14 Denise Baden on the power of positive stories to spark sustainability transformations

In our online chat in her Southampton studio, we hear from activist, author and creator Denise Baden about the power of positive story. She is Professor of Sustainable Business, and came to realise that teaching business ethics does not make students more ethical. She switched to good role models in story, finding these created a different kind of motivation. “We remember stuff embedded in story,” she says. Also, “It’s more fun!”

She tells of her A Jigsaw to Save the World project, to paint a picture of the good stuff happening. And how it felt to have her writing turned into a play. Do you interfere, or just watch? 

Her heroes are Caroline Lucas and Rob Hopkins. Her most recent books are “The Philosopher and the Assassin”, and “Habitat Man.”

She recommends Rob Hopkins’ book, “How to Fall in Love with the Future.” 

Her top action: turn to face the sun. Go solar. 

For Denise’s books, see Habitat Press: https://habitatpress.com/

See also https://www.dabaden.com/

https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5wzjrb/professor-denise-baden and linkedin.com/in/denise-baden-3742793 

A Jigsaw to Save the World: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/creative-climate-communication-7300475505529540608

https://www.greenstories.org.uk/

My new book will be supporting this podcast, and will be published in March 2027 by Unbreaking/5m. It’s called "Bamboo and Butterfly: Transformation and Story for Climate and Nature Recovery." 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Hello everybody.

SPEAKER_02 0:06

How nice to welcome Denise Barton to the show. Author, activist, creator, professor of sustainable business at the University of Southampton, pioneered positive stories and behaviours on climate and nature. And we're going to hear a bit more about that today. So Denise, welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your home place and you know where where your roots are, really.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Okay. Well, I guess I'm rooted on the on the South Coast. I kind of went to the University of Southampton when I was a student. Went off up to London, gathered about, but I was drawn back because it's a very diverse city, very sort of um mixed group of people, and lots of greenery. Yeah, so that that's where I'm based.

SPEAKER_02 0:53

Lovely. Great. And a good and a good base to start to think about as your professor of sustainable business, how you turn the sort of objectives that our economy has into thinkings about kind of culture, word, story. And there's an interesting kind of transition back and forth between the two of those, isn't there?

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Well, that's how I got into story. I kind of so few people read any articles I wrote on business ethics or sustainable business. And I actually then started thinking of how can I find more innovative ways to move beyond engaging those who choose to take these always optional modules. So that's one of the ways I got into fiction and a number of the other projects that we might get to talk about.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Lovely. Well, that's a great, great start. Well, um how about we start with the Green Stories project um and talk a little bit about the power of story, how how that came about, how you launched that, and that's led on to a whole range of other exciting things as well. But tell us a little bit about the kind of emergence of that as an idea.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

Sure. Well, it arose out of some research, funnily enough, when I discovered that teaching business ethics wasn't making my students any more ethical. And um, and I did some research and I found that the typical way of teaching by using cautionary tales of ethics scandals wasn't actually that effective. So I switched to using positive role models and um uh sort of stories of social entrepreneurs or ethical business leaders, and it was way more successful. And I did quite a lot of research showing that that approach, the positive story approach with real examples, gave people agency, reduced cynicism. Cynicism was absolutely associated with unethical behaviour. And I looked into the news as well and traditional news versus constructive journalism, and I found the same thing. And I looked into how people responded to stories as well, like climate fiction, comparing dystopian catastrophe focused with solution focused. And again, I found the same thing. Whereas the more positive ones motivated everybody. And I thought, oh my god, we're doing it all wrong. And, you know, A, most stuff is preaching to the converted, you know, only those who choose to engage in it. And two, it takes a problem-focused approach, which can leave you feeling depressed, hopeless, anxious. Um, so I thought I wanted to create a resource to encourage writers, because if you want to communicate, engage writers, yeah. Um, so I filled it with all kinds of sustainable solutions, climate policies, and so on, the ones that will actually work, not the greenwashing kind. And it basically encouraged writers through competitions and various projects to include them in their stories. And um we've run 21 free competitions now. It gave birth to Habitat Press, which is indie publisher that's published, I think we've got 11 to 12 books now to our name, all which either show positive visions of what a sustainable society might look like if we did things right, or showcases the kinds of policies that will get there, all kind of smuggles sustainable practices and values into sort of mainstream genre fiction. So I'm really, really proud of that.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

I love that idea of smuggling stuff in. That's the thing, isn't it? That if you think it's about this thing over here, but you're hearing about some other thing in a in an indirect way and in in a kind of subsound way almost, they they they're going to work on the unconscious and the deeper parts of the mind when you're not thinking about it, perhaps. You know, there are various kinds of metaphors of how we think about that. But yes, exactly. You found that to be effective.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Yes. Way more effective than dry facts or statistics, because we we remember stuff embedded in a story and we relate to the characters. And so the characters, for a while, their values become our values. So it's a very powerful way to get across messages.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

And what um I'm intrigued about this this idea that that that the positive stories have this potential to reach everybody because society is so kind of segmented and separated. Um, and um it's never just along a single spectrum. But you know, if you think of kind of in environmental behaviors and interests, there are people who get it and who are doing stuff, and there are people at this end who are actually quite small in number now, even though they're quite noisy, who are against it or are using the the environmental climate nature narratives as a as a kind of weaponized form. And in the middle, what some people have called Rupert Reed's called the climate majority, who are people who know about it but don't know what to do. But the potential for positive stories is is to say, well, we're not just looking at the people who know stuff uh are and who are doing stuff, you're kind of widening it right out. Is that is that right?

SPEAKER_00 6:16

Exactly. Yeah, and I think you mentioned the word agency, and that's absolutely crucial. So I found of all kinds of things that that work, those showing characters doing sustainable things in a way that readers can emulate are the most effective at inspiring similar things.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

Okay, so so there's something, there's something there of of the reader, the audience seeing themselves in the story, or uh or seeing a mirror of some kind of sort. They can see a character uh context, a series of things happening, and they think, oh, that could be me, or that is me, even.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Um you mentioned uh the first anthology, No More Fairy Tales, Stories to Save the Planet. Well, in there's a story about a murder set in a citizens' assembly on climate, and that's a great example because it's a whodunit, you know, you don't know who's going to get killed or who did it. But what you have is eight people debating climate policies. Yep. And so they all, you know, and as citizens' assemblies are designed to be, they represent all kinds of different people, you know, different classes, genders, ethnicities, ages. So they all respond to the different policies in different ways. So it's basically in business talk, I talk of it as a stakeholder analysis. But in dramatic form, especially when you're wondering who the murderer is, it's much more engaging and you can relate to all these different points of view. And uh that then got turned into a play, Murder in the Citizens' Jury. And um and we asked the audience at the end to vote on their favourite climate solution. And um a key climate solution there was the citizens' assembly form of uh political participation itself, because I think our current you know democracy, tied to four-year cycles, so co-opted by business interests, I think it's probably incapable of making sufficient movement on climate change. But people are getting really excited now about the potential of citizens' assemblies and getting direct political participation by a very representative group of people, informed by experts, much like in a jury. So it was a lovely way to raise the profile of that, as well as all the different characters. And we did research on the audience at the end, and they were really inspired by the ideas. And you know, you got lots of comments. Oh, I didn't know about this, I will now explore that, and so on.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

Fantastic. There's something about going, I I love the idea of shifting into you probably didn't hadn't even thought about it at the beginning, had you, that this might these ideas might become a play one day and be performed in the in the dark to an audience, and in that dark in a theatre, also cinema, magic happens, doesn't it? People feel together and yet they're focused on a thing in front of them. Something very different happens. I get I actually I think it's a bit like sitting around the fireplace listening to stories that traditional human cultures did for hundreds of thousands, well, 400,000 years or something.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Wonderful. I mean, uh, it was adapted actually from a screenplay that won the Writing Climate Pitch Fest, and there were promises of Hollywood producers, but it's been a year now, I've not heard a thing. So I've given up on that. And I at first I thought the play was kind of a sort of plan B, but oh my god, like working with actors, and they're only a local drama group, um, but seeing my characters come to life and be completely reinterpreted, and they ended up as an exact mix of the actor's interpretation and mine, and being involved in that whole process. I mean, I have no regrets now. And the sixth form then took it on and did a version, and um, so I think Lazy Bee produced it, but if anyone comes direct to me, I'm making it available royalty-free for any student or amateur theatre group because it's perfect for them.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

Fantastic. That letting go might must be interesting as well. Um uh because we have our we, you know, we we we put a lot of effort, I think, into writing. And it sometimes takes years to turn ideas into outcomes. Uh, and of course, when people are reading or watching or listening or whatever that particular context is, of course, that interpretation is theirs and no longer ours. But but for somebody else to produce a new thing based on what you've done, um, they're going to make changes and you're going to presumably you're looking at it and thinking, oh, that's interesting. Um, that's no longer mine.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Yeah, there was a moment in the early rehearsal where the actor, and I thought, no, you're doing it wrong. That's not how I see the character. And then I just I shut up. I made a decision to shut up. And it wasn't until the Q and the A at the uh end of the performances where someone said, How are you all capturing your characters so perfectly? You must be, you know, they must be exactly like you that I realized they created new characters that with even more conviction than I could do, and that letting go was the best thing you know to do in that situation. And um, yeah, it was nice because quite often, as a writer, you're you're very lonely. So working with actors and the director was fabulous.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Yes, yes, exactly. Well, especially if it can be positive like that, because those sort of experiences of people writing in green rooms under pressure and uh the kind of brutal nature of coming up with ideas that are shot down and all of that kind of stuff. You know, yeah, tough one. Well, what about your first novel then, Denise? So Habitat Man has emerged um uh very recently. Um, and obviously the same first word as the title of the press that you were just telling us about. Tell us about your first novel and Habitat Man.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Well, that arose actually through slight dissatisfaction with the entries coming into the Green Stories competition, because no matter how much I made the reumit clear, most of them still focused on the problem. And it was just before COVID, uh a guy set up a green garden consultancy. He'd retired early and he wanted to help people make their gardens wildlife friendly. And um, and he said, I want to do this for the world. And he'd already shown me so much on pollinator-friendly plants and avoiding pesticides, letting the grass grow and so on. And I thought, what a great idea. I thought of it initially as a TV series, but a novel is more achievable, and so um that's that's the the story. So he's he retires early, he um sets up this project, he goes from garden to garden, he falls in love, he digs up a body. Um and it's so fun, it's a sort of rom-com with a bit of cozy mystery. And I had people writing to me afterwards. Um, so with a body, there's a nice opportunity for a natural burial scene. Um people said it inspired them to change their will to uh have a natural burial, and then um the university picked it up, did some research on readers, and um, of those, like one month after finishing the book, 60% had actually adopted one or more of the green alternatives, um, and 98% had adopted greener values and attitudes. So I had way more impact with that book. Wow, someone um who was an award-winning radio writer said, I want to put this in for Radio 4 adaptation, I'll pitch it to my producer, it's a long shot, and the producer loved it. It's like, no, that's gonna be my pitch for this slot. It got right to the final round, it got pipped to the post by some comedian who had their own vehicle, and um but I really want it to be a TV series. I see McKenzie Crook.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

Very good.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Because his approach of very like loving of humanity and nature and quirky, gentle comedy, perfect for this. So um, McKenzie, if you're listening, you'd be perfect habitat, Matt.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

We'll send out a link. That's that's lovely about that impact. That feedback's fantastic. I mean, we we all like to have feedback, don't we? And though, you know, those of us who sit in universities have seen the sort of evaluation of our works ramp up over the years with the thing called the research assessment exercise and the research um excellence framework and all of that kind of thing, and the pressure that comes with all of that. And yet there's a there's still, I mean, there are efforts to change this, but there's still a gap between the things that that are produced and the public and policy engagement. Some you know, in some disciplines more than others, but uh let me let me put it this way universities are not very good at doing public engagement. And I speak as somebody who ran a centre on public and policy engagement for five years, but we're not that good, but it's even better.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

I mean, I I cannot in all conscience agree with that from my position. So working for the University of Southampton, I keep expecting at any minute someone to say, stop what you're doing, Denise, you're supposed to be dealing with business. Uh, but instead they're turning it into an impact case study. I've got little pots of money for public engagement exercises. And with that, I did a lovely project with BAFTA, hashtag climate characters, where we we researched, we sent like surveys to media students, and we'd have these little like posts where we'd compare James Bond with his single-use sports car and walk-in wardrobe of luxury suits, with Jack Reacher, who travels by bus and you know, shops and thrift shops, and one's got a huge carbon footprint to kill off the bad guys, and the other one hasn't. And it was about showing A, the influence of fictional characters on people, and B helping people to realize the link between their behavior and what they aspire to and the planetary consequences. And that led into me feeding back to screenwriters on how to write characters in a way that's sort of engaging, but isn't promoting high carbon behavior as aspirational. And so, you know, all that started with a little pot of public engagement money. So I think we are getting better.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

No, I I agree. I mean I'm being a bit unfair because I think we can pick good examples from every every institution. Um uh, but that but that kind of immediate understanding of of how you turn, as you were saying, people duck when they see data coming because you know that's that's kind of and yet, you know, that's something that that a lot of us have spent you know years learning to do and to do as well as we can. But what you've described there, I think it's really interesting that that instead of coming up with with a list of good ideas for for behaviors and actions that address climate and nature recovery in some form or another, you say put them in characters, put those things in the wherewithal of characters in story, and people then connect with the characters, and then they see, they reflect back on themselves and they think, Oh, I could do that thing because that character is somebody I admire, like, or see myself in. And suddenly this becomes the character as the vehicle rather than the worthy good idea.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

Um and it also looks more fun. You you show the benefits of it, you show people enjoying it. So that natural burial scene was very beautiful, it's very peaceful. And then you think, oh my god, I didn't know that you know how toxic the chemicals were in traditional burials and and all that hardwood and deforestation. I hadn't made that link, but that's not what's grabbing people. What's grabbing them is experiencing that beautiful moment so so close to nature.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

Yeah, exactly. Well, take that back into that that kind of core stuff about sustainable business then. So just a just a couple of words um on lots of efforts, business across the world to B Corps and you know, uh appropriate reporting and a whole range of things, still in a system that that that doesn't value the costs it imposes upon environments and people in all sorts of ways, the externalities. Um, and yet lots happening that's that's good, and lots of people proud of what they're doing from within their context. Because after all, they're not just business people or people working in businesses, they're also family people, and they're also in their communities that you know we have these multiple identities. Do you think things that have moved a lot, or is are we still still kind of thinking it's better than it really is?

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Um so I think there's a real danger in pretending we found a solution when we haven't. And most business sustainability solutions are don't buy this product, buy this other one that's more sustainable, and quite often it isn't. Um so I think we've made progress in realizing where the problem lies. Uh so I think for a long time people thought, you know, corporate social responsibility, ESG, environmental social governance, and these kind of metrics would do the trick. But businesses will gain the system. Corporations are designed to be profit maximizing machines. They're like sharks chasing blood. So the CEO with the best will in the world might want to be sustainable. But if that ever, you know, is in tension with profit maximization, not profit sufficiency, profit maximization, they will be ousted or their firm will be subject to a hostile takeover. And I think we all feel quite helpless because we're beginning to realise now it's the system. Um, and these other things are just tinkering around the edges. And if anything, they're delaying us dealing with the problem by pretending to have solutions that don't really work. Um so, Jules, I think would this might be a good time for me to talk about my latest project.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Can I yes, please do? Exactly. Good, good, good uh segue.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Tentatively and rather grandiosely uh draft uhly titled A Jigsaw to Save the World. And um the reason I like the jigsaw, and it's going to be at the moment it's a LinkedIn newsletter. I'm on edition five at the moment. It's going to be a book and an actual jigsaw. And the reason I like the idea of a jigsaw is on the front cover, you have the picture of the perfect flourishing society. You've got the picture you want to achieve, yeah. And you just got to put the pieces of the puzzle in place and they've got to link up properly. Yeah. So the picture on the front of the jigsaw is a flourishing, sustainable society. Um the corner pieces are those systemic aspects that are locking us in that need to change if we're going to ever move anywhere. Yeah. So, for example, one might be corporations' business law to maximize profits. So, what if all corporations were benefit corporations or social enterprises? Now, only one country I know of has that. I don't know, maybe Bhutan, actually, maybe do. Uh, Cuba is one. Um, but they've really been um, you know, had an embargo and so on, but they're still managing to survive, so they can make it work. But what would that look like? Um, so then you need to think in the long term, you could see that would make you know a huge difference. In the short term, what about markets? What about pensions? What about jobs? So you need all the bits of a bit like a three legged race, all the bits of the puzzle to sort of shift into sync so you don't fall over in the meantime. And I'm going to be running events to get together people who know to puzzle this out. But some of them are just going to be obvious. One of them is going to be the news. So I did a project on constructive journalism, finding actually that negative news giving rise to fear, anxiety, and pessimism is much less likely to lead to positive action than constructive journalism that shows people making a difference. So the more we feed into this, the more we're feeding fear and we're feeding the beast. But there's so many great stories of communities and community energy and local participation and bottom-up power. They don't ever bother to report. So constructive journalism will be a piece of the jigsaw. You'll obviously you'll have solar and renewable energy and forests and seagrass and you know, local food, all kinds of things. But there will be those systemic bits round the edges and in the corners. And I will be engaging people in sort of working out what those are and how they fit together. And then we end up with a jigsaw that probably a number of versions. I can see it in care homes, in nurseries, in schools, in university classrooms, maybe some bits that just focus on politics, maybe citizens' assemblies could be a corner piece, I think perhaps. I'm going to apply for public engagement funds, I think. See if I can get them fingers crossed. Engage young people in deciding what the pieces will be. So anyone who wants to follow it, uh just find me on LinkedIn and sign up to my newsletter. And I'm really keen to get comments and feedback on all the different parts, parts of that puzzle.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

Great. Well, we'll put a link in the show notes to that as well, so people can find it very easily. Brilliant. I think naming stuff, calling the thing constructive journalism, actually helps to bring it to life. It says that it's it's this thing and it's not that thing. And that thing is kind of part of the problem. But we're going to call it this thing. And if the if each piece of the puzzle is doing something like that, that feels like a really lovely, powerful thing. It's also a uh a symbol um of uh construction, bringing bits together. It's often a collective thing. Families sit around and do them together, or communities do them. Um uh and everyone knows what one is. You don't need to then have a sub line, a subtitle that says, Well, actually, a jigsaw is this thing. Everyone knows what it is. You know, that's a great so it's a great choice of a cultural symbol, it strikes me.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

And it's there's no problem mentioned in it. So I only talk about the solutions. So, for example, the sharing economy, I paint a picture of every neighbourhood having a local library of things. So you can clear your house of all clutter and get access to what you want, when you want it, with no need to ensure dust, clean, fix, maintain, you know, and these things will take off once they you know have enough input. Or on demand, like public transport, like Uber, but with buses. So cheap and convenient, you don't need your own car, and rural economies are transformed, and the you know, the air is clean. And so I paint the positive vision to try and build that that desire and then show actually what exists right now and what are the structural corner components that will need to really kick start it and scale up.

SPEAKER_02 25:19

Brilliant, lovely, thanks very much. Um, well, that I uh look forward to seeing that come. Um and I shall certainly follow it closely. I'm sure the the the listeners and viewers will do as well. Let's come to some quickfire things towards the end. Uh you're proud. A couple of things or a thing against the odds, you know, something that you've you've kind of achieved. What would you put? I mean, you've talked a lot about all sorts of things. They're all they're all well.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

I'm I'm proud of Habitat Man and my play, but I think one of the things against the odds is something I've not talked about yet, was my sustainable hairdressing project. And um, I I won an award for that, which I was really, really pleased for impact. But I like the idea because hairdressers talk to more people than any other group, and actually, hair care can be really high carbon intensive, like hot water, it's very energy intensive. So just promoting the you know, less hot water, less chemicals, better for the hair, the skin, the bills, your time, you know, and so on. Um, but what I wanted to do was create a sustainable salon certification and a sustainable stylist certification. And I was running around asking the hair and beauty industry authority, the National Hair Federation, everyone said, Yeah, good idea, good idea. Looking for permission, looking for someone to take it on. And then I just thought, sod it, why don't I just do it?

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Just do it first, and then ask permission later. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

This virtual salon training thing that was free, basically. You can go through and it's like almost gamified where you learn how to be a sustainable hairdresser. And it just sort of works by itself. Stylists can do it, it takes about 30 to 45 minutes. There's no if they get an answer wrong on the question, we just tell them the right answer. So we can validate that they've done the training. We can't validate they took it in. But if all if a salon can show all their stylists have done the training, they get a certificate. So it's kind of automated low cost. It's not like an exam with all the costs of that, but it is quite a lot. And we've had thousands of sustainable salon um stylists sign up. Uh, we've got hundreds of sustainable salons, and I think it was just the fact of just deciding, I don't think there's anything stopping me from just doing this.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

Yes, but isn't that interesting? That's a lovely observation that we think there's something stopping us when there's a kind of when we have an idea and we want to do something, cultural norms, um, other people's ideas, shame or pride, all sorts of kind of feeling-based things. And sometimes it's best just do it, just get on and do it, see what happens.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Yeah, people just accepted it and it's taken off. So, um, yeah, I thought I thought you'd like that.

SPEAKER_02 27:57

Fantastic. Um, uh a heroine or a hero, or maybe it's uh it's a heroic community rather than individual, because it's not always down to individuals. But who what would you point out?

SPEAKER_00 28:10

I Caroline Lucas is my role model, so you know, she was for a long time the only green MP. But I remember like if I hear question time in the background, they'd always every time she was on, I think, who's that? That's the only person talking sense here. And so many politicians they will denigrate or they use very emotive language to try and get their point over, like oh, snake hole salesman or fairy tale spinner. But she'll just tell it like it is, and she's always right, and never a hair out of place. So calm. I mean, she's just amazing, so I've always looked up to her.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

Great. Uh she'll be pleased to hear that. I'll make sure she she does. Um a key book or cultural item to recommend.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Um, okay, so I've been hugely inspired uh by Rob Hopkins. So I do love his book, How to Fall in Love with the Future. Now, I was already doing all the positive story stuff before he started doing his stuff, but it was his idea of imagining that flourishing future that really inspired the idea of the picture on the front of the jigsaw. So I owe that to him. And I think the work he does in changing the narrative from what we want to run away from to what we want to run towards is absolutely essential. And I'm sure I'm not the only person who's been inspired by him.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

Brilliant, exactly. Um, all the transition movement, all the transition towns that have come from his ideas. Uh uh, your recent creation to recommend. Well, we've talked of a number actually, but um Well, there's another one.

SPEAKER_00 29:44

So we talked about the philosopher and the assassin. So um that sort of campus novel, obviously, I'm an academic, so it reflects some of that. Um and it's about a business ethics lecturer who um, disenchanted with the with business, uh, joins arts and uh humanities to become professor of moral philosophy. And then she's posed with this ultimate dilemma. Um and she doesn't know what to do, so she engages her students in the class to work on it, and she writes this story about a murder in the Citizens' Assembly on Climate, basically drawing on my play as a story within a story. Uh so it's kind of part campus novel, part philosophy lectures, and part um who done it. And they're all three strands are sort of woven in, and that's that's my latest creation.

SPEAKER_02 30:39

Fantastic. Um, and one top action for uh for people, what what what should, what can they do now, having listened to this?

SPEAKER_00 30:48

Okay, um what I mean I do want to say things like buy my books and sign up to my jigsaw newsletter, but I won't. Um I I think walking more lightly on the earth and just sharing that mentality with others, um just in terms of whether you're putting pesticides on your garden or sitting you know under a hot power shower pouring chemicals and hot water into your skin, which is destroying all the friendly bacteria that keeps your skin young. Most of these things are better for you anyway, but they're certainly better for the planet. And I have to say, um I am such a convert to solar panels. I got some uh last year and I wish now I'd have got them years ago because I was always focusing on the financial payback. And one time it was like seven years, then energy prices went up and suddenly it was four years, then energy prices bottomed out and it was ten years, and it's because I got a north-facing roof, and I always sort of did it on that. But my bills have gone down from £180 a month to 18. Um, and I had a power cut the other day, and my freezer didn't go off because I could just plug it in the solar circuit, and I didn't count on my feeling of connection with with the the sun. I suddenly felt intimately connected to the planet and the sun, and it just there was so much there that I hadn't counted on. That feeling of smugness when there was a power cut, that feeling of resilience, that sense of connection, that sense the whole world could go tits up. I still get my energy direct from the sun with no one interfering, you know, no one can put that price up. And um, so I just think if you're gonna do it, do it now, because energy prices are gonna soar now with all this business going on with Iran. Um, and just enjoy enjoy the benefits of any way you can or or get a grant, it's worth it.

SPEAKER_02 32:44

Uh Bill McKibben's book that came out uh last year called Here Comes the Sun, the US journalist. Uh gorgeous, because he he just says the same as what you've just said about about turning to face the sun and feeling different about that, and this expansion of plug-in solar that's happening across across a lot of Europe, not yet in Britain. Um we're a bit slow on that, but allowing people who live in flats to put them on their balconies. In Germany, in one year, 1.5 million people uh bought them and put them on their flats, and it's reduced energy use uh importantly for the country, but saves people money. So, yeah, it's it's changing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Aren't they? Because you can't store it. So so much power, a misuse of power, has come from storing up wealth from fossil fuels. Uh, this gives power to people, not to, you know, uh power monger, you know, power-hungry people uh organizations. So I think maybe that's why they're fighting it so hard. Um, because it makes financial sense to to go renewable. So the fact we haven't gone faster, I think there's a little bit more. Maybe they're afraid of us taking that power for ourselves. But I'm loving them. So that's my my great, lovely way to finish.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

Uh Denise, thank you very much indeed, Denise Barton. Thank you for coming on the pod. It's been been a lovely pleasure to hear from that range of things that you've been working on. Good luck in the future. Uh, we'll put the important links in the show notes so people can follow up on all of those uh lovely ways to engage with your work. And uh thank you.