Participants chat between question sessions.

I joined about 15 others for a "global warming cafe" in West Medford yesterday, and was glad to be among my peeps for a couple of hours. Generally, these were people who are clued into the needs and demands of climate change, and many of them do quite a lot already.

The format was to sit in ad hoc small groups to answer each of a handful of questions posed by the moderator, Susan Altman. I was late and missed the first one, which covered people's fears about the situation. The second question was about hopes for a solution.

I was skeptical, and a bit afraid, as I approached the question, unable to think of much. But as each table reported its results, someone commented, "we had more hope than we thought." Altman responded that the same sentiment had arisen at a cafe she led in Franklin a couple of weeks ago. Some of what we came up with:

After we reshuffled ourselves into new groupings, we were asked to name actions we could take as individuals and as part of groups, and heard a pitch for the "Low Carbon Diet," a book by David Gershon that offers a palette of 24 actions one can take to reduce one's carbon footprint by 5,000 pounds in a month. The suggestion is to attempt this in groups of several households, for mutual support and encouragement.

A suggestion for action that I liked was for group members — in a church, or a community center, or in a company — to try to influence climate-friendly change. It's better than working alone, and change is far more likely to come from within.