When I took part in Carbon Literacy training with Anne-Marie Soulsby (The Sustainable Life Coach) in September 2023, I needed to pledge two actions: one as an individual; and the other as part of a group.
The individual action was easy. I’d embarked on a long-term project to reduce the carbon footprint of my place of living and work some years ago, and it was fairly clear what needed to be done: to get rid of the gas boiler in our house (which is also my place of work) and electrify heating.
The other, my ‘group action’ took more thinking. I work from home as a freelance translator. I’m very much a one-woman band with no coworkers. People who ‘work with me’ are one the other side of my computer and the internet, many located in Japan and others across the UK, with no real contact outside specific jobs needing done. So where do I find my ‘group’ to take an action with? Eventually, I settled for fellow translators in my networks: to give a talk on Carbon Literacy at CPD events for Japanese/English translators.
I contacted the CPD officers of J-Net, the ITI’s Japanese Network to let them know that I wanted to give a talk at the next workshop event, either on the subject of sustainability translation or carbon literacy. The reply came back: “both sound interesting – can you talk about both?”
So the talk happened in July, at ITI’s J-Net summer workshop in London, wher eI was given a chance to deliver an extended session titled Sustainability Translation and Introduction to Carbon Literacy.
What we translate reflects the world we live in, and I knew that many colleagues were already translating texts that touched on or are linked to what people, organisations and governments were doing to achieve Sustainable Development Goals and tackle climate change. The aim of my talk was to connect the dots and provide a bigger picture – to show where our work fitted in, and what we could do to make a difference, however small.
The first half was mostly about what ‘sustainability translation’ is – what sort of topics you handle, the types of text, potential clients, and how you can equip yourself to work in the field – based on the framework of SDGs.
The second half was specifically about climate change – SDG 13 from part 1 of the talk. I used Professor Katharine Hayhoe‘s “what everyone needs to know” bullet points to frame this part of the talk, with information on Carbon Literacy training.
Here's what everyone needs to know* about climate change:🌍 It's real👥 It's human-caused⚠️ It's serious💡 With immediate action, it's solvable⌛ Later is too late* social science shows these msgs increase acceptance of the issue, awareness of the risk and, most importantly, willingness to act.
— Katharine Hayhoe (@katharinehayhoe.com) 2024-04-10T20:58:17.871Z
I was not sure how the talk would go down, but to my surprise, the response was overwhelmingly positive. Now I’m eager to do more and hoping to talk to a wider audience on the subject. If you are interested, do get in touch to discuss what I can do.