Many of the easiest ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions relate to energy efficiency in homes and lifestyle decisions about travel, diet and shopping. Convincing people to give their home a green makeover or make changes to the way they live is extremely difficult.
The psychotherapist Rosemary Randall observed that even among those individuals who fully understand the risks of climate change, very few have taken steps to meaningfully reduce their carbon footprint. To try and get around this kind of inertia, Randall developed Carbon Conversations, a series of six meetings in which participants address climate change in a different way, focusing on values, emotions, lifestyle and identity as well as the basic facts of emissions. Instead of just discussing energy use in the home, for example, the meetings explore notions such as what it is that makes a home a home.
Carbon Conversations have proved extremely effective among the people who have taken part, a typical participant makes an immediate saving of a tonne of carbon dioxide a year and develops plans to reduce emissions by 50% in 2–5 years.
How does it work?
Led by trained volunteer facilitators, groups of between six and eight people meet in homes, community centres, workplaces or other venues. The six two-hour meetings engage people both emotionally and practically, helping them make environmental savings. Members explore the basic climate change problem, their responses to it, their ideas for a low-carbon future and the four key areas of the footprint – home energy, travel, food and other consumption.
Facilitators are available to run Carbon Conversations in Chapel Allerton, if you are interested then do please contact us.