What are global warming solutions? WE are global warming solutions. We are a force for change, a force that can step outside the old energy paradigm to build the future and present that we know is possible. People like us, acting in every community, hold the ideas and inspiration for change, and we can believe in those people as we believe in ourselves.
I have worked with Timothy Den-Herder Thomas and others to create a guide for more effective activist groups. What do those groups look like? How can we engage more people in creative, ambitious and exciting work to build a climate positive world? I want to share this with you as the beginning of a discussion.
Who is this guide for? Anyone who wants to work in a larger and more effective group, who wants to work differently and better with people. Its also for anyone who wants to continue building the movement.
Why here? IGHIH is an amazing venue for publicizing victories and keeping up-to-date on relevant climate policy. It has not usually be a place to have discussions. If we want to learn from each other, then lets change that.
Read the guide, see if it applies to the work you do, and let us all know whether it does or doesn’t.
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I’m very excited to see this guide coming out. Open Space has the wonderful ability to empower people and generate unexpected and innovative outcomes.
**For those in the area, the North Carolina Student Climate Coalition will be hosting its 2nd open space this semester, at the SURGE Conference at Appalachian State University next weekend, March 29-30. http://www.surgenetwork.org/conference/
In the guide, I might also emphasize the importance of note taking in each breakout and providing the collective notes to everyone and anyone who may be interested afterwards. This has the potential to bring outside people into the discussions and can provide a way to digest the ideas and plans after the meeting has happened.
Great post Morgan, I’m glad to see this in its near-final form.
“Open space technology realizes the potential in all people to make meaningful contributions. It breaks down distinctions between ordinary and extraordinary, between leader and follower, expert and layman. It doesn’t deny those realities, but rather creates the conditions where those identities step out of the rigid boxes they normally get stuck in.”
I think that the goals and purpose of Open Space Technology are absolutely essential to building a climate positive movement. We need understanding from everyone - many currently see global warming as a subject dominated by experts and hippies. Any effective response to climate change will need to grow much bigger than that, and Open Space Technology can help. We need change - and it needs to be fast, just, and effective. Our current hierarchical systems are incapable of handling it; ideas get watered down and stuck in bureaucracy. Some of that we can’t change immediately, but we can continue to develop our groups and ourselves as successful (and positive, fun-loving, happy!) activists through Open Space Technology.
I like the emphasis on flexible schedules and outcomes. When we ran Cascade Power Shift and everyone was asking what was coming out of it, I kept saying, “Come and decide that, I can’t say.” But at the same time I think it’s important to have some loose guidelines, maybe a handful of possible campaign ideas that can be shaped and formed by the participants.
Good work,
JP