Imagining the Future, Acting in the Present: a day of debate and reflection on climate change, ethics and belief for students in Religious Education, Leeds Civic Hall Council Chamber (March 16 2011)

It has always been the intention to develop Beyond the Tipping Point? into a format that can suit a wide variety of groups. I was particularly excited to be invited by Leeds SACRE (Standing Advisory Council on Religious Education) and Leeds City Council to run a day workshop for RE students between 14 – 15 years old to coincide with national ‘RE week’.

A key element of the day was its location: the prestigious Civic Hall Council Chamber, a grand debating hall where students would get an opportunity to take on the role of a city council: chairing debate, creating motions, voting and debating the issues that mattered to them. The workshop was attended by 45 students from 3 different schools around Leeds. The day was introduced by local councillor Geoff Driver and the Lord Mayor also made a vistit, spending lunch time with the students.

There were 2 objectives: First, to enable students to reflect on the different ways that the future is imagined in the context of climate change: which messages, stories, or narratives (both religious and secular) do we use? Second, to let the students practice their debating skills in communicating different approaches to climate change. The emphasis of the day was on how people have different views on the future depending on lifestyles, social backgrounds and religious views. Could the students put themselves in someone elses shoes? Could they understand what ‘taking action’ on the climate would mean from different viewpoints?

After watching Beyond the Tipping Point? students discussed the meaning of tipping points; whether or not such language encouraged taking action; and, using the ‘social barometer’ game (standing anywhere on the length of the hall between ‘strongly agree’ and ‘strongly disagree’) what they felt about what they as individuals, their schools, and their government were doing about climate change.

Forming small groups, the students then came up with a number of different practical motions for the general council to debate and vote upon in the afternoon. The motions overwhelmingly emphasised methods to reduce consumption: from electricity rationing cards to free public transport and solar panels. The winning motion was: “this house would apply government incentive programmes (such as free public transport) that benefits the environment”. It was felt that rewarding people financially was more effective than enforcing them through rationing.

In the afternoon each group then took on different roleplays based on 5 different backgrounds: a religious group, a direct action group, humanitarian aid campaigners from  small island nations, a group of geo-engineering entrepreneurs, and a local political party. Each group formulated their arguments and responses to the motion from the viewpoint of their appointed role. This meant that the students needed to consider what those group’s priorities, values and beliefs were and how they could get these across in a debate.

The motion debate, chaired by one of the students, was a fascinating and mature exchange of ideas. Teachers noted unamimously how respectfully the debate was conducted without any outside interference. Each group came up with a unique perspective, entering into the roleplay with passion!

My reflections on the students’ arguments and debates were a very keen and immediate sense of the ethical issues involved in climate change, without much prompting. They were aware, for example, of the different approaches to motivating environmental behaviour – rewarding on the one hand and punishing on the other. Several students also expressed a belief that acting on climate change on a global scale was very likely too little too late, and that the overwhleming problem was that it was always a minority of people taking real action on the climate. There was a prevalent view that ‘people are basically selfish’ and motivated by self-interest, but not overwhlemingly so: several students expressed the importance of acting not only for themselves but for the good of their children and others around them.

The most interesting exchange for me centrered around how the future was imagined, and whether taking action or spending money could be justified. Whilst some students believed that climate change was too late to change and was therefore probably a waste of resources, several responded that it was good to take action regardless of whether it would ‘stop’ climate change: the benefits to society would be positive and worth the effort anyway. So there was a keen sense of multiple reasons for taking action, despite the uncertainty of the future.

Verbal feedback from the students by the end of the day was also encouraging: students enjoyed the chance to have the views heard, and some felt encouraged to consider taking up ethics / philosophy / RE further down the line in their studies.

The views, notes, drawings and discussions from the day have all been collated and, as promised, will be presented in the form of some concrete proposals for action to Leeds City Council.