practice · all tools
Climate Circles / Climate Cafés
Depth · what it can open●●●○3 — emotional
Holding · facilitation3 — space-holder
Trust · group readiness★★some
Disclosure · what is sharedoptional
Hosted talking circles where participants voluntarily share what the climate crisis stirs in them — fear, anger, guilt, hope — in a confidential, non-judgmental space with no fixing and no debate. The host holds structure and safety, not answers. CLARITY's version trains teachers as hosts before they open circles with adult learners.
Prerequisites
- Hosts trained or well-briefed first (CLARITY's explicit sequence); adults (18+) in the CLARITY version
- Opt-out at any moment, stated up front
Hold with care
- Climate despair can surface strongly; hosts hold, normalize, and know referral options — a café is not therapy
- No debate and no solutions rounds — fixing shuts feeling down; that discipline IS the format
Practical
- Time
- 45-90 min
- Group
- 4–12 · small-group
- Settings
- in-person, online
- Materials
- Circle seating; agreements (confidentiality, no advice, opt-out) displayed
- Mechanisms
- dialogic-encounter, emotional-processing, ritual-container
- Change scope
- state · recurring-practice (recurring circles build the container over time)
Origin & where it lives
Climate café movement (Climate Psychology Alliance lineage); CLARITY adaptation with Jo McAndrews — Climate psychology; circle practice
Instructions: open online · CC BY-SA 4.0 (CLARITY materials)
In this directory via CLARITY Toolbox and Teacher's Guide
Related: climate emotions wheel (pairs-with) · council practice (variant-of)
status: checked · added 2026-08-25