Taking any action requires us to know clearly where we are at now, decide what we want to be different than it is now, and find strategies or steps to get to our new reality. We can see this in any action we might take. For example, given my often-sedentary lifestyle I have increasing concerns about my long-term health and mobility. But how sedentary really am I? And what really are the risks related to this? To ensure I’m being honest with myself, I collect data for a month or so to see what kinds of activity I do and for how long. The data shows me that I do sit a lot for work and in my leisure time. I am walking every day but not that long. I do a bit of online research from reliable medical sources to see the risks associated with my current degree of activity. It becomes clearer that I really am not active enough to maintain my health and mobility long term. 

So, I dream a little about what I want to see ten or twenty years from now with respect to my health and wellness. I decide that I want to be able to hike regularly for afternoons at any given time (I enjoy that a lot now), easily play with my grandkids (should I get them at some point), and feel energetic. 

So, I plan. The plan is a phased approach to developing a new pattern of healthier activity, trying to revise my current habits into new habits that will foster the future I want to see. I work through my plan, increasing my physical activity in ways that fit into my daily routine, subtly adjusting to higher levels of activity and finding intrinsic rewards that help me maintain these new habits. I add activities to my calendar such as short walk breaks at regular intervals in my workday. I engage my family in my new activities, hiking with my husband and dog on the weekends for longer durations.

This is an example of the ways we often shift our actions from one norm to another in sustainable ways. Taking climate action is similar in many ways.

Talanoa Dialogue: A process for getting from here to there

Beginning to take climate action is easier if we first understand our community’s current climate reality, goal set about what we want to see in the future, and to build strategies for taking steps to grow towards that future. By looking forward ten or twenty years to what we want to see in our community, for our family, across our nation, then we can begin to identify shared goals and plan towards them. When we develop a sense of obligation to act in particular ways which help us as individuals contribute to larger societal changes in a variety of ways that will produce the futures we wish to see. 

The Talanoa Dialogue format is the process used by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) since 2017 with nations across the world to determine timelines for climate action. Those targets of 2030 and 2050 that we hear in the news were based on goal setting using the Talanoa Dialogue given the best available information around our shifting climate, ecological impacts, economic pressures, and social systems. The same process can be used as an individual, family, community, organization, at all levels of government, and any other group of humans seeking to plan for a more sustainable future. 

The Talanoa Dialogue involves asking ourselves three simple questions:

• Where are we?
• Where do we want to go?
• How do we get there?

Each of these questions needs to be dealt with honestly and with the best available data to really get something out of this process. Lying to ourselves or others in this process undermines it, making the whole exercise a waste of everyone’s time. However, there is a big difference between outright lying around any of these questions and not knowing how to access the needed information. Let’s explore the questions one at a time and see what resources are available to find some clarity.

Where are we?

When we think about where we now with respect to climate change, the International Panel on Climate Change reports are often cited. These can be hard to read, so there are other versions made for everyday folks to better understand the sometimes technical and complex global science (e.g. for educators, for local governments, for business, for industry, et). 

However, we don’t live at the global scale as individuals or families, so it can be more helpful to draw on our own local knowledge of change first and then connect it back to some of the scientific data in our community, region, nation, or part of the world. For example, we could ask ourselves or others in our community questions such as:

• What are people worried about with respect to climate change in our community? Why?
• Have people’s work or normal activities been disrupted by weather, flooding, fire, drought, or other potentially climate related events? If yes, how?
• Is the weather different today than in the past? If yes, how?
• Have extreme weather-related events such as floods, wildfires, droughts, etc. changed in our community? If yes, how?
• Are there health concerns that seem to be increasing in our community? If yes, how might they be climate connected?
• Is the economy of our community or region impacted by climate change in any way? If yes, how?

We might want to look on our local government online resources to see if there is information about shifting climate in our area or talk with local experts who may know a great deal about climate impacts in our region such as First Nations or Tribal Nations, water managers, fire fighters, farmers, science educators, etc. We will need to listen to many different folks to get a more complete picture of our local climate situation and to ensure that any one perspective’s bias doesn’t dominate the information we collect. 

We should also be aware of our own bias in who we ask for information and who we don’t. Consider if we are really trying to find an accurate truth of the situation or to just reaffirm what we already think. Don’t worry too much if we don’t know exactly how things have changed or why as these might be areas of learning that we will do as we gain more information and share learning with others in our community or beyond. 

It should be noted that if you just want to listen to your own echo chamber this exercise may be pointless for you at the moment. Learning from others requires real listening and to do that first involves the ability to hear about emotions, ideas, and beliefs that might differ from your own instead of just wanting to reinforce your own thoughts, beliefs, and opinions. Consider how climate change – or even the social conversations happening about climate change – are currently impacting your health, economic prosperity, social harmony, relationships, and the security of your home and community. If those you care about in any way are wanting to talk about these things with you, authentic listening is an important step forward. 

We can all learn from others about climate change more broadly by finding a podcast that is well respected by the climate change community to explore and learn from. Again, don’t worry if we don’t understand everything we hear or if it doesn’t fully align with our values or beliefs, these are just starting points to listen to those who have spent their lives and careers trying to understand and resource others around climate change and what we might be able to do about it. We don’t have to agree, but listening is a fabulous first action.

Where do we want to go?

Now is the moment to dream forward to a future we want to see. Each of us, living in different places across the globe, will have different versions of this dream. Yet in all our individual versions of this dream we might find a lot of common ground. As we dream, depending on our age, we need to think not only about ourselves but also think of those we love; friends, siblings, children, nieces, nephews, grandkids, students, community members, etc. Also, it is helpful to dream forward twenty years as this can help get us out of our current action/inaction habits to envision new ways we might want to work towards. Some things to consider that can help us be specific in our dreaming:

• What will society be like? How will people’s liberty and security be ensured?
• Where will we live? What kind of building? How will it handle the changing weather that might be around us? Who will live with us? How will we heat or cool our building? Where will our energy needs come from for our home? 
• What will we eat? How and where will it be produced? How and where can it be stored? How will it get to us?
• Where will we get water? Who will manage the cleanliness, movement, and abundance of our water needs? How will they be resourced to do that work?
• What kind of work will we be doing? 
• How will we learn? Where and from who? What will we learn?
• How will we access or engage with information? How will we determine what is true?
• What will our cultural activities, our recreational activities, or our spiritual activities look like?

For each of these aspects of the dream defined above we should also try to understand why these things might be important to us. Additionally, you should consider how to maintain the ideal aspects of your dream even when there may be supply chain challenges due to climate related interruptions such as storms, droughts, etc. It can also be helpful to pursue ideas of human rights; the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment; and the rights of nature as we dream about our future.

Dreaming about our future helps us determine the values we hold most dear. 

As you think about your specific dream of the future you want to grow for your family and community, consider the values you are centering. Talk about your dreams for the future with family and friends, see what common values start to emerge.

How do we get there?

So, we have some navigational markers now for where we are and where we want to go with respect to a brighter climate future; now we need to figure out how to get from here to there. Often, we can start by stepping back to some intermediate point, for instance we could imagine some halfway reality in ten years, and then again, some closer version of what we might see in five years. These shorter time span goals can help us get clearer on what actions to take. 

We can also start to think about what other information we might need to find actions we can take towards our goals. For example, we might have a goal to have more locally grown food so that we feel more food secure in our own community. To help foster this, we might need more information about what food is already grown locally, the challenges local farmers are facing, local food cooperatives that support farmers, or other efforts around improving local food production. So, one strategy we could take is to engage with local groups or individuals working to foster local food stability efforts. Learning about what is happening in our own community around climate change is important for our own journey into climate action as those geographically close to us may already be engaged in interesting climate action that we can learn from as we start to engage collectively with them. Our own individual learning and actions are best supported when done in collaboration with others in our local communities, in networked communities with which we feel an affinity, or in online communities that we can join to learn and grow.

However sometimes we don’t feel supported locally or we aren’t sure how to overcome negative climate emotions. Feelings of powerlessness in the face of our climate challenges are impacting many of us. A great way to find your power in this space is to hear from others and talk with others about how you are feeling. It may sound small, but naming and processing climate emotions helps us to get moving towards climate action. There are now online efforts to help foster the sharing of climate emotions and move people from negative to more productive feelings. 

In future episodes of STARTING, we will explore examples of specific strategies to get moving on climate action.

Resources

For conversations around the blog follow STARTING episodes on YouTube or your favorite podcast.