HiCan Steering committee. Education: good practice, etc. Food: Growing and provenance Reduce CO 2 Emissions Develop Community Resilience Biodiversity: wild life, ecology Transport: Car Clubs, Aviation, Etc. Honour the Elders Lobbying and Letter writing Housing: Retrofitting, grey water, etc. Energy: Renewables; Feed in Tariffs Recycling: refuse, packaging Info sharing, Blogs, Website Raising Awareness: Overcoming Denial; Events, Books, DVDs. HiCAN members belong to as many groups as they want, and feed back to the other groups. We aim to encourage more people to join and also link with other groups CBM July 2008

Highgate: Aiming for Transition CAT Members Conference, August 2008 John Mead and Catherine Budgett-Meakin Highgate Climate Action Network 23 Bisham Gardens, LONDON, N6 6DJ e: t:

Highgate Climate Action Network HiCan is a new group; So far we have had four meetings and produced the structure shown earlier; In the autumn, we have four further meetings planned, at the first of which we hope people will put themselves in the various groups; We suspect there will be barriers to overcome, and we would like your advice:

Highgate Climate Action Network Denial about the seriousness of the situation is probably the most important barrier; That denial leads to powerlessness and inaction; Even in a climate change group like ours, we think it is possible that the urgency of the situation will not spur people to action.

Highgate Climate Action Network So what means might we adopt to overcome the denial? What can we do in our group to make the transition to a low carbon community? How can we persuade our group of the urgency of the situation and take appropriate action, particularly lobbying? And how can we build a more resilient community able to cope with a society not dependent on fossil fuels?

Highgate Climate Action Network One strategy might be to look at this problem from a psychological perspective: –We are faced by so much ‘traumatic information’ that we tend to become paralysed. –Therefore we need to find ways to share our feelings of horror, fear and despair. So we might try encouraging our group to break into small groups and ask them to explore and share their feelings.

Highgate Climate Action Network This sharing might lead to some powerful feelings being ‘exposed’; If it is true that on a planet 4º hotter, all we can prepare for is extinction, how open should we be about this threat? How do other CAT groups deal with the traumatic and frightening information of climate change? What advice can you give us?