Our emotions from climate change impact our ability to address it
Climate Change can tug at our heartstrings. Depending on governments and social movements, we can feel depressed, disheartened, empowered, motivated, anxious, hopeless or hopeful. The multitude and magnitude of changes facing the planet are great. We’re approaching extreme humid temperatures that exceed our body’s ability to cool itself with sweat, rendering parts of our planet uninhabitable. Ocean acidification is presently melting mollusk shells in Alaska. Sea level rise threatens coastal real estate, and in conjunction with glacial melt, we’re reducing the availability of freshwater.
These and other climate change conversations are emotionally challenging. So what can psychology and science tell us about how humans identify, process, act on, and communicate their distressful emotions? What are helpful tidbits we can use individually and as part of communities, to help ourselves and our loved ones sit with difficult climate change information, and then be compelled to act more profoundly? Can addressing negative emotions help push us towards transformative change?
In 2008, a group of researchers associated with the University of Melbourne addressed some of these ideas in a paper titled, “Hope, despair and transformation: Climate change and the promotion of mental health and wellbeing”. A team at Climate Works Australia, argued, “the direct impacts of climate change such as extreme weather events will have significant mental health implications” & “understanding the full extent of the long term social and environmental challenges posed by climate change has the potential to create emotional distress and anxiety”. If you’re like me and concerned for the planet, you might be thinking ‘potential’ is an understatement. However, these two foundational beliefs are necessary prerequisites directing us towards how we can use our emotions to change ourselves in productive ways.
Fritze and her co-authors distinguish between mental health consequences from climate change, and mental health consequences from realizing the magnitude of change and danger for the planet. For the latter, they point out emotional responses like anxiety and anger, and then add coping strategies, “if the information is too unsettling, and the solutions seem too difficult, people can cope by minimizing or denying that there is a problem, or avoiding thinking about the problems. They may become desensitized, resigned, cynical, skeptical or fed up with the topic.”
Many of us have experienced this on a personal level: a family member denying their drug use is problematic, procrastinating on an essay, and struggling to cope with a challenging break-up are all examples of the same process. We tend to engage in psychological damage control when thinking about a distressful topic seems like too large a burden.
Luckily, the authors have recommendations for reckoning the psychological distress of climate change, “remind yourself there is a lot you can do personally” & “congratulate people for being environmentally concerned” & “talk about changes you are making in your own life”. Emotional burdens are lessened by sharing stories and emotions with your community. Additionally, having an internal locus of control can help mitigate depression. The suggestions in the paper speak to these two elements of maintaining well-being when dealing with distressful climate change.
These strategies may push us towards transformative change. While the authors acknowledge a pessimistic framing of climate change can enhance despair, they highlight the possibilities of positive psychology, “its focus on the relationship between mental health, hope and optimism, provides strong support for the potential for growth and transformation to emerge from the climate crisis. As a common threat, climate change may provide an impetus for collaborative action”. Recent developments like the Paris climate Accord and School Strike 4 Climate speak to this hope, although there is certainly room in the literature and our hearts for more research on coping with a changing climate.
References
“Hope, despair and transformation: Climate change and the promotion of mental health and wellbeing”
International Journal of Mental Health Systems20082:13
https://doi.org/10.1186/1752-4458-2-13© Blashki et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2008
