Climate + Change
Led by Dr. Heather Short — the only climate scientist focused on educating “the adults in the room,” — these courses + workshops are simultaneously frank + evidence-based, compassionate + sensitive, contemplative + actionable.
It is still possible to shape a future
that we’d be proud to leave
to those who come after us.
To transform that possibility into reality, EcoGather’s Climate + Change offerings equip adult learners with the scientific knowledge, emotional clarity, and practical know-how to contribute to timely systemic change.
We know that the “grown-ups” are most often the ones who hold the resources, positional power, and social influence to meaningfully address the climate crisis and related urgencies. Unfortunately, thanks for decades of delay, today’s adults did not have a chance to build critical climate literacy + related skills during their formal education. That leaves far too many of us ill-equipped to discuss the present and looming dangers, let alone address their causes, assess various interventions, and collaborate intergenerationally to shape change.
Only educating youth lays a heavy burden at the feet of a generation already experiencing unprecedented levels of “eco-anxiety” and depression about C&E crises. Young folks & future generations deserve — and largely lack — climate-literate and change-competent adults to talk to, learn from, work with, and be supported by.
Climate + Change offerings support adults in becoming climate-literate guides who can help youth to thrive in an uncertain future, regardless of what we achieve imminently on greenhouse gas emissions, pollution, or biodiversity loss
Are you feeling sad, anxious, helpless, or overwhelmed about climate change?
Do you find yourself wanting to ‘do something’ about the climate emergency, but don’t know where to begin?
Are you climate-cognizant (and concerned), but don’t yet feel confident enough in your understanding of the situation?
Do you wish you could have well-informed, persuasive conversations about climate with deniers or delayers?
Do you yearn to organize or participate in meaningful action on the climate emergency?
If you answered “YES” to any of the above, a Climate + Change course is for you…
Climate + Change Offerings
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Climate + Change: How to Comprehend & Meaningfully Respond to the Defining Crisis of Our Time
This cohorted course is an invitation for adults to face facts they know they can’t ignore – but to do it together and with the guidance of an experienced and especially sensitive climate educator who demystifies the science, takes a sobering tour of the projections, makes space for the feelings of grief and paralysis that often arise, and then offers clear, actionable, and meaningful steps that can be taken now to avert the worst outcomes and give today’s youth and future generations a fighting chance.
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Climate + Change: from Literacy through Grief to Action
The present climate and ecological emergencies can no longer be ignored, yet the social and political response to them does not match the scale and urgency of action required. A vague sense among Global Northerners that things are bad and that they will get much worse manifests as emotional paralysis, despair, and both active and passive denial. None of this helps the individual or mitigates the crises. Conversely, because of their current realities, many Global Southerners are acutely aware of climate consequences in the present and want to inform their actions and adaptations with a firm grip of the science and socio-political dynamics.
This self-paced course aims to illuminate the dark cloud in our minds called climate breakdown, by equipping learners with the scientific knowledge, emotional clarity, and practical know-how to contribute to timely transformative systemic change in all aspects of society.
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Climate + Change Literacy Workshops
Dr. Short + other members of the EcoGather Network are available to deliver bespoke climate literacy workshops to the adults in your rooms.
Our workshops are well-suited for K-12 and post-secondary educators, elected and appointed public officials, private sector leaders, NGO staff, policymakers, organizers, activists, and even groups of retirees or elders who want to use their wisdom and time to meaningful climate action.
Reach out to explore scheduling a half- or full-day Climate + Change virtual workshop.
Meet Dr. Heather Short
Heather Short holds a PhD in Earth Sciences, and has been teaching college and university students geology and Earth systems science for 25 years, focusing on the present climate crisis for the last 15. She designed and taught the first Earth systems courses in the Quebec College system, guiding learners from climate science basics, through climate psychology, to the necessity of urgent collective action. In her spare time, Dr. Short advocates for transformative systemic change in all aspects of society. She grew up in Bristol, Vermont.
Learn more about her courageous climate education work.
Heather Short & EcoGather acknowledge that we have benefited from the unmitigated extraction of resources from nature and emission of CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels -- the proximate causes of climate and ecological breakdown. The social, political, and economic privileges that position us to hold and share knowledge about the climate crisis, its root causes, and transformative responses to it would not be possible without the wealth forcibly removed from the Earth and living systems, as well as the subjugation of animals and peoples of color around the world.
Dr. Short is an exemplary teacher who has an ability to communicate and teach scientific concepts on earth systems and climate change to non-scientists in a very understandable, illustrative, and coherent way… In addition to the excellent teaching of difficult course material, I would like to point out how completely transformative the course has been, totally changing my world view. The course not only presents the science of climate change, but it connects the dots to the political, economic, and social systems that perpetuate the reliance on fossil fuels and disproportionately affect the Global South. The concepts of a just transition are critical as we navigate the situation we are in and work toward creating a sustainable planet for all.
~ Climate + Change participant