Ideas worth spreading

755,512 views | Fehinti Balogun • TED Countdown YouTube Creator Summit

How to find your voice for climate action

Actor and activist Fehinti Balogun pieces together multiple complex issues -- climate change, colonialism, systemic racism -- in a talk that's part spoken-word poem, part diagnosis of entrenched global problems. Seeing the connections is a way to unlock collective solutions, he says -- and you have the power to reimagine what you think is possible.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Actor and activist Fehinti Balogun pieces together multiple complex issues -- climate change, colonialism, systemic racism -- in a talk that's part spoken-word poem, part diagnosis of entrenched global problems. Seeing the connections is a way to unlock collective solutions, he says -- and you have the power to reimagine what you think is possible.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

About the speaker

Fehinti Balogun

Actor, activist

See speaker profile

Fehinti Balogun is an actor, theater maker and activist.

Joshua Virasami | Merky Books, 2020 | Book

How To Change It: Make a Difference

This book is so helpful in helping identify the people you want to speak to, taking in culture, energy and history.

Andreas Malm | Verso, 2021 | Book

How to Blow Up a Pipeline

A history on climate activism and the different kinds of action needed. The radical must be pushed.

bell hooks | William Morrow Paperbacks, 2018 | Book

All About Love: New Visions

Learning about ourselves and how we relate to others on a human level is pivotal to connecting and communicating.

Rebecca Solnit | New Statesman, 2022 | Article

"Why climate despair is a luxury"

I think there are some good points on hope but it fails to take in the structural difficulties that cause despondence. Ii don't think it helps to say for them it was harder so don't give up, but I do think it's helpful to know a history and to fuel hope and to further that reading.

Ken Saro-Wiwa | CODESRIA, 2013 | Book

Silence Would Be Treason: Last writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa

Extracts were a huge inspiration for my work on Can I Live?

remembersarowiwa.com | Article

"The Life & Death of Ken Saro-Wiwa: a history of the struggle for justice in the Niger Delta"

Kendrick Lamar | To Pimp a Butterfly, 2015 | Listen

"Mortal Man"

A song that inspires me.

Fehinti Balogun, 2021 | Watch

Can I Live?

Check out my film, which is an easy entry into understanding intersectionality and climate breakdown.

Learn more