Climate of Community
True Power for Climate Resilience and Recovery
Sunday, January 31, 2021
3:00-5:00 pm CST on Zoom
Register here for the Zoom link:
“Climate anxiety” and “eco-grief” refer to the widespread distress people experience as the realities of the climate crisis set in. Fear of what is to come and a sense of helplessness can wear us down. We are often overwhelmed, unsure how to do anything meaningful enough to make the large scale and fast changes needed to turn this around.
In this January 2021 session, Dr. Barbara Gilbert will review the True Power Paradigm as it relates to eco-anxiety and grief. She will describe the role of these emotions in effective empowerment to address the Climate Crisis. This session builds on what was addressed in the December 2020 session but participants will be able to follow along with the material and the exercises even if they didn’t attend in December.
In addition, we will have representatives from organizations that are taking action to address the Climate Crisis. They will describe what they are doing and how you can get involved if their mission fits you. The goal is to identify what matters most to you about the Climate Crisis and start to develop your plan of action both personally and in community.
Climate of Community is a grassroots group, a combined effort of a previous group based in Lawrence, KS, and The Resilient Activist organization. Many other organizations are partnering, sponsoring, supporting us as well.
The process of how we go about developing community is integral in effectively responding to the climate crisis.
We are working to create a climate of Community
so the community can work effectively for the Climate.
This program is open to anyone in any location! With the power of online meetings, community groups can be defined by more than just geographic proximity.
Climate of Community is working to help our community, based on five concepts:
- We bear the burden of difficult things better as a bonded community than we can ever do as individuals;
- Sharing our stories authentically is part of the bonding and healing process that keeps us strong and effective;
- Finding our personal power and linking that with community power is the most effective we can be in addressing broad-scale difficulties;
- There are many paths to community bonding and healing, arising from diverse traditions and methods, and the more diverse our approaches the stronger we will be and remain.
- True Power is not “power over” others but “power to” advocate for and serve what matters to us.
Barbara Gilbert, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist currently in private practice in Lawrence, Kansas, and has practiced clinically for 35 years. She also has experience addressing larger-scale barriers to healthy functioning of the whole community. She offers a psychology-based path to True Power for Climate Resilience and Recovery. Connect with Dr. Gilbert at this link.
Co-Sponsors: The Resilient Activist, Haskell Indian Nations University; University of Kansas Center for Compassionate and Sustainable Communities; Lawrence, KS Public Library.
Partners: Sunrise Movement-Lawrence; City of Lawrence, KS Sustainability Office; Be Moved Studio