THE CLIMATE CAFÉ: HOPE, DESPAIR AND FRIENDSHIP

This month's blog is written by Robin Attfield, who describes his experiences of attending the Climate Café in Cardiff. Robin is passionate about climate justice, and we're excited to announce the upcoming release of his book: The Ethics of the Climate Crisis. Full details of how to get your hands on Robin's book (and discount code!) can be found at the end of the post.

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On the fourth Saturday of each month in 2024, a Climate Café is held in The Cwtch, an alcove at Chapter Arts Centre in the Canton district of Cardiff. This is a café both metaphorically and literally, as you can order a drink at the Chapter bar, and it will be brought round to you in the café. Sometimes there are biscuits too. Yet this is also a café metaphorically, as it fosters confidential discussion of our feelings about the climate crisis.

Each month, between 7 and 10 of us go round the table and express our feelings on this theme in the light of recent episodes or events that have affected us.

The café was set up and is run by Stephen Lingwood,  who is a Pioneer Minister for Cardiff Unitarians*. He is assisted by Alan Armstrong, one of the local Quakers (from Penarth Meeting). Evocative pictures, some glad, some sad, and some tantalisingly abstract, are bestrewn over the table, and when people speak they are invited to select, hold up and wave around one of these pictures. We are there to talk about joys and sorrows, our hopes or hopelessness, and our support for one another.

Of the people present, some are male and some are female, some are old and some are young. No particular religious or political standpoint is expected, and probably a great variety are represented among the participants. There is very little more that I can say here about what takes place, because one of the key house-rules is that what is said is confidential to those present; and these are rules that people stick to. But that does not stop those present finding all kinds of unexpected connections with each other, or explaining how one or another of their relatives has worked alongside one of the other people in the room. So most people find these gatherings rather good for morale.

Because I am not free to tell you more about what is said, I would like to move to what different people in our society do actually feel about the climate crisis. Most people have some degree of hope that it can be solved, and try to play their part, whether by eating less meat, travelling less, spreading understanding of the crisis, or, in some cases, by activist campaigning. For hope is an indispensable ally of activism. Other people, and sometimes this is some of the same people, feel despair at the size of the mountain to be climbed, at the way that extreme climate events are becoming more frequent and more intense, and at the unconcern and apparent self-satisfaction of the people around them, those they see on TV, and the various people that they meet.

And then there is apathy. People affected by apathy are unlikely to come to the Climate Café, but the attitude that individuals can make no difference, and that there are enough problems in the world to inhibit even thinking about the climate and related problems, is (sadly) widespread. Apathy is sometimes nourished by the belief that everyone is self-interested, and that change is impossible. I believe that this is a premature belief, and a misguided one, but that does not stop it being held.

In my new book. The Ethics of the Climate Crisis, I discuss this and related crises, what individuals and governments should do to ameliorate them, some of the political implications, and some of the issues surrounding hopelessness, despair and apathy. (This book will be available from 26 April 2024 in Britain, and from July in USA, from the publishers, Polity Press of Cambridge, UK.) And if we are fortunate, the editor of these blogs will add a flyer that I mean to supply, which offers those who buy a copy during 2024 a big enough reduction to make the paperback version of this book affordable. In any case, whatever your own feelings about the climate crisis, why not come along to the Climate Café on the 27th April?

*Stephen Lingwood is sponsored by Cardiff Unitarians and involved in several local projects. You can read more about Stephen and his work on our website here.

Read Stephen's blog post about the Climate Café here.