How to be Effective When Taking Climate Action – SOCAN General Meeting

Many of us want to do what we can to address the climate crisis – for ourselves, our youth, and future generations. However, it is challenging to identify how each of us individually can address this issue meaningfully . To help us, we will briefly revisit a January 2024 SOCAN presentation that featured Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, who developed  a 10-minute TED talk offering tips on this process. Johnson created a Venn diagram with three circles overlapping in the center where we  identify (1) what gives us  joy, (2) what we are good at doing, and (3) what we  could do to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

The next SOCAN Public General meeting will feature Flavia Franco from Southern Oregon Food Solutions. Flavia will share her take on the Venn Diagram and how she is using a positive feedback loop to make her intersection (in the diagram) grow bigger, both personally and as a community, as she focuses on the issues of food waste prevention, reduction and community compost. In order  to make progress – especially towards resilience – connections and relationships are key. A positive feedback loop can be used to build momentum in climate action either by being the center driver of the loop activity or by being a part of the loop itself.

Flavia’s call to action is that if attendees haven’t done so already, then some time should be used to create individual diagrams, to take stock of progress on this journey, and to decide if course correction is necessary for going further and to connect with others in order to make progress.