The Inner Dimension of Climate Action

About This Event

For Our Common Home Lecture Series

The resource for educators, Transformative Skills Guide: Expanding the Definition of Climate Literacy, was the result of a collaboration between U.S. federal and international non-federal experts in climate literacy and transformative skills-building. Inspiration to create the guide came during the consultation process for the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP)’s 2024 publication, Climate Literacy: Essential Principles for Understanding and Addressing Climate Change. In 2023, the Climate Literacy Guide writing team asked 772 people over 21 public listening sessions, “What does everyone need to be able to do to address the climate crisis?” To their surprise, after analyzing the responses to this question, it became clear that participants thought holistic, psychological, relational, and collaborative skills were needed to address the climate crisis, alongside knowledge about earth sciences and physical systems. The resulting guide aims to expand climate literacy to encompass those inner skills, qualities and capacities that help translate scientific understanding into transformative shifts in the way we do things, individually and collectively.  In this session we will explore how educators, communicators and practitioners can play a key role in equipping the whole of society with these essential resources.

About the speakers:

Jamie Bristow is a writer linking inner and outer transformation, and a policy advisor on the application of inner development and contemplative practices in public life. His work includes influential reports such as Reconnection: Meeting the Climate Crisis Inside Out and The System Within: Addressing the inner dimension of sustainability and systems transformation. Jamie is currently co-founding The Reweaving Project, a yet-to-be-announced initiative with Professor Rebecca Henderson at Harvard University. He is a co-founder of the Life Itself Sensemaking Studio and an honorary researcher at Lancaster Environment Centre. He continues to be a special advisor to the Inner Development Goals, having previously led the initiative’s public narrative and policy development. For eight years, from 2015 to 2023, Jamie played an instrumental role in the UK's All-Party Parliamentary Group on Mindfulness, acting as its clerk and serving as Director of the associated policy institute, The Mindfulness Initiative. During this time he worked with legislators around the world to make mindfulness and compassion training serious matters of public policy and catalysts for a healthier political process. Jamie's earlier roles included being the Business Development Director at Headspace, and his background encompasses psychology, climate change campaigning, and advertising. He is a committed, long-term Insight Meditation practitioner and is training to teach. His teachers have included Rob Burbea and Catherine Magee.

Haley Crim is an interdisciplinary researcher focused on building will and capacity for climate action through education, communication, and workforce development. Haley is the Climate Curriculum Developer at MIT Open Learning, where she translates MIT research into public courses and resources that can help anyone, anywhere, understand our changing world and implement just and effective climate solutions. Previously, she served as the Climate Engagement and Capacity-building Coordinator at NOAA and the U.S. Global Change Research Program. She has a B.S. in Ecology and Earth Systems from Bates College and M.A. in Climate and Society from the Columbia Climate School.