Thanks for staying with us. Alternative Investments is a label for a disparate group of investments that are distinguished from long only publicly traded investments in stocks, bonds, and cash, often referred to as traditional investments. The terms traditional and alternative should not imply that alternatives are necessarily uncommon or that they are relatively recent additions to the investment universe. Alternative investments include such assets as real estate and commodities, which are arguably two of the oldest types of investments. Alternative investments also include non-traditional approaches to investing within special vehicles such as private equity funds and hedge funds. These funds may give the manager flexibility to use derivatives and leverage to make investments in liquid assets and to take short positions. Today, we'll be exploring alternative investment opportunities in Nigeria. Please, let's hear what you have to say. You can join the conversation on SNS and SMS or WhatsApp<PHONE_NUMBER>3. You could also tweet at us at WeishoAfrica1 with the hashtag Weisho. The beautiful part about SNS is that we're not just talking off the top of our heads. We have a guest, like I said, who is an expert on the subject matter in the studio with us today. But then, ladies, let me hear from you first. Please, what do you know about investments? Let me start, but let me go to authentic investment first. Let's start from traditional investments. Jennifer, what do you know? Jennifer, let's hear from you. It's funny enough, it's not true. Because I have already shamelessly admitted I'm a rookie in investments. So, I think I've just been winging it, to be honest. Because I don't like to keep money in the bank because it's not doing anything for me. It's just lying there. So, I like to put my money in things. And I know before I've always just saved money until I said to learn that you can actually invest your money. Long-term investment, short-term investment. And I've done a couple of investments. Some of them are good. Some of them aren't so good. But I know currently, I'm currently investing in stocks. I have investments in real estate. I also have some in agriculture. So, it just depends. So, I just try to spread it across. So, they are mostly long-term investments for me. They are not things that the short-term ones that I do are very risky. So, those ones, I keep it to myself. So, in case Casa Labos... Anything happening. ...only me, I'll be the only person to... I think I'm in the same boat. So, look, I was actually... I don't even know the right words to use. So, there's this particular, I'm not going to call the name. But it was AgroTech, right, that I invested in. And man, hey, you can see. Any time I remember that thing, the thing, it hurts me so bad. Because the person that actually puts me on it was very credible. And I know he had had, like, turned over from me. That's all. When he told me, I'm like, okay, great, let's do this. And to be honest, to be honest, I actually got some returns from me. But you know how these things work now? He got to me. I'm like, okay, now give me back my cup. Until today. Do you know the funny things? We're still getting emails to say that. Oh, sorry, guys. We're still working on it. And I'm like, are you guys joking? It's almost two years now. Let's just move on. That's the same thing that happened to me. In fact, to me and my sister, one of my uncles, my mom's brothers, came back from, you know, the Abroad. I can't invest. I say, first of all, I'm not the right person. Unfortunately for him, the investment I was doing at the time is similar to what you're talking about. And he put his money today, two days later. Two days later.  You know, those guilt trips. Yeah. I had to pay him back because, I mean, he came because of me. So I know a lot of people need this knowledge. And I'm one of them. Issy, do you know anything about investments in Nigeria? Or even globally? I have a vague idea about investments in Nigeria. I have a lot of interest in mutual funds, basically. So I like to play safe. I don't go through the risky route. And I don't believe in Ponzi schemes. So if you come with a Ponzi scheme, I think that's probably what must have happened to you, Alera. So I believe in Ponzi schemes. When you come with that, I don't listen to it. But however, I think that, yes, this is something that we all need. And my first question is really going to be on how to talk about it from the tech point of view, basically. Okay. So Muiwa Olowo Koroko is the head, partnerships, alliances, and events at ArtSplits. An innovative platform which gives you the opportunity to co-own fractions of rare and valuable artworks and music. In return, you can sell these fractions, or splits, and end from it. He has been privileged to design and execute several brand strategies for leading local and international brands, some of which includes InterSwitch, Coca-Cola, Toto, Nigeria, PLC, Monster Energy, GSK, NBC, A.B. Invert Crafts, Haines, Royal Emerald, Morocco's Kingdom Official Airline, amongst many others. Thank you for joining us in the studio live today, Mr. Muiwa. Thank you. My pleasure. Welcome. You're very welcome. We have a lot of questions to ask you, so we hope that's your... And I'm excited that I'm the one sitting closer to him. So welcome. Welcome. Yeah. Okay. So first and foremost, let's go into the discussion. Can you just walk us through what investment is like in Nigeria? Well, you had rightly summarized the entire landscape, investment landscape in Nigeria. So when you talk about investment in Nigeria, what comes to your mind the start? We're going to talk about that. Until recently, when people are now in the IP in a real estate, and then I also talked about agriculture and stuff. So people have actually... That's been the way to ask about being. And we've also seen that some of these financial instruments about time had failed in terms of, you know, what's called a global middle term. Usually that affects them, you know, considerably. So we've had instances where people... We had times when we were like a committed society because they lost huge money, you know, in stocks and the likes.  So as you see it's actually globally the same it is in Nigeria because some of these financial instruments, talking about bonds and stocks and stuff, usually won't fail. But in terms of returns on some of its investments, it's been good over the years, right? It's been, you have two digits sometimes in some cases. You have something, sometimes below 10% above 10%. Then sometimes it's also declined and stuff like that. So there's been... The market force has already determined how these things go. And many people would not understand the fact that some of them are... Some of these things were actually long-term, mid-term to long-term. Many people in Nigeria, which also makes... Sometimes it came to actually happen in Nigeria, because people are looking for something in the immediate. They want a quick turnaround, because all these, you know, get-rich-quicks-can syndrome will affect people. So people don't understand the concept of investments. Those who understand it are profited from it over the years because they understand it like that. In one year, there might be a down sound. Sometimes in two years, this might actually spike. So you have a particular company that stocks, sells for like, say, three Naira, who had a lot of shares then. After like five years, you select ten Naira. Then at the point, it just drops. It goes like two Naira. People, like, have lost money. And people understand this concept, they understand the fact that you need to do it like five, ten, twenty years. Some people need to invest, but for themselves, but for the children, right? So, unfortunately, the generation that we currently have, we believe that once you invest, like another one month, it's actually done something. So which makes Ponset Skins actually thrive. So that's actually the concept of investment in Nigeria.  But generally, the landscape has been, the winds have been across the globe. But Nigeria still doesn't understand that it's a different war game when it comes to investment. So, I mean, that's just been the dynamic and the story of a time. But the instruments were in the same, anyways. So talking about exploring alternative investment opportunities right now, even in Nigeria or globally, what are those kinds of investment that we can get into? I mean, a lot of us are not making money here and there. We don't want to leave our money line fallow. I mean, you've talked about bonds, talked about stocks. Are there other forms of investment things that we can track? I know that sometimes, I mean, if you talk about stocks, if you want to track stocks, you need to be up to date with what is happening in the news, what is happening in these industries. So if Apple, for example, is losing maybe today in the economic standards, it means that whatever stocks you have with Apple will be dropping, whatever stocks you have with Microsoft or Google will definitely drop. And you also need to understand how the market works. So for people who don't necessarily have the time to keep up to date with those information, what kind of alternative investment opportunities you think are out there or would you suggest or advise? Okay, so I think that would give it what you're talking briefly about by business, the business that I represent. So what we've observed over time is during the global meltdown and all the different filmmakers that have been across the world, we found that there's a particular asset class that seemed not to be affected by all these forces. And that is art, talking about visual arts and other forms of art. Prior to now, we believe that this is the exclusive reserve of the rich, the wealthy, because of course I don't want to have the means to collect artworks worth 10,000, 20,000 to millions of dollars and keep it as more of a store value for them. Now, so what we have seen over the years is that asset class has been consistent over the years and the growth has been really, you know, significant and can actually be trapped. So we felt like as a business that I mean coming from a group of investors and investment company, so we felt like it is important to begin to open the eyes of Nigerians through this alternative investment platform or solutions. So we started with art and the company called Asprey. So we started with art and what we have done successfully is to make access possible to people who are in the lower realm of the ladder who would enable the person to begin to invest in this asset class that prior to now we thought like is reserved to the rich. So I'll give you an instance. So an artwork, for instance, that was done by Li Beno would cost a heart bridge on 100,000 US dollars. Now, a single person cannot possibly do that. So what we have done as a business is to look at the concept of co-ownership in investments. So don't call it crowdfunding. We'll look at co-ownership because I will explain now how that differs. Now, what that co-ownership does is this artwork costs 100,000 dollars. We as a business, you know, would come back to that 100,000. We'll break it to 100,000. So the value of 100,000 dollars will be divided into 100,000 units. So that's like for as low as a dollar. Instead of you entering the investment at 100,000 dollars, you enter the investment with a dollar. Right? So, the more you can buy, the better for you.  So we call them split 100,000 splits. It's as low as a dollar. So we go to 20 cents. We develop that to 20,000 dollars. 20 cents per split, right? You buy the split, you bid for it, and you say that a lot of people want to buy particular assets. So sometimes you have 500 people bidding for a particular artwork. So it begins to drive the value of the assets. You invest in with 20 cents. If you are not careful, somebody who has bid only 22 cents will beat you and buy them over and you lose out of opportunity. So it is that you allow you to bid and you determine the market, the low price for that particular asset. So by the time all of you put your funds into it, you invest your buy split. The question now is, this is a physical artwork. Who is going to keep it physical for some of the assets? So what we are going to do is, we do this on that solution called the lease concept. This concept is where somebody will bid to own that work for a period of time. Now that is to create immediate return on investment for the investors. I didn't get to make sense what I'm saying. So people bid for that lease auction and then the winner, that takes the work. The proceeds from that lease auction should be shared amongst everyone who has invested in that asset during the split auction. So that is immediate return on investment. Now you hold that asset with you for a period of time and watch the market for some time in the value of the artwork. It begins to appreciate the market because people are trading, people are now in secondary markets are putting extra margin on their investment are selling it off. Even that is happening, it's automatically configuring the new price for that asset. Now in another five years or say one year or three years as a case maybe you want to keep your asset for a long time. The one of the artwork begins to appreciate the market. Now if you want to sell your investment you exit it and have your returns. One thing we have done so is that even that lease I mentioned earlier it goes out every two years. So that means every two years you are getting dividends on your investments. It goes into your portfolio, it increases your portfolio values and then the act talk itself is appreciated in the secondary market. So that way we have opened up the opportunity to people to invest in what the so-called elite and rich would usually invest in that people never knew about. So that's one of the social we have brought up for and we are about a year now, we are about a year now and I can tell you that from what we have done so far they have been going over 1.5 million in terms of transaction happening within the platform. Yeah dollars, thank you. The app is even starting to use dollars. And the reason is of course to ensure that we are able to edge the investment against Naira so that you actually control the competition. That is one of the investment opportunities. I wonder what I also saw was the music. If you notice Afro beat has become adopted across the world. So you see people wanting to collaborate with times with Debedo, with Skid and stuff. And people who understand the landscape are making huge money from these artists across the world going to streaming platforms. Today our data is that there are 68 million people who are subscribed to all the streaming platforms called Spotify, Apple, Amazon and the like. People are streaming music and artists is any money from those streaming. So the artist is just keeping the money and you are just vibing to the guy's music and you are just there. You are just making extra money from these guys. So we also discovered this other aspect. So what that does is that a project is coming up from an artist. The artist will require some funds to do that. So what we do is pull in funds, all of you come and buy and split into the album before it is released. Now once the investors put in their funds and the album is released every month when the artist is any real artist. Percentage that they own of that album is being paid into their wallets month on month. That is a month on month and your investment and you can still keep your primary asset because you have both units of that particular album so you keep it in perpetuity. So if you keep it for like 50 years even when you are no more your children keep any from that music catalog. So this is the opportunity that is available to Nigerians and Africans. I was actually going to ask how people invest in music. If you are not maybe sponsoring the event or something like that. But yeah, I will come to you Alera and ECS. I am sure you have questions to ask but then let's take a short break so you have started the break. If you are just tuned in we are exploring alternative investment opportunities in Nigeria with Mouniwa. Please let us hear what you have to say. Remember you can join the conversation send us an SMS or WhatsApp to you can also Twitter us with the hashtag so Alera. So the question I have for Mouniwa is what are the parameters that a new and skeptical investor. What are the parameters that you think people like us should look out for when we want to make an investment decision. So in making investment decisions you need to look at one, what is actually the incident of players field. Two, you need to go into researching to understand how the asset class that you want to invest in actually matters. So for instance if you look at let me give you an instance in music for instance realities have been delivering volleyball $13.8 billion in the last one year. It is projected that by the end of 2023 it should be about $18.7 billion by the end of 2027 it is going to be about $18.7 billion right. So that is across the globe. If you bring it to Africa it is still running in its hundreds because of course nature of stuff. So you begin to look at the trends and one of the key things I would just say about music is the fact that music realities have the capacity of delivering 2 digits for you in all honesty because it is not economic forces that determine buy and sell and trading doesn't have to be affect that class. And then think of it for technology. So it has actually been brought up and it makes it easy for anyone to invest. So there is a place where you can look at it? Exactly. So there are dashboards where you can actually go and study what is music realities to artists. You know when they stream particular numbers you know what is going to come into investors. So that is the same thing for arts. In the last 16 years it has been consistent around 16 billion to 60 billion US dollars in terms of you know the value of arts in the market space. So it keeps growing steady and of course there is always almost a year growth about say 2% 6% growth. So these are the things that you need to begin to look at. So you need to actually take your time to spend it in the industry. I am really excited to hear that at least the customer can see a projection because I mean I would want to have an idea of how is it going. And I think another thing again is that focusing on the trend also helps because you have to know what is happening in the economy. How has it been affected just to know. Thank you. My question is related to your interest and your passion basically. Because your interest and your passion is to create an alternative and ensure that there is alternative investment opportunities for every African basically. So let's look at it from a holistic point of view. How can a tech savvy individual or a non tech savvy individual actually synergize to create our explore alternative investments opportunities. Okay so for tech savvy individuals for instance I really mentioned that there are several concepts that can actually leverage a credit to do that. So I will mention something about co-ownership and I think it is important that anyone who is a tech savvy person will look at so what is that thing that we can commoditize and they can use the credit to actually drive. So once you are able to identify anything of such nature it could be even real estate. So imagine where people would say I want a piece of land in vanilla island for instance. I know that I would never be able to find it. I am not saying I mean considering my panaceas at the moment I am just saying I am a rich person. What you are not doing is okay you know what. How can I use technology in this case maybe an hour it could even be a hour or something then it creates something that allows several of us to actually co-own these assets then watch it grow over time and then we trade it. So that is something that can be made possible for a tech savvy person because in this case you understand the concept of technology you can use that to drive it. Now for an average person who is not a good tech savvy what a person would depend on more largely is I mean I don't want to talk about crowdfunding or stuff like that but people like that would look like okay so who and X, Y, Z can I put together to put his funds and they do this and we know we are going to keep it at store value for us and know what time we trade it and that way is an investment for them. So it is a function of looking around you so I mean looking at opportunities around you and constantly I can commoditize and I can use technology to actually leverage to drive the market process to drive the value and also all that I want to put this way more like driving value, this is a project to look at what are the basic things because the principle is the same whatever it is they are doing what matters is what the edge can actually add to it what solution can you add to it to actually improve it and make an investment so that is what I would like to say okay so you see you are going to say something okay sexual okay now let's look at it from the other point now so let's say I have I have an artist for example be it music or physical artwork and I want to put out my artwork for people to invest in do I get money from that how does that how does that work for artists for instance who want to get money from his work or want to invest in his work there are different ways to go about it there are different businesses or different platforms that do quite a few anyways but I think and I referred to you business earlier such business allow you to put your work up for splits you can actually buy into it so you can actually use such technology platform to drive the sale of your asset and you can go to auction houses so you put your work there because maybe you did work 20 years ago I have an assistant artist who had come to say this work was done in 1903 I said I want to actually put it off because I need money and for that artist it's an investment because he had done that work like over 30 years ago and then he brings it over and goes into an auction platform people auctioned for the work they buy into it it makes his money so that kind of work will price depending on what the actor has been doing in auction over the years it's around $20,000 and maybe the artist is late and the asset of the artist want to trade it they are talking about hundreds of thousands because the works are not announced they are not available to the demand cannot recreate those works so the person actually goes and then sells such are the ways of course they will make money because it's an investment that has been kept for years if I'm Mr. N well well we have very rich culture and tradition the versatility of our culture and tradition is vast so how can we leverage on this to explore other avenues for investment okay so you have mentioned our cultural heritage and stuff so we are looking at instances talking about collectibles, memorabilia in this case like cultural collectibles we are looking at hold coins that people would die to have right so these are some of the things that we can actually also put as investment class like I said always just look around and say what exactly can we even turn into an asset and make money of so talking about our cultural values and our current exchange for instance and which is one of the things that I talked about even tourism see as an investment because we have sites, we have stuff that can convert into so many things that can yield profit for people over the years because investment in tourism wrap cultural sites and stuff that can actually invest their money in and then bring in tourism in exchange for all of these things it's an investment, it's a long time investment so I mean thank you so much you see these are the things that we can actually look at like I said look around I wanted to just quickly add something this conversation is making me feel happier remember when I mean growing up when you tell your mom or your dad that you want to be an artist now please don't just lose hope because now there is an opportunity for your artwork to actually see a lot of for people to get to see your artwork and for you to make money because now the African, the Africans are actually pushing for this and encourage your children to go into art please please do make a lot of mistakes really is something that we need to consider and start doing let's talk about NFTs so I know that in Nigeria right now we have some sort of policies and none of that against non-fungible tokens and things like that so has that in any way affected alternative investments especially in art and music? yes it has and also looking at the volatility of that of that space as well we've had instances a couple of months ago when people almost ran mad because even though there's something there so that's one of the things that the government is also trying to prevent because we understand the fact that one can't be traced they can't be tracked really as you would really do and they also know the fact that many people are waiting for some very weird weird purposes and stuff like that so it's affecting the landscape really because like I also mentioned we are also starting to see how are we sure that this is here to stay of course digital currencies are going to be there digital tokens are going to be there they couldn't keep tokenizing items and stuff like that, digital assets so this is going to be there forever but we also need to understand the fact that we need to protect the sanctity of the investment landscape as well and also ensure that it's properly regulated because anything can happen with that space and nobody can hold it against it so it's something that government is going to handle that still so there are some that are completely open to it as you know what we can still control it but I think it's something we started to study over time we try not to corrode the investment in that space but try not to dissuade anybody from doing it it's a function of iron risk I use sometimes so I mean it's something that's very open okay alright I know that this is a conversation that if we continue there are so many parts that we can actually agree but then I think ladies do you have any other questions to ask I mean going to art I think I don't think she should know about that because I know about how many young people actually want to study art they have the interest, they have the talent however my child has to be a doctor my child has to be an engineer my child has to be an accountant now the art and music industry is actually creating an avenue for us to make money so encouraged it's a good field to encourage anybody to go into so that you can be a billionaire interesting I mean there are quite a number of artists today who sell seven digits and the energy I wonder what's going on in this you know I went to one young chap about 27 and he was telling me that if you're not willing to buy this please take a walk be confident like all those my daughters joined see one of the questions how do you account for individuals who are probably fraudulent because we have people who couldn't be fraudulent and we come across to you as being genuine article in terms of investments so what would you advise someone to look out for so that you don't fall into something like a ponsor scam okay so you have to look at like I mentioned earlier we look at the pedigree of the establishment that they are affiliated to associated with it might seem correct it might seem tough notch if you look at the pedigree yeah so it might seem that's why I've always said like there are a lot of things that you can actually do I mean check unfortunately we don't always have time to do all of this but like I said look at the pedigree it's very important look at you can also check them against robberies and stuff because some of these resources are not regulated we need to actually be very careful and look at them because if one of you approve them it takes a lot of approval to allow such organizations to run in this country or anywhere they climb so robberies are the likes who also appear to turn in thank you so much it was quite an insightful conversation we had and then we look forward to having more conversations like this as we go on thank you ladies for joining us tonight as well alright before we go do ensure you follow us on instagram at wayshowafrica you can interact with us further drop a comment and most importantly follow all our social media engagements and remember to like, share, comment and watch your friends and family to watch if you missed today's quotes here it says again the individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator and this is by Ben Graham see you tomorrow at 8pm as we bring another great conversation see you soon bye


Aristotle and Ben Franklin approach reading, reflecting, writing, and enacting in some of the ways. Franklin exhorted us to write something worth reading or do something worth writing. Aristotle says that the only way to avoid criticism is to say nothing, do nothing, and be nothing. As leaders we often believe we only have time for the task at hand, but reading helps us learn, writing helps us think, and reflecting helps us grow. So as summer heats up or things get even crazier at work, we may be tempted to just do nothing. Instead, take 30 minutes this week to write something worth reading, do something worth writing, and be something more than nothing. Lead well this week.


Y cyfnod yw yn erioedll negynol oherwydd ydy oedd pan yw'r rhagor gweithio. Rwy'n ddau'n gwelif yn y gweithio fwy o rhyw un pwylltech yw hynny', o'r hyffordd yng Nghymru o'r acebeithio mewn deillaint rhagor yng nghymru, oedd yfnodd yn oed i mwy o'r prydysgrifio cerddurol sy'n gweld y ydysgrifennu ar yn rhan o'i fynd. Ac yna, rydych chi'n mynd i'r hoffffen, rydych chi'n rhaid i gyd yn sicr o'r rhaid yw cerddur hynod ar maen nhw. is simply what has been said about the regime and their issues of perception on pink mainly. So in the last few weeks in the job I attended the international conference of data protection commissioners. One of the main data protection authorities in Europe welcomed me to my new world by pointing out to me that there is a view of Ireland that the government attracts in big sulfur multi-nationals with questioning or tax incentives and that I, the regulator ond dwi'n meddwl i'r ddechrau i'r ddechrau o'r llwythau. A dwi'n meddwl i'r ddechrau i'r ddechrau i'r gwrthwyngau'n gwirio i'r byw, a dwi'n meddwl i'r ddechrau i'r ddechrau i'r ddechrau i'r ddechrau i'r ddechrau i'r ddechrau i'r gwrthwyngau. Felly, o'r ddweud y rhaid fyddion cyfweld i'r ddefnyddio ar y llyniadau a'r Llywodraeth a'r cyfrannu Mae'r ddydd yn fath o'r ffordd yn butwch eraill o'r parbyn sydd i'w ddim yn siaradau'n ddefnyddio'r ddaloedau a'r gwrthwng sydd hynny yn fawr yn ysgriffedd. O'r ddailwch, mae'n byw'r ddaloedau berydd a'r ddydd yn fawr yn cyfgleddau a'r grifwm yn ysaf. Yn tro yn cael'u bwysig i homi i nosio'r cyfrifiad a'. A-nall yma ymlaen i'w dda-dath ar gyfer y ddisgu'r gwrthwng yn ymlaen i'r ddefnyddio'r ddaloedau the International Association of Primesses, their annual conference in November.  We've all seen the photos of the Irish Data Protection Office over the Sparshop and I had a good laugh. So they didn't get that quite right. That's in fact a centre of that though. But I think the sentiment was clear. Also stated at that same event, Ireland does not enforce date of protection laws. rhai a'r cymorydd yn y merbyn hyd yn y ffórm o gyfnodau fel parwch, drwy'n ei wneud o'r cymryd diolch am hyn yn ymgynghwyddoedd. Yn oedd yr argynidau perthyn controller yw nid oes i gynnwys, ac yn eitio brydd, ymrwydd a effaith yn llehwyrr.  Yn mynd i'n ddadu'r prydysgwr, yn ddych bod yn ffysg yng ngosod o'r eu cyd-radder. Fy fyddy'r prydysgwr yn y cyd-radder, ym mewn starwyr rifyr. Mwysig am gweithio'r PhD. ac yn ddiddordeb ar hyn ar y cyfnodd companyau sydd yn gweithio gyd wedi'i gweithio. Mae'r rhai rydyn ni'n dda, ac mae'n ddiddordeb ar gyfer gyda'r mynd i'r ddiddordeb y byddwyr o'r cyfnodd sydd mwyaf, ond mae'r mynd i'r mynd i'r gweld cyffinodd gyfnodd sydd wedi'u gweithio'r cyffinodd cyffinodd cyffinodd y byddwyr o'r cyffinodd mae'n gweithio'r cyffinodd. Anything it's very important that we start to address these issues because if they remain unaddressed they are going to affect companies based in Ireland. Certainly the companies that I have interacted with so far don't want to be self-eregulated, they certainly don't want to be incompetent thereregulated and they don't want to have to fight a perception that that's the case. I think also if addressed these issues it will affect Ireland's ability to be a player as a lead regulator gyda byddwn i'w briflesio datblygu ddeirnau, ac mae gennym hoffa yma cerddio i ddim yn fawr sy'n dweud bod ni'n bywyr ddeirnau a яwb y ddeirnau sanff mwyaf ar wlad am yr eich rheidio.  Mae'n cyfrannu'n gweithio'r cyd-bwysig o'r cyd-bwysig o'r cyd-bwysig, oherwydd o'ch nhw'n dweud o'u cyd-bwysig o'r cyd-bwysig o'r cyd-bwysig o'r cyd-bwysig, ..y'r rhanau yn cael ei gweithio'r gweithio yma.. ..y'r rhanau yma o'i ffunciwn. Rwy'n gweithio'r dethyl i'r ddechrau. Mae'r ffrindiau fyddiwyddiol. Mae'r llef yma'r dŷlch. Mae'r ddweud i ddweud i'r dyfodol o'r ffrindiau.. ..ac ymddangos, ac oherwydd o'r ffaith.. ..y'r 1995, y Dysgu Welch Ffyrdd Bwyllfa? Mae'r ddaeth i'r ddweud i ddweud i ddweud i ddweud.. yn gofyn ond wc erafodol mae'r gennyn gyda symud i'r ffaith yn y bydd yma yn gyfan gondol, ac felly'r rydyn ni'n meddwl gwagafod i gael gynhyrchu ar gyfer gyda'r cyfrifiadau amdano ei phredigio cyfrifiadau ac na'n creu'r bau i ni gweithio. Mae'n mynd i'm nid o'n meddwl holl o'r cyfrifiadau ymrwyaf yn ei bodiedig drwsidagol a risu o bai'r amddannau i'u lly�t i'r meddwl i'r cyfrifiadau, The results have led to those companies implementing a large number of privacy improving changes. The new pay data protection authority for example wouldn't have any such powers to all of the private sector organisations. In addition, when we're necessary we have powers to effectively force companies to cease their operations until the data protection issues we've identified are corrected. And we would have seen this with the large scale loyalty build in 2013. It's important to mention also as a regulator in 2014 that Arnott has, While we have been measuring changes for the first time prosecuted company directors it was a private investigator company in this case MCK Investigations in October of 2014 for their role in their company's data protection offences. So, we're sending out the strongest possible signal as an enforcer here that not only will we prosecute companies where they will reach data protection rules but will hold those who manage them directly to companies to account as well. I think the significance of this case and the fact that we prosecuted the directors in this case has not gone unnoticed based on the flurry of visits I've had for companies since that time in October. However, all of that outlined not so much in defence of the office but really in setting out the facts in terms of our enforcement activity. I think there are a number of things in 2015 that the Irish data protection priority can do to improve its performance ac yn olygu y prosiectio y casig. Cymru ei ddod yn gweithio i gael gael y cyfnod o'r hwyl ac mae'n gynhyrch yn ymhygl â'r ddod a ddech wiz, mae gennym ni'n fwyaf ac mae gennym ni'n gweithio gyrraedd yn ddifarf o'r ffordd ar gynnwys cyfan. Ac mae'n ddod yn gweithio'n gweithio'n meddwl ac mae'n gweithio'n gweithio ar y mesud. arall i ddiwedadodau sydd yn gweithio'r gweithio ynghylchedd yn 2015. Rhaid i gael, yn Arland, ym mwy o'r blaenau a'r rhaglen nhw gweld, ymlaen y cyflwyno'r cyflwyno sydd yn gwneud y cwmpleiddiadau o'r cyflwyno'r cyflwyno'r cyflwyno. A hynny'n gwybod, bod ydych chi'n gweithio'r cyflwyno'r cyflwyno'r cyflwyno, gallwn i'ch gael ei wneud i'ch gael â'r cyflwyno'r cyflwyno'r cyflwyno ond ddeglaeth gyda'r fusill ac yn dweud y cyflaen o ddad.  Felly, mae hi ddim gydag o'r credu yma iawn a'i nu'n fawr yn ymhyfosure i ddefnyddio ddiogel roedd yn gweithio'r gwahanol i ddiwethaf yr adroddiadau yn ei fodfyn ar gyfer gyllideb. A mae heddiw i adrofodd iddo sy'n ddod yn cerddio y cerddiaeth, fel mae'ch bod yn gweithio dwi'r ganddalone ac oedd y gallu ddau i'r cyffredinol. Yn gynydwch yr heddiw yw'u cyffredinol, ac mae'r cyffredinol yw'r cyffredinol fflullwg, cysylltu, mae'r cyfrifio'r cyfeirio datblygu i ddisbu'r rhisiach a llifio'r peirio'r cyfrifio yn gweithio. Gweith aerfio'r prynrytiau ar ddweud gwleisio cyrraed yn ddwylliant, i ddim diolch yn ei wfosti daeth ddiwylliant i ddweud ei gwrthoch i ddweud o'r cyfrifio'r cyfrifio, ac rydw i gyd-feydd, ydw'n gofyn fydd ym mwyaf. Rydw i ar hyn, aeth ymddangosion fe g soilsiaeth i ddiwydus eu cyfrifio'r cyfrifio'r cyfrifio, ti wedi bod i'n meddwl y styldol yn ein gwnaeth,nydd i'r oposwydd Cymru yn gwneud cyfiadau yma o'w cyffrediau. Mae'n meddwl ei fod yn gweithio i'r Cyffrediau. Bryd I chaf wnaeth i'r cyffrediau hynny. Mae'r cyffrediau yn oed yn ddigyn nhw'r cyffrediau. Mae'r cyffrediau yn gyffrediau i'r cyffrediau hwn. A'r cyffrediau o'r cyffrediau én ymlaen nhw'n gweithio. Mae'r gymryd o hoped-odd mae'r cyffrediau i'n gynyddo targetingau ond mae'n gweithio i'r cyffrediau. efforts and security protection officer has been under resourced in staff quantity terms but also in terms of specialist skills over the last number of years. In addition we have had insufficient investment in terms of the backup of systems that we are using and the front-end processing systems for customer complaints. I am very pleased but am even more relieved that the government has now sanctioned this additional budget and provided the sanction for recruitment of additional staff. We already have a recruitment campaign underway now new year to immediately recruit 18 new staff to the office. These will all be Dublin-based staff and ultimately the plan is that we recruit an additional 45 staff with 29, 28 staff based down in Port Arrington. I mentioned the OPW is looking for a Dublin premises for us and they've let me know that even if they locate something very quickly by the time fit-out is completed it's likely to be the end of the year. So I think we'll be looking at having a temporary premises in Dublin in the short term and then a permanent premises from the next year onwards and we'll advise you of the data or of the address of that premises as soon as we can. I mentioned earlier to colleagues that I visited just before Christmas when a UK counterpart to talk to him about the profile of his 400 person team just to get some ideas in terms of the type of skills that we might recruit in. So I got some very good ideas in terms of what's worked for them and we're trying to implement all of that now. Another big area that we want to target for improvement in 2015 is how we work in cooperation with other data protection authorities. You're probably aware that Ireland is part of a permanent working party of data protection authorities in Europe called the article 29 working party under the 1995 data protection directive and we're also part of the building data protection enforcement network called GCAN where we strong things to the FTC in the US and the Canadian data protection commissioner in particular and obviously this type of cooperation is essential particularly where Ireland is regulating data rich companies with all of the cross-folder data flows that this implies. And today as I mentioned earlier as a European level there can be a perception that we're at odds with the approach of our larger continental neighbours in terms of regulation of data rich multinationals. But I think no weed evidence of this has been induced. That said I think it's probably our lack of bandwidth and resources that we've deployed to article 29 and its various working parties that is probably contributing to this view that we're not entirely trustworthy or competent. We have had to make big decisions in the past in the case of Facebook reaches and I think in a context for our article 29 partners don't see us often enough enough at meetings at subgroups expressing views and building knowledge of the context in which Ireland makes its decisions. I think that has led to some of these issues. In addition you'll be aware that the article 29 working party regularly issues opinions which are not binding but are extremely influential on important areas in relation to data protection matters. And at the moment Ireland is in 3D a voice at the table in terms of negotiations of the positions that are adopted in terms of these opinions and I think it's important that we sit down at the table and that we're there. So in that context I think despite the fact that as an office we've worked proactively already in terms of these elements we've done with some of the Irish minority nationals. We have expertise that other countries don't have in data protection terms as regulators but this isn't yet recognised or appreciated at EU level and I think we need to rectify that by having more staff on the ground. So in summary then 2015 is going to be a year of significant recruitment and expansion of resources for the Irish data protection authority establishment of new premises and capital, new systems and tools for staff to work with greater participation at article 29 and in its various subgroups and in addition in the context of having all of these additional resources we want to increase and improve the proactive and reactive engagement we have with companies and organisations based in Ireland. It's probably worth mentioning at this point that because we are looking to implement a big change program at the data protection commissioner during this year the senior resources of the office including myself are probably going to inevitably be more internally focused when we do that. So you know I get about I don't know maybe 20 requests a day to speak of various different events and it can be hard to turn them down but I think we are going to have to manage the amount of travel and speaking of events that we do over the next number of months. Just want to very quickly if I still have time to mention plenty of time good subtle thought I'm seeing as the big themes in data protection certainly in the conversations I'm having over the last number of months. I think the first one that's worth mentioning is jurisdiction. This is for the longest time been a complex matter in the world of data and data protection but it appears to have grown even more complex I think post the European or the ECJ's judgment in the Google Spain case this summer. This was of course the case that recognised a right to the so-called right to be forgotten and as part of its judgment in that case the court ruled that even though Google declares itself as having its seat in the US and has its data controller operations in the US and not Europe that the fact that it's operating a subsidiary in Spain in this case that sells Google advertising with the aim of making the search engine profitable then it is established for the purposes of the 1995 directive in Spain or any other EU country every other EU country in which it has similar operations and so it ruled that Spain did have jurisdiction in terms of requiring Google to comply with its data protection laws and in terms of the multi nationals who regulate in Ireland we're now seeing potentially some interesting interpretations of jurisdiction based on that ECJ judgment. I'll take for example the case of Facebook. Facebook would have declared its main establishment in Europe in data protection terms to be in Ireland and so any user of Facebook service signs up to Facebook Ireland limiters when it's signing up to terms and conditions and so for the last number of years Ireland has effectively been the regulator for Facebook in terms of any complaints be they complaints from Irish nationals or from other jurisdictions so other data protection authorities would pass on their complaints in respect to Facebook and we would investigate decision. So with the last number of months we have been working with Facebook in terms of new terms and conditions and privacy policy with plans to rule out this month and there would have been a significant amount of engagement on this and it would have reached conclusion in November or in fact in December of last year allowing Facebook to proceed with its plans. However using the Google Spain judgment as its basis in the latter weeks of December we've now seen the Dutch data protection authority make a preemptive move in this area and they've publicly announced through a press release so I'm not I'm not revealing anything you won't already know they announced that they are investigating Facebook's new privacy policy in terms of conditions so they haven't been more specific as to part exactly on which aspect of what they're investigating but they're asserting jurisdiction in so far as it affects Dutch nationals based on that Google Spain judgment. I think companies would speak for themselves as to how they find that development and I know Facebook has publicly expressed its disappointment in terms of the Dutch move given the amount of work they've done in working on this project with the Irish authority but from the perspective of Ireland's data protection authority I think this development is starting to underline the challenges that Ireland may envisage when it is acting as a leader authority under the proposed one-stop shop in the draft new data protection regulation which I'll touch on again shortly so our exclusive confidence in respect of dealing with companies such as Facebook controlling Ireland under the 1995 directive is therefore already now coming under threat of reinterpretation in the mighty Google Spain judgment and the manner in which this is occurring this re-investigation of aspects that we have already spent months engaging on doesn't I think over well in terms of our role as a new DPA under the data protection regulation. I was going to mention somewhat extensively the Microsoft case as well as it's one that concerns jurisdiction this is the one where Microsoft refused to accede to the US court issued certain seizure warrant requiring them to hand over email content and they refused because the email content they say is stored on on a server at its facility in Ireland. I'm not going to say too much about it because the government has since filed an amicus brief in favour of Microsoft in this case but I think the judgment is due from the US court in January and it's going to be a case that will help us it'd be interesting I think and instructive in terms of jurisdiction. Surveillance is also an area that is occupying the lines of article 29 regulators quite quite considerably and the stone revelations of 2013 and more recently now the revelations of GCHQ tapping of cables between Ireland and the UK have given immediate rise to significant concerns and they've also resulted in quite a number of queries and a couple of complaints to the Irish Data Protection Office which would be aware that essentially surveillance is outside of the scope of the 1995 directive because of its national security exemptions but I think he's opinioning now that that's not sufficiently defined. I think regulators are of the view that while we're never going to fully know what's going on in national security terms we need a definition of what is covered by this area and we need definition of what the issues in the areas are so ultimately it's probably one for the courts and the legislature but certainly article 29 is tracking this very very carefully. Other things of international level relate to big data and internet of things the article 29 working party issued a paper on internet of things at the end of 2014 because there really is a lot of concern amongst my peers in Europe about these particular subjects some of them feel we're very much moving towards a world of digital predetermination of humans as they call it and they see a sort of a doomsday scenario where some of our human free will is going to be removed from us because everything that we're looking at is so digitally predetermined based on our own personal preferences that have been recorded. I don't think I quite share at the level of pessimism that my colleagues have but there is clearly an issue in terms of the speed at which technical innovation and social media in particular with its online behaviour and advertising features has vastly outpaced legislation and regulation and it is going to take some clever and long-term fixing and regulators have a role to playing us but ultimately I think these probably are very much areas that are going to need to political and societal solutions as well. I mentioned earlier the Google Spain judgment and the right to be forgotten the article 29 working party issued guidance on decision making on the right to be forgotten cases and so all of the data protection authorities at the moment are working through appeals Ireland has received about 30 appeals in relation to cases where Google has refused to de-list so there's quite a volume of work involved in this and it's clearly an area that's evolving. I thought it was quite interesting at some of the forum I intended to hear the US reaction to that judgment because clearly it's been one of a considerable surprise at a judgment of the court in that case. The US are also particularly keen on a renaming of the right and I argue quite correctly that it's not right to call it a right to be forgotten because as you know it results in a de-listing only versus a search done on the personal name of the person if you search for the particular story under any other combination other than personal name the information is still available. It's worth marking I think that the ECJ has been a massive player last year in terms of expanding our knowledge and understanding of of matters in data protection terms. You'd be aware it struck down the EU data protection or data retention directive in May of this year and that was just a month before it recognised the so-called right to be forgotten and then more recently we've seen it issue a judgment at the end of the year in relation to a case that concerned household CCTV usage and we're still examining that case but it seems to me that it may have broader implications in that the judgment touches on the household exemption that applies under the 1995 directive and while this was a case about CCTV a lot of the companies we regulate in Ireland would rely on the household exemption in terms of the ability of users to upload their contact list to a product like Facebook or Google or LinkedIn and now the court is suggesting that the application of that household exemption is is a lot narrower so more to come I think in that space. The other big area of of interest is of course EU data protection regulation and under this been treated as my recognition of personal data as a fundamental right providing it with a renewed and elevated status and as you're aware this EU data protection regulation was proposed to bring in a pan-European network so that we're not dealing with these different transpositions of the directive in Europe it was intended to level the playing field and provide consistency in terms of application of the law in Europe and a very significant feature of of the framework that's proposed is this idea of a one-stop shop and in the original commission proposal on the one-stop shop they had proposed this idea that multinationals instead of having to talk around 28 member states will be able to declare a main establishment and deal with one lead authority in the country where they had that main establishment and the idea was that the lead authority where they would receive a complaint from anywhere in Europe from the data sector to anywhere in Europe would investigate the complaint would consult with relevant data protection authorities as needed would take on board their opinions would take on board any opinions of the commission and then will propose a final solution however concerns over time have been raised about the fact that this approach means that justice could be inaccessible for data subjects not located where the lead authority is so for example if I investigated a complaint from a Spanish data subject about Facebook if they wanted to appeal my decision they would have to appeal it in the Irish courts so now we have a new proposal on the table and it's now proposed that where a lead authority is going to propose a decision they would have to have that accepted on on a consensus and unanimous basis by all of the other data protection authorities so any one data protection authority could could veto the proposed decision and if that occurs then the decision is referred on to the European data protection board which is going to be established as a board of all the data protection authorities and so I think for me this presents the worry that as a regulator we could end up becoming a chief coordinator and that we would investigate a decision we would coordinate with all of the relevant data protection authorities which could be all of them we would work at doing a balancing test proposing a decision and ultimately it could be vetoed and the issue referred on to the European data protection board and I think it creates a list of the lack of certainty then for companies who are dealing with Ireland as a lead to data protection authority and as I said may cast us in the role of chief coordinator rather than lead decision maker but the negotiations aren't completed on that so all is not lost yet I'll just briefly mention because I am running out of time the major Irish government projects that we're dealing with at the moment and I mean the list is as long as both my arms are only going to touch on a couple of them as examples Irish water with no pun intended would have swamped our office for the months of September and October we were simply dealing with nothing but Irish water and PPSNs and aircodes could be the next big wave of criticism matters that we deal with the government's intention to introduce a national postcode system which as you know is going to be a system where the postcode is unique to each individual dwelling so right down to apartment level and also it's going to be a randomised code rather than a hierarchy from the code so the form of code that's being introduced is in the form of personal data as it would be recognised under the data protection acts and it's going to have to be protected as such which is what I was looking on data communications the other big area we've been dealing with is in relation to the department of public expenditure and reforms data sharing proposals and there's a lot of work still ongoing on that so all of the I mean I've only mentioned a tiny number of them there all of the government data projects are extremely time consuming none of them are straightforward they're extremely complex and I am trying to encourage government departments and government bodies to do much more of the groundwork in data protection terms before they come to the data protection commissioner in terms of the projects that they're proposing we're tending to see projects at a very late stage where data protection is sort of a tap on in the uses that's to be dealt with rather than seeing the groundwork being done so in conclusion I think 2015 is going to be a very exciting year for the Irish data protection office we're finally going to be in recruitment mode and expanding and growing our skills base to better deliver on our statutory functions we're going to be growing our relationships with other enforces and regulations in Europe and beyond and while as I said we're delivering on that challenging change program it's going to be a lot going on in terms of large-scale government projects tracking the EU regulation the regulation of the large majority nationals including the social networking sites that are here managing our relationships with Europe but we're going to be working very hard on delivering across the board that's it


I'm Stephen Lewandowski, I'm a professor of cognitive science at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom and I do research on how people think about climate change and misinformation and I'm also doing research on the effects of uncertainty in the climate system. So when it comes to the drivers of belief or acceptance of scientific findings in particular climate change, then what we find is that one of the most important factors is a person's worldview or you can call it a political ideology, their belief in things such as the free market and it turns out that in particular in the case of climate change that people who are very enthusiastic about free markets and who think that government should not interfere with free markets, that they tend to reject the findings from climate change, climate science based on that ideology and it's a very strong effect. It's a huge effect. In some of my data it explains two-thirds of the variance. Now what that means is that if I know somebody's belief about the free markets I can reduce my uncertainty about what their climate change attitude is by two-thirds. So there's a huge correlation there between those two variables and that is one of the main drivers. There are other drivers, one of the smaller ones in terms of statistical magnitude but one that is significant is people's willingness to accept conspiracy theories. Turns out that people, there is an association between people's endorsement of conspiracy theories and their rejection of science. Now that association is quite strong when it comes to vaccinations, for example, that people who endorse various conspiracy theories are quite likely to reject the notion that vaccinations are safe and are saving lives. When it comes to climate change that association is smaller but it is significant and it is significant in particular in the public sphere. A sitting US senator has written a book that's entitled The Greatest Hoax, How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. Now that's pretty explicit. If you call something a hoax and you talk about a conspiracy, well then you probably think that there is a conspiracy among scientists to invent this hoax called climate change and that is precisely what this person is saying in his book. And that's not an isolated instance. If you look at the discourse on climate change blogs it is suffused with the attributes of conspiratorial thinking. This notion, this overriding suspicion of scientists that scientists are, they're all cheats and they're all making this up and they're all trying to scare you for, well, I don't know why but there is this suspicion and fear and paranoia that people express when they're rejecting climate science. And so that is a small but I think in public life significant driver as well. Well, I've performed a number of studies that looked at the association between acceptance of science and people's tendency to endorse conspiracy theories. And one of those involved visitors to climate blogs and the other one involved a representative sample of Americans, a thousand US representative respondents. And what I found in both studies is the same thing and that is that as people are more likely to endorse various conspiracy theories, for example that MI5 killed Princess Diana or that the UN is trying to create a world government, that sort of thing, the more people tend to endorse that, the less likely they are to accept scientific propositions. Now that association is very strong for vaccinations, for example. People who reject the fact that vaccinations are saving lives and that they're safe. People who reject that tend to disproportionately endorse various conspiracy theories. The same relationship exists for climate change, but it is somewhat smaller statistically in those samples. The response to my studies when they were first published was very, I was delighted by the amount of confirmation that I received in the form of people on so-called skeptic blogs saying things that were entirely conspiratorial. And it was a real eye-opener to actually see that in action directed at oneself. And one of the things about conspiratorial thinking, one of the characteristics of it is that the scope of the conspiracy tends to broaden over time. And that's what happened in the case of my paper very intriguingly because what happened was that people who didn't like my paper complained to my university where I was at the time, the University of Western Australia, alleging all sorts of things, that I wouldn't release my data and that God knows what else I can't even remember. But just anything you can think of was put into these richly formatted letters of complaint with a lot of different fonts and exclamation marks and so on. And the university examined all those complaints and didn't uphold a single one, of course, and said, well, you know, there isn't anything to complain about here. That was properly done research. And now what's happened is that on the blogs, the University of Western Australia is being maligned and smeared and is now pulled into this bigger conspiracy and there were people even expressing the opinion that I'm in cahoots with the Australian government and that I'm a government agent or something trying to suppress free speech, which is interesting in and in itself, but it's also paradoxical because throughout the last couple of years that I've been doing research on this, the people who reject climate science have made every attempt to curtail my freedom of speech and my academic freedom and to basically silence my work. And that is not unusual at all. That is again a chapter in the playbook of science denial. That is how it is done. That is how I have colleagues who do research on tobacco and the health consequences of tobacco and they are subject to exactly the same frivolous attacks and freedom of information requests and complaints to the university as are people working in climate science. As always in these things, there are multiple people working on this and if the evidence is converging on the same conclusion, then we can be more confident that the effect is for real. And so for example, Smith and colleagues have written a paper where they asked respondents to tell them what's the first thing that comes to mind when I say climate change. And it turns out in that study that one of the primary associations that people came up with to the word climate change was hoax or conspiracy or other conspiratorial words when they were rejecting the science. So the two tended to go together and there's discourse analyses of the content of newspapers. There's a study done in Australia by Elaine McHughan who found that there are conspiratorial themes in newspaper coverage that is rejecting climate science. That's a very strong theme. And so there are multiple converging lines of evidence and of course all you have to do is you have to look at the title of books as the one that I just read out, The Greatest Hoax, How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. That was written by a sitting U.S. Senator, I mean you can't be much more explicit than that. So some of the characteristics of conspiratorial thinking or conspiratorial discourse are well understood and there is a number of them. I think the most important one, the most powerful one, is an overriding sense of suspicion. Something that goes beyond skepticism, that goes into suspicion and can approach paranoia even and that is that nothing will be accepted at face value if it comes from somebody who's presumed to be involved in this conspiracy. So it doesn't matter what you say if you're the target of a conspiracy theory because whatever you say will be taken with the greatest suspicion and it will not be seen in the light in which it is intended. So that I think to my mind is the most important one. There are others of course. The second one is this idea that as evidence against the conspiracy becomes available, the conspiracy is just seen to become broader and broader. So rather than like if I complain about somebody an academic and I send a complaint to the university and the university replies saying well sorry there is nothing for you to complain about, then rather than taking that at face value, an element of conspiratorial thinking then would be to say the university is in on the conspiracy. And I have seen that happening firsthand in the response to some of my research that initially I was the target and then it became bigger and bigger and ultimately some people said I'm working for the Australian government and that I was running a media organization in Australia and that the university and the Australian Research Council are all in with Lewandowski to do these things. So that's the second attribute of conspiratorial thinking, this broadening of scope. Another one is that people who are in this world of conspiratorial thinking, they see themselves as victims. They feel victimized. That is very common amongst people who deny the findings from climate science that they are saying gee we're being silenced, we're the victims here, no one is listening to us. When in actual fact they're saying whatever they want to say on their blogs and to my knowledge no one has ever interfered with that. And at the same time they are however actively involved in attacking scientists and trying to silence them and trying to get their papers retracted and to stifle free speech on the part of academics while feeling victimized. So that's another aspect of it. Further aspect is of conspiratorial thinking is that there is this paradoxical belief, this incoherent belief that on the one hand the conspirators, the bad guys are small in number and you can name who they are. But at the same time they're all powerful and they're absolutely everywhere. So you have this interesting contrast between on the one hand identifying specific scientists who are part of this conspiracy such as myself. But then at the same time the few people that are being identified as in the conspiracy they are supposed to be all powerful and we are somehow the two or three of us that are being named. We're somehow running the world government and the United Nations and in my case the Australian government and so on. So there's this paradox of a tiny number of people that are at the same time all powerful and ever present and we're permeating the entire world with our ideas. If I believed anything that people say about me on the internet then I would have to somehow put myself into handcuffs and hide in the basement for the rest of my life. But fortunately I know better than that. One of the interesting things about the rejection of science is that it tends to come in clusters. It tends to be the case that if a person is rejecting the finding from climate science then chances are they're also going to reject some other well established scientific finding. In my studies I find a fairly consistent clustering between beliefs pertaining to science. So somebody who does not accept the findings from climate science is also quite likely or more likely than others to reject the link between tobacco smoking and lung cancer. And that's not entirely surprising if you just look at the websites of some free market think tanks. You will often find that next to each other you have literature that is doubting the link between tobacco and lung cancer and that is questioning the link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. And the motivation is the same in both cases. The science is rock solid but the response to the scientific findings might involve regulation of industry or taxation or other things that are anathema to people who believe that the free market is the only thing by which anything should ever be regulated in the world. One of the things we find is that people reject scientific findings because of their political fundamental beliefs about how the world should operate. So climate science is rejected primarily by people who are endorsing free markets to an extreme extent. Most people tend to be more focused on the conservative side of politics and conservatives in turn are more likely to reject the findings from evolution and are instead preferring to view the world not through scientific terms but through religious terms. So there is a clustering between the rejection of evolution and the rejection of climate science based on those political religious beliefs because those things tend to cluster together. Now one crucial question that society is confronting is how to deal with the expressions of denial that are so common on the internet and on blogs. The answer to that I think is that it is absolutely essential to be driven by data, by research, by empirical findings and to look at what the data in cognitive science and psychology, what they tell us about the problem. I think it is crucial not to be misled by one's own intuitions about it. Now let me illustrate that by giving you a couple of examples. The first thing is to understand how many people are actually rejecting the findings from climate science and then to look at what the perceptions are that people have of those opinions and let me explain that in some detail using an Australian study done by Zoe Liddiston and colleagues a couple of years ago. Now they surveyed repeatedly 5,000 Australians at representative samples. That was a very large sample. It was done nationally. It was done over again and it gave us a very good insight into what people are thinking about climate change. Now it turns out that in their data consistently the proportion of people who denied that the climate is changing was very small. It was less than 10%. It was somewhere between 5% and 10% plus minus a few points. So it is a very small number of people. Somewhere between 1 in 20 and 1 in 15 is rejecting the fact that the climate is changing. Now what's interesting is that if you ask those people about how many others they think are sharing their opinion, the answer is that they think 50% of the population is sharing their opinion. So the tiny number of people who actually are rejecting climate science, they think that their opinion is shared by half the population. And that inflation of an opinion from what it actually is to what it is perceived to be. So inflation also occurs for people who are accepting the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change. They too think that 1 in 5 or about 20% of people are rejecting climate change when in fact that's not the case. Now that's extremely important number one to be aware of that, that the number of people who reject the science is actually relatively small. In surveys, representative national surveys. And what follows from that I think is a number of things. First of all it probably is unnecessary in order to do the one thing that matters which is to mitigate climate change. In order to do that you don't have to change the minds or opinions of 5% of the population. That's absolutely unnecessary. Politically unnecessary, it is a waste of resources to try and communicate or convince people who reject scientific evidence because the reason they reject the scientific evidence is not because they've evaluated the evidence rationally. It is because they're motivated to reject it by other variables. So trying to throw more evidence or more data, more scientific knowledge at those people is pretty much a hopeless task. So instead it is important to talk to the other 90% of people who are not denying that the climate is changing. And it is important for them to know first of all that they're in the vast majority themselves. They also have to know that there's a vast consensus among scientists because it turns out that telling people about the consensus makes them more aware of the science and makes them more accepting of the science. We've done that in multiple experiments to show that that is the case. And the final thing that research on misinformation suggests is that you have to explain to the majority of people why there is a small but vocal minority that is denying the science. So I think it's very important for the public to understand that those people are motivated by factors such as personal ideology, that there is this association between conspiratorial thinking and the denial of science. It is also very important to understand that a lot of this opposition to climate science is organized by vested interests and political networks. There's a recent paper by Robert Broly that painstakingly went through tax returns filed by a huge number of so-called think tanks and lobbying outfits in the United States. And what he concluded from his scholarly research is that up to a billion dollars a year goes into a machine, into a propaganda machine, part of which is used to deny climate science. And I think that's absolutely crucial for the public to understand that a lot of this is motivated by money, by vested interests, by ideology, by other psychological factors, and that none of the opposition to climate science is scientific. One of the reasons why it's very difficult to change the mind of people who are committed already to rejecting the science, one of the reasons that's very difficult is because they're challenging their worldviews if you are trying to change their belief about climate change. Now, people reject the science in the first place because it is incompatible with their deeply held worldviews. Most people who reject climate science do so because they fear not for the planet but for the interference with the economy, with the free market, if we did something about climate change. And to do something about climate change, we have to impose taxes, regulations, we have to curb emissions, we have to transition to clean energy. And even though the vast majority of people in surveys actually want that and they want a transition to clean energy, for some people that's incredibly threatening because they think that any taxation or regulation is the first step in a slippery slope towards communism or some other horrible thing. And so that's how they take on this antagonistic stance towards climate science in the first place. Now, if you then, as a researcher or communicator, present them with more evidence that climate science is real, then chances are that the recipients of the message are digging themselves deeper into their existing position and actually believe even more strongly that that is not the case. And we have the experimental data to show that in a lot of different circumstances. It doesn't just have to be climate science. It's whenever people's worldviews are at stake, then presenting them with corrective information can have a so-called backfire effect of making them believe the mistaken information even more strongly. So that is another reason why engagement with people who deny climate science is inadvisable because you're just strengthening and reaffirming their belief if you're not careful with your message. So one of the key issues that faces a communicator isn't just what to say. It is also what to say to whom. The target audience in climate change matters a great deal. And different audiences require a different message. If you want to talk to scientists from other disciplines who are not in climate science, then presumably presenting them with scientific information is the way forward. But if you're talking to the public at large, talking a bit more about atmospheric chemistry is probably not going to do the trick because, frankly, they might not understand it. I don't understand all the nuances of atmospheric chemistry. So why should the public?  It turns out that most people in survey after survey after survey in the entire western world, one of the groups of people they rank most highly on a trust scale, the people they find most to be trusted in society are scientists. Way ahead of politicians, lawyers, used car salespeople, even ahead of clergy in most societies. And so if the public knows that the scientists have formed a consensus on climate change, then that allows them to rely on that trust that they have in scientists anyway and to accept the fact that, yeah, we have a problem and we should do something about that. And it turns out that there is a number of studies that have looked at this. And in pretty much all cases that I know of over and over again, if you tell people that there is a scientific consensus on climate change, then that is affecting their acceptance of the science. And we know that people's perception of the consensus is related to their policy preferences. The more people think there is a strong consensus among scientists, the more likely they are to support mitigation measures. Now, one of the interesting things in this whole area is that the people who deny climate science call themselves skeptics. And that's quite interesting because their actions aren't skeptical at all because they will accept with great gullibility pretty much any false information about climate science that's out there, even if it is mutually incoherent. One of the intriguing attributes of climate denial is that very often the very same people will start out denying that it's getting warmer. Then five minutes later they will say, oh, but the warming is all natural, even though they just deny that there is any warming at all. And then the next day they'll say, ah, yeah, but the warming is good for us. So there is this sort of incoherence of messages within the denial community, any one of which is being latched upon. It's the sort of quantum cognition where anything goes at any time, provided I can deny the implications of climate science. That's not skepticism. That's being extremely gullible because you're believing anything that will fit into your worldview. Now, true skeptics are different because true skeptics reject things that are false, but they're also endorsing things that are true. And that is the most important distinction between skepticism and the rejection of science. And some of my own work has shown that skeptics have a what we call a greater signal to noise ratio. That is when they're presented with information that has a mix of signal, true stuff, and a lot of noise misinformation, then skeptics are less likely to believe things that are false, but they're also more likely to believe things that turn out to be true. So they're differentiating more between true and false information. So being skeptical doesn't mean you say no to everything. Being skeptical means you look at things, examine them, and then you say, well, hang on, I'm skeptical of this. No, I'm not going to believe that. But at the same time, you're saying, hang on, that looks right. I'm going to believe that. So skepticism allows you to choose between what is likely to be true and what's likely to be false. And of course, skepticism is the underlying principle of science. We as scientists are skeptical about things. We try to knock theories on the head and try to show what's wrong with them. That is what science is about. And the whole process of peer review, that you have to subject your work to skeptical review by other experts. I mean, that skepticism is built into the scientific process. And that is why scientists skeptically on the basis of the evidence have come to the conclusion that the globe is warming from human greenhouse gas emissions. So it's very challenging to correct misinformation. And it is challenging for a number of reasons. And one of them are fundamentally cognitive. That is, even before we get to ideology, worldview or your self interest or anything else that might affect your belief, the very act of trying to change your mind and update your memory is very difficult. It is cognitively challenging and complex. So we can do experiments. We've done this countless times over the last 10 years or so. We can do experiments in the laboratory where we give people a story about some fictitious event and halfway through the story, we say, oh, by the way, what you just heard was false. And then a little while later, we ask people some questions about what they made of this story. And it turns out that even though we tell people something, hang on, that was false, they still rely on that information later on to draw inferences from the story. And what's even more intriguing is that they do that even though when we ask them, they can tell us that the story had been corrected. So they will know that we said the moon is not made of green cheese. But later on, they're still going to act as though the moon is made of green cheese when we ask them inference questions. Why is that? Well, it's because as you're listening to a story, you're building an event model, a mental model of the event as it is unfolding. And if all of a sudden you find out that something is false after you've already built a model of the story in your head, then you're confronted with having to put a big hole into that story. You know, you think you know what's going on, and all of a sudden somebody tells you, hey, that's false.  But you don't quite know how to update your event model. If all you're given is the information that something is false. Now, if you tell people not only is this false, but this is the alternative that is actually true, then they can update their event model. So let me give you an example.    What's going to happen later at test is that you will still act as though the son was the thief, despite the fact that you were told no. However, if I give you the same story, but I add to the correction that not only was the son cleared of the suspicion, but somebody else, a neighbor was arrested for the crime and has confessed. Then the son will be psychologically exonerated. You will no longer act as though it was him who did it because you have an alternative. And that is why it is so crucial when you're dealing with climate change and climate change disinformation. That is why when you when you rebut something, you also have to explain to people why it is that they shouldn't believe this misinformation and what is true instead. And so providing an alternative is crucial. And making people skeptical of the source of misinformation is crucial, which is why it is so important to explain to the public why people are denying the science and what's behind that and what's driving that. I took my first psychology course in 1977 in the sort of Jurassic period of modern civilization. And well, at first I thought I was going to learn something about dreams and what makes people take and all our fears and phobias. And I don't know, maybe I thought that was a good way to learn that. I had to talk to women or something. But then I discovered that psychology wasn't about that at all. And it was about something far more exciting, namely trying to do science and trying to understand how the human mind works. And so I got hooked on that. And then somebody told me something about computers back in 1977.  And then somebody told me and I thought, gee, that's kind of funky. And so I enrolled in computer science and introductory programming in Fortran 3, I think, on punched cards. And then I thought, gee, this is really, really cool. And actually most of my undergraduate, much of my undergraduate education was in computer science and maths, not in psychology. And then I combined the two and I have been pursuing both computer science and maths and psychology ever since for the next 30 years or so. And that's what's known as cognitive science. That is what cognitive scientists do. We use computational tools to try and understand the mind. We use experimental methods to test our hypotheses. And when I became interested in climate change because of my work on skepticism five years ago or so, I learned that geophysicists do things a lot. A lot of times, in exactly the same way as cognitive scientists, they are trying to model a complex system and they test their predictions by experimentation. And so it was a very natural blend for me to model cognition and now to model on a small scale the climate system and to publish in climate science as well. The most interesting question to me is quite possibly not psychological in nature, but it is basically political. And that is to find a political path by which people can learn that we do have a problem, that it is a solvable problem, but that to solve it we have to ignore the opinions of a lot of very vocal people. And we have to find a way to prepare people for change, for a transition to a sustainable economy and clean energy. And we have to find a way of illustrating that and finding a path to the future. Well, I think the most important thing to my mind is for scientists, climate scientists, to realize that the public sphere is a wash with agents who are not acting in good faith, but who are not interested in dialogue, who are pursuing their own interests, whatever they may be, and for whatever reason, and who will not respond to communication in the same way that you and I would engage in the dialogue. I think that's a crucial realization that people have to, scientists have to, unfortunately, come to that realization. And certainly tobacco researchers know that. AIDS researchers know that, that there are some actors out there who are just not talking the same language and never will.  And some of them do very much, but others may not. The second thing I think is that I think climate scientists should reinforce what it is we do know and then say explicitly what it is that we don't know. At the moment, the public discussion of science and I think climate scientists themselves focus entirely on the uncertainties and the things we don't know. And of course, for a scientist, that's a natural thing to do. I do this all the time in my professional work. I don't talk about things I know about human cognition unless I'm being interviewed. When I talk to other scientists, I'm talking about the problems I'm working on and by definition, they're the things we don't know. It's the frontier of knowledge. But in public discourse, that's often mistaken for a lack of knowledge. Just because you're discovering new things doesn't mean you don't know anything. Quite on the contrary, it means you're building on a large body of knowledge trying to add to that by discovering new things. And so, in terms of public communication, I think it's quite important and strongly recommended for scientists to say, well, we actually know this, that, and that, and that is enough for us to act. I think those are the crucial messages that people have to get across. Climate science is 150 years old. We know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. And if that were false, then airplanes would fall out of the sky because the rest of physics would be false. But it isn't. Airplanes fly and CO2 is a greenhouse gas. We know that has thermal properties. We know that's going to warm the planet with further fossil fuel emissions. There's absolutely no doubt about that happening. And the consequences are going to be not too good unless we do something about that.


You can have two homes and that's real. They love him there. They got all the right to but this is his home He want to see the kids here flourish and see the kids here have the same Opportunities that he had as a kid. He's putting forth the effort to make sure every kid that want to succeed can He's an inspiration to me and probably most of the town because it shows that Just to hear from a small town doesn't mean you can't you can't make it He's just all around good person first and a hard worker. He's has a giving heart I've heard kids say I've gotten a bicycle from Derrick Henry when when he visited the boys and girls club and Sometimes he'll come out and give out certain things to kids, you know to reward good behavior I've met him when he gave me the backpack and I took a picture with him It's kind of cool cuz not only are we like with a pro person But we're like with the pro who actually has been like exactly like us in the same situation. He's perfect for what the boys and girls club represents And when when I see him helping out his hometown that kind of shows me well, he didn't forget his rules He didn't forget where he came from. I'm just glad that he's continuing What he learned here in the community Because what the boys and girls club teaches is what he is all about