Dear Climate Change Leader,
Thanks for all you are doing to help our species and our planet.
As you know from my prior emails, the National Institute for Peer Support (www.NIPSPeerSupport.org) has launched a major program to utilize the tools of peer support to advance the goals of the Climate Change movement.
First, we are setting up a peer support community for Climate Change activists, both locally and nationally. To that end, we held our first, very well-received residential weekend workshop for 13 of you climate change leaders from around the state in August to learn and apply the skills of basic peer support. We already have an ongoing, face-to-face, monthly support group meeting here in Tucson and hope to have two other groups going after Moving Planet, one face-to-face in west Phoenix and one statewide via telephone. A couple of dozen climate change activists across the country, whom I met while taking part in the Tar Sands civil disobedience protests earlier this month, are working with us to set up peer support in their local communities.
Second, we are using the basic listening skills of peer support as an education and outreach tactic to change public opinion on climate change and recruit new activists. We held in our first Listening Day for Climate Change yesterday at El Presidio Park here in Tucson, Arizona, USA. Five volunteers showed up at our local governmental complex (city and county) and listened without interruption to about 75 people over an hour and a half. Most of the people we listened to (about 2.5 to 1) thought that global warming was a problem compared to those who thought it was not, but almost as many were undecided or unconcerned as thought it was a problem. Among the undecided/unconcerned, several shifted towards acknowledging the importance of the problem as we listened. We recruited five new activists. Activists in a dozen local communities across the country are holding similar events this week in conjunction with the Moving Planet day of action (www.Moving-Planet.org). We will continue to do both public events like this and also encourage activists to use these listening skills in their own personal networks of family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, co-worshipers, etc.
Our first public listening event earned a wonderful article with a great picture of our “Peanuts” Listening Booth on the front page of the Arizona Daily Star and got great advance publicity for our Moving Planet event on Saturday
( http://azstarnet.com/news/science/environment/article_5b6b389e-facb-5a8b-8b84-f906f9bc22e4.html) . Although I haven’t heard it yet, KUAZ also planned to run an interview as well.
A half dozen local groups are holding such public listening events across the country
We’ll be getting back to you later after Moving Planet to discuss next steps in using these peer support tools to help in the climate change movement.
Best wishes,
Jim