Session 1 Instructions
Foreword and Introduction
1. Push the Record button. Make sure you record the session for those who may not be able to attend.
2. Guide opens with a reading. Pick one from the Poems and Quotes or use “The future can’t be predicted but it can be envisioned and brought lovingly into being.” Donella Meadows (opening quote in 2040 Handbook)
3. Begin all sessions sharing aloud our mission, vision, and motto:
— Our Mission: Empowering people to reverse global warming.
— Our Vision: To spark the exponential transformation needed for a flourishing planet now.
— Our Motto: “One Month for the Earth.”
4. Introductions:
— Where are you from? What is your vocation?
— Why do you want to reduce greenhouse gasses? (No more than 2 sentences): This may be a good place to mention that timeliness is important, and you will raise your hand as a friendly request for them to wrap it up.
5. Show the Introduction to Carbon CREW Project Slide Show (live using footnotes)
6. Discussion of the Earth Overshoot Day concept
— Overshoot Day is the date when the demand for ecological goods and services (food, energy, consumption habits, etc.) depletes the Earth’s ability to regenerate in that year. In 2022, the global Overshoot Day was July 28. The US Overshoot Day was March 13.
— By calculating your personal overshoot day at the beginning of your CREW and again at the end as if your PCAP was fully completed, you will obtain a rough estimate of how your planned lifestyle changes will reduce your global footprint, and, in effect, help save the planet!
7. Discussion of the 2040 readings
— Ask which phrase (on what page) had special meaning. Guide may use the book notations to add any important points to the conversation that did not get highlighted by team members.
— Be sure to highlight on p. 6 & 7, Paul Hawken’s comment “2040 is a vista into a remarkable future wherein imaginative and practical solutions to global warming are not penance but promise, not obligations but opportunities, not inhibition but innovation.”
— Follow-up discussion: how do you feel about reframing problems as solutions?
What examples of this do you recognize for you personally? (For example, eating more vegetables might make you healthier, or riding a bike might reveal the landscape.)
8. Review the PCAP planning process – Preface with acknowledgement that we each come from different backgrounds, levels of experience, financial resources, and history of environmentalism. But we are all in the same boat, taking our own next steps.
— Read one or two chapters each week. Based on that reading, create a 5-year personal climate action plan (PCAP). PCAP Examples.
— Send PCAPs to fellow group members 24 hours in advance of next meeting.
— Read other CREW members PCAPs. Note references to share with them.
— Don’t forget to talk about CREW with others and be prepared to share the results at next session.
— The web site has many resources available, including the session guides, the FAQ’s, the Strategies for Speed and Success, and Resources to go with each session.
