Christiana Figueres Instagram – It was a great honor to be awarded @thersaorg Albert Medal Award yesterday and I am deeply humbled to be continuing in the tradition of previous winners such as Marie Curie and Stephen Hawking, celebrated for their innovation, creativity and courage.
You may have heard that the RSA Fellows Festival this year takes the theme of COURAGE – a wise choice because I’m sure we can all agree both that it is critical to the moment that we’re living and that it is far too rarely seen in these times.
The dictionary defines courage as “the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person, an organization, a nation or a society to face difficulty, danger, pain , fear, threat and not be annihilated by it”.
I would add “rather emboldened by it” because that is what we are called for now. It is as simple – and as challenging – as making a conscious choice of not turning away from the threat, but rather metabolizing
the understanding of the threat into an effective response, guided by a honed quality of mind.
The characteristics of that quality of mind? I would say there are three:
1) Stubborn optimism – not a naive belief that everything will be ok, but rather the gritty determination to stick to our path no matter what the barriers are, because the consequences of not doing so are simply too grave.
2) Openness to other ways of thinking and working because we cannot do this without radical collaboration.
3) Finally, love – a word not much used in the contexts of politics, leadership or climate solutions but ultimately what underpins everything. Only by profoundly reconnecting with love for ourselves, each other and nature, can we move out of numbness to create a different and better world.
With heartfelt gratitude to Andy Haldane and all at the RSA – thank you for the honor and for a wonderful evening. | Posted on 15/Mar/2024 19:05:48
