Relational Campaigning for Climate Action

Many of us have made significant changes to our lifestyles – while knowing such personal witness will not be enough. We sympathise with Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil – while also sensing that the moment for such oppositional campaigning may have passed.

Relational campaigning is a Quakerly alternative, available to all.

This four-session course (spread over 7 weeks) will explore key ideas and practices from community organizing – as they are being applied to the climate crisis. With that as the focus, the course is based on active learning, which means sharing and discussion – all crew, no passengers!

You will be asked to set aside 30 minutes between sessions so you can join with heart and mind prepared: this allows up to 20 minutes reading/viewing and 10 minutes of reflection & readying yourself.

A selection of short documents, website links, and short videos to view, will be on offer on Moodle – you chose which most appeal to you. No pressure to view them all. And there will be space ‘’on the table’’ to add more, if you who want to bring and share…

Overview of sessions:

1. Being patterns & examples: What are the possibilities, limitations, and pitfalls of different ways of acting for the climate? What might be our work, as Quakers, in a time of division, in the run-up to a general election?
2. Finding common ground: escaping our own adversarial mind-sets: Climate Income as one example of the radical common ground. Escaping the campaigner’s default setting: that we need other people to think more like us.
3. Finding common ground: some hopeful economics (and why we can still love the Treasury): Focussing in on practical interventions in the run up to a general election – and how to avoid making the climate one more hungry mouth to feed, in competition with so many other pressing needs.
4. We are as we are – and now is our moment: Finding the work that is ours to do. What do I need to learn? Who will be my companions?