Climate Cafe Listening Circles: Breaking the Silence

It’s 10.30am on a Saturday morning and the room is filling up. Two young women who arrive alone are helping themselves to tea. An elderly woman, walking with a stick, introduces herself as Anna, a refugee from Ukraine. A young man with headphones and a hoodie comes in and sits in the circle, next to another young man who is already seated, silently scrolling on his phone. They nod to each other. A middle aged couple enter, and head over to the refreshments table - he is pleased to see there’s cake. Someone says, “Well, this is strange, isn’t it, coming to talk to strangers?”

There are now eight people plus two of us facilitators; sometimes we have more people come, sometimes less. In the centre of the room, we’ve placed chairs into circle around a low table, on which is a wooden bowl filled with natural items—leaves, a lichen-encrusted twig, a black feather, stones, dried flower heads, acorns. My co-facilitator invites those still standing to take a seat. One young woman offers to move the extra seats aside if we don’t need them, and helps Anna wobble down to her chair. We thank her. The couple sit together, chatting quietly. My co-facilitator closes the main door which has a “Please Do Not Disturb” sign on it. The room quietens, and I welcome everyone.

We introduce ourselves, explain the format, and ask for agreements to listen, respect differences, and keep discussions confidential. This is not a space for action but for exploring feelings. There is a sense of expectation, although that could just be me feeling that something important is waiting to emerge. To begin, I pick up the glistening black feather, sharing how it connects me to my love for wildlife and my grief over declining bird populations. I speak of feeling sad that the dawn chorus seems muted from how I remember it years ago, and my guilt about having cats that occasionally catch birds. Others listen intently; some appear moved by my words. After around three minutes, I place the feather back and invite someone else to select an item and share their connection. One by one, participants speak, listened to without interruption. For some, their chosen object immediately brings feelings or a story to mind. One of the young men doesn’t take one, instead telling us about a walk he went on earlier that day along the beach, and how outraged and helpless he felt on seeing litter everywhere. Several people nodded quietly. After a second round, where some resonate with what others have shared, or tell a new story, we close, offering further support if needed. Some take a leaflet. Once everyone leaves, my co-facilitator and I take time to reflect before heading our separate ways.

What Are Climate Café Listening Circles?

Climate Cafés exist worldwide in various formats. Some serve as hubs for local groups to meet, host guest speakers, or screen films over tea and cake. Others focus on environmental projects, activism, practical sustainability, cooking together, or repair and “swap shop” initiatives. Climate Café Listening Circles (CCLCs), however, are solely for listening and sharing feelings. Developed by Rebecca Nestor and Gillian Broad from the Climate Psychology Alliance (CPA) and inspired by the Death Café model, these informal, lightly facilitated, confidential spaces—online or in person—offer a refuge where people can voice thoughts and emotions about the climate and ecological crisis. There are no talks, no advice, no pressure to act.

These Circles welcome all emotions—fear, grief, anger, ambivalence, shame, hope, love, numbness, tenderness. Many of these emotions, particularly those deemed “negative,” are taboo in families, friendships, and society. In many cultures, denial and disavowal (knowing yet not allowing yourself to know) are deeply entrenched, often morphing into toxic positivity or “hopium.” Polarisation is natural; middle grounds emerge later.

Sociologist Eviatar Zerubavel’s concept of “socially constructed silence” describes the collective unconscious processes that shield us from difficult truths, preventing honest conversations about our relationship with the living world and the harmful systems we are entangled in. In wealthier Global North nations, we largely accept these systems as inevitable, consciously or unconsciously. As climate impacts become undeniable even in places that once ignored them, more people are painfully emerging from unconscious defensive states, breaking out of what psychoanalyst Sally Weintrobe calls “the Climate Bubble.”

For some, attending a CCLC is their first step in admitting something is deeply wrong. Others are burnt-out activists. Some have long been aware but feel isolated—frustrated that those around them don’t seem to care. The silence-breaking often brings relief, deep connection to personal values, and an experience of a “culture of care”.

What Do Participants Bring?

Many express inadequacy—feeling they aren’t “doing enough.” The enormity of the crisis makes them feel small, challenging the illusion of control over their lives. People lament the futility of recycling while knowing that used plastic and clothes are just being shipped around the world, becoming someone else’s problem, or spilling into the oceans. There is anger at businesses greenwashing - claiming to be “better for the planet” - while actually resisting real change. Some talk of societal and civilisational collapse, of brutal war, of their despair for the world. Some say they’ve given up, claiming nothing they do will matter because of the scale of the predicament that has no solution, so they may as well do what the hell they like. But once voiced, and heard without judgment, this stance often shifts.

Others wish they didn’t know this was happening, but typically can’t imagine going back to what they once thought “normal”. When one person shares their cognitive dissonance—working for a company that pollutes, selling unnecessary products, taking a flight despite eco-conscious values—others feel permission to share the same. These dilemmas raise difficult questions as people take their turn: What else can they do to pay the bills? If they leave an industry, do they abandon a chance to change it? Can they justify depriving their children of experiences they had, given the cost and slowness of alternative travel? What can they eat, do or buy that has not caused harm somewhere, to someone or something in the world?

Some are bewildered by the apathy of loved ones. “How can they not care? Can’t they see it too?” Tension and resentment have been building up, yet they have felt unable to raise the topic. So finding people who “get it” can be a profound relief.

How Do Climate Café Listening Circles Help?

Speaking feelings aloud often brings a kind of acceptance—not a resigned giving up, but a step in processing emotions and understanding our profound interconnectedness. It allows participants to break their isolation, rekindle courage and imagination, and reconnect with personal agency. Some express their deepest, darkest fears, often followed by gratitude to the group for listening. Simply naming forbidden thoughts can be enough to begin working through them. And hearing others struggle with similar dilemmas can foster compassion for the seeming indifference of friends and family, opening the door to more productive, less confrontational conversations.

CCLCs are open to anyone. Increasingly, employers, welfare organisations, and community groups offer them in-house, facilitated by their own staff. Facilitators do not have to be therapists or psychologists—the Climate Psychology Alliance offers low cost public and in-house training for people to hold these spaces for others - they are “for Citizens, by Citizens.”

While not therapy, CCLCs are therapeutic. Talking and sharing strengthens connection, helping participants stay awake to reality without being overwhelmed. The ritual of it contains and consoles, offering a pathway to deeper conversations and normalising climate-related emotions. While there is no expectation of action, some leave resolved to engage more deeply in caring for and being with others more often. Some decide on more individual or collective climate and environmental efforts. Because it’s neither a therapy group or completely informal, but a hybrid, they aren’t perfect - nor intended to be. But it is almost always more honest than many conversations outside it. As one participant said at the close of a session, “It was good to be real today, even if just for this time.”

Resources

To find a CPA Climate Cafe Listening Circle or facilitator training visit the Training and Events page www.climatepsychologyalliance.org/index.php/training-events

“The Elephant in the Room: Silence and Denial in Everyday Life”, Zerubavel, E. Oxford Academic, 2006

“Breaking out of the climate bubble”, The Big Issue feature, Linda Aspey, November 2021, Vol 32, Issue 9

Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis: Neoliberal Exceptionalism and the Culture of Uncare. Weintrobe, S. Psychoanalytic Horizons. 2021

Copyright Linda Aspey 2025.

Linda leads on the CPA Climate Cafe Listening Circle facilitator training and supervision offerings - if you have any questions about this please contact her through the CPA link above.