In the next Connecting the Culm Workshop event, Dr Freya Garry looks at the risks that climate change brings and Rob Hopkins imagines the rich and resilient future we could create. Register here.

Climate change is happening and the evidence is all around us in more frequent, intense flooding and drought. Dr Freya Garry from The Met Office is an expert in climate change risk and will talk about how these changes are likely to affect us in the years ahead and especially impacts on farming and land use.

Rob Hopkins is cofounder of Transition Town Totnes and Transition Network and a pioneer in developing community-based approaches to climate change. He has recently published a book “From What is to What If: Unleashing the power of imagination to create the future we want” and he will share his experiences around the world in tapping into the power of our collective imagination to create positive change.

These two speakers present two sides of the climate change coin – on one side, we need to look the facts in the face and understand the scale of change that is already locked in to the climate due to greenhouse gas emissions. But these stark facts can make people feel demotivated, because the power to change things seems beyond each of us individually. The truth is, as Rob will show, that through collective imagination we can face these uncomfortable truths and map a path to a positive future. This is what the Connecting the Culm project aims to do with its Blueprint for the Culm.

Following on from this event, through the rest of April and May, the Connecting the Culm Blueprint Working Groups will be holding their own “time travel” events to look ahead to how we want the Culm to be in 25 years time. This is the foundation of the Blueprint and will be co-created through the Working Groups and brought together at our June Forum.