London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Saturday, Aug 02, 2025

Anxiety and biscuits: the climate cafes popping up around the world

Anxiety and biscuits: the climate cafes popping up around the world

Organisers say showing people they are not alone in their fears is key to instigating climate action
Kathy Kilmer tried bringing up the climate crisis twice at a recent dinner party, but it didn’t go well. Guests quickly turned the conversation to other topics.

“I just feel awful bringing it up,” said Kilmer, a retired conservation group communications director from Denver, Colorado. “And yet, I feel like talking about it is absolutely key to getting people to understand it.”

That is why Kilmer attended a virtual “climate cafe” earlier this year – a meetup where talking about the climate crisis is not only encouraged, it is the main event. As the effects of climate change become harder to ignore, and climate anxiety continues to rise, more and more such events are cropping up around the world for youth activists and retirees alike to process their climate angst.

“Climate change is happening, it exists already, and much of what is coming is already baked in in terms of the science,” said Rebecca Nestor, an Oxford-based organisational consultant who facilitated the recent Climate Psychology Alliance cafe that Kilmer attended. “So a lot of what I think we’re going to need to do … is [to support] people to acknowledge this and manage their feelings about it.”

While the exact origins of climate cafes are murky, leaders say they are loosely based on death cafes, which started in the UK as a space for people to talk about mortality over tea and pastries.

Jess Pepper, who in 2015 started what may have been the first climate cafe in Dunkeld and Birnam, Scotland, said the idea came to her after she gave a local presentation on climate change. Attendees came up to her in the street afterwards, asking what they could do. “It just dawned on me that people needed to be speaking with each other, and not just in a one-off kind of session,” she said.

Pepper says the climate cafes she has helped start around the UK are meant to be less formal than activist groups – and, ideally, more welcoming to people not already committed to climate advocacy. Some, such as those held by Aberdeen Climate Action, serve as an informal outreach arm of an existing climate group, with each cafe bringing in guest speakers and connecting like-minded people.

Sussex Green Ideas, meanwhile, is more like a fair, with booths and stations to fill up reusable toiletry bottles. Carrie Cort, its organiser, said her group recently adopted the festival-like format and dropped “climate” from the event title because, with all the hardships of the pandemic, they thought it was better to “focus on the future that we can achieve if we take action”.

Another breed of climate cafes are billed as “action-free” spaces. These are smaller affairs, led by trained facilitators who guide the attendees through free-flowing conversations about their climate-related feelings.

Nestor starts off each of the cafes by having attendees do a show and tell with an object that connects them to the natural world. “Typically, there might be one person who’s an activist in the group and the others are often in that state of ‘I am the only one in my family who was worried about this at all’,” she said. “And so this is a massively important space for them.”

Concerns about raising children – or whether to have children – in a world that is heating up are a common topic of discussion. There are also youth climate cafes cropping up specifically to help a generation whose mental health, experts say, is especially imperilled by the climate crisis.

Kilmer said she was astonished by how good she felt at the end of the first climate cafe she attended. “Even though I had shed a lot of tears, and gotten in touch with some powerful feelings, there was a sense of relief that I could share that with somebody,” she said.

Dr Sarah Jaquette Ray, programme leader of the environmental studies department at California’s Humboldt State University and author of a book on climate anxiety, said making people feel less individualistic was key to combating inertia and despair around the climate emergency. “A sense of the collective is probably the most important thing that will alleviate climate anxiety, but also mitigate climate change,” she said.

The concept of climate anxiety has faced accusations of being a white phenomenon. Ray and others have pointed out that certain parts of the world have been feeling the effects of climate change for decades – they have just been largely ignored by wealthier nations.

These concerns are on the minds of some climate cafe organisers. The hosts of a new climate cafe in Boston, for example, say they are holding meetups in more diverse parts of the city, which, not incidentally, are also more vulnerable to climate change.

Keerat Dhami, a community organiser, started a climate cafe in Peel, Ontario, last March for activists to discuss the emotional challenges of their work.

Dhami said attendees of the online event, now open to everyone, had been mostly white. But participants have also joined the cafe from places at the frontlines of the climate crisis, such as the Middle East and coastal Mexico.

While Dhami understands concerns about the “whiteness” of climate anxiety, she also feels that “when you give space for underprivileged or under-represented folks to speak … everyone comes in and learns from each other”.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Trump Threatens Canada with Tariffs Over Palestinian State Recognition
Trump Deploys Nuclear Submarines After Threats from Former Russian President Medvedev
Trump Sues Murdoch in “Heavyweight Bout”: Lawsuit Over Alleged Epstein Letter Sets Stage for Courtroom Showdown
Germany Enters Fiscal Crisis as Cabinet Approves €174 Billion in New Debt
Trump Administration Finalizes Broad Tariff Increases on Global Trade Partners
J.K. Rowling Limits Public Engagements Citing Safety Fears
JD.com Launches €2.2 Billion Bid for German Electronics Retailer Ceconomy
Azerbaijan Proceeds with Plan to Legalise Casinos on Artificial Islands
Former Judge Charged After Drunk Driving Crash Kills Comedian in Brazil
Jeff Bezos hasn’t paid a dollar in taxes for decades. He makes billions and pays $0 in taxes, LEGALLY
China Increases Use of Exit Bans Amid Rising U.S. Tensions
IMF Upgrades Global Growth Forecast as Weaker Dollar Supports Outlook
Procter & Gamble to Raise U.S. Prices to Offset One‑Billion‑Dollar Tariff Cost
House Republicans Move to Defund OECD Over Global Tax Dispute
Botswana Seeks Controlling Stake in De Beers as Anglo American Prepares Exit
Trump Administration Proposes Repeal of Obama‑Era Endangerment Finding, Dismantling Regulatory Basis for CO₂ Emissions Limits
France Opens Criminal Investigation into X Over Algorithm Manipulation Allegations
A family has been arrested in the UK for displaying the British flag
Mel Gibson refuses to work with Robert De Niro, saying, "Keep that woke clown away from me."
Trump Steamrolls EU in Landmark Trade Win: US–EU Trade Deal Imposes 15% Tariff on European Imports
ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman says people share personal info with ChatGPT but don’t know chats can be used as court evidence in legal cases.
The British propaganda channel BBC News lies again.
Deputy attorney general's second day of meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell has concluded
Controversial March in Switzerland Features Men Dressed in Nazi Uniforms
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
Thai Civilian Death Toll Rises to 12 in Cambodian Cross-Border Attacks
TSUNAMI: Trump Just Crossed the Rubicon—And There’s No Turning Back
Over 120 Criminal Cases Dismissed in Boston Amid Public Defender Shortage
UN's Top Court Declares Environmental Protection a Legal Obligation Under International Law
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
The Podcaster Who Accidentally Revealed He Earns Over $10 Million a Year
Trump Announces $550 Billion Japanese Investment and New Trade Agreements with Indonesia and the Philippines
US Treasury Secretary Calls for Institutional Review of Federal Reserve Amid AI‑Driven Growth Expectations
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Severe Flooding in South Korea Claims Lives Amid Ongoing Rescue Operations
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
×