Climate Justice Reading Group

In 2022 CJU and Rabble books and Games partnered up to host a series of reading groups to foster a community thinking and action for climate justice.  These book club style events included a range of different length texts (books, poems, podcasts etc) to accommodate peoples' different capacities.

Each season’s readings were organised around a theme. The themes were:

• Country and Healing
• Grief, Loss and Coping
• Hope and Wellbeing
• The Powers that Might Become

Click on one of the themes above to view the readings, the session discussion prompts and a summary of our conversations.

To explore the themes yourself, you can view the full reading list with links to some of the texts here. If you want to read these with others or want to host a similar style reading group you may like to consider the Culture and Norms helped to create the space. 

Whether you like to read or listen, have an hour or every night before bed, there’s something for everyone to connect with to explore the theme. The reading list includes a variety of 'texts' ranging from short to long:

• Feast (a more involved text such as a book or chapter to indulge in over a few days and keep you satiated between conversations)
• Taster (shorter pieces such as a video, podcast of short read to consume in one sitting for the curious but time pressed)
• Ambiance (a poem, song or visual to inspire and set the mood for an instant sense of the theme)

What is the Climate Justice Reading Group

Aims:

• To share and discuss literature and other mediums including art, music and podcasts broadly related to intersectional and decolonial Climate Justice.
• To hold an inclusive and accessible space for people to have meaningful conversations that foster good relationships and inspire us to individual and collective action.
• To listen and learn in open minded, critical and respectful ways that challenge, comfort and nourish us.

Participants are encouraged to

• Join CJU and support Rabble books
• Be open minded and willing to re-examine their assumptions.
• Support, listen to and be curious with others.
• Learn about and reflect upon collective action for climate justice.

Culture * Norms will be reviewed and negotiated on an ongoing basis

• We respect that everyone has a different experience, story and journey
• This is a space of exploration, from where we are. We have no answers, but many experiences. Let's lead with the heart.
• We make sure every one has an equal chance to participate in a way that meets their needs.
• “It matters which stories story stories” (Donna Haraway) so we prioritise content from the those who offer something marginal, new, ancient, unusual, radical and creative rather than more of the same.
• We support local bookshops and borrow books from libraries. When we are done we donate or lend our books.

Reflections on the reading group

In the last reading group we discussed how ideas and our relationship to them change over time as our own thinking and society shifts.

For example we noticed that in Parable of the Sower the idea for colonising space is more widely accepted as a problematic idea today than it might have been in 1993 when the book was published. The Glad Shout was also for one reader once a favourite, but later they saw it as an issue that the book props up narratives that problems such as climate change are on only real and of concern when they upper middle class white people experience them.

We connected these reflections on the readings to our own changing perspectives and moral compass. We agreed that in all things it is important to be compassionate to those around us, who's perspectives can, have and will change if we treat each other with dignity and respect - We hope the reading group continues to achieve this way of being.

In the last session we heard from regulars that the conversations were really special and even life changing.

Thank you to everyone who participated and made the conversations and relationships as good as they were! Special thanks to Rachel Watts and Kylie Wrigley for coordinating and facilitating and to Nat and the Rabble Books team for hosting.