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Anxiety to action: Understanding the climate crisis - and what we can do about it

<span>Photograph: Jia Yu/Getty Images</span>
Photograph: Jia Yu/Getty Images

This online workshop is part of our new autumn programme of digital masterclasses that we are offering. To help you go back to school with a fresh perspective, we are offering a very limited supply of introductory tickets for each event, discounted up to 20% – once they’re gone, they’re gone!

When the warning lights are constantly flashing red, with those in charge seemingly desensitised to the danger at hand, it can be easy for a sense of helplessness to creep into our lives. But as the dramatic effects of humanity’s impact on the environment threaten to overwhelm and paralyse our collective ability to act, it’s more important than ever to improve our own understanding, negotiate our anxieties, and empower ourselves towards positive change.

In this comprehensive, practical and motivating two-part lecture with two leading scientists and academics studying the environmental emergency, you will learn not only about the history of our shifting climate, but how you can use facts as a foothold up to personal action.

Over two stimulating hours, you will unlock valuable knowledge to ground you in the science behind the headlines, actionable steps you can take to reduce your own environmental impact as well as the tools to turn your eco-anxiety into eco-empathy - so that you leave this masterclass equipped with insights, and more confident in your ability to improve your world.

With Professor Tim Palmer, climate physicist from the University of Oxford, you will be taken on an information-rich whistle-stop tour through a recent history of the relationship between humanity and the environment, including how global heating has escalated over the past few years, the causes behind the effects we are currently witnessing, and what this tells us about our collective future and the future of our planet.

After a short break, lecturer and psychotherapist from the University of Bath Caroline Hickman will give a talk on climate psychology, addressing eco-anxiety and grief. Beyond the doom and gloom narrative, how do we find hope today? Do we all feel eco-anxiety in the same way, or are there cultural and generational divides?

This two-part lecture-style workshop is essential for anyone who is observing the climate catastrophe with a sense of hopelessness, but wants to tap into their reserves of curiosity to better understand the world around them and transform their fear and anxiety into expertise and action.

Course content

Part one: Tim Palmer

  • Climate change state of play

  • Thinking about climate change from a scientific perspective

  • To what extent is the climate in catastrophe?

  • Key steps to be taken to reduce the risk of a climate crisis

Part two: Caroline Hickman

  • An introduction to eco-anxiety

  • Reframing eco-anxiety into eco-empathy

  • Doom and gloom or hope and optimism

  • Generational difference in attitudes to climate change

  • Transforming your eco-anxiety into empathy and action

  • Q&A

You will be sent a link to the webinar 1hr before the start time of 6.30pm (BST).

Tutor profiles

Tim Palmer is a Royal Society Research Professor of climate physics at the University of Oxford. He has pioneered the development of probabilistic ensemble prediction techniques in weather and climate science, and had advocated the need for a ‘CERN for Climate Change’. As well as a Fellow of the Royal Society, he is an International Member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Caroline Hickman is a lecturer at the University of Bath, a psychotherapist and a board member of the Climate Psychology Alliance (CPA). With CPA she is developing therapeutic outreach services, working with teachers and offering workshops in schools, counselling groups and universities and supporting the development of a service providing ‘climate crisis aware’ psychotherapy. Caroline works with schools, parent groups and youth activist groups and as a pyschotherapist with adults and young people who are dealing with eco-anxiety. At the University of Bath she is currently researching children and young people’s feelings about the climate and biodiversity crisis using a psychosocial free association methodology to uncover and explore different stories, narratives and images around our defences against the ‘difficult truth’ of the climate and bio-diversity crisis, and hidden and ‘less conscious’ feelings about climate anxiety.

You will be sent a link to the webinar 1hr before the start time of 6.30pm (BST).

Details

Date: Friday 16 October 2020
Times: 6.30pm-8.30pm (BST)
Price: Back to school discounted price of £30.60 (plus £1.99 booking fee); standard ticket price of £36 (plus £2.24 booking fee)
Event capacity: 100

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Returns policy
Once a purchase is complete we will not be able to refund you where you do not attend or if you cancel your event booking. Please see our terms and conditions for more information on our refund policy.