​Discussion Questions for UNDER THE SKY WE MAKE

Here are reader-submitted questions for discussing the book. In a 60-90 minute group session, you'll probably have time to discuss 6-8 questions. So you'll have to narrow down to pick your favorites. Of course, feel free to discuss more over a longer session or more sessions if you like! And feel free to suggest questions you'd like to see listed here! 

           Overall
 

1. What did you already kind of know before reading the book, but now have a more solid understanding of?
2. What did you know nothing about before reading this book, that was totally new for you? 
3. After reading the book, do you feel any differently about:
   1. How dire climate change is today, and would be in the future if we don't accelate our efforts? What is your personal Climate Freakout Level, and did the book change it in either direction?
   2. How positive you feel about your own ability to make an impact?
   3. How hopeful you feel about our global community to make a collective impact?
4. Kim has experienced the effects of climate change firsthand in many ways, one being the ravaging of her home state by the ever-increasing wildfires in California. How has climate change affected you firsthand? How was it different than you expected? What did you lose, and what did you learn from it?
5. What questions would you want to ask the author? (See the form above for your chance to do so!)
   
   Facts
   
   
6. For you, what’s the right balance between the interests, needs, and rights of humans and nature?
7. What is your own relationship with nature based on? What part of your identity comes from nature? What are the places you have felt most connected to nature? Where do you go today to get nature in your daily life?
8. Technology. Kim asserts that present and future climate technologies (e.g. carbon capture) are not insignificant, but that we cannot sit back and just wait for the technologists to save us from ourselves as there are no guarantees about the rate of progress of technologies being able to catch up with the accelerated rate of climate change. What's your take?
9. What inspiring examples of the Regeneration Mindset have you personally noticed? Locally, nationally, globally
10. What will it take to uproot the Exploitation Mindset? How can you contribute in your current life? 
    
    Feelings 
    
    
11. Have you experienced any of the climate feels such as loss, grief, anger, or fear? What does it feel like? Who do you share it with? What do you do with those feelings? 
12. What core values did you identify? Did you do the exercise of writing down a list of the people you most admire, and the qualities they personify? Who was on that list, and what values did they represent? 
13.  How do you personally resolve the equation of maximizing meaning and minimizing carbon? 
14. What did you come up with as your talents and what makes you feel most alive? How can you direct your talents towards Regeneration goals? 
15. Who is in your (climate) community? How do you connect and stay in touch? What binds you together? What rituals of joy do you share? How do you support each other when you need it? 
16. Do you recognize your own experience in any of the Five Stages of Radical Climate Acceptance? Which one(s)? How are you moving through the stages?  
17. Do you ever worry that it’s “too late” to solve the climate crisis? What, specifically, do you worry that it is too late for? 
18. Do you ever think about giving up on the climate crisis? What would giving up look like? 
19. What’s your biggest fear about climate change in your lifetime? 
20. Kim writes about her experiences as “a scientist in a world that sometimes doesn’t want to hear the truth.” How do you see the role of science and scientists in society in general? What role do you think scientists should play in the climate crisis?
    
    Action 
    
    
21. Where do you feel that you personally can have the biggest impact in working towards climate stability and justice? (What’s your theory of change?) 
22. In what ways do you have climate privilege? What are you doing with it? 
23. How is climate change connected to systemic social injustices like racism and sexism? Are there any conflicts or tensions between solving these problems simultaneously? What kinds of solutions help with both environmental and social injustices?
24. What is your take on the distribution of responsibility to solve the climate crisis, between individuals and institutions like government and business? Do you agree with the argument of “both/and”, instead of “either/or”?
25. Do you find that the book provided a satisfactory set of solutions and actions to be taken to solve the climate crisis? Did this book resolve your doubts in this regard? Are there more solutions you would want to see included or discussed?
26. Kim argues for the importance of focusing on high-impact personal climate actions, instead of the "every little bit helps" approach. What is your take on this? If you have taken climate actions, which ones are low impact and which ones are high impact? What would be the most difficult high-impact climate action for you to take? And the easiest?
27. Travel, Flying, & Vacations. Kim's last biggest luxury (and climate-degrading activity) she realized she would have to significantly cut back on if she was going to walk to the talk...was air travel. It was a difficult, big shift for her to self-reflect and discover what it was she really wanted from her vacations and to seriously question whether it was at all necessary to hop on planes to attain it. How often do you fly and what would it take to cut that amount down? How could you reduce flying for work? Are there overlooked corners of your "backyard" you could enjoy for your next vacation that wouldn't require hopping on a plane? What is it that you really want from your next vacation
28. Food. What most surprised you about the food and agriculture section of the book? What climate-friendly changes to your diet would you be willing to make? What would it take to get started?
29. Investing/Divesting. If you were to start transitioning your savings and any investments away from environmentally damaging companies, how would you go about that?
30. What do you think should happen to the fossil fuel companies in a zero-emissions world? What would need to happen for this to take place? 
31. Have you ever contacted your elected rep? Why or why not? What would make you do so? 
32. Do you support any climate movements or groups? If so, why did you choose them? Do you want to get more involved? How? 
33. If you were to adopt "Cathedral Thinking" in one part of your life (directly related to climate, or not), what could that look like? What is the legacy you want to leave?
34. What would it look like to solve the climate crisis? What would happen next?
35. If you were to do one thing to influence public policy as it relates to climate change, what would it be? How about we all do it together, here and now, before we leave this book club today?
36. How can this book club group continue this conversation and support each other in working for climate stability as a regular part of our lives?