All the Resources for Coping with Climate Change You Didn’t Know You Needed
By: Dr. Denise Renye
This summer, the effects of climate change are more obvious than ever before – record-breaking heatwaves, fires, floods, and more. People are grappling with the changes happening on our planet and certain feelings may arise about how climate change affects them on personal and societal levels. They are feeling what is known as “eco-anxiety” and something I treat in my work as an ecopsychologist. As a member of the International Community for Ecopsychology, this has been a long time interest of mine both personally and professionally.
When everything happening with climate change feels like too much, where can you turn? Sure, you can speak with a San Francisco ecopsychologist such as myself and explore a deeper connection to the earth as well as feelings coming up around what’s unfolding while also taking action when and how is comfortable and available to you. But there are other options as well.
Climate cafés offer a container to explore any and all emotions that may arise due to climate change: fear, anxiety, anger, helplessness, depression. . .there are no guest speakers or advice given. It’s a space to be seen and heard with some guardrails as two facilitators lead the climate café. If you’re interested, check out this Eventbrite page for events.
If a group isn’t the right fit, there is also peer-to-peer support for people overwhelmed by eco-anxiety, climate grief, and other experiences of eco-distress. The Good Grief Network says on its website that it “helps individuals and communities build resilience by creating spaces where people can lean into their painful feelings about the state of the world and reorient their lives toward meaningful action.” It does so by using a 10-step process that includes not only processing heavy emotions but also deconstructing personal narratives.
The above two resources are geared toward adults but what about youth? The Climate Mental Health Network is specifically for young folx. Through intergenerational engagement it addresses the mental health effects of climate change through education, engaging communities and families, and harnessing the power of media and technology.
Other processing spaces include:
· Climate Awakening, a small group sharing and listening session to talk about the climate emergency
· The Climate Journal Project, an online community that provides guided reflections and challenges, designed to help build resilience against eco-anxiety
As a mind-body San Francisco therapist interested in connecting the two, I encourage my patients, clients, and students to not only stay in their heads but listen to their bodies as well. And when people are ready and willing to channel their grief into action, there is Climate Changemakers. It provides a roadmap to take action, advocates for science-based, equitable solutions, and leverages political power by emailing members weekly action plans, step-by-step action playbooks, drop-in virtual action calls, and more.
There’s also the Work that Reconnects Network based on the teachings of Joanna Macy. She is an environmental activist, author, and scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. She addresses psychological and spiritual issues of the nuclear age, the cultivation of ecological awareness, and the resonance between Buddhist thought and postmodern science. “The Work that Reconnects” seeks to foster connection and create change. There are numerous organizations devoted to the “Work that Reconnects” so if the link above isn’t your scene, there’s likely a group that is.
Taking a different approach is Dear Tomorrow, which features letters from people about climate change and their promise to take action to ensure everyone has a safe and healthy world. Related is the Climate Stories Project, an educational and artistic forum for sharing personal stories about the changing climate.
If books are more your thing, I have numerous recommendations:
· All the Feelings Under the Sun: How to Deal with Climate Change, a book for kids by Leslie Davenport
· All We Can Save a collection of essays edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine K. Wilkinson
· Generation Dread by Britt Wray
· It’s Not Just You by Tori Tsui
There are also the articles:
· "Don’t Tell Me to Despair About the Climate: Hope Is a Right We Must Protect" by Morgan Florsheim
· Em Wright’s articles on Medium
· Rebekah Moan’s piece “Project Drawdown: ‘There is still hope to halt climate change’”
On YouTube, there are two talks by Rebecca Solnit I enjoyed:
· An energizing case for hope about the climate
· Climate Momentum: The things that keep me cheerful in the face of the worst problem ever
And finally, on Instagram, we have Isaias Hernandez (@queerbrownvegan).
This is by no means an exhaustive list but if you’re struggling to deal with your feelings about climate change, know you’re not alone. There are many who feel the way you do and people all over the globe are taking action to deal with this crisis.
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Resources
All the Feelings Under the Sun: How to Deal with Climate Change. Davenport, Leslie.
All We Can Save. Eds. Johnson, Ayana Elizabeth; Wilkinson, Katharine K.
Climate Awakening. https://climateawakening.org/
“Climate Cafés.” Climate Psychology Alliance. https://www.climatepsychologyalliance.org/index.php/component/content/article/climate-cafes?catid=13&Itemid=101
Climate Changemakers. https://www.climatechangemakers.org/
Climate Journal Project. https://www.theclimatejournalproject.com/
Climate Mental Health Network. https://www.climatementalhealth.net/mission
Climate Stories Project. https://www.climatestoriesproject.org/
Dear Tomorrow. https://www.deartomorrow.org/
Em Wright. https://emily-wright.medium.com/
Florsheim, Morgan. “Don’t Tell Me to Despair About the Climate: Hope Is a Right We Must Protect.” YES! Magazine. June 15, 2021. https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2021/06/15/climate-despair-hope
Generation Dread. Wray, Britt.
Good Grief Network. https://www.goodgriefnetwork.org/
Isais Hernandez. @queerbrownvegan
It’s Not Just You. Tsui, Tori.
Moan, Rebekah. “Project Drawdown: ‘There is still hope to halt climate change.’” Climate and Capital Media. July 21, 2023. https://www.climateandcapitalmedia.com/project-drawdown-there-is-still-hope-to-halt-climate-change/
Solnit, Rebecca. “An energizing case for hope about the climate.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ_uBtj29G8
Solnit, Rebecca. “Climate Momentum: The things that keep me cheerful in the face of the worst problem ever.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=dLYpiCXGAzo&fbclid=IwAR23PnTJ6TqRJkcWvHfCi2MD5Y7eJla6yhc5FmWrJbsZsC-fqpm0yw0RErE&ab_channel=CooperClimateCoalition
Work that Reconnects Network. https://www.inquiringsystems.org/project/work-that-reconnects-network/