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Climate | Action | Scotland | Writing

Paperboats

Campaigns, Resources

Community Workshops for a Fossil Fuel Treaty

We’ve teamed up with Global Justice Now Scotland and Letters to the Earth for this campaign.

Community Workshops

Paperboats workshops, run by one of our Paperboats authors, are designed to get people talking about, and taking positive action on the climate and ecological emergency.

Why climate conversations are important:

In the UK, about 60% of people agree we are facing a ‘climate emergency’ but will rarely talk about it, especially to political representatives. Six in ten people say they rarely or never discuss it with family or friends. This informal, silent agreement not to talk about a topic that can feel frightening, distant or uncomfortable is known as ‘climate silence’. Day-to-day conversations are a part of social change. As people, we are deeply influenced by those around us – what we see them doing, and the conversations we have with them.

Why political engagement is important:

If we are not talking to our politicians about the climate and ecological emergency, they are unlikely to prioritise action on it. This has been demonstrated by the recent failure of the Scottish Government to meet its climate targets, a failure that has resulted from ten years of political inaction. The Scottish Government are now in disarray over climate policy. This presents an opportunity to shape the future of climate action in Scotland.

We know that this decade is perhaps the most crucial for global governments to take rapid and serious action on climate. To limit planetary warming to 1.5 degree C above pre-industrial levels, a threshold crucial to the habitability of vast tracts of our planet, carbon dioxide emissions need to be halved by the end of this decade. It is a mammoth task that will require mass political engagement.

The Aims of Paperboats Workshops:

  • To get people talking about the climate and ecological emergency;

  • To connect with their own feelings and experiences of climate and ecological change;

  • To share those feelings with their political representatives.

Format:

We follow a simple workshop format based on the Letters to the Earth Community Toolkit. Workshops take around two hours, and require minimal resources: pens and writing paper. Presentation facilities are useful but not essential.

The facilitator sets the parameters for the workshops to encourage safe spaces, active listening, connection to feelings, freedom of imagination and radical participation.

In pairs or small groups, participants are invited to explore and discuss their experiences and feelings around climate and nature, through a series of open questions. They are then invited to share these insights in a letter to their political representatives.

Our experience of running these workshops, is that the format is successful in moving people from a place of overwhelm and helplessness, to one of active hope and possibility.

If you would like one of our authors to run a workshop in your community, then please get in touch at: hello@paperboats.org

It would be helpful when contacting us about workshops if you could let us know the following:

  • Location
  • Venue details
  • Possible dates
  • Approx number of attendees
  • If the workshop is for children, please let us know the approximate age range. If for adults, a little background for the group is useful so that we can adapt the workshop accordingly.
  • We have a small budget to run workshops. Contributions to author expenses are welcome but not essential. Please do let us know if you are able to contribute towards costs.