Welcome everyone to the fourth plenary of the International Conference on Sustainable Development. We are thrilled that you are with us today for this plenary. We will be speaking to Minister Erica Munez of Panama and Dr. Agnes Calabata. Professor Sacks over to you for our first section with Minister Munez. Greetings everybody. I'm really excited. We were going to have a fantastic discussion with the Minister Munez who's a terrific dynamic leader, you're going to see in just a moment. She has had leadership responsibilities throughout her country's government throughout Panama's government, but also tremendous international experience in international commerce global negotiations. And so she has been a part of our very dynamic global negotiating and political and sustainable development environment. And Panama is stepping forward to be one of the world's leaders in not only getting to zero but as I understand it going negative on a mission so I want to understand what what that means in Panama's context, but Minister thank you so much for joining ICSD we're really thrilled. Are you in New York actually or are we speaking to you from Panama. You're in New York. You're in New York for the General Assembly fantastic so welcome. I hope all is well. Panama is staking out a very bold position I think you're, you're pushing that forward. Could you explain what that position is for everybody. Sure. Thank you. Excited to be here. I just actually finished and I think it's very relevant to mention I just finished a meeting with Surinams and Minister of Foreign Affairs as well as delegates from Bhutan, the three countries that are carbon negative right now in our planet. I think it's fascinating as we discussed and we're trying to form an alliance that will present at the COP26 were very different countries, yet we were all were the three of us were able to achieve being carbon negative, which means that in our view that everybody can and I'll start the Panama's view you know we have one of the main waterways in the world. We are economy. You don't think of Panama you think well they only their economy is based off tourism know we also have a robust industry based off a banking and and services, yet we were also able to achieve being carbon negative. And I think this leadership should also motivate other key players to do the same and I think as we are discussing how to forge this alliance I think some of the different strategies that three of us have adapted is very interesting in coming to the same conclusion to the same basic principle and commitment and now also maintain it because one thing is to be able to be carbon negative, but you also have to maintain it so you have to make sure that your energy matrix that everything that you have in place will not go out of balance as you as we all are aiming towards a greener future. So I think that's one example of when we think of COP26 and and what we can achieve the whatever we can do individual is great, but the real challenge is to coming across and a united forces and to actually drive meaningful change. Can you explain what is carbon negative in. How can you be carbon negative, given people are driving cars, driving cars and doing other things that you still are using gasoline for the moment. I imagine your power system that the electricity generation is all green. I imagine you're storing a lot of carbon in nature so could you describe to us what carbon negative means. So we are we receive, or we put out less than what we receive. And the way to think about this or the interesting aspect of this is yes our energy matrix is not completely but it's very green, but it's not the only aspect. We've had for a number of years to driving forces that have been able to maintain a very green country, one being there is a protection by law of indigenous populations and where they live and that is massive it's almost 60 or 70% of the country. And in addition to that, because of the Panama Canal and the water reserve there's also reserve land to make sure that there is enough rainfall to account for the water that a Panama Canal needs. So all those factors and have layered one on top of the other creating this environment where we are all times are able to to maintain this. What is the power to is, is the power hydropower mainly or mostly hydropower yes we we have also fuel base fossil fuel base but it's mostly hydro yes. And to secure your number one rank in the world of the negative or together with the button and sir sir and am is the third. Actually, you mentioned. I did not. Okay, we did not know that I did not know that so this is great to know.  We have very aggressive objectives in all those fronts on the energy matrix on the electrification of cars there's a very, I think excited and aggressive and I think it goes to. A little bit and how do you maintain that and when it comes to citizens so it's not only public policy driven, but your actual citizens are believing and it goes to the identity. There are certain pride now within Panamanians of being carbon negative. So now these identity value percolates into people embracing our people embracing the idea and any new initiative it seems to be very well, well received from our citizens and so I think that goes to the identity and then this sort of pride of what you have and and being able to maintain it. And you send our congratulations also because this is it's really a great accomplishment and something to really something to admire. Can you describe what climate change threatens for the Panama Canal itself, because I imagine that's a major concern. And what are the concerns actually. Yeah, it so in the last decade we had less waterfall rainfall that less rainfall than ever in our history. And that essentially means that we don't have enough water reserves or fresh water to keep the Panama Canal going. We are going to invest over $1 billion in making sure that there is a proper water management system, and that I think goes to, or it makes it relevant to understand on one side one country that is going above and beyond so we don't have the goal of being carbon neutral for 30 years or 30 years, we're already carbon negative on one side. And then the other, you can see with the exact dollar amount, how much we're being affected by the climate change and I think this is something that we go through the Caribbean there are a number of countries greatly affected and that every time there's this cycle where climate change drives this natural disasters and all the resources go to are allocated essentially in dealing with the natural disaster rather than with and then the poverty cycle. Is Panama, or the three of you, Bhutan and Surinam calling for not only follow our lead but also changes in the international system, for example, you're protecting a lot of land area. The indigenous populations are protecting a lot of land area. Do you have a program or are you calling for a global program of payment for ecosystem services or payment to protect the standing forests. It seems that Panama should be receiving some kind of payments to make sure that the forest remain intact or even growing rather than chopped down as is happening in so many of the neighboring countries. I think that this this alliance also showcases the delegates from Bhutan as well as from Surinam kept saying but we're not receiving any resources neither are we I mean so you have here three to showcase like a true commitment on one side, zero in resources to actually ensure that that is maintained and that that the right incentives are there right for the proper policies that are for the benefit of the planet so I think that it's an interesting way to showcase what's happening and what we need to change. You're in the middle of a difficult region, by the way, are you seeing, and it has not gotten any easier with the crisis in Venezuela. We are being getting hit by lots of natural disasters. A lot of the neighboring countries to the just the north of Panama in Central America also reeling from what you described the drought. The lack of rainfall this is hurting a lot of small farmers who are migrating to the United States and that finding the border is closed and it's, there's, it's a kind of desperate situation. You and I have spoken a bit about the fragility of the region right now, and what, how the region somehow should get together, and what could be done, you know, to better understand and to dramatize the challenges that are really through the Caribbean Central America and much of South America right now. And, and it's interesting how you can link it all back to climate change so for instance, the massive migration that now we're receiving mostly from the Caribbean, because they're going themselves, the difficult time. Just links back to the first, first the principle that climate change is affecting us in all sorts of manners. One, and second, how are we dealing with this, and how are we actually making sure that the opportunities are that we're driving enough for the region support for all these economies that are in a very fragile state. You see it here in the United States where they are now, for instance, receiving agents that have migrated to South America and gone by foot all the way up to the north because it's unsustainable where they are at the moment so I think this is a phenomenon that we need to confront understand and actually deal with it because it will only get worse unless collectively they are true solutions that involve making sure that the resources are there to promote development. What's happening you're one of the lead diplomats of the region. Many countries are going through political political change, some political turmoil like Haiti, which is just awful, and it seems no end of escalating crisis. Is there a way right now for for the, for the Latin American Caribbean region to even come together to find a common voice right now because it's so urgent that this happen. The whole region is so interconnected as you say because migrants come across borders, it does nothing stops in one country. Everybody is feeling the ricochet effects. I think that there are two aspects that should give us some pause and now as we are at the United Nations to understand how we should be facing them. The pandemic for Latin America and the Caribbean. If you compare it to other regions was absolutely the worst we had a lot more deaths compared to the population, more cases, etc. So countries such as Haiti for instance just two months ago got their first shot. So we did not fare well on after the pandemic and we need to recognize the first thing is we need to recognize we were not well prepared we did not manage it well. And the second one, for instance, as we were talking about migration. There's not one country that can deal with that alone. So you can have the United States, you cannot have Panama you cannot have Haiti itself to, etc. Unless we come together and we understand that the solution has to be a joint decision in how we face how we confront how we deal with this. The better that we'll be at coming at the there's no other way it has become a matter of survival to understand that this types of crisis, the only solution is a solution that has to address it and have this multilateral fashion. And with respect to the polarization and the ideology, while there is one that we have to recognize, there are very urgent issues that are in all of our countries. We all have poverty regardless of whether you sit on the left or whether you sit on the right, we're all, we all need vaccines, we are all desperate for this economic recovery, we're all dealing with this migration. So at the end, they are the same underlying issues, and we need to put aside for a moment the political inclinations or whether you sit in one side or the other, and understand that they're very urgent matters that need to be addressed. You were, by the way, very much involved in the vaccine issues just trying to get the doses and organize the campaign and you've gotten a lot but could you describe what happened actually that made things so hard. From from your perspective because I think people that are listening would like to understand this better. So much of Latin America was not able to even get doses. And, you know, then they're criticized well why didn't they immunize their population so, could you describe a little bit of the milieu that you faced and that some countries still continue to face. We were lucky enough that we started very early so and and and starting early I will say and we have to recognize that when we're starting the idea of by lateral negotiations is not normal for vaccines we have a very robust vaccine system in Panama, never in our history to go in this bilateral agreement with the pharmaceutical, the natural way to go was through the WHO through the rotary function. So the normal sort of manners of acquiring vaccine. So even the idea when we presented it for our own citizens and within the government was not well received like why are we doing this and I think several countries face the same and they said, we're just going to wait it out and there will be this UN will come through. Yes. There will be availability for everybody and will be able to acquire it and that obviously did not happen so those that put a bet I guess, not knowing because I remember when we started this. There were 200 studies, 20 pharmaceutical companies of, you know, recognize and even coming up it was for countries to bet on a company and without knowing that there will be a product at the end. It's not an easy concept, especially if you have limited resources. So you have powerful economies that could say well I'm just going to bet in three or four and one of them will be fine. Well, if you have limited resources that maybe that's not available to you so there were a lot of challenges dealing with this and I think that we were lucky enough that we bet on the right one at the right time but that's a situation that we need to recognize. Of course I've been working with COVAX from the beginning which is the international WHO led effort and they could not get vaccines they signed contracts just like everybody else. And then, well the US or Europe or others said no you can't export vaccines there's an export ban. We're going to use the vaccines being produced here first. And so, all the countries that did not have your foresight, but went instead through the UN system which we were championing ended up at the back of the line. And until today, that queue is very long, you know, Africa still has only 4% of the population vaccinated and I speak pretty much weekly with the leadership in Geneva and it's very simple. We don't have vaccines. We can't get them. The companies are doing their deals or the big countries are taking, you know what what they want and so forth and so this is a massive crisis. I don't know if you'll be participating in Wednesday's vaccine summit, but it gives me a glimmer of hope. Well, I think it goes, that's a very important point. We can all sit and analyze what went wrong, but we're not doing anything different for next year. And that I think is a concerning part because you can say well, we didn't know everybody was scrambling around. Now we know yet for next year as because this is going to be every year, we're not doing anything different. The poor countries are sort of that with bigger resources are allotting and making sure that they have the same amount extra and then you'll see if you can deliver to some to other, and then the poor countries with less resources are still sort of waiting for that first one without even knowing what's going to happen for for next year so I think the most frustrating part is that we have not learned our lesson and we're not doing anything different for next year. But on Wednesday, there is this summit that President Biden has called a vaccine summit it's being called. And I'm advocating strongly that every vaccine producing country so that means China, Russia, India, European Union UK us is there so that this isn't geopolitics, you know one side or one country, but all of them are and that all the companies are there and the companies need also to participate in a multilateral system not just to make deals. And so, I'm hoping that Wednesday can be a breakthrough and that the UN finally can be actually empowered to have responsibility because right or I should say empowered to implement because it has responsibility but it can't implement. If there are no vaccines doses coming. It's when you take the politics out of it, because it from a politics standpoint, it's nice to say that you deliver vaccines for your population I understand that I recognize it. And we've come to understand also now that even if you provided all the vaccines to your population if there's another country out there without vaccines, the virus will modify itself and will end up with a strain that you were not able to prepare your population so. But this idea as it sounds okay in principle when you try to implement that you will still go back to the same. Well, I need to make sure that my, my folks are okay, and we'll see about the rest so we're going to have to change that mindset to get coverage, especially when people don't even have a first dose and the variants are spreading it's it's extremely, extremely dangerous. What's the mood that you're seeing you're probably at the start of your meetings this week, but on climate, do you see what you're hoping for, or is it skill confusion or overcome by geopolitics. Do you see the situation in New York today because we're all hoping that by the time we get to cop 26 countries are taking your lead, and though they can't be negative right away. They can at least say we're getting to zero at a minimum, and by a certain date. I think I am, I see, I am optimistic that at least I hear the concept over and over and that is, and I think a massive change as Panama we were talking about this for quite some time. It wasn't at the top of mind in terms of foreign policy or for several countries, and now it seems that it is an agenda topic in everybody's agenda and that I think is good it's positive and should be driving some change. I think the, the challenge is when you try to implement it where you try to deal with your own politics involved and and it's not always easy I will say for Panama we we passed a 30% protection of our oceans about two months ago. He wasn't easy. We had the fishermen industry that were not very thrilled about it. So, you know, like, once you try to implement all these changes you will have challenges and having this political backing from the international community, when you go back home I think it's important so I think optimistic that we need to actually drive the change. I heard the three of you going to put out some fact sheet or form a guiding edge for the world because I think it's a wonderful idea for Panama, Bhutan and Surinam to get together. And if you could explain how negative what does it mean and also this tremendous importance which I think is not well understood that any solutions require energy and land. Not only the energy system, but it's actually energy and land and then anything about land is also about human rights, inevitably. And so protecting indigenous populations is a wonderful added part of this that that they are stewards of traditional countries also you're protecting that legally. I think is an extraordinarily important message. So if the three countries could put out a fact sheet here's how you get to negative even now. And here's our energy matrix here's our land. Here's our spiritual and our, our guides of why we're doing this. It would be very inspiring I want to use that around the world in the next six weeks because we're in a very short time between now and 2026. There will be several important meetings. Not only this week's diplomacy but Pope Francis is meeting with religious leaders on climate in early October, then we have the G 20 meeting and I think what Panama, Bhutan and Surinam could help to show this hope, and that you're really doing it would be a Yes, no, thank you I we're also very excited and I think that you can see both the commonalities as you mentioned on the protection of land plus the energy matrix. And then also the differences that because I think that certain people associate or say well my country can do that because we don't live or you know we're not just the beach or we're not whatever it is that they think that makes sense or we're not just rain forest, you can do it regardless of where you said so long as you have the right policies in place and I, I think that seeing the differences and how you come to understanding Panama I think that before now or understand that what is good for the planet is also good for the economy so it's good for you you know so it goes to the education and the identity to understand because you need your citizens to embrace that because otherwise you don't come to the to the conclusion or the or the effects that you're looking for Fantastic I can tell you a minister one of my great choice was at the Panama canal a couple of years ago in one of the towers they let me press the button to give the clearance for the ship to move forward and the in the canal so it's extremely exciting. I'm also working and I will be back in touch with you on that with the the international efforts to make sure that the ships themselves are are going to be hydrogen fuel cell are going to be zero emission vessels there's a lot of exciting development with that I was in Athens recently talking to the Greek ship owners who are some of the largest shippers in the world. They're very determined to move to zero emission shipping that will come right through the canal so this is another area that we're going to be working on together no doubt, but let me close by thanking you for your leadership which is really exemplary and extremely important right now because we need we need leaders like you and we need governments and countries that are doing the things that need to be done for by all countries to give that inspiration and guidance and you're giving us a lot of inspiration so thank you for being at ICSD and it's a very important and memorable will carry forward your message and we'll look for the fact sheets also so that we can really make this known around the world. Awesome thank you for the opportunity wonderful to be here. Great to be with you will be seeing you soon. Bye bye. Great bye bye thanks a lot. Our next segment of this plenary is going to be a discussion between Professor Jeffrey sacks and Dr Agnes calabata. She is the special envoy of the secretary general in charge of leading the food system summit and we are very grateful to have her with us today because that event is on the 23rd and we know that she must be extremely busy with preparations for this very important and very large all encompassing event. So we are really grateful to have her and we are excited to hear about the preparations for that and I will put a link in the chat as well I'd encourage all of our participants to check out some of the food system summit events as well after ICSD is over. Agnes so welcome. So so so good to be with you and thank you. I can tell everybody listening and you you've had the most complicated job in the world in recent months because the food system is everything you know every one of us eats. There are hundreds of millions of people in farm families. Vast numbers of people whose livelihood is farming. And farming of course is both being hit hard by climate change the topic we were just talking about Agnes with the foreign minister of Panama moment ago, but it's also a contributor to all of the environmental stresses as well the greenhouse emissions, the water stress, the deforestation and so on so wherever you look land use sustainable food systems are at the center of the global agenda. And you were asked by the secretary general hey organize a summit on this so maybe you could describe but for everybody what is the UN food system summit it's an unprecedented occasion and what are the purposes and how is the preparation been going. Thank you Jeff and thank you for having me at this meeting and thank you for organizing this I just wanted to call you out because of the conferences you talked about you forgot to mention that this week. We have the food system summit on Thursday, the 23rd of September. Well of course I yes. This goes without saying that this week we're right here now. Yeah, very good. So this has been a culmination of an 18 months process the secretary general in 2019 came forward and asked that we actually launched the 2021 food system summit really recognizing two things that we are behind on SDG and that actually food systems touch nearly every SDG that is out there. And the fact that they are the solutions in our food system that could impact our food systems already exist and we just need to ensure that we raise the stakes enough from a people perspective and we harness the solutions that are already sitting among us.  I would call it a movement or a campaign to ensure that people everywhere understand what is at stake from a food systems perspective that our food systems are not serving. Some of the purposes would like to see coming out of food health diets for people really something that is challenged because we have over 3 billion people that have challenges of health that related diseases. Then the question of contribution to climate change where we know now that we contribute about 30% to climate change. Then the question of course of contributing to biodiversity loss which is huge, but at the end of the day food systems also about feeding people. And we are feeding people yes we figured out very good ways of feeding people except 811 million people still go to bed hungry. So all these are challenges that are very, very interconnected that are found near everywhere in the world that we have to deal with. So the summit put in place of course what we call national dialogues now we have over 148 countries engaging dialogues and the most important part of the dialogues is the pathways they are putting forward. A pathway is a country's strategy basically to deliver on a food systems approach. Really moving away from the siloed thinking about food from a hunger perspective or just a nutrition perspective to thinking about food as a combination of dealing with hunger, dealing with nutrition, dealing with environmental challenges, talking about the water we use and all those challenges and today I'm very happy to say that now. 83 countries have actually submitted national pathways that they will be talking about at the summit this week. We in terms of solutions again to the call the Secretary General made he talked about mobilizing solutions from the landscape. We've mobilized over 2500 solutions. Now clustered in 252 solution clusters and countries are using these solutions to really design their pathways, and you can click on a challenge that your priority that you have to address, and you'll find solution, you not only find a solution, but you find an institution that's behind that is that solution. You'll find experts that are behind those solutions. So that's really what we've been doing and then the scientific group has been working on the science of the summit trying to rationalize where we are coming from and where we are going. And they put out seven priorities that can be put on that science policy interface and help us move forward on how we can deal with the challenge of food systems. They've put out seven solutions that people can look at. And all this information is going to be made available at the time of the summit. So in a nutshell, Jeff, I'm feeling really happy that we've come to this moment where we get to show the world what the summit has been able to achieve, but also where we begin the journey of delivering against the food system because it actually begins on that very day. The journey of trying to deliver against a functional food system begins on the 23rd. So it's amazing because people didn't know even what a food system is exactly. Like you said, a food system is what's on the shelf of the grocery store or a food system is a farm but they didn't understand it as a system. So what happened in these dialogues when people got together, it must have been amazing at the beginning, just all of the different perspectives. So one of the things that has worked very well is governments coming up with what they are calling national conveners and these national conveners are very well placed people, many of them sitting in very high offices in the government. And the reason is very simple. I mean, in my own country as a minister of agriculture, so this you get in cross sectors to talk to each other and drop their individual sector logos and come to discuss how to move a sector forward from from an environmental perspective, health perspective, and even bring in trade ministries and the minister of finance and try to find ways of talking about food and the way it impacts health environment. It's not something that people do every day but having that type of convener has helped shape the conversation and the convener has worked with from a UN perspective with the each countries resident coordinator where they exist. And this really brought the UN system on one side and the national system on the other side and help bring in conversation that can move things forward. They also bring it brought in what we are calling constituencies, young people, women, and, and, and farm producers, farmers, officials and brought them into the conversation so that together they can think about how to move forward, you know, addressing the different challenges that the food system presents to people. So really, I think with the whole idea of having one stops, you might quote a one stop shop in this person, it helped governments really start thinking through how they can move out of their silos and come together in a conversation that can transform the food system. It's, it's, it's very impressive because you know these dialogues were complicated are complicated, but actually, they're essential for getting a common language on these issues, because I do think the natural thing is everyone has their particular perspective and they don't really see much across all these issues. So you paint a picture for you just so you get a sense of how, how complicated this can be but also how profitable and meaningful it can be. I mean, in my own country, I wonder, when I was still working with the government, you have a situation where you're trying to deal with nutrition, not really a malnutrition, but we always look at malnutrition most countries that have that challenge, look at malnutrition from a health perspective, never from a nutrition perspective. And then we never even ministries of environment really don't stop to think that actually Minister of Agriculture must be the who is the number one carpet of how we use this environment in an agricultural country. That's two things we did really moving resources from a Minister of Health that you're using to deal with the challenge of malnutrition and put it in investing in an investment instrument that produces food for 1000 days and mothers that were having challenges. So we did make an investment in a business as a country in a business to produce food for for kids 1000 days, which is extremely important. This is money that otherwise would go to pay for malnutrition, right. Right. We also are doing the same environmental perspective where we are removing people from sensitive areas from a very fragile areas and moving them to places where the environment is more stable to avoid the situation where you will have to pay for the cost of not having done the right thing. So these are all beginning to emerge as the true value of food, you know, a concept that is becoming more and more important as in this food system, but the concept that definitely would serve us very well, because if we do it right. What's going to happen on Thursday. How is how will this. It's so vast. So what what's the what's the hope for Thursday in terms of the main actors coming together and saying Oh, I get it now. So, like you're saying it's vast because food systems are complex. And one, we've, we've made a few mistakes along the way of trying to simplify things and always came back to bite us every time we try to simplify things. So food systems are extremely. Yeah, because every time you simplify someone says hey but what about us or our group we're part of this it's incredible actually yeah. Exactly, exactly, but I will say one thing. Now, you know, moving forward, I would say we have a number of pieces that we've agreed on that can take us forwards that have built significant momentum, the pathways so I'll not repeat them but the pathways are huge opportunity for countries to define priorities investment areas implementation modernities. In fact in Africa the Africa already Africa already has a common position and has already figured out using its existing conduct mechanism has already figured out how they are going to undo I mean to redo or adjust sorry the word is adjust to adjust the conduct mechanism tracking so that they can start reporting from a system perspective that's already happening. And that's huge. That's that the whole continent is ready to adjust its monitoring mechanism to be able to address the challenge of food and the rest of the world is being the same. From a solutions perspective, we have identified so many solutions but when it came to really picking and saying you know these are going to be the areas of focus. We really found ourselves getting into that space where people are saying how about me how about, how about the other then you realize how complex food systems are what so what we've done is we've provided areas of focus major areas of focus and we'll see these as five major major areas of focus. The whole area of nourishing people that deals with malnutrition that deals with ending hunger but deals with health as well so that's critical area, as we speak today. The area of dealing with climate, I mean environmental and climate related issues we need to address the question of climate change, but we'll send it to address the question of biodiversity. The area of living income and equity I could call it the question of equity, ensuring that there's a living income for people working in the value chain, decent work and empowerment of communities. This is something that came really to the fore during COVID-19 with so many people falling out of the ability to feed their families so that's very critical. This is a question of resilience. Communities everywhere, especially many of us that live around the equator and not going to be able to move out of poverty, unless we do two things we need to fix resilience as people that are living around the equator, but also the need to fix the question of climate change. So there's no way there's no way around these two. But then there's the last point of course that we are trying to address here is implementation how do we get all this done and there are three things here. Access to funding and finance mobilizing financial resources to accompany all this work. Governance recognizing that foods delivering on food system is going to require governance that brings sectors together but also brings other stakeholders in and then innovation recognizing that this whole process has to be laid by science to policy to investment. That area has to always continuously evolve and it's a huge opportunity. So those are the areas that we are focusing on and in that umbrella we are allowing people to really define themselves conscious to define themselves and find themselves because it's really critical to to localize the solution that we are going to be talking about. I know you've thought a lot about what's supposed to happen the next day, although all the attention is oh my God we've got a summit unprecedented and every part of the world engage but how will the process continue onward. And I want a couple of points I want to mention one is that, you know, I'm thrilled to help lead for the UN, the Sustainable Development Solutions Network which is a host of the conference but that's 1500 universities that should take up this agenda. So how can we take up the agenda in teaching in new research programs and so on and how to get this innovation piece into the actual work of universities around the world, and then on finance of course one of my favorite subjects. We want to go raise the money afterwards so G20 process, Indonesia will be presidency of the G20 in 2022, and they've got many of these challenges of land use and sustainability so I think there's a receptive, a receptive G20 leader for this so how do we continue after the summit itself. So let's remember the premise and of which the summit was initiated in the first place. The summit was initiated because the Secretary General was not hearing from enough of you, enough of us. So, so yes he has UN institutions, but we are really, really there was a real disconnect from when it comes to hearing from the rest of the world. And that's very what the work we've done shows that the rest of the world has so much to offer. So there has to be a mechanism that allows, or where the UN is open to ensuring that this information, this knowledge is always coming through that's why we put innovation as the critical part of how we go forward. We have to be prepared to continuously receive ideas, young people, taking people, I mean universities, the innovation that is happening is so fast, the innovation is happening so fast. The question is, our ability to abilities to respond from a police perspective from an investment perspective from a utilization perspective. Are they commensurate and these efforts commensurate with the level of innovation that is happening in the in the institutions. And that's the disconnect and that's the disconnect we must not allow to go forward now that we know how we can harness this energy. So every year, I mean every two years, the UN Secretary General, it's planned, you will hear, I'm sure you hear this on Wednesday, on Thursday, it's planned that every two years we will have food systems type of summit. I just don't know how big it will be there. And the idea is to track many of the things we've agreed on, but also then to track all these ideas that we are talking about. Are we mobilizing finances first enough, are we incorporating innovations first enough, are we governing rights to ensure that you're moving in the right direction. So there will be an opportunity every two years for this to be to be followed up on in terms of financing. We have been working with the World Bank, and they put in place what we are, we put in place what you're calling the finance level of change. What the World Bank has been doing, which they will present this week at the summit is a financing architecture that they see that would be critical to how we fund the food system going forward. I will not go into the details of the financing architecture but suffice it to say that this is being thought through. And the reason I want to go into it is again recognizing the complexity of finding a food system, and that's why they come at it from an active perspective, so that again give people an opportunity to find themselves, but also provide direction for different areas. Some of it will come through what is now being called mass stakeholder coalitions that are looking at some of the major areas, some of the major issues. So for example, a major issue is around school feeding, ensuring that the 300 million children that have fallen out of ability to have food at school because of COVID can get fed and many more. The question of an end to hunger, the question of dealing with climate change.  So funding is going to be through traditional funding mechanisms through new instruments that are being created, but also through these partnerships that are being formed. It's really exciting and I think very educational and also very much part of what schools and universities should do. And I always felt by the way in seeing rural schools at primary and secondary level, teaching these things to kids because they're living in the midst of a farm community, but they could learn not only some agronomy of course but also some climate change some global politics, you know, to be each of them can become a food system expert from their own point of view so I think this is also something that we could work on. It's interesting that you said that last two weeks ago in the we have the African Agia reform that happens in Africa every and brings heads of state and other people the government of Kenya, lunch what they are calling the 4k clubs. And the 4k clubs really it's the idea is to get kids very young at a very early stage and start teaching them food systems, start teaching them climate and climate related issues and responsibility to the environment. More importantly, the government was reaching us to other countries to be part of that so they look at it as a critical effort in the country, but they look at it they're also looking at themselves as really taking responsibility for how this effort goes across the continent. So yes, from an education perspective actually maybe the problem we have is that we never thought that we should be we should anchor everything we are doing to be today into education we come at it a bit too late right. Exactly. No, and you know, the curriculum was often made in London or Washington or someplace 50 years ago, and you look around in a, you know, in a rural school. Oh my God, it's the most interesting thing imaginable. The ecosystem is in front of your eyes it's not some theory of a kid in an urban setting, you know that doesn't know it and so I think that there really are great, really great opportunities, pedagogical opportunities, and how exciting the agenda is. I think it's interesting what the things we are taught. I remember in primary school, they used to teach us how to calculate the height of tides, and the question I had is what is the tide. They were asking us how to come through on cow peas or beans or things that we do every day I have to calculate the height of a child and I'm like, when I came to find out what this means I was just surprised at how misplaced sometimes with patients and you know, whether I'm fixing that part that's a bit of our agenda at SDSN is also, we have the target SDG 4.7 which says that all children should learn sustainable development and food systems can be an absolutely core part of that. We have lots of partners around that but I think great creative opportunities to bring a real curriculum that makes sense. If you're in Rwanda, probably measuring the tide is not the best way but measuring the corn stock maybe the best way. Very good. We're wishing you all success on Thursday, I can say to the world I've watched you at work this past year, and it's so impressive, what what you've done, and people a year ago said impossible. I can't do this too complicated take one little thing. Or it's going to all blow up because you know you can't find a language around it and you found a language of priorities of pathways of stakeholders of a way forward and it's it's really a fantastic accomplishment just a great tribute to your leadership. Thank you I think the common thread between all of us is we care about our planet.  We care about the future of our children. And I think that's that's what brought us all together COVID reminded us what is at stake, and that worked very well. I think what we need to do now is just harness that energy that we have demonstrated, take it forward, and really build a better future for our children. And thank you Jeff for participating in the pre summit and raising the stakes, that was really good. Thanks, thanks to you we're honored that you've joined us in a busy week on behalf of everybody we want to thank you and wish you all success on Thursday because that's our success to for the world and I'm asked to announce also that we will have for parallel session starting in five minutes and in the chat you can the links to that and then in about two hours and 40 minutes we'll be joined by her Excellency shake has seen a prime minister of Bangladesh so that will be our next plenary and Agnes thank you so much. It's been great to be with you for this time and we'll see you on Thursday. Thank you. Bye bye.


Hi guys, so welcome back to the Independent Investor Channel. Since Highlyon doesn't want to put out any news, I will do it on their behalf. I got a little bit tired of putting out content on a weekly basis, only to see the company, which is a $1.3 billion company, fail in most capacities to keep shareholders up to speed on the progress. It's being made at Highlyon Holdings, the company, which is absolutely driving the stock into absolute oblivion. There's been a lot of people that come to the channel and they feel like it's good that we continue to discuss the progress. I do a pretty good job of capturing the way people are feeling right now. I think we're at the tail end of coming out of kind of a dark period a little bit. I'll just sum up the way that everybody's feeling right now in Highlyon for sure. What do we know? What we know about this company is that if it came public right now, with the news that's transpired over the last 18 months, the stock would probably be at least minimum $25. The stock has really entered into the marketplace at a very unopportuned time. It's gone through a global pandemic and it has also gone through a chip shortage and I think a material shortage as well that has transcended into multiple industries and I think they're suffering for that. I think Highlyon is trying to get its footing here. I do. I think there's a lot of people that are really coming forward with some really interesting theories on the stock and where it's potentially going to go and I think people are losing their mind right now. Again, people feel like drinking some Jack Daniels but they feel the same as me. They're frustrated at the lack of transparency and I interview CEOs all the time on the channel and what I hear is a common theme across any publicly traded company is the inherent and baked in responsibility of a company to drive shareholder value and the company is brand new. Whether or not they're able to drive shareholder value into the future is yet to be seen. Some of the things I hear in some of the social media threads are of interest to me with regard to some of the presumptions about Highlyon and perhaps maybe holding them to a standard that they're not ready to be held to yet. Some of which are interesting enough and I can absolutely understand that right now with the share price as recessed as it is and as oversold as it is, it's easy to pick fun at and just go buy Tesla if that's what you want to do because Tesla has all kinds of runway and seemingly goes up every single day on a more appropriate scale and a little bit closer to home to the SPAC and the EV space that's closer to home.  These are some of the things that are being thrown out and I'm not sure if people who throw these out really realize how ridiculous they sound when they throw it out but some of the other ones that I've heard is does the product actually work? Highlyon is working on about three million miles of road validation. This company's been around for going on about seven years, came to public markets here just within the last 18 months and has caught all the scrutiny that a new company should catch coming out of what has been a SPAC debacle. Let's be real, 2020 you could have invested in anything and made money and this year everything that has anything to do with the SPAC market is getting absolutely annihilated, doesn't even matter. I notice a distinct correlation in how the stock trades from day to day to the likes of Highlyon and Nikola. Now Highlyon has real trouble going on with potentially cooking the numbers a little bit, perhaps maybe over emphasizing sales numbers and they're being investigated so the articles read. I don't know if I put a whole lot of stock in there. Highlyon sounds a good company actually and I think there's a lot of piling on right now in the media. I think Highlyon knows exactly what they have and how has it worked out for Highlyon releasing good information up to this point. Now the stock market has dismissed everything thus far on the company. I want to discuss a little bit about some of the misunderstandings about Highlyon and the expectations that have somehow come to the surface about Highlyon needing to somehow generate profits right now when on the last earnings call they basically said that 2021 was going to be immaterial revenue. Now they may surprise to the upside and I believe that they will. Q3, I believe they're selling hybrids right now. I don't know why the reason for silence on the lines. If you have any ideas about why that could be, you could basically come to me and say that the company's crap and they'll never sell another product and that they've done all this work for naught. You could be right, that's a hell of a theory. You can leave your comments absolutely if that's the way you feel and I typically do have those people who come into the channel and for whatever reason when they see a Highlyon video they want to put their opinion down whether it be negative or positive on where they think the stock is going to go or where the company is headed or holes in what this company is trying to achieve. I think perhaps maybe we can all come to a consensus and say that perhaps maybe if Highlyon does succeed it will be better for the environment. In other words maybe the earth needs a solution like Highlyon. I digress. A lot of what I think gets missed too is that a lot of the bears will point to all this emerging competition that seemingly has been sleeping over the last 150 years of the trucking and transportation industry relying on one means of transportation and that being the internal combustion engine running on diesel fuel here which is extremely pollutant. There's been things through the DEF initiative to try to help clean that up. Compress natural gas has been put into some services inadequate in a lot of capacities for those trucking industries that need additional horsepower. So when a company like Highlyon comes along and really has a solution for all kinds of different applications specifically the diesel hybrid to save on the fuel side of the house for the fleet owners that put this into service as well as to add the additional horsepower on the CNG side it's amazing to me how many competition how much competition comes out of the woodworks when a company like Highlyon comes to the forefront and all of a sudden all of these OEMs are scrambling to make this product. Now I don't put a whole lot of stock in all that but right now the company's being piled on and you be the judge on where you put merit in what you hear about the potential of Highlyon being run out of the building. Now all of a sudden that for the last 18 months they've woken all of these different companies up and all of a sudden they're scrambling to provide a solution to the marketplace that is on par or better than what Highlyon has as a solution. Yeah find that ironic. Let's keep that in the back of your mind. Is Highlyon being too quiet right now? I believe that they are. I do. I don't have a reason for you and I wish I did. I think I have some level of insight in that I've actually taken the liberty of emailing investor relations and calling and I am a long shareholder in the company and continue to be. I'm just as bullish now as I've ever been based on the due diligence that I've done and the actual reason for why I've invested in the stock in the first place and it all comes back to the original information that I was able to garner in the Highlyon story right from the beginning all the way up until now October 2021 putting this content out through YouTube. Extreme amount of progress has been made on multiple fronts. The board has been solidified. Now through the board being solidified it's amazing how we can take that information and turn it as a negative to say that all of a sudden because these board members have been appointed to Highlyon holdings that all of a sudden we should start hearing about results that are garnered by nature of the board being appointed and or those connections being levered and producing results on the bottom line. Who's to say that they aren't? Honestly I think it's interesting enough to where we go back and forth on different sides of the argument when we're talking about Highlyon and I think sometimes imaginative thoughts come up about where the company should be that there should be a cape on Elaine Chao's back and somehow she springboards this company into all-knowing greatness overnight and I think sometimes the reality of the situation now is such that Highlyon is going through product validation at this very very stage. Now the hybrid version EX1 is available now. Do I think that it as of August 30th is just going to be an overnight success? I don't know. I don't know that there's not sales being garnered right now. We're about 35 days away from Q3 earnings coming up in November. It will be interesting to hear from Thomas Healy on the updates the company. Now do you think he's not just going to deliver the Q3 report because they have extended the silent period at Highlyon which has been interesting to me. I mean they've done a really really good job of using open public time to share information to actually go into a silent period. I don't have a justification for it. Again I'm open to your speculation in the comment section of this video but it's been frustrating enough to see that the floodgates have opened right up to the continued scrutiny of this company which really is void of any bad news. I think it does take a touch of imagination to speculate that no news is somehow bad. Now interesting enough, Nicola has been extremely silent on the line here and the stock action in Nicola seems as if it cannot go down. It can't. Now at its peak it's come off immensely down here at about $10 a share but I typically like to look and monitor Highlyon and when Highlyon gets back up above $9-10 I won't be coming out with these videos quite as frequent. Once we get the stock up to around the $12 mark which is I think at least a discussion about where it could be respectively right now at $7 in some odd sense just shy of $8 we're nowhere close to that. Trading at two times cash is embarrassing, it really is. I think the value that has been disintegrated over the course of the last 18 months has been just about as close to as embarrassing as you can possibly be for the company and I've told them this and there's no excuse for it. Have they done everything they can do to drive shareholder value? At the time of shooting this video I think anybody could look at the stock compared to the company and say no but is that really fair? I want you to stop and think about that for a second. If the stock was trading for $25 right now would you say hey this is all great the stock is reflecting what the company's doing? You guys need to understand that all too often companies are severely disconnected from their stock price and I think this is a very very specific indication of that very thing. I do believe that there are elements going on behind the scene of manipulation. I do believe that there is some level of angst within the shipping community to just jump on board the first technology that comes along without proper validation. Validation is going to be the key here in getting these shippers to buy into the specific philosophy or solution that's being put forward. It is going to take that validation. There's no matter of selling that can be done on Hylian's part to be picking up the phone and selling the said product before ample validation has occurred it's just that simple. I hate to be the bearer of bad news but since Hylian doesn't want to come out and be transparent maybe they just don't want to deliver bad news I don't know maybe they're withholding good news I don't know it's speculation on my part at this point and I typically enjoy sitting on the sideline and listening to equal and sometimes even more absurd speculation on where this company is and what it is or is not doing. I have no doubt that the Hylian team behind the scenes is doing everything in their power to write this ship and to drive shareholder value in a way that is going to pay off enormously into the future. I think it's going to take time and I know that's something that stock owners and the company that have been owning the company this whole time do not want to hear but I think in relative terms there's a lot of people out there with maybe a few thousand bucks maybe tens of thousands of dollars maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars I really don't know but what really amazes me is the lack of perspective and the one-sided thought in the expectation of a company like this in other words had you entered into the stock and it had done exactly what you had wanted it to do and that's go to the moon not sure what that means in the time that you dictate and in a manner that you dictate and provide you with a perfect big red bow around the neon green ticker symbol when it's time to exit said position that you could tell all your buddies that you made a few thousand bucks or a few ten thousand dollars or maybe even a few hundred thousand dollars that you are an incredible investor because you did the due diligence necessary to enter into a company at its very early stages and see that investment through right I think there's a lot of people out there that are very much ill-prepared to enter into investing in the first place I do I think for a lot of people out there I think the expectations of the stock market are as such I invest and I expect to make money and I expect to make money in the capacity that I deem the way that I want to make money okay and whenever it doesn't happen in the way that they think that it should happen or the company should act in a way that they expect the company to act or things don't turn out the way that they expected it to turn out remember the company's 18 months old that's it okay seven years the company's been uh incepted been a publicly traded company here just as of late and in the stock market community a company that's been publicly traded for less than two years is absolutely premature okay this company is attempting to revolutionize an industry okay and your expectations of that company is to revolutionize that company when you see fit sometimes I wonder about people's motivation and when they do get involved in the stock whether it be for a couple thousand dollars on the hook or a few ten thousand dollars on the hook I think it's relative I don't really think it even matters to be honest with you I think there's a lot of people out there that just from the beginning had no level of expectation about what they were getting in for and when it started to get awry on it they forgot everything that they originally studied if anything at all because anybody who's done due diligence on this company understands what they hold they do it's an amazing opportunity to get in on a company that has technology that absolutely works I've heard people out there say that the technology does not work I beg to differ and I would challenge anybody out there that has the ability to find said competition that can boast a thousand plus miles on the erx and 75 miles on pure bev power to accommodate for specifically the california market which I've said this many many times I have no doubt that highly on is going to cater to the california market and the five others as well that actually are leading the charge here to actually do what highly on is aimed at doing and that is doing putting forth a solution that is better for the planet that drives the total cost of ownership over time for fleets which that is going to be the bottom line for these companies that sit down with highly on and are able to extrapolate the total cost of ownership once the dominoes start to fall and these companies can absolutely report back to highly on and say you told us that you could deliver x and we've been able to validate that you delivered on your promise how do you think that's going to be received in the industry you don't think that you're going to have people lining up to press their oems to make this product available to them as well you don't think that there's going to be people that are looking to jump ahead of the innovation council to get their start you don't think that the risk reward of a lot of these companies out there not to be last in line to put five to ten hyper truck erx orders in the hopper with the oem to start integrating the fleet with these solutions where it makes sense you don't think that that's going to happen i think there's a real disconnect from the people who have done due diligence and understand based on the information at hand and i will concede that if the information at hand is falsified i'll be wrong yep and that's really the disconnect that is really the impasse that we are at between the bowls and the bears at this point the bowls are putting stock or putting investment whether it be hundreds of dollars thousands tens of thousands hundreds of thousands behind the very proposals that are being put forward and the solutions that are aimed at the hyper truck erx long range class eight trucking that requires the horsepower at the maximum remember what direct power does electrified power is incredible it provides an extreme amount to torque an extreme amount of power so those heaviest of loads can be actually transported by these transportation companies that demand that in specific service okay furthermore the cng application and the solution that exists to provide the extra horsepower to provide those hybrid units that allow for that little extra oomph the very thing that we got excited about 18 months ago when we looked at the ability of this truck to actually add more horsepower up the hill and actually charge the batteries on the way down this is really cutting edge stuff the ability to make a smarter truck and as the truck rolls down the road to actually capture that data in the cloud and actually look to use that data to become more efficient right now for the last 150 years a truck just rolled down the road with the expectation that they were getting cargo from point a to point b goods were being transported from point a to point b driver tendencies were not being considered efficiencies were not being considered because there was no real way to capture those efficiencies now we have a way to capture those efficiencies we have a way to actually add to the physical efficiency of the truck but actually capture that in a way that we can sharpen the efficiency and make it even better over time the highly on provides those solutions for each of those so it covers all the bases the ability to come into existing fleets and retrofit a hybrid unit to existing trucks to allow companies to dabble in the technology the hybrid uh highly on brings to bear is absolutely phenomenal the bears will say that they won't sell any I beg to differ I think industry wants to do right I do and I think until they're provided some sort of TCO benefit and or in some capacities they'll need to be provided both an incentive to take on new technology and put it into a testing and validation phase for themselves i.e a government grant in that these companies will look at it and say you know what if I'm provided this incentive what do I have to lose if the TCO provides me the cost and fuel savings over x number of years basically I get the unit for free and these are some of the things that those out there who have done due diligence on this company understand what they hold in their portfolio whether it be hundreds of dollars thousands of dollars tens of thousands of dollars or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on this opportunity for retail investors I guarantee there's going to be people out there and investors who look back on this very opportunity and they wish they would have it will be one of the many stocks that we all look at we say where was I how did I not know about this where was the person that was providing awareness opportunities on this company how did I not come across this opportunity and at least put a few hundred or a few thousand or maybe even a larger position into this company and feel like I'm part of a solution that is better for the planet yeah it's going to be better for the freight liners the shippers out there that have been dubbed the number one polluter on this earth bar none hands down I think that's a black eye that they're tired of being dubbed with because it's the truth and I think large companies out there need to be provided that incentive I need think they need to be provided a swift kick in the ass to be honest with you because highly on is right there for the taking and for whatever reason the stock has been layered on it has been piled on for the last few months and especially over the last couple it's been extremely tough I consider this to be the dark period I do but I actually have a feeling that we're probably approaching a catalyst within the near to medium term that's really going to shake this stock out of its slumber is it going to be 750 next year I don't know is it going to be 752 years down the line I don't know is it going to be seven dollars and fifty cents five years down the line you guys ask yourself does it have a better chance of doubling from 750 here to 15 to 25 by the year's end or do you think highly on is going out of business do you think they've done all this work put together the connections that they've put together the connections to the US government the tailoring to the Bev credits the the fuel cell credits that are are coming to the forefront now by some of these states that are leading the initiative do you honestly think that the patents that have been filed are just going to dissolve away do you honestly think that Thomas Healy is a crook really I'd encourage you to watch most of his interviews the guy seems straightforward to me he seems like a very very young CEO that is an absolute success story and all he's trying to do is take his solution to the marketplace to yes disrupt disrupt an industry that has been polluting this earth earth for over 100 years the solution is right there and that swift kick in the ass is all we need and in the investing community we consider it to be a catalyst I do presume that we're right around the corner from said catalyst I don't know if the stock goes much lower than it is right now I've been saying that for a long long time I've been a long shareholder in this company I've never been so bullish about the company than I was 18 months ago when I started investing in this company because of everything that has happened from the company the stock in and of itself will absolutely it will absolutely wake up when that catalyst is reached and I think we're approaching that catalyst mark my word guys stay patient stay keyed really what it is going to take through that product validation and the time necessary to make sure that the product is something that can be verified on the bottom line that is where the value of this company is going to be realized and that is going to be the very pressure that goes against the OEMs before we scale up to mass production at least here domestically in the US guys if you appreciate the message and to make sure and subscribe to the channel share the message with anybody out there that you know is invested in looking to take a position in or just looking for some level of information on Hylian I typically do a pretty good job of actually putting out content that speaks to the masses and actually summarizes how everybody's feeling hope you enjoyed the content that we have coming through the channel leave your comments at the bottom of the video I do review these I get a ton on these Hylian videos a lot of fun guys take it easy thanks for tuning in to the message and good luck in your investing future


Well, I don't care what you make for dinner, a pot roast is fine, dear. Great. I'll make deer for dinner. No, no, I don't mean cook deer. I meant yes, dear. Pot roast is fine. I understand. The answer is yes to having deer. You're not understanding me. I do not want any deer for supper. Not no venison, all right. It upsets the reindeer. Just make pot roast. Beef pot roast by schnozms. You want schnozms for dinner, too? No, no, not schnozms, I said schnozms. Oh, never mind. You don't come to think of it. Peppermint schnozms and the egg dog might actually be pretty tasty. But I'll have to wait until after I get back, of course. I can't drink and ride, you know. How about dessert, big man? What do you mean what do I want for dessert? It's always cookies and milk! Gotta go! The kids are here! Hello children! Just on the phone here with Mrs. Claus making dinner plans for Christmas Eve before I head out for the big night. But today, I'm excited to bring you more spooky Santa stories. So be sure to ask your parents permission before you begin to listen. And I'll know if you ask them, because I can see you when you're sleeping. And I know when you're awake. Coming up in today's episode. A spooky story by Laura Pauling. It's called Night of the Snowmen. One of the young ladies on my good list, Lydia, she's 14 years old and she lives in Cromford, England. And she emailed a story to me called Remembering Death. Oh, by the way, if you would like to write a scary story for me, you can email it to letters at spookysanta.com. And I can read your story in an upcoming episode. But first, do you know the name Hans Trap? Hans Trap is a legendary boogeyman from the Alsace and Lorraine regions of France. He accompanies me to punish naughty children at Christmas. Now, while I deliver presents and gifts to the good little girls and boys on my list, Hans Trap delivers beatings to those who are naughty. I'll tell you about him as we begin.  And Christmas approaches. Naughty children in Alsace and Lorraine tremble when their parents utter the words, Hans Trap is coming. Everyone knows the tale of Santa's evil counterpart. It all began in the 15th century. There was a rich and powerful man who lived in the heart of Alsace. His name was Hans Trap. The people of Alsace knew him to be vain, cunning, heartless and cruel. His life was given over to lawlessness and debauchery. He would most definitely have been on my naughty list. His only goal was to enrich himself by all means necessary. It was said that he worshipped Satan and used black magic and occult rituals to obtain his wealth and hold on to his power. Now that I really don't know, but that's what they say. Well, when the Catholic Church became aware of these misdeeds, Hans Trap was arrested and he was brought before the Pope in Rome. He was excommunicated from the Church for the crime of sacrilege.  When he returned to Alsace, he was ostracized by the local people. Everyone fled from him as if he was a wild beast. His money and his land were confiscated and he was left penniless. He was forced into exile in the forest and he isolated himself from the rest of society. He found shelter on the mountains of Geisberg in Bavaria, Germany and himself a makeshift shack made from sticks. The solitude caused him to lose his mind and he spent his days brooding and dreaming of revenge. His anger and resentment were intensified and he became more deeply devoted to Satanism. Descending into madness, Hans Trap began to dream of eating human flesh. The evil man was obsessed with the desire to bite into the flesh of a human arm, leg or thigh. He roamed the countryside and he disguised himself as a scarecrow by stuffing his ragged clothes with straw. He spent his time gathering sticks and hay in the field and lying in wait looking for the perfect human victim to consume. One day he spotted a young shepherd boy making his way through the woods.  As he stared at the young boy he began to drool at the mouth imagining biting into the delicious and tender flesh. Well, before the boy knew what was happening Hans Trap had pounced on him, attacking him viciously and running him through with a sharpened stick. Then he dragged the dying child back to his shack where he cut the boy into small pieces and roasted them over an open fire. When his monstrous meal was ready Hans Trap licked his lips and prepared to taste human flesh for the first time. However, before a morsel could enter his mouth a bolt of lightning came from the sky and struck Hans dead. You see, God would not allow the abomination to continue and God decided to end the crimes of Hans Trap once and for all. Ever since then Hans Trap has been cursed to roam the earth with me every Christmas. He goes from house to house, clad in his scarecrow disguise scaring the life out of small children and drooling greedily over their tender flesh. If you've never seen him be thankful that means you are likely on my good list but be careful if you end up on my naughty list you might end up being eaten by Hans Trap. He is a scary individual. He even scares me sometimes. I have to keep a bag over his head so the reindeer don't get startled when he hops onto the sleigh with me. It's true. Up next I'll share a great story from one of the girls on my good list. Lydia is 14 years old. She lives in Cromford, England and she wrote a very creepy story called Remembering Death and I'll tell you that story in just a moment. Thanks for listening to Spooky Santa. In a moment I'll share an amazing story with you that was emailed to me from one of the children on my good list. I love hearing stories from all of my good little girls and boys out there. If you would like to write a scary story for me to read you can send it to LettersAtSpookySanta.com I would love to read your story. That's LettersAtSpookySanta.com Just email the story to me or ask your parents to help you. Now, here is today's emailed story. It comes from Lydia. She's in Cromford, England. She's 14 years old and she wrote this disturbing tale called Remembering Death. Here's the story. I reached peace a few months after my passing. I was one of the unfortunate ghosts who were unable to recall life before death. This is usually because death has been so violent. Also, if you were a scatterbrain in life you would probably be a scatterbrain in death. Unfortunately for me the only thing I remembered about my life was my death. I remember being in a house. The oak furniture was old, grand and somewhat sinister. I could hear my panting breaths in the darkness. Shadows danced on the walls and the moon illuminated my slim silhouette. I ducked underneath an elegant chase lounge and I prayed silently to God. Even to me my ragged breathing sounded too loud in the unnaturally quiet room.  After a while my breathing began to slow down.  I lay there for a few seconds before reality crashed in and I realized the wall was soft and it was attempting to wrap arms around me.   I remember struggling for the feeling of desolation and isolation as I realized that no matter how hard I struggled my last moments on earth were not going to be spent cradled by loved ones but in the arms of a merciless, sadistic monster. Whatever you do, do not believe the stories that tell you that ghosts are troubled souls seeking justice for their death. My murderer was discovered to be the net store neighbor's son. I personally watched him as he was imprisoned for life in front of a weeping jury. No, I am still here because I have forgotten what it is to love. When you die, your feelings die with you. I came back as a cold and cruel shell of my former self. Since being dead I have committed some terrible acts but I am searching for the answer to my question. While in his arms I was thinking of loved ones. Who are they? During the day I would wander around parks looking for victims. I realized that children were the only people who could see me. I used this as a ploy to get close to them.  The only way I knew I had a shred of humanity left in my body but no matter how many I killed I could never look them in the eyes. I knew this was cowardly. I was taking away their life. The least I could do was give them the courtesy of eye contact. My killer had looked me in the eyes and smiled as the life slipped from my eyes. I never knew why but I couldn't. At the local park I watched an attractive man walking along with two children. Don't look into people's eyes. I had learned to read moods from body language. This man was heartbroken. His shoulders sagged. His skin was pale. His breathing shallow as if all the time he was fighting the urge to cry. From the way he gripped his girl's hands I could tell the only reason he was keeping it together was because of them. I could see the sweat glistening between his fingers and his hands on his trousers. The girls could not be more dissimilar. One was pale and dark-haired the other blonde-haired and blue-eyed. These two would do nicely for me. I already imagined ripping into their flesh with my bare hands as I heard them scream just as I had done beneath me. I stalked behind the trio as they trudged aimlessly along the path. Usually I tried to draw the children away from their parents but not today. This man was so close to the breaking point I wanted to see his face as his children were ripped apart. Finally they turned a corner and reached a deserted patch of grassland. I was ready. I approached the two girls and was more than shocked when they ran up and embraced me. When I had arrived I had many reactions terror and bemusement but never joy. They ran screaming and shouting moosey moosey. The minute the man heard this his head snapped to attention. The minute he lifted his head I could not help but look into his eyes. There was a raw loss that burned in his beautiful dark pupils. His pain so obvious and deep chased away all thoughts of killing from my mind. I just wanted to stare into his eyes forever. But instead of looking at me he looked through me. Girls he barked. We've spoken about this. The girls slowly started to follow him from the park. But they could not stop themselves from turning to stare back at me. I smiled at them and waved as tears flowed unchecked down my pale otherworldly cheeks. I had finally remembered my husband and my girls as I felt this wash of love pass over me. I felt myself leaving, leaving those I loved. But it wasn't a bad thing because I remembered I could love again. What an amazing story. It started off so creepy and dark but in the end there's actually a happy ending. Very good writing there Lydia. Thank you so much for sending your story. Again, if you would like to send me a scary story you can email it to me anytime at LettersAtSpookySanta.com Up next it's my final story. It's from Laura Pauling and it's called Night of the Snowman. Up next.  This is a good one. It's called Night to the Snowman. It's written by Laura Pauling. Christmas Eve. The night air was crisp and clean. Almost magical. Snowflakes drifted through the midnight blue sky swirling and tumbling. Jagged flecks of silver pierced the velvet canvas. Playful yet majestic. A boy watched from a window. Tree lights reflected in shimmering colors. He wouldn't move but with his forehead pressed against the frosty glass he stared into the darkness. Every flickering shadow made him jump. Every creek or flash of white sent fear humming through his body. His younger sister stood on the bottom step leading upstairs. I can help big brother. I have an idea. He shoot her back upstairs wanting to protect her from the horror that was to come. Wanting to protect her childish fantasies of a winter wonderland and the magic of this night. Earlier that afternoon the snowman had followed the children home. Softly shaped shadows lurking but not attacking. Bodies deformed by days of play making them sideshow freaks from some snow-ridden circus. The boy didn't know what would happen next. He just knew they needed to be prepared. One by one windows slid open throughout the small neighborhood. Dark shapes climbed out landing in the snow with a crunch. The children hesitated some reaching out to catch flakes on their tongues but sharp looks and gentle tugs on their sleeves from friends reminded them of their duty and they clamped their mouths shut. They walked carefully fighting off the chill that crept down their necks past scarves and hoods. When twig like arms creaked alive and black button eyes blinked they broke into a run slipping and stumbling in the fresh snow. The inky night suffocated pressing in on them. Strange sounds clicked and whistled they raced the wind chasing them. When the boy at the window saw his friends appear none of them wanting to straggle behind he ran to the door not a word was spoken. They communicated with quick nods forced smiles and dim faces. Beyond them in the other room towered the tree. It was draped with love and memories blinking lights strings of popcorn even the ornaments the boy and his sister had made in preschool. Curiously the snowman ornament had disappeared. The red ribbon that held it on to the branch had been snipped and lay on the wood floor limp and lifeless. The children kept their gazes the tree. They gathered in the kitchen weapons in hand one girl gripped her dance trophy her most prized possession a boy held his skateboard the wheels hard and possibly deadly still another struggled to hold on to a bucket he trembled and the water sloshed over the sides on to the floor each child had a weapon of choice from dolls to water pistols to video game controllers the cords wrapped around their wrists outside the wind howling it ranted and raged and stormed it roared through the tree tops and whooshed down the streets windowpains rattled mothers and fathers snuggled further under their blankets shivering the snowman swished across the yards and down streets ratty scarves whipped about their necks buttons fell off round bellies and carrot noses hung limp and shriveled they called out a high whistling noise piercing the air others joined the sound growing louder and louder like the scream of a kettle to make cocoa they wanted something the group of children shivered inside their faces pale their breath shooting out it's time the boy said yet no one moved seemingly frozen to the floor the first ice ball hit the window cracking the glass and making a fine spider web spreading growing the next hit and the glass shattered frigid air leaped into the room a layer of frost spread across the furniture the floor and the walls no but the boy's voice rasped out his breath a cloudy mist freezing in midair another window shattered shot into the room swirling between them with its stinging bite a girl standing in the back yelled it fueled the fire of the children and they advanced they stumbled and tripped their movements already sluggish and slow outside the leading snowman skated up the yard one arm had been ripped from his body earlier that afternoon a child had plucked out his eyes but even without sight he knew where to go a shiver ran down the boy's spine the snowman's followers continued screeching whistling their demands and complaints from twisted narrow mouths made from licorice a thin red line slashed across the ghostly faces the children burst through the door into the frigid night their weapons gleamed and glinted and glittered hearts full of fright they slashed and sliced under the dark skies the snowman, these horrors that once brought such delight high above piercing the misty clouds a red light twinkled Santa's sleigh sword silhouetted against the sky the true spirit of Christmas was all but forgotten inside the boy's sister watched from her bedroom window a tear trickled down her cheek the boy stopped a fight marching on around him each child fighting a snowman his breath came slower now and the tips of his fingers and toes tingled the cold traveled up his legs and arms and icy streams slow and steady a high piercing whistle sounded behind him his heart shuddered the leader of the snowman towered over him, his face without eyes the boy remembered making this one rolling the snowballs until they formed the bottom, middle and head right, he had taken the new orange scarf that his aunt had knitted for him a birthday present and wrapped it around the snowman's neck if only he'd known what would have happened was it something about the snow? the scarf? was it magical perhaps? perhaps it was the batch of carrots they'd used for the noses the boy jabbed at this icy horror with his mother's frying pan the snowman slid easily away they danced and poked and ducked, each one at times on the brink of winning with one step the boy's foot slipped out from under him he slammed onto the ice his neighbor, the one with the bucket of water had tipped it over as soon as the water hit the ground it had started to freeze and began spreading and crackling until the yard was all ice his plan had backfired for hours the battle continued heads rolled noses crunched and broken half bodies were torn apart twigs lay scattered on icy snow a graveyard of sorts Santa came and went as the children slipped and slithered their footsteps uncertain the icy streams reached their hearts warped their minds slowly, bit by bit their limbs turned glassy and cold up in the window the girl turned away from the ghastly sight heard her nana and the twinkle in her eye when she spoke about hot cocoa and magic could it work? determined she slipped down to the kitchen as quick as possible she placed a mug of water in the microwave until it boiled the water bubbled and splattered then she dumped in the cocoa mix even though most of it landed on the counter in a layer of chocolate powder she stirred with a spoon and even added mini marshmallows her hands trembled sending ripples across the cocoa she went to the front door she opened it and the air blasted through freezing her nostrils hardening her tears to her eyelashes she placed the mug of cocoa on the first step and with her foot nudged the mug further out then she slammed the door the rest of the night she curled under her covers gripping her stuffed bunny outside steam wafted from the hot cocoa lifting into the air riding the air currents happiness and joy and peace and everything that comes with hot cocoa on a cold winter's night embraced the snowmen they remembered love they remembered the tiny hands that had formed them they remembered smiles and giggles and bright eyes slowly the howling wind died away the storm slowed hazy streams of golden light stretched across the neighborhood it twinkled on icy shards and glimmered against windows Christmas morning dawned the parents of the boy woke from their slumber and trudged downstairs puddles of water led to the front door questioning and confused they tugged the door open and gasped what they saw in the front yard pierced their hearts grief and sorrow settled on them icy statues of children littered the lawn their bodies were somehow frozen right in the middle of action a throw, a kick, a tackle frozen in mid-air on their faces the outline of a grimace the horror of their freezing bodies was captured forever the mystery was never solved they set the girl down and asked her over and over if she knew what had happened the policemen smiled and asked the same questions what was she to say that snowman came to life no one knew how or why this frozen fright had occurred but from that day forward the girl never built another snowman every Christmas Eve she and her parents lay out cookies for Santa she fills the water and makes cocoa before bed and long before I take to the skies each Christmas Eve this little girl places her offering on her front step hoping it's enough hoping it will work its magic for it was the kindness of a gift that frigid night that had warmed the snowman's impenetrable hearts that sent them back sliding and shuffling to their own yards the girl would never forget and that is why not only do I need cookies this year but along with that milk perhaps leave a cup of hot cocoa for me as well that magic will protect me on my travels well did you like the stories I told children if so please do Santa a favor tell your friends and family members spooky Santa so that they can listen to my stories too and remember you can write your own scary story and email it to me at letters at spooky Santa dot com if you want to learn more about the stories I've told or the authors who wrote them you can find links in the episodes show notes spooky Santa is a registered trademark of Marlar House Productions Copyright Marlar House Productions 2019 little boy or girl and join me next time for more creepy tales from spooky Santa