Category: Uncategorized

Support for Net Zero Now

We are working with Cambridge Carbon Footprint to support their Net Zero Now project which helps to train and support community climate leaders across South Cambridgeshire.

The programme is providing free training in effective carbon reduction strategies for local communities.

Daniela Fernandez-Catherall and Simon Lacey from Cambridge Climate Therapists are running a session on how we can achieve more sustainable activism by grounding our actions for climate in our values and life experiences.

Although no longer open to applicants, webinars from the course can be viewed on the Cambridge Carbon Footprint site.

For information on possible future courses you can email zcc@scambs.gov.uk

We celebrated the launch of our new Living with the Climate Crisis project

After a huge amount of effort and collaboration, we celebrated the launch of our new Living with the Climate Crisis project on Monday 17 April.

This project draws on the authors Rosemary Randall, Rebecca Nestor, Daniela Fernandez-Catherall and Andy Brown’s years of experience working to support people and communities as they confront the reality of the climate crisis.

The resources are freely available for anyone who is interested in running groups to support others in their communities respond to the climate crisis.

They focus on:

  • support and understanding
  • communication
  • finding pathways to carbon reduction and community and political action

Living with the climate crisis groups will provide a space for people to talk, to share, to express what they feel and to reflect. They offer tools, ideas and skills. They emphasise our shared humanity, our interdependence and the need for a collective response. They are rooted in psychological understandings of our distress, of our difficulties in communication and of each person’s need to find a place in a bewildering array of possibilities for action.

The project is run by the Climate Psychology Alliance on a dedicated website, https://livingwiththeclimatecrisis.org, where you can view, read and download the new materials free.

Living with the Climate Crisis

Join Ro Randall and Daniela Fernandez-Catherall from Cambridge Climate Therapists for the online launch of Living with the climate crisis on Monday 17 April 19.00-20.30 UK time – find out more and book here.

These new materials provide guidance for a series of group meetings which help people respond to the climate crisis, both personally and collectively. They focus on:

  • support and understanding
  • communication
  • finding pathways to carbon reduction and community and political action

At the launch, authors Rosemary Randall, Rebecca Nestor, Daniela Fernandez-Catherall and Andy Brown will introduce the new materials, talk about the thinking behind the project, and answer your questions.

The groups provide a space for people to talk, to share, to express what they feel and to reflect. They offer tools, ideas and skills. They emphasise our shared humanity, our interdependence and the need for a collective response. They are rooted in psychological understandings of our distress, of our difficulties in communication and of each person’s need to find a place in a bewildering array of possibilities for action.

The project is run by the Climate Psychology Alliance on a dedicated website, https://livingwiththeclimatecrisis.org, where you can view, read and download the new materials free.

This launch event is part of the ongoing support and development that the  Climate Psychology Alliance will provide to facilitators who wish to use the materials and run groups.

Please share and circulate this information to your networks.

Climate Listening Bench

Climate Listening Bench – offers people an informal opportunity to sit down and talk to our climate listeners. Contact us if you would like us to bring the Listening Bench to an event you are holding. From time to time we also set the Listening Bench up in venues around the city, most often in New Square. Dates appear on the Home Page and on the Events Page

What now, what next?

This is a group for people who wish to meet with others to explore and reflect on their personal experience and feelings about the climate and biodiversity crises. Details of the next group will appear on the Home Page and on the Events Page.

Green Week COP 26 at Wolfson College 18th-25th October

We will be bringing our Listening Bench to Wolfson College on Monday 18th October as part of their Green Week/COP26 event.

Our Climate Listening Bench project, inspired by the Zimbabwean Friendship Bench initiative, offers a friendly empathic ear to anyone worried or upset about the climate crisis. Over the summer you may have seen a couple of our trained psychotherapists sitting on a bench at different open green spaces in Cambridge.  During Green Week, the Listening Bench will be available at various times (to be posted) at a suitable site, Covid safe, within Wolfson College. Please join us on the Listening Bench – no need to book, just sit down and chat.

And on Friday 22nd October from 10.30 to 12.30, Ro Randall and Daniela Fernandez Catherall will be offering a workshop “Coping with the Climate Crisis” in the large seminar room at Wolfson College.

Climate Listening Bench

Our Listening Bench project (inspired by the Zimbabwean Friendship Bench) offers a friendly empathic ear to anyone worried or upset about the climate crisis. Over the summer you’ll find us on a bench at different open green spaces in Cambridge.  Sit down and chat. No booking is required and you can come alone or with other people. Our first sessions have been organised in conjunction with the Wildlife Trust at Trumpington Meadows at the following times:

Sunday 27 June 9.30–11.30 am

Saturday 3 July 9.30-11.30 pm

Sunday 11 July 2-4 pm

Sunday 18 July 9.30-11.30 am

Saturday 7 August 9.30-11.30 am

Sunday 8 August 2-4 pm

You’ll find us near the pond at the Northern end of the reserve.

We will be following Government guidelines on social distancing at all times. This is a pilot project, offered on a voluntary basis by our members.

If you stop by for a chat, please leave us some feedback via the contact form here.

Spring hopes

As signs of spring appear and virus levels fall we are beginning to feel hopeful that we may soon be able to be run workshops and activities face to face. Some are aimed at helping people explore the distressing and anxious feelings many of us experience about the changing climate. Others focus on the psychological skills that can give you strength and help you in campaigning and community activity. Over the coming months we hope to initiate some of the following.

Climate listening bench: a bench situated in one of our public parks where at certain times of the week you can come to talk with one of our members about your concerns about the climate. Location and times will be made available later.

Walk and talk group: a group that meets outside whatever the weather, goes for a walk, experiences being alive in nature and talks about whatever comes up. More details when we know that this kind of activity will be allowed.

What now what next? A small group for thinking about our future with Jacqui Davis and Anne Murray. The group will run for 9 weeks, details are here and it will start as soon as possible, so let us know if you are interested.

Conversations with children and young people about climate. A workshop for parents and carers. Let us know if this would interest you.

Workshops on communicating better about climate change. One looks at how to manage those difficult conversations which often erupt with friends, family and colleagues. The other looks at how to use your own story to talk convincingly and empathically when you get the chance to hold the floor for a few minutes or even longer. Let us know if either of these would interest you.

Workshops for building strength, team work and community. These are best done amongst a group of people from the same organisation and focus on strengthening the understanding and the bonds between you. Contact us if you would like to know more.

And more….? We want to build our work round our knowledge of people’s actual needs so please contact us with ideas of what would be helpful to you and your organisation in our mutual struggles with the climate crisis.

Use the contact form to let us know what interests you.