33. Is The Climate Crisis a Spiritual Crisis? Ayisha Siddiqa and Sophia Li on Sustainability as a Birthright, The Role of Ego in the Climate Crisis, and Personality Cults in Activism

Is The Climate Crisis a Spiritual Crisis? Ayisha Siddiqa and Sophia Li on Sustainability as a Birthright, The Role of Ego in the Climate Crisis, and Personality Cults in Activism. The climate crisis is REAL, and it’s impacting all of our lives. It’s been on my heart to have a climate focused episode on Pod Noor but I wanted to make sure the conversation was one my listeners were really going to connect to.  So the question I had been asking myself was: “Is the climate conversation, a spiritual one?” And because everything and everyone is interconnected, the answer I found was: Yes, of course it is. I wanted multiple perspectives and stories on this topic so - yay! Another Podcast Noor panel :)  The first person who came to mind for this conversation is one of my dearest friends, Sophia Li.  Sophia Li is a Chinese-American award-winning climate journalist and advocate. Her life’s work is to make talking about issues such as climate justice, human rights and web3 more accessible, more digestible, and more human. Harvard even named her one of the top climate communicators of 2022. Sophia is also the co-founder of STEWARD, a Digital Art collection and community that partners with conservation, environmental justice and Indigenous nonprofits and global artists to protect the major ecosystems of our natural world. And around the time I knew I wanted to have this conversation, I saw a powerful cover of Time magazine’s Women of the Year issue featuring a young activist by the name of Ayisha Siddiqa.  Ayisha Siddiqa is a human rights and land defender from the tribal lands of Mochiwala and Mahsan in Pakistan. She is the co-founder of Polluters Out and Fossil Free University. Her work focuses on uplifting the rights of marginalized communities while holding polluting companies accountable at the international level. she’s a climate advisor to the UN secretary general and a research scholar at the NYU School of Law, working to bridge the environmental and human rights sector with the youth climate movement. She’s also an incredible poet.  There are many layers to this storytelling session. We dig into: the role of ego on climate change, how the war on terror has hurt the planet, the harmful assumptions of being and “activist,” personality cults, and of course how climate change is a spiritual issue.  We recorded this in partnership with our friends at CitizenM Bowery; overlooking the hustle and bustle of the Lower East Side from the iconic rooftop at CloudM.  * PS: Stick around because our post interview conversation went even deeper with the role of spirituality and religion in climate change so I recorded some on my phone to share with y’all. :) Welcome to this episode of Podcast Noor.  * 📍This episode was recorded at our favorite studio in the sky, CloudM at CitizenM Hotel, Bowery, NYC. * Transcripts + Listening: ⁠www.ays.media/podcastnoor/ayisha-sophia * 🎶 Theme Music: "Thunderdome (W.T.A)" by Portugal. The Man / @portugaltheman  * ~ Follow Ayisha Siddiqa ~  www.instagram.com/ayisha_sid Polluters Out: www.pollutersout.org Fossil Free University: www.fossilfreeuniversity.org * ~ Follow Sophia Li ~  www.instagram.com/sophfei STEWARD: www.steward.eco * ~ Follow Noor Tagouri @noor ~  www.facebook.com/noor www.instagram.com/noor www.threads.net/noor www.tiktok.com/@noor www.youtube.com/noor⁠ ~ Follow At Your Service @ays ~  www.instagram.com/ays www.threads.net/ays www.ays.media/newsletter * Some Questions Asked in This Episode:  What was your entry to the climate conversation? Can you define land defender and water defender? How can we all engage in this? What role does ego play in the climate crisis? What role does art play in this conversation and movement? * www.ays.media/podcastnoor --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/podcastnoor/message