CONCEPTS such as “climate grief” and “climate anxiety” have become mainstream, but it is sometimes hard to express these feelings. The purpose of climate cafés is to provide a space for that. We gather over tea and cake (the “café” part), and each participant in turn is offered a limited but uninterrupted time to speak and be heard.

The cafés are not for planning action or solutions, but are simply spaces for sharing thoughts and feelings frankly. Our overall aim is to build up community resilience and care as we face the unprecedented ethical and practical challenges of the climate emergency.

The cafés emulate the successful model of “death cafés”, and we followed guidelines published by the Climate Psychology Alliance. Churches Together in Hampstead joined with the Hampstead Neighbourhood Forum to host and promote the cafés.

At each session, a facilitator introduces the space and lays out the ground rules (feelings, not solutions; keep to time; no interruptions). The facilitator also follows these rules: they don’t comment or interject, merely receive what is said as a gift.

Each participant introduces themselves, and each person is then given five minutes of uninterrupted time to speak. Participants may talk through their allotted time, or they may choose silence for some or all of it. That space remains theirs, and we do not move on to the next person until the end of each slot. To ensure enough time for everyone, we limited attendance to about 12 to 15 people, using Eventbrite for sign-ups in advance.

Melissa DickinsonMelissa Dickinson

WE HAVE so far run four climate cafés. Each one has offered a sacred time of listening and being heard. People’s honesty has been striking. One man shared his despair and sense of powerlessness after decades of environmental activism. Others echoed his feelings. There is no doubt that the crisis that we face is alarming, and the cafés are not an attempt to shy away from that. Yet there is undoubted power in making space to hear one another, and, at the end of the sessions, participants have reported feeling empowered, encouraged, moved, honoured, hopeful, and determined.

While our aim was to create a space for the emotions raised by climate breakdown, a few participants have been more interested in advocating solutions. In a sense, these people did not engage with the agenda of sharing feelings — except in so far as a focus on solutions is a legitimate emotional response. On the whole, the honesty and vulnerability with which people shared their feelings was quite remarkable; although that was what we had hoped for, we have still found ourselves honoured and moved by the trust that people place in one another as listeners. Some participants have attended more than one café, and have begun to form a burgeoning sense of community.

THE media narrative suggests that climate anxiety is a malaise of the young. Our cafés, although they did attract some young people — and even a few children — also gave older people a chance to express their grief and anxiety about the environmental changes and degradations that they have witnessed in the space of their own lifetime.

Involving the right number of people proved challenging. It is important to keep the group small enough so that everyone receives their allotted time to speak within the two hours advertised running time. As there was no charge, we found that some participants would book on Eventbrite and then not attend. We made it clearer that anyone not coming should release their spot to those on a waiting list. We also explored the possibility of breaking into two smaller groups if significantly more people came along than we had expected.

While it is not our aim to advise participants, we have been asked for ideas on “what to do next”. At one of the sessions, we set out a side table with some information about local events, groups, and campaigns; but the challenge of how to hold the space for expression while also allowing it to develop into action is one we are still pondering.

The Revd Melissa Dickinson is Assistant Curate of Emmanuel Church, West Hampstead, in the diocese of London.

You will need:

• A facilitator. Depending on numbers, you might want a back-up facilitator who can start a new circle, if you get more than 12-15 people.
• A host. Someone who knows the venue well, and can make the tea and coffee, and also point people to lavatories.
• A large sand timer (we used a five-minute one). Everyone can see how much time is left, or when the speaker is out of time.
• A basket of natural objects. We used this when fewer participants meant more time, inviting people to use a natural object (pine cone, conker, pebble, etc.) to help them to reflect.
• Refreshments. This helps to keep the “café” feel.
• To be comfortable with silence. If someone does not speak for their allotted time, simply sit quietly together.
• To think about advertising. We worked together as a group of churches and community organisations, and communicated through our various channels. We all used the same poster, with a QR code linking to our Eventbrite page.