A yearly meeting tool for Friends and meetings seeking to live out our yearly meeting-wide commitment to address climate change is now available! The booklet Creating a Playbook for Climate Action helps Friends develop personalized plans for how to address climate change – in their meetings and in their homes. Because frankly, great intentions sometimes need a path forward to arrive at the destination.
Together, on behalf of the entire body our yearly meeting has committed to two yearly meeting-wide witnesses: addressing climate change and addressing racism. This means that rather than asking a committee to carry these ministries for us, we are all invited to carry it together. That includes every Friend, every household, and every meeting.
After approving addressing climate change as a yearly meeting-wide witness in March of 2021, we asked a sprint- a sprint is a very short-term committee with a distinct charge- to come back to us with some direction and support for leaning into the witness. A key part of their response was five action areas that are essential to moving the dial on climate change: activism, education, carbon footprint reduction, finances, and mourning loss & instilling hope. The action areas were approved in July 2021.
Creating a Playbook for Climate Action provides a framework for taking action in all five areas. It also empowers meetings, households, and individuals to not only get started but also to keep going.
Getting Started
Who is going to journey together? Meetings might work together, under the care of the Peace & Concerns committee or perhaps with support from a sprint. Households and families can host their own meeting for worship with attention to business and collaborate on making a Playbook that suits them. An individual who is living alone or with others can also make their own plan using tools held within the pages of this resource. Friends can use the sample agenda for the first meeting if it is helpful.
How do you stay on the path? From the start, plan to keep yourself accountable. Decide how often and when you or the people who are working together will check in with the plan and each other. Engage someone, or a group, who is not working on the Playbook but is willing to schedule time to meet with you for a check in. The booklet includes an outline for creating an accountability plan in addition to queries to help guide check-ins.
What is the Plan? The booklet provides a wide variety of resources for each of the five action areas in combination with a worksheet for brainstorming on what you might do in each area. It also provides a single page to document actions you ilactaken in one or more of the five areas, including who will take leadership, what your goal is, what you’ll do and when the deadline may be.
We hope Friends will find Creating a Playbook for Climate Action booklet helpful as you leverage this resource to create a roadmap for addressing climate change. After all, as the late John Lewis said, If not us, then who? and if not now, then when?
Join us for upcoming virtual workshops on how to put this key resource to good use on April 22 (Earth Day), and check-in support meetings on May 29th and October 10th.
To download your own copy of the Creating a Playbook for Climate Action , click here. Print copies can be requested from the PYM office (info@pym.org, 215-241-7238)
