Climate Cafe

A climate café, or Climate Circle, is a simple, hospitable, empathetic space where fears & uncertainties about our climate & ecological crisis can be safely expressed.

The Climate Cafes are facilitated by Vanessa and Sam Bear. They have completed training in Climate Cafes with the Climate Psychology Alliance. Though they are a space to share feelings, they are not group therapy, but rather a space to be together and express feelings about the ecological crisis. You do not need to have any particular specialist knowledge, experience or awareness of the climate crisis or be expected to share any particulars other than your individual feelings about it.

Why do we need Climate Cafés?

As it becomes more evident that climate and ecological breakdown are a clear and present danger to our safety and wellbeing, we increasingly need to talk about what our changing world means for us in terms of impacts at personal, family and societal level. We need to imagine it in some detail so as to be able to think about it clearly and constructively and to explore some complex feelings and thoughts that may often be taboo and hard to talk about.

What happens during a Climate Café?

The focus of the discussion is the participants’ thoughts and feelings about the climate and ecological crisis. There are no guest speakers and no talks, and it is an advice-free zone; it is also not a space to plan action or to share things to do about the crisis, it is a feeling rather than doing focused space.

Whilst the climate and ecological crisis is usually the main focus of the café we realise that other related preoccupations need a space to be explored. This can happen here too. Our cafés are open to anyone aged 18 or over who is worried about the climate and ecological crisis. Sessions for young people will also be happening, info to follow.