Emma Askew: Enviro-Optimism and Creativity (1/2)
Emma Askew is the founder of Earth Minutes, a service that communicates environmental research through creativity and optimism. She is also a film-maker, having produced and directed ‘Breakwater’ and ‘Now X Slow Fashion’. In the first half of a two-part series, Maddie Pope talks to Emma about how she became interested in environmental communications, discovering film-making, and the power of optimism.
Maddie: To jump right on in, where did the idea for Earth Minutes come from?
Emma: It happened really quickly, but I’d definitely pinpoint it down to when I was working as a soil surveyor, which I still do part-time. I was working with all the soil scientists and they’re very old-fashioned in their way of communicating the science. They were shocked that I, as a young Durham student, was even interested in the subject. [It was] something which I really started to think more people should be interested in. I didn’t feel that soil science as an issue — an environmental issue — was being communicated. So I took it upon myself to work out how I could do some film and how I could maybe communicate it more effectively.
From then, I worked with Surfers Against Sewage where I worked on some films like Breakwater. That was where it really sparked for me though — the feeling that I needed to communicate environmental issues more effectively — whether that’s through film, creative content — in a more concise, snappy way to engage our generation way more. This was a year ago — it started off really as a blog, pinpointing ways into what is more effective in communicating these messages.
When did you first decide to commit to a more environmentally friendly lifestyle? Was there a distinct turning point?
I hadn’t really recognised my environmental interests until after university when I was faced with the question, '‘What did I actually want to do?” Everyone faces that crisis of ‘what is my career going to be’ and I felt totally in the deep end. Even though I knew I loved geography and I wanted to do something to help, I had no idea where to start. It was then that I really found out I not only love environmental research but my creative mediums too.
So, did you live in an environmentally conscious way before that?
I definitely have not been environmentally sustainable throughout my whole lifestyle — especially with regard to fashion. It wasn’t until during and after university that I started to actually look at my lifestyle and assess it. Some things were already in place: when I was younger, I was brought up in quite an environmentally conscious way. Whether [my parents] stated it was environmental or not, we grew our own vegetables and lived a very self-sustaining way of life. It was just how they liked to live, let alone that it was good for the environment. I was very used to that already, but when you start to research and recognise the extra impacts and benefits, especially at uni, it makes you want to do it even more. Also meeting people who [live environmentally consciously] way better than you and others who have no ideas about any environmental subjects gives you a balance and lets you really look at your lifestyle.
I suppose that one important element of that is accepting that the past is the past — you can’t alter your previous behaviour. However, you can make your changes from today, and proceed in a positive way.
I speak about this with my close friends, like Becky Hughes, all the time. We always get messages saying, “Can you give us tips? How do you live like this? You make it look so easy!” — but I don’t want to give that impression at all. There is no given plan to living a sustainable life. Everyone lives in sustainable ways so differently. It depends on your career, where you live…it’s all trial and error and about fitting it in.
To live a sustainable life you have to expose all the wrongs in your life to yourself and other people — communicating that with others makes it easier for you to move on and adapt. You just have to look for what you’re doing that isn’t too right, and then make it a little more sustainable.
You graduated in Geography but a huge passion of yours is film-making. What kind of presence has film-making had in your life? How did you first become interested in it?
I always wonder about this myself, actually! I’ve always loved film-making, ever since I was really, really young. At 10 I would make films and use my sister as the subject because she was the only person near me. I had my first proper camera at 13, but I didn’t have any editing software, so I put all my footage on PowerPoint and made films like that, which I’d show my parents. They were all like, “Yeah, that’s great, carry on bobbing along!” It was my hobby.
Then the David Attenborough docs took off, and I felt that it was such an empowering way to see the environment. It’s an awesome way to put across environmental research — any geography student would agree. From then, it was very much self-taught; however I did meet people who did this professionally, and they taught me a lot too. Regardless, I very much learned through putting myself through the pain of having no idea what to do. Now, when I do produce films, I accept that I’m limited to an extent, so I always have my filmmakers and cinematographers involved. They really know what they’re doing, both technologically and aesthetically.
One of the key messages of Earth Minutes is this idea of ‘enviro-optimism’. Could you tell us what the term means and where it came from?
I’ve had this approach from the get-go — even when writing uni essays. I would always tend to take a more optimistic approach. With any environmental subject, I think that [enviro-optimism] is what makes me feel empowered and inspired to do more, do better and research it further.
When I started to communicate big environmental issues through Earth Minutes, I did lots of workshops and talks at primary schools, and I was honestly so shocked at the children’s responses to environmental topics like ocean pollution. They all had this unanimous idea that humans are awful and we’ve ruined the world. There was a lot of anger towards the grown-ups who did this, as well as worry and anxiety. I was shocked because we’re not taught about this in a pessimistic way, yet they had somehow developed this attitude.
After you do a little bit of research and put two and two together, you realise that this stems from the [coverage of such issues in the] media. Subsequently, people don’t assess their attitudes, what they’ve taken from the media and how it affects them. As a child, you’re very receptive and such a sponge for information and attitudes. Whether you like it or not, you end up receiving this mindset that you’ve not necessarily analysed or been helped with. You have the foundation of being accidentally pessimistic. As a result, I’ve really tried to make the point of communicating environmental issues optimistically.
Enviro-optimism is a statement to ensure that people have that fundamental optimistic approach that drives action in the long term. A pessimistic attitude will give you the cyclical feeling of ‘how is this going to help?’ and ‘are we all really doomed?’ — it really gets you down to a defeatist attitude. An enviro-optimistic approach is the complete opposite: it gives you the mindset, from the start, that we will achieve the future for ourselves as well as the planet, but that you have to keep going. Optimism is that fundamental drive, using purpose, to create long-term change.
I was reading something the other day that said optimism is not soft — it’s gritty. Many people think of optimism as being very wishy-washy, too hopeful, and unrealistic. What they don’t realise is that being optimistic is really hard. You have to accept that there is a lot of negativity and devastation, but you embrace the uncertainty with it too. Optimism isn’t setting you a certain outcome; you have to really, really strive and work for it, and not let uncertainty and devastation hinder you.