiance. She and Am also speak about overcoming eco-anxieties, the importance of making a small day-to-day difference that can ‘ripple outward,’ and Grace’s belief in Pleasure Activism. They end this interview with a brief discussion of Grace’s inspiration to write her hopeful young adult climate fantasy series, Ava of the Gaia.

Grace chats with Nina and Uma, teen climate activists in Vancouver, British Columbia, about speaking at City Hall, centering justice and intersectionality in the climate movement, and discovering the courage to speak up. They talk about how the movement has been a space to grow and connect outside of typical social constraints.

Grace chats with Kate Higham, the inaugural Coordinator of the University of British Columbia Climate Hub and a longtime human rights advocate, about the vital connection between human rights and climate change, how corporations might be held legally accountable for harms arising from climate change, and what strategies the Climate Hub has used to build excitement and momentum around climate justice. They talk about the power of youth-led climate movements, and how to find joy in collaborative climate action.

Grace chats with Kelsey Skaggs, lawyer and Executive Director of the Climate Defense
Project, about suing Harvard for its failure to divest from fossil fuels while still a law
student and the growing momentum around the climate necessity defense. They talk
about the decades-long campaign by members of the fossil fuel industry and their allies to
undermine climate science and disempower the public, and how regular people have
found the courage to risk their bodies and their freedom in nonviolent civil disobedience
against government and industry policies that worsen the climate crisis.

Grace chats with Lindsay Borrows, lawyer, author, and linguist. Lindsay is a member of the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation. Her love for the land, water and story-telling inspire her to explore law as a way to strengthen relationships between humans and non-humans in the spaces we call home. Lindsay talks about her new book, Otter’s Journey through Indigenous Language and Law, detailing the parallels between the revitalization of Indigenous language and the revitalization of Indigenous law and explaining the power of having law written on our hearts. She tells the story of “Waabooz, onginii-waabigwaniin gaye” about the rabbit and the roses, giving us a window into one way to engage with Indigenous laws, and discusses the critical link between Indigenous law and climate justice.

Grace chats with Jacqueline Lee-Tam, a climate justice organizer and university student, about her collaboration on a national youth campaign to condemn the Canadian government’s decision to purchase the Trans Mountain pipeline. Jacqueline speaks about how she begun engaging with the climate movement in high school, how she has found community in the movement, and how love drives her work.