1. What do you find most exciting in your work right now?

I am a researcher working on geology, earthquakes, tsunamis and climate change. Although, I am passionate about research, my most important contribution to society is climate communication. I work with diverse audiences, using storytelling to make it easier for them to relate to the climate crisis in a manner that encourages action. In my work, I find that, although most of us understand that the climate crisis is a crisis in our minds, we find it far harder to feel that the climate crisis is a crisis in our hearts. Making this transition is a vital step towards meaningful climate action. 

2. In your view, what role can outdoor experiences andfriluftslivplay in shifting societal values toward long-term environmental stewardship? 

When I write or speak about the climate crisis, I write and speak about nature and how we relate to it. The perception that we, humans, are separate from (and superior to) nature underpins the agricultural and industrial revolutions which, in turn, underpin the climate crisis that is emerging and quickening all around us. Thus, meaningfully taking on the climate crisis, requires reuniting ourselves with nature, so that we can see ourselves as a part of nature and acknowledge that we must share this beautiful world on equal terms with 8.7 million other species of (mostly) plants and animals. As part of my own work, I take people on “climate walks” with the purpose of sharing with them the beauty of the climate system and how it is operating all around us, all the time, in manners that create safe havens for living things. 

3. As someone who grew up in Scotland but has lived and worked in Sweden for many years, what should international participants not miss when Europe now gathers in Sweden for Euro’Meet?

I often think of Sundsvall as the birth place of the IPCC. This body of the United Nations creates a bridge from climate science to climate policy. Its first assessment report was agreed on in 1990 at a meeting held in Sundsvall. The meeting was attended by Bert Bolin, a Swedish climate scientist famed for participating in the first numerical weather forecast, and Mr. Ingvar Carlsson, Prime Minister of Sweden. In that assessment report, scientists and policymakers agreed that “emissions resulting from human activities […] will enhance the greenhouse effect, resulting on average in an additional warming of the Earth’s surface.” Gathering in the place not only where the journey that brought about the Paris agreement begun, but also in a landscape that bears witness to the power of climate – a landscape that is literally rising out of the sea and a landscape that will ultimately be submerged again if we follow a pathway of climate inaction – is an occasion not to be missed.