The Week: The New Playbook for Climate Mobilization
The Week
Description
The Week is a climate mobilization tool that anyone can pick up and use, for free, to create courageous conversations about climate breakdown, and what we as a society can do about it on universities.
Whether you're a student, faculty member, or sustainability office, The Week can be used to create social tipping points on campus by mobilizing "the broad middle" for sustainability – this is the vast majority of the population taht is aware of the climate crisis to a certain degree, but has not yet taken action or gotten engaged. Talking about the environment can be overwhelming or polarizing for many people, which makes it hard to preach outside the choir, and have the conversations that lead to individual and collective change. The Week was built to do something about that.
It works like this: You get together with a group 3 times over the course of a week - hence the name - each time to go through a short documentary and guided discussion, which take participants through an emotional, "U-shaped" journey that lets them grapple with the reality of the climate emergency. By focusing on what’s likely to happen to us, and the people we love, over the next 10 to 20 years, The Week empowers groups with the energy, hope, and concrete next steps to act for the climate.
The Week empowers groups with concrete actions that can be taken for the environment, and also gives to participants the feeling of “wanting to do more”. That energy can be channeled into existing, on-campus initiatives, to create university-wide momentum for sustainability. Between norm-shifting conversations and emotional processing, here's a few ways The Week can be used on campus:
- For faculty who want to spark a conversation about sustainability in their department or beyond, but are unsure how to get other staff members to support them - going through The Week can spark conversations and action.
- For educators who want to put an emphasis on climate education in their courses.
- For environmental groups who want to mobilize greater numbers of students – The Week can be used as a recruitment and event-making tool to reach students in "the broad middle."
- For sustainability offices looking to get more people on campus engaged in their initiatives – The Week can be a climate awareness event – as a public screening or for smaller groups - offered every semester.
The Week can be organized by anyone (16+) by heading to the website. It needs no facilitator, and can take place in-person or online. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out to John (john@theweek.ooo).