The cafe that started a climate movement over a cup of tea
Jess Pepper is helping out at the latest Climate Café in Dunkeld and Birnam, 10 years since she opened the very first one in this village in Perthshire.
As she pours out cups of tea, she explains what it is all about.
"A Climate Café, very simply, is a community-led space that brings people together to drink, chat and act on climate," she explains.
Although the idea is now firmly established, she admits she was apprehensive before that first meeting.
"I wasn't sure whether people would want to talk about climate in that way and how they would feel but actually what we learned very quickly was that people really valued that space," she said.
Since founding the Climate Café in 2015, she now co-ordinates its global network.
It's a simple idea - have a cuppa and talk about climate change.
But does having a chat in Perthshire really make any difference at all to this global problem?
That question crossed the mind of attendee Lachlan McEwan.
"I was a bit sceptical to start with," he says. "And then I got invited by Jess to a meeting and had a cup of coffee, and suddenly realised it was a safe space for you to say what you thought.
"Out of that, we managed to get quite a lot of different groups together," he adds.
One of those groups was the foodshare which Fiona Ritchie, sitting opposite, says makes her feel like she's making a difference.
"We wanted to make sure that the village took on a consciousness about food waste. We set up two stations on either side of the village where cafes and individuals bring excess food," she says.
Alasdair Wylie was at one of the very first meetings of the Climate Café . He's been a local businessman for many years and energy efficiency is very important to him.
In 2018, the group wanted to try to reduce the amount of water used in the village. Over the next year, shops, businesses, and residents managed to save one million litres of water using a variety of gadgets including shower timers.
And in 2019, Dunkeld & Birnam received the award of Scotland's first Water Efficient Village from Scottish Water.
Listening to the climate conversations over tea, coffee and biscuits is 13-year-old Dougie.
He says: "The reason Climate Café started is because we saw in our community that not many people were talking about climate."
Ten years on, the cafes are popping up all over the world.
Amanda Katili Niode speaks passionately from Jakarta in Indonesia about what the climate café network means to her.
"For me, Climate Café is a caring and human space.
"It allows people to talk openly about the climate crisis, our worries, our griefs, and our hopes, without judgment and without needing to be experts," she says.
Climate Café is also popular in Lagos in Nigeria.
Saviour Iwezue says the cafe is more than conversation.
"It is where we really get to understand the everyday concerns and everyday experiences of people that make up this global issue," she says.
Thousands of miles away in Perthshire they're having some of the same conversations.
The group in Dunkeld and Birnam says they'll also keep acting locally in the hope that they can make a difference globally.
Cover photo: Jess Pepper started the first Climate Café in Dunkeld a decade ago
