5. How can we face the climate? Exploring our emotional response to meaningful engagement with climate action (with Dr Rebecca Nestor)

Some consider the climate crisis, the most urgent issue for the earth’s future and ourselves on it. Yet, why is it so hard to engage with it, systemically and as individuals? Why is it so hard to inspire action for those working on the climate crisis? What does it take to work in sustainability within large corporations? And how do each of us, Earth’s inhabitants, get emotionally impacted by the climate crisis? Why does this topic evoke polarization in society and politically, between activists and deniers? 

In this Lateral Dialogue, we are exploring all these questions, through the so-called climate psychology, a relatively new discipline concerned with understanding the dynamics and emotional experiences, related to the climate crisis. For those actively working on this, as well as for all individuals exposed to its consequences in everyday life.  

To explore these questions we are joined by Dr Rebecca Nestor, who has researched the experience of working in the climate crisis and has consulted to people who work in organizations that deal with this matter, climate scientists, and campaign groups. Rebecca regularly runs climate cafes, which are opportunities for people to come together in small groups and share their emotional responses to the climate crisis and create meaning together. Next to this, she's also a board member of the Climate Psychology Alliance. As her tagline says, she provides support for those who are facing the climate crisis. 

The Lateral Dialogues are hosted by Warden Hoffman and Petros Oratis, managing partners at The Lateral Space http://www.thelateralspace.com/