Uncategorized

Very sorry indeed to hear of the death of NASA astronaut Bill Anders, aged 90, in a flying accident. He took the Earthrise image in 1968 that helped set me off on the 50-year professional journey described in my latest, twenty-first, book – Tickling Sharks, out on 18th June. A heart-felt thank you, Bill.

After all my travelling in recent weeks, Elaine and I took a bit of time out today to walk around Kew Gardens – and enjoy the Marc Quinn sculptures scattered across the landscape. Very impressive. A gloriously sunny day, perfect weather to view many – but nowhere near all – of the artworks.

The second day of South Summit Madrid was at La Nave. Yesterday had ended with a dinner on the outskirts of the city with an astonishingly wealthy family, with an impressive art collection, but with smoke from the barbecue drifting across the landscape just after a I had seen the terrified eyes of cattle in a giant truck speeding to the abattoir. After a while, I turned tail and headed back to the hotel thanks to an Uber wage slave.

Enjoyed my session with Lara Birkes, who has sent me the photo below of Tickling Sharks at her home in Paradise Valley, Montana. Audience here was much smaller than we had in Brazil, so not sure whether that reflects competing attractions or different national priorities. Then a bunch of conversations and a small lunch hosted by María Benjumea – before zooming out to airport and, eventually, home.

Overall, a fantastic trip – and met some fascinating new people. One who I had met before, Booking.com founder Jeff Hoffman, and I had a fascinating conversation as we were ferried out to La Nave – which has further stimulated my thinking on what needs to happen next with the whole ESG, impact and sustainability space. Serendipity at work, again.

Flew from Edinburgh on Monday evening, where I had been speaking at the Airmic conference, themed around ‘”Tomorrow’s Risks Today,” to Heathrow and then across to Madrid. I caught the Iberia connecting flight by the skin of my teeth, thanks to delayed flight and mechanical problems at T5.

In Madrid for South Summit 2024 event. First day involved several off-the-record sessions at the Palacio de Liria, the first a “fireside chat” in the grounds of the palace. Then a VIP lunch, again al fresco, a tour of the palace (including original documents signed by Christopher Columbus) and an evening reception, for which I walked to and from from my hotel, the Thompson, in Plaza del Carmen.

On the first day, I had awoken with the shadows of swifts racing across the translucent curtains of my bedroom – a display by my favourite birds that continued all day. Endless joy – and continued this evening as I sat with Lara Birkes, planning our biodiversity and nature-based solutions session for the main stage tomorrow morning.

B Leaders For Change event and many other things

Travelled by Eurostar to Amsterdam on Wednesday 22nd for the B For Good Leaders event there. First evening involved a wonderful dinner at the Royal Tropical Institute, where I met a bunch of new people – always a good test.

The following evening, having not booked one of the optional dinners (because the ones I was most interested were already fully booked) I trusted to fortune. Then, out of the blue, Sabine Oberhuber, a longstanding friend, got in touch and invited me out to dinner at an Indonesian restaurant in the Hotel Jakarta. Glorious. Five hours later, we were still talking.

That was the day, too, when I did the plenary session alongside Rutger Bregman. Ann odd format, where Rutger and I sat with out backs to the audience, with cameras ahead of us projecting our images onto the screen, while we faced our “anchor”, Isabelle Grosmaître.

Still, the feedback afterwards was very positive. A key question came to me early on, when Isabelle asked whether there had been a moment after which my path was set. I replied that I could tell stories about epiphanies at age 7 or 11, but that the real shaping factor had been a series of metamorphic moments in my working life, which seem to come along every 5-6 years. And, I said, I’m going through one at the moment, like a caterpillar wandering into a chrysalis. Happily, people took that very much in the right spirit – or at least the many ones who came up later to engage.

Probably the session highlights for me, though, were in the building’s basement, the Wisdom Keepers area – curated by Kiva. The Wisdom Keepers taking part were Cheryl Angel (Lakota Elder), Carola Esparza (Mapuche tradition, Chile), Rutendo Ngara (South Africa), Toroa Aperahama (New Zealand) and peace-builder Scilla Elworthy (UK). The two sessions I got to see, with Rutendo and Scilla, were outstanding.

Overall, a wonderful trip, though somewhat scrambled by Eurostar on the way back late last night. Our train was delayed by two-and-a-half hours, crawling at many points in the journey, with some noisy passengers (thank heavens for noise-cancelling headphones) but at least I got to peer into some interesting hedgerows.