What is a Climate Café? 

 

A Climate Café is a safe space to come and share your feelings, worries, and concerns as well as your hopes and aspirations about the issues we are facing regarding climate and environmental change. At each event Plastic Free Faversham has arranged a short talk, relaxed general group discussions & more importantly tea/coffee & cake! We will explore this pressing topic in an open, friendly, non-judgmental way - exploring together, & supporting each other. 

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We would love to see you! No booking necessary. Just turn up. Stay for as long as you are able. No pressure at all to talk, you can simple listen and have a cuppa! See you there! Meg from Street Sustainables will be at our events ready to fill up your containers with a whole array of household products: dishwasher detergent, all purpose cleaner, hand soap, bath/shower gel, white vinegar, toilet cleaner…..So get collecting your old plastic containers and bring them along for refills.

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Previous Talks:

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April 2023

Judy Ormesher talked about how to make changes to become part of The Circular Economy.

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September 2022

UK car sharing platform, Hiyacar, gave a very interesting talk about Hiyacar’s ‘Closed Loops’ offering; and the low emissions car club trial as part of the locally-organised events for the highly-anticipated annual Big Green Week.

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Earlier this year, Hiyacar, in partnership with Swale Borough Council, provided a number of hybrid vehicles for, and successfully launched an exciting 3 year trial of a low emissions car club. The main aim of this launch was to help residents of Faversham get where they need to go, affordably and sustainably, and so far 35 journeys have been made in these hybrid vehicles.

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May 2022

Community Energy! Orchard Community Energy spoke at this event about how we can work together to put community action at the heart of the energy transition. 

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April 2022

Air Source Heat Pumps & PV arrays Vs Gas/oil boilers - PFF’s 5th Climate Café! This workshop was hosted by Justin from Invicta Clean Energy who will talked to us through an ‘array’ of renewable and clean energies for the home. He helped calculate running costs of replacing gas/oil-fired boiler with air source heat pumps.

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March 2022

How Big is your Carbon Footprint and How Can You Reduce it? Queen Elizabeth Grammar School scientist, Lily Ray, gave a meticulous study of the school's carbon footprint as well tips for reducing it and your footprint in the home.

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February 2022

To EV or Not to EV?  Terry Conrad Thompson, from Drive Easy EV Hire & Share and Tree of Life Veganics Farm, is an expert on electric vehicles. The talk was a lively insight into the pros and cons of electric vehicles, brilliantly presented by Terry. (Random fact: the Shard contains enough nickel to produce 360 electric vehicles? Luxury, high-end construction is the biggest market for nickel – not electric vehicles).

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January 2022

A Beginner's Guide to Zero Waste! - with guest speaker Greenpeace representative John Halladay. John Halladay’s talk on zero waste described in alarming detail the huge impact on the environment of our industrialised consumption habits, and therefore our need to Reduce and Reuse. It was bursting with info and detail and stimulated a non-stop discussion where not even free tea and biscuits could interrupt the flow! 

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November 2021

We launched our first Climate Café in November with the Climate Reality’s presentation on the facts and stats on climate change (grim), and the now increasingly viable solutions (less grim).

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Why a Climate Café?

 

Plastic Free Faversham’s Climate Café – Tea-ming with ideas!

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A couple of years’ ago, I was lucky to follow a Climate Reality training course, a course whose aim was to inform and engage as many people as possible about the effects of and solutions to climate change. It was a revelation – one of those events in my life that marked a Before and After. The five-day training course turned me into a committed climate activist.

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Out of the many interesting projects that came out of the training was the idea of a Climate Café for people to come together in an informal and inclusive setting to discuss their concerns and feelings about the climate crisis. It was a format that created a favourable opportunity to combine chocolate biscuits and a cuppa with a presentation on, say,  the pros and cons of electric vehicles, and then chat about it afterwards.

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All our talks have prompted lively discussion and encouraged people to share ideas and experience. We try to focus on areas in our daily lives where we can all make a more sustainable choice – in what we eat, what we consume, how we travel, how we heat our homes. Best way to mitigate climate change in our diet? Choosing more plant-based food. We have a talk planned on veganism and reducing waste in the kitchen to inspire you.  Enjoy your garden? Including the insect world and birdlife is more and more essential in an age of ‘insect extinction’ so we’re looking forward to a talk on how to improve biodiversity in our gardens. And what about our homes - where we will probably spend more time in the future as working from home becomes more acceptable – working out how to heat them in a climate-mitigating way and at reduced cost is a burning issue, in more ways than one.

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We are also facing a cost-of-living crisis. Can’t the climate one wait?

 

No, not really.

It’s becoming very clear that the effects of climate change will intensify many of the problems caused by our so far unsustainable ways of living. The more pressure we put on the Earth’s systems and resources, the more the cost of them will increase – through repairs to infrastructure, insurance premiums, fuel and energy increases. Ultimately, though, we’ll be counting more than the financial cost as our health service buckles under the strain of chronic diseases and poor health caused by sedentary lives, unbalanced diets, badly insulated homes and polluted air and water.

 

Many planet-sustainable choices can be cost-effective, especially in the long term. And heating bills can only go down, not up, when our homes are properly insulated. These are the choices that not only mitigate the impact of climate change, they also help steer us towards a cleaner, healthier and, hopefully happier future, where money and resources aren’t wasted.

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In keeping with our Reduce and Reuse ethos, Meg from Street Sustainables will be at our events ready to fill up your containers with a whole array of household products: dishwasher detergent, all purpose cleaner, hand soap, bath/shower gel, white vinegar, toilet cleaner…..So get collecting your old plastic containers and bring them along for refills.

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Everyone is warmly invited to our Climate Café events. Come just for the cuppa if you want – and take away some useful ideas on how to improve our personal and social lives in relation to the changes that climate change is already starting to bring.

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