Climate Cafe started with a simple idea among friends over coffee: let’s get people together and just talk about it. That’s it, that’s the whole point. People need space to talk about what’s going on, and we can provide that to them.
This isn’t unlike what happens every day for thousands of people in thousands of rooms across the globe who are working on solutions to the climate problem. People are talking about the climate crisis all the time, in various ways and in multitudes of spaces. These are entrepreneurs, politicians, activists, volunteers, C-suite executives, insurance analysts, hedge fund managers, farmers. Climate has never been more part of the public discourse than it is today.
But what about the average person? Or, in the preferred coffee-tinged parlance of Climate Cafe, what about the Average Joe? Studies have shown that climate is a concern among a supermajority of the population, but how often do people actually recognize that fact, let alone talk with their peers about it? In reality, the opposite has been shown to be true: most people who are concerned about climate change don’t even realize that most other people also share that concern.
This is the problem that Climate Cafe aims to address. We are working, through our events, to create a large and connected community that allows everyone concerned about the climate crisis to find other people who feel the same way, and to learn about what we can do together to make things better. We want to make it clear to everyone that not only are you not alone in your climate feelings, but we have the answers to all the questions you could have about how to make meaningful changes to our lives.
Coffee is one of those answers. As a social and cultural element to many people’s lives, coffee represents joy, represents community, represents empowerment. Getting coffee (or tea, or any drink really) is an activity we do to spend quality time with each other. Friends get coffee with each other. People seek it out daily.
Turns out that coffee and climate pair well with one another for several reasons. Like many things in this world, coffee is severely threatened by the ravages of a changing climate. By the second half of the 21st century, the current coffee-producing regions of the globe will be largely unable to grow the beans that power so much of our waking hours, well within the lifespans of most people alive today. That means that most people on Earth, if carbon emissions continue unabated, will likely live to see the day when there is no more coffee to be found on the shelves at the store, and coffee will become a beverage solely for the rich elites who can still afford the dwindling supply of beans.
Imagine it: a world without coffee. Can you even? To the average coffee drinker, that sounds like an apocalyptic scenario, a world without coffee. For some of us, it almost sounds like a life not worth living. Coffee is one of those things so precious, so sacred, so integral to our lives that it literally infuses our blood - to lose it would amount to nothing short of a catastrophe. Coffee is the second most-consumed beverage in the world, after water. A world without coffee is a world unrecognizable from the one we inhabit today.
So why not talk about it? Why not connect the climate crisis to the thing that people everywhere love, coffee? Why not talk about it in a space that is geared towards both enjoying coffee and having conversations, a climate cafe? Now we’re starting to see the value of this moment: we have the opportunity to attract people to have climate conversations with their peers while enjoying coffee, and through this engagement we can activate these people to take climate action.
That’s what Climate Cafe was designed to do: host climate cafes that then lead people to resources for ways they can participate in the climate community in New York City, and, eventually, all over the world. The concept of a climate cafe is nothing new: a space to talk about the difficult emotions of the climate crisis. But what we have added to the equation is using it as an organizing tool, to bring people closer to organizations and resources in their communities so that they feel connected to meaningful solutions.
We want to use the climate cafe event format to redefine what it means to be part of the “climate movement” as it is typically talked about. Most people who consider themselves in the movement tend to be activists and people that actively work in climate industries or government. But if the climate movement is going to succeed in its stated goals, that being the complete transformation of our economy to eliminate carbon emissions, then we’re going to need more people - a lot more people. We can’t simply gatekeep the term “climate action” to only look like one form of public protest. Marches and speeches are not all that make up the climate movement, and those who define action so narrowly are in fact serving to keep the climate movement small and inaccessible to the majority of laypeople.
Arcane knowledge of detailed climate policy is not required to participate in the climate movement. Putting your body in the middle of a highway to block traffic at rush hour is not required to participate in the climate movement. Watching An Inconvenient Truth and going vegan is not required to participate in the climate movement. But getting coffee - maybe that’s a form of climate activism too. Talking about it, maybe that’s activism. And if it isn’t, then it’s at least a start, and the coffee becomes a way to get people in the door, and the friends they make are what keep them coming back. It is this aspect of the movement that is currently being neglected by the mainstream “big climate” groups that prioritize direct action and policy advocacy over community engagement.
We created Climate Cafe to help the Average Joe navigate a big and complicated climate movement, so that they can feel connected to the largest organized community in human history: the movement to end carbon emissions. We created regular events for people to share their climate feelings and build community with others while doing so. We created a website resource that anyone can use to find climate events happening near them and local organizations that engage in various kinds of work. We made “joining the movement” easier and more enjoyable than ever before, without a single arrest, cardboard sign or petition. We did it all through the tantalizing power of coffee.
And we took it a step further. How else can we turn getting coffee into a metaphor for action? Coffee represents so many intangible things to us, but it also represents something practical: it is a physical thing we can hold in our hands, and we know its value, often down to the cent. Those of us who drink coffee have our favorite cafes we frequent, our favorite orders, and we usually know by heart the total we owe the barista whose name we also know after having done this ritual so many times. Coffee has concrete value, and for our purposes, we have given an easy number to represent that value: 5 dollars.
What if, in setting a standard for ourselves as members of the climate movement, we all commit to a very simple goal: donate $5 a month to the climate movement? We can think of this like an investment in our future: $5 per month is a small enough amount that we can all part with it, but when everyone is doing it, it really adds up. In even simpler terms, we can think of it like a coffee: let’s buy Mother Earth a coffee every month, as a way of thanking her for all she’s given us and all we intend to give back to her. We can also think of it like future insurance: $5 is the monthly premium, and it is going towards building a movement that will ensure the future is a world with coffee, and all the other things we hold dear.
That’s why we created a membership option for Climate Cafe, where people can support our coffee club to the tune of one coffee a month. If we can set this standard for ourselves, where everyone who has a stake in the future donates $5 a month to fighting for that future, the climate movement will finally have the resources it needs to succeed, to reach every person. It’s a much easier way for people to support our movement than having to attend meetings and go to protests. Time is our most precious resource; while we would love to see everyone in our community at all our events, we know it simply isn’t feasible for the Average Joe. So we give everyone the chance to be part of what we’re building by throwing us $5 every month. In our first year alone, we have had over 200 members support our work in this way.
Put in the form of a question, if we could all build together a large, powerful, successful climate movement that changes everything for the better, and ensures the future resembles a place we want to live in, and all it cost was the price of a coffee a month, could we all do that? Could every climate concerned person afford to spend $5 a month on a plan to save the future? The answer, we think, is yes. Frankly, that’s cheap. But it’s also enough to make all the difference in the world.
And why stop there? Come to a climate event once a month. Volunteer your time once a month towards helping your community. Join a climate org. Watch a movie with us. Get trained with us. Come swimming with us - we just hosted a pool party for our members. Be part of our community, and we’ll show you everything you can do, and everyone you can do it with. We made a whole Climate Action Handbook that you can use to track your progress, and we’re adding volunteer resources to our website to make it easy. To anyone who’s ever said that they care about climate change but don’t know what to do about it, we’ve finally got you covered.
That’s the Krabby Patty secret formula to Climate Cafe: host events, share resources, add donating members. The money goes towards hosting more events, which will reach more people, who will then learn about local resources and join local orgs, all the while adding to our member base to continue our growth. It’s a virtuous circle that has worked beautifully so far: in our first two years, we’ve put on hundreds of events, engaged thousands of people, and built a community of friends that takes action together. And it all started in a living room with some friends and some coffee. Our collective impact is so much greater than us working alone as individuals, and if we keep building this climate community together, there’s no limit to how many people we’ll reach. We will deliver on what we’ve always wanted, which is a beautifully choreographed movement working toward a common goal: a better future for everyone.
That’s the vision of Climate Cafe. That’s how coffee can change the world.
Join us and stay tuned for more blog posts, more events, more coffee. We’re glad you’re here.
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