u3a

Climate Change and the Environment

Intergenerational Dialogue

Discussing Climate Change: Involving All Generations

How do the generations support each other in raising awareness and campaigning, and discussing crucial issues such as climate change or as a model for talking about other topics such as health and housing?

Members of our intergenerational group are building links with various universities, most notably Heriot-Watt (Edinburgh). Prof Ryan Woolrych was our speaker in April 2024: the recording of that talk is available here1.

In October 2024, we published the article Climate Change and Older People. There were 2,800 excess deaths in 2022; higher temperatures caused by heatwaves bring excess mortality, with older people having a reduced ability to regulate body temperature. Chronic health conditions make this worse, such as cardiovascular and respiratory disease, diabetes, and susceptibility to dehydration, further affecting their health and wellbeing. During the heatwaves of the summer in 2022, over 2,800 more people aged 65 and over died in England than would be typical. This marked the highest number of heat-related excess deaths in the last two decades.

On 26th April 2023, we launched our ground-breaking leaflet Discussing Climate Change – Involving All Generations. Click for the Launch recording of the London event and hear from some of the u3a members and students who were there – find out what was learned and how can this be of use to your members as you engage with members of your community. It is so important that we understand the perspectives of other generations.

In a u3a Online learning event, students from the University of Warwick joined u3a members to explain the process so far and what had been learned:

• In Glasgow and London during COP26, u3a members and younger people held a series of workshops in an attempt to understand what good intergenerational dialogue looks like: how can we best listen to – and learn from – each other.
• In London during COP27 u3a members worked in partnership with students from the University of Warwick to better understand: ‘What does good intergenerational discussion look like?’; ‘What do we hope to achieve from it?’ and ‘How can we best work together as equal partners?

We would love to hear from you if you use our materials – they will be under review for some time. Contact us via Brenda Ainsley.

  1. The prof's talk starts at 37:30. ↩︎