Kevin Wilhelm Of How To Talk To The Other Side: Finding common ground in the age of a global pandemic and climate change (podcast interview)
Kevin Wilhelm (@KevinWilhelmSBC) is the CEO of Sustainable Business Consulting (@SBC_Consulting), a consulting firm focused on demonstrating the bottom-line business benefits of sustainability, and the author of How to Talk to the Other Side: Finding Common Ground in the Time of Coronavirus, Recession, and Climate Change.
In this podcast episode, Kevin sheds light on how we can most effectively talk to people outside of this sustainability bubble to expand the environmental movement; how we can put aside our differences in the name of furthering our common goals of healthy communities, healthy environments, and safe spaces for all; and more.
To start, get a glimpse below into the conversation between Kevin and Green Dreamer Podcast's host, Kamea Chayne.
Musical feature: Trust The Sun by Yarrow by Kim Anderson
“One’s political affiliation is now becoming a de facto standard for how people view a person’s entire value set. We’re letting ourselves become siloed into our own echo bubbles with our social media feeds, our news feeds, and the people we talk to. It didn’t used to be that way.”
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This is a conversation on Green Dreamer with Kamea Chayne, a podcast and multimedia journal illuminating our paths towards ecological regeneration, intersectional sustainability, and true abundance and wellness for all. This preview has been edited for clarity. Subscribe to Green Dreamer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any podcast app, and support Green Dreamer on Patreon so we can keep the show going and accessible to all!
On seeing past superficial labels to having productive discussions:
"One's political affiliation is now becoming a de facto standard for how people are starting to view a person's entire value set.
I really felt like it's a real misnomer—it's people being lazy; it's letting ourselves become siloed into our own echo bubbles with our social media feeds, our news feeds, and the people we talk to; it's only talking to people we agree with and whom we share opinions with.
It didn't used to be that way.”
An example of allyship between unexpected partners:
“One example of an unlikely allyship was with a group in Montana dealing with the reintroduction of the wolves around Yellowstone. You had all of these ranchers and farmers who had been pleading with the federal government for years to do something to protect their livestock and land, and then you had environmentalists and the government saying, ‘We need to have these wildlife corridors because these animals are endangered.’ Neither side was hearing each other.
What the landowners really wanted was for people to hear them say, ‘I'm willing to let a cow or a calf get killed by a wolf every year, but I just don't want to go through the bureaucratic process of having to document it, fill out forms, wait forever to get reimbursement, and then for things to be questioned. If my cow is dead, I just want a check.’
So what the American Prairie Reserve did was they flipped this whole mindset and said, ‘Well, what if we put wildlife cameras on these corridors where these endangered animals are walking, and every time one of these endangered animals (e.g., wolves, bears, cougars, etc.) walked across your property, you got a check? …
This took the burden away from the rancher and the farmer... They started to see wildlife as less of a nuisance and liability to now as a financial asset to their way of life.
They became more open to taking down fences and channeling the wildlife corridors where they need to be. The environmentalists got what they wanted, and the ranchers and farmers got what they wanted. It was all about just getting to the core of what that issue was."
Final words of wisdom:
"Believe in your dream, and go for it! We need all in this movement—and we need you right now."
