“When I talk about climate grief or eco-anxiety the most common response I get is, ‘oh I have that but I didn’t know that was actually a thing. I didn’t know it had a name,’” says Caitlyn Wallace.
Wallace, a licensed clinical social worker, has started organizing monthly free and open to everyone Climate Cafes at the Reno Food Systems farm. Climate Cafes are based on Death Cafes which started in Europe as communal places where people can talk about their fear, and grief around dying. Even though they are open to attend, these spaces are completely confidential and what is said cannot be talked about with others on the outside.
Climate Cafes were brought over to the U.S, Canada, and other parts of Europe by the Climate Psychology Alliance.
On its About page it writes: “Climate change is … an urgent, frightening, systemic problem involving environment, culture and politics. It engenders fear, denial and despair amongst individuals, evasion, indifference and duplicity amongst the powerful. It forces uncomfortable dilemmas about justice, nature and equality into consciousness. It challenges all of us in modern societies both personally and politically.”
Similarly to the Death Cafes, Climate Cafes are meant to bring people together and encourage them to talk about their feelings over a cup of coffee about issues that are possibly too big for individuals to solve on their own. “You can’t solve death and an individual can’t solve climate change but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have really big feelings around it,” said Caitlyn. She emphasizes the importance of sharing those feelings in a group where others likely share the same thoughts and where there is a support group.
“The cafes are intended to bring people together not as a place to organize or rally those are important spaces but this is not that space. They’re more of an attempt to talk about their feelings and manage their feelings and get out of reactivity and into a place of responsiveness,” Wallace, the local organizer of Climate Cafes said.
As of now, there have been two “Climate Cafes” that has been held at the Reno Food Systems farm but there are future plans for more. “My goal is to provide them on an every other month basis and then to offer them more regularly if the need is there,” Wallace said. There will also be options to zoom into the meetings once the cold weather starts rolling in. After registering, the zoom link can be provided by contacting desertbloomwellnessnv@gmail.com.
Wallace says these spaces are especially important to hold in Nevada.
“Reno is named the fastest heating city in the continental U.S. We’ve got smoke from the fires. We’re seeing major floods and major weather changes across the country,” she said. There is also a lack of providers and public services. Clinicians are struggling with extensive waitlists, while more and more people say they feel down or discouraged about the changing and degrading environment around them.
Our Town Reno reporting by Nancy Vazquez