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children climate change local government

Messaging for change

Matt Lawrey currently serves the community as a second term Nelson City Councillor. He is also the creator of New Zealand’s popular cartoon on family life, The Little Things. We talk about he brings from his background in the media, and how he is working to achieve a thriving green society for his family.

How do we design our city for thriving?

Encouraging people to look to the positive.

Our biggest problem is a lack of imagination

How do we fire people’s imaginations?

Questions that make people feel uncomfortable.

Getting more people thinking that engagement is the normal thing to do.

Nature gives us everything we need for free, we just need to respect that.

Giving people something to embrace.

My success is about using my voice to amplify those of others.

Definition: What works for me is how do we continue to live without killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

Superpower: Resilience (hammer, reject, reject, push, push, push – eventually good ideas come to surface). And speaking out, even when I know it would cost me.

Activist” Wary of the term. Certainly activist energy to give to local government. An important part of change is to take a lot of people with you. Just winning the point doesn’t make change happen.

The voices of the future are only going to get louder

This conversation was recorded in Nelson in April 2019.