Click here to view the event flyer.
Sustaining All Life held the following events at Climate Week NYC, September 22 to 28, 2025.
ONLINE: Africa on the Frontlines of Climate Change
Africa accounts for less than 4% of global emissions and yet is hugely impacted by the climate crisis. Colonization and racism have made Africa and her people extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change. They have fueled the continued oppression and exploitation of the continent. In this workshop, African leaders from different parts of the continent will share how they and their communities are impacted by the climate crisis and their ongoing work to stop it. Healing circles based on shared experiences give people a chance to be listened to about feelings connected to climate change. Having the chance to share feelings of grief, fear, anger, discouragement, and hope in a mutually supportive group can refresh us and give us new ideas for action.
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Backing Indigenous Leaders: Where Ending the Climate Crisis and Decolonization Meet
The invisibility of indigenous culture and people allows cultural genocide and climate destruction to continue. The ignorance of others in “dominant groups” is very harmful – both emotionally and in terms of progress in the climate movement. Allies to indigenous peoples can become better informed and help raise the voices of indigenous people.
- Listening Exchanges: Exchanging listening is an important way to heal from the damaging effects of colonization and capitalism on our minds, hearts, and our relationship to ourselves, each other, and all of nature.
- In this workshop, we used listening exchanges to learn to:
- Back Indigenous leadership
- Connect and heal our minds and hearts from colonization and capitalism
- Explore and reclaim our basic needs for love, connection to others and nature, fun times, and our passions, including our passion for a beautiful and livable world for all.
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How Do We Create Meaningful Climate Action in an Increasingly Authoritarian USA?
Climate action in the U.S. is critical to avoiding dangerous temperature rise, potentially existential in nature. Progress toward reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions has been reversed by this administration and fossil fuel corporations given a green light.
That’s bad enough. But the rising authoritarianism of this administration makes climate action extremely difficult. The rapid backsliding from democratic institutions and suppression of dissent leaves corporate greed to act unchecked. This is disastrous for the climate crisis, where renewed federal support for the fossil fuel industry is accompanied by withdrawal from international cooperation, rollback of laws that promoted climate action, and legal actions against those who would defy the administration’s program and pursue climate action independently.
Working for meaningful climate action in this atmosphere must include pushing back against authoritarianism. We need to come together with others to fight back, including by using listening tools to tackle emotional blocks to building relationships and forming alliances that have eluded us in the past.
Many social movements are coming together to push back against authoritarianism. The climate movement is part of that push back and we ask everyone to join with us to push back as we work together for a livable world.
- How can we work for meaningful climate action in this atmosphere.
- Face and address the rise of authoritarianism in our climate work.
- Use the power of listening to release emotions – discouragement, fear, anger, despair – that can slow us down, divide us, or have us give up.
- Build organizations in which we are committed to each other, to the earth, and to building a society in which everyone’s needs are met.
- Come together with others who fight back – forming durable alliances and using listening to work through emotional barriers to unity across differences.
- Use thinking turns in small groups to free up our thinking to arrive at new, workable ideas we can implement.
- Healing circles based on shared experiences give people a chance to be listened to about feelings connected to climate change. Having the chance to share feelings of grief, fear, anger, discouragement, and hope in a mutually supportive group can refresh us and give us new ideas for action.
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No “Throw-Away” People: Racism and the Climate Crisis
The climate crisis and racism are deeply connected. In order to turn the climate crisis around and provide a safe and healthy environment for all people, we will need to address both. People of color and Native/Indigenous people make up the majority of the world’s population. They tend to do the least amount of damage to the environment, yet they experience the greatest harm from environmental degradation. They also tend to be the most motivated and aware of the damage and what needs to be corrected. Governments and corporations of the Global North have extracted the planet’s resources for economic benefit. This exploitation of the majority of the world’s people and the planet for the benefit of a small minority has led us to the existential crisis our species is facing.
In this workshop we:
Shared tools for building relationships within and across racial lines that enhance our efforts to end racism and build a strong climate movement.
Shared how racism intersects with the climate crisis both on a societal level and an interpersonal level.
Examined the ways that racism contributes to the unequal destructive effects of the climate crisis on people of color and Native/Indigenous people and affects our efforts to eliminate the climate crisis.
Looked at the ways that racism damages us all, regardless of race and culture.
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Staying Hopeful and Engaged in Challenging Times
The climate crisis and the current political situation are causing many people to feel discouraged, anxious, angry, and hopeless. These feelings can interfere with us taking actions to have the impact we want in the world.
For us to stay engaged, it is important to have hope. And the reverse is true as well: for us to have hope, it is important to stay engaged. Feelings of despair and hopelessness can confuse us and cloud our thinking. We can act whether we feel hopeful or not—and it makes sense to do so—but when we function out of a place of genuine hope, we have more access to our minds and can think better. We are able to connect more deeply with others, especially across challenging divisions.
In this workshop we:
Introduced some practices or tools that all participants can choose to use going forward that may help us maintain hope no matter how upsetting the daily news cycle
Created safe spaces to talk, listen and support each other
Openly faced the current situation that can cause discouragement, anxiety, anger, and hopelessness
Shared perspectives that we have developed and learned that have helped us to maintain hope and possibility
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ReWear the Revolution–Street Event
A Sew-In. A ‘Subversive Catwalk’ of customised, message-emblazoned clothes. An opportunity for exciting conversation.
Sustaining All Life, in collaboration with the UK-based campaign ‘a:dress’, took Manhattan by storm to slow down fast fashion.
We shared ideas of what needs to happen to stop the devastating impact fast fashion has on the climate, the environment and biodiversity.
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First and Worst Impacted, Then Forgotten: Black Communities and the Climate Crisis
Africa accounts for less than 4% of global emissions and yet is hugely impacted by the climate crisis. Colonization and racism have made Africa and her people extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change. They have fueled the continued oppression and exploitation of the continent. In this workshop, African leaders from different parts of the continent shared how they and their communities are impacted by the climate crisis and their ongoing work to stop it.
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So, we’ve passed 1.5C; what’s our strategy now?
Climate breakdown drove the annual average global temperature above the internationally agreed-upon 1.5°C limit for the first time last year, supercharging extreme weather and causing misery for millions of people. The past 10 years have been the hottest ever recorded. Because we’ve delayed meaningful climate action too long, temperatures will speed past 1.5°C and continue rising until we drastically cut carbon emissions. Our failure to accomplish this needs to serve as a reality check for humanity. We can’t stop all that’s coming our way, but every tenth of a degree matters.
We know what we need to do to cut emissions, but our strategies so far have not generated sufficient political action to reach our goal. However, the resistance to the Trump policies is growing and there is potential for more.
In this event, we looked briefly at the facts and then formed listening pairs to share our emotions without holding back. There we vented the strong feelings most of us have about the consequences of passing 1.5°C. These pent-up feelings can drain our energy and interfere with our thinking well about our next steps. As times get harder, this emotional sharing will help us stay strong and keep reaching for those not yet with us so we can build the necessary movements for change.
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What’s ‘Normal’? Mental Health Liberation for Climate
Facing the reality of the climate emergency can be emotionally challenging. We need places to address this for ourselves. Sustaining All Life/United to End Racism can provide tools to help us with our own big feelings about the climate, and gain flexibility to think and communicate more effectively with others.
Mental health oppression enforces conformity and can make us less likely to act against authority or resist oppression. It targets those who look upset, labels them, and promotes denial, numbness, and sometimes even psychiatric drugs as solutions to their difficulties instead of addressing actual problems in society and offering natural emotional healing. Mental health oppression suppresses people’s emotions and our ability to think freely.
These emotional challenges can also get in the way of us acting out of hopefulness, connection and compassion. Despair and discouragement can immobilize us to such an extent that we can feel powerless to stand with others and lead with unity and a vision of what is possible. Many people react to the climate crisis by either going numb or feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem and becoming passive. Because of mental health oppression, people generally don’t get to release these painful emotions and get stuck. Mental health oppression keeps us afraid of our emotions and separated from other people, and therefore less effective in organizing to make changes.
The environmental crisis cannot be resolved without also working to end oppression, including racism, genocide toward Indigenous peoples, classism, and sexism. The impact of environmental destruction and the climate emergency falls most heavily on people targeted by these oppressions. Oppression also divides people from others who have the same interests and sets everyone against one another. Mental health oppression also targets those who resist these oppressions. It interferes with a united response to the environmental crisis.
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How to Listen to and Win Over People When We Disagree
Building friends and winning people over who we strongly disagree with is a key part now of growing a larger, more informed climate change movement for lasting change. In this workshop we will demonstrate tools used in Sustaining All Life/United to End Racism for listening to people we disagree with, identifying why it’s so hard for us to listen to certain ideas. We will also practice how to listen effectively to those we disagree with, and then, as it makes sense, offer new information.
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The Intersection of Climate Change and Racism in the Southern US
The South bears the brunt of the climate crisis in the United States, with sea level rise, tornadoes, drought, hurricanes, and other severe storms that affect millions of people and their homes, land, waters, farms, and livelihoods. Racism and economic injustice cause these impacts to fall disproportionately on Southern U.S. Black, brown, low-wealth, young, and Native peoples.
This workshop explored how Sustaining All Life and United to End Racism (SAL/UER) tools help build and strengthen movements in the South (and beyond) to address climate change, racial and environmental justice, and to heal divisions resulting from racism and environmental harm. In this workshop, we:
★ Shared the key challenges facing frontline communities in the South as they address the climate crisis and racism.
★ Shared about how the current political situation threatens lives and hinders our capacity to resist in the South, including the rollback of EPA regulations and the censorship of activists.
★ Shared how the path for ending the climate crisis and racial injustice in the U.S. runs through this region, and Southern successes so far.
★Shared about the disproportionate impacts of climate change and environmental racism on the Gulf South and the central role that region plays in the transition away from fossil fuels.
★ Examined how racism affects our efforts to build and sustain efforts to respond to the climate emergency.
★ Shared the approaches used by Sustaining All Life and United to End Racism to heal from the damage of racism and other oppressions, strengthen our effectiveness in the climate justice movement, and prevent division and burnout.
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Healing Climate Trauma and Grief
To be more effective in working together to end the climate emergency we need to face our feelings of grief, rage and powerlessness in the face of the increasing damage to our climate, insufficient political action and the organized efforts of the fossil fuel industry to deny their role in climate change. These emotions can interfere with our ability to think and take action by making us feel like nothing can be done or we don’t make a difference. Or, we may be fueled by rage that can lead to burnout when we don’t see immediate results or to ineffective strategies for making change.
This workshop supported participants to heal some of the trauma induced by the climate crisis–opportunities not widely available to most people. Participants learned listening tools for trauma and grief healing. Healing Circles led by experienced peer co-counselors provided a safe space for participants to tell their story of the trauma they experience in the climate crisis. Strategies to continue the healing process were shared.
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Immigrant Justice is Climate Justice
Across the world, the right-wing movement is growing. Seventy percent of the world is now controlled by right-wing governments that won elections by manipulating people’s fears that immigrants will compete for scarce resources and destroy the host country’s dominant way of life. At the same time, these governments are rapidly and systematically expanding the fossil fuel industry and undoing established environmental protections.
In this workshop we took a deeper look at the connection between the climate crisis and current immigration policies in the U.S. The current immigration crisis in the U.S. not only affects undocumented immigrants, international students and green card holders, it affects all of us – as friends, neighbors, co-workers, consumers, fellow humans, and as children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren of immigrants. Immigrants are not “them”,
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Women’s Leadership in Climate Justice: They can’t do it without us!
The voices and leadership of women and girls are key in the fight for climate justice. United, we as women sustain life for the world. Our work is to lead and model how we can come together to create a just and sustainable world.
Imagine every woman accessing her untapped genius and boldly fighting against oppression and all injustices–specifically climate and sexism. All that stops us is feeling powerless. Oppression divides us; we can move toward unity. When we see ourselves as leaders and boldly claim our brilliance, we can save each other and our planet.
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Artists and Art-Making in the Climate Movement
The power of art to organize, connect, and educate has always put artists and art at the forefront of revolutions and social movements. In this period, artists are playing key roles in calling attention to, and organizing around, the climate crisis. Artists are working with designers, architects and scientists, for example, to create sustainable environments and ecosystems. Art is also communicating the reality of the climate crisis: the heartbreak of loss, devastation, and destruction, and the possibility of repair, recovery, equity, and community.
We are all born with the ability to be creative. Because of being told what looks good, what doesn’t, what’s right, or what’s wrong, many of us start to feel self-conscious and lose access to our ability to make things. But, in fact, we all still have this ability within us. It is part of being human.
With the help of listening to each other and noticing our feelings, we can reclaim our inherent creativity and unblock places where we feel stuck, unable, embarrassed, or not good enough. We can free ourselves from negative thinking and allow ourselves to make, play, experiment, and express ourselves through art of all kinds.
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Avoiding Burnout for Activists
As an activist, you’re overwhelmed, feeling like you’re drinking from a fire hose. You want to focus on your area of expertise, but everything else is falling apart, making you feel ineffectual and defeated. This is the path to burn out, and you can’t afford to tap out now and you can’t take time off to recover. And it is possible to regularly recharge while doing your work.
This workshop introduced tools you already have and can use to recharge your batteries and keep you on your path.
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War and Climate Justice
Modern warfare has unleashed unprecedented environmental havoc in addition to tremendous loss of life. War is used as a tool of oppression and genocide to install the dominant culture and to take control of land and resources. The climate emergency cannot be resolved without ending war.
The wealthiest countries have the highest greenhouse gas emissions and are the countries with the largest military budgets. In 2024, the US defense spending was $997 billion, which is more than the combined spending of the next nine highest-spending countries (China is second with $314 billion.) In the big ugly budget, the U.S. reduced spending on clean energy and environmental protection by $288 billion while increasing its military budget by $150 billion, adding $175 billion to immigration enforcement, and cutting taxes by $4.5 trillion.
This workshop explored the deep connections between war and environmental degradation by focusing on healing from the emotional traumas of war and climate change, recognizing the importance of reclaiming our connection to people and the environment. We shared ways of healing from the emotional traumas of war, climate change, and backsliding from democracy and turn toward reclaiming our connection to people and the environment. With this work, we can better come together to end oppression, separation, militarization, and the climate emergency.
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Introduction to the Listening Tools of Sustaining All Life/United to End Racism
Participants learned our theory about the nature of human beings: our inherent intelligence and goodness, and our cooperative, caring and enthusiastic nature; the negative feelings and rigid behaviors we develop as a result of early hurts and societal oppressions; and our natural ability to heal from hurtful experiences using the process of emotional release. We addressed common struggles experienced by climate activists and organizers as we work to build the movement needed to tackle the climate emergency.
Participants were paired together for short times to listen to each other in equal turns. One person listens with respectful, non-judgmental attention while the other talks about the topic of their choice. Then the two switch roles. In the safety and confidentiality of these short listening exchanges people can access both past hurts and current upsets, including experiences of oppression and environmental injustice; and the burnout, discouragement, and stress sometimes felt in working against climate change.
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Tools for Building Unity among Groups who Disagree
Building an effective climate change movement will require millions of people all over the world working effectively together. While most of us believe that a unified climate movement is necessary, many of us belong to groups that have been systematically pitted against each other. Pitting oppressed peoples against each other has been one of the primary ways ruling class forces have maintained their control for centuries.
Sustaining All Life/United to End Racism (SAL/UER) has developed tools for listening and healing these intergroup divides. In this workshop we will offer a unique perspective on the very systematic ways our peoples get divided from each other. We will share examples from our own lives of using tools from SAL/UER to break through these barriers and reach across the divide to find one another.
Building unity across group lines is not always easy. In reaching for unity, we sometimes uncover the historic trauma of our own people that now keeps us separate from each other. We might remember a painful time when we felt let down by the actions of a group we thought were our allies. Learning about the history of each group’s oppression can generate compassion and patience. Some of these intergroup conflicts are centuries in the making. They won’t disappear overnight and they won’t disappear without conscious effort and attention.
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ONLINE: Exploitation and Debt–Implications for Climate and Human Services in Africa
Many African and Global South nations have been exploited by wealthier countries that have been extracting their resources for years without fair compensation. Countries in the Global North continue to take wealth from nations they had once colonized. Estimates of the value of the resources taken are currently on the order of USD 2.2 trillion per year.
Under neocolonialism, loans and debt are used as a tool of oppression. Global South countries have incurred large amounts of debt, some of which was needed to pay for climate damage that these nations had little or no responsibility for causing. Many loans from wealthy nations have required Global South countries to spend the borrowed funds purchasing goods and services from the donor nation for projects approved by the donor nation—resulting, for example, in coal-fired power plants or roads to service oil infrastructure that profited the donor nation and left the recipient nation more in debt.
Payment of these debts, including debt owed to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), continues to drain resources from the Global South, leaving them far less resources for basic human services and no resource to eliminate current emissions (for example by transitioning to renewable energy), adapt to the effects of climate change, or pay for the immense loss and damage caused by climate change.
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