From climate grief to climate action: Young people need hope, concrete goals
Call it climate anxiety, eco-anxiety, climate grief, but what it seems to be is a sense of helplessness
Randy Shore
Updated: March 7, 2020
Like many young people, Kaiya Jacob feels the weight of climate change and its consequences very keenly. Francis Georgian / PNG
The Earth is a ticking time bomb with a 10-year fuse.
Whether you believe that or not, many young people
are already in mourningfor a world they believe will perish in their lifetime. It’s called eco-anxiety,
or climate grief.
“I think about wanting to have kids and not knowing if I will be able to bring new life into this crumbling world,” said SFU student Kaiya Jacob.
She is not alone. Activists say feelings of environmental despair are increasingly common among teens and young adults.
The climate change conversation has taken on a relentless urgency, complete with doomsday scenarios suggesting that the planet will reach a catastrophic tipping point by 2030 without dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
The fight against global warming and climate change has given way to climate crisis, and most recently “climate emergency.”
“Call it climate anxiety, eco-anxiety, climate grief, but what it seems to be is a sense of helplessness,” said George Radner, the 24-year-old executive director of
Be The Change Earth Alliance. “It’s very widespread. Young people understand climate change,
they perceive itto be the crisis that it is,
they perceive itas the world ending.”
Be The Change runs workshops for students
using university-aged facilitatorsto help young people learn to express their fears and to turn their energy to solutions.
“We want to give students a sense of hope and agency when it comes to climate change,” he said. “Youth
are paralyzed by their fearand have the sense that they are powerless to fix this massive issue caused by adults.”
The facilitators are just a few years older than the students and they share their own relatable stories about how they became involved in climate action. By the end of the session, the students
are the stars of their own climate story with a call to action, something tangible they can do.
Radner does worry that the recent trend to treat climate action as an emergency is having “unintended negative consequences on youth.”
“I wish that youth could be receiving different messages than adults,” he said.
George Radner is the executive director of Be The Change Earth Alliance. handout / PNG
Dozens of governments, mainly in North America and Europe, have declared a “climate emergency” and Oxford Dictionary made the term its 2019 word of the year, in part due to a 10,700 per cent increase in its use.
“The adults of this world need a wake-up call and they need to hear that urgent tone,” said Radner. “
I want media to tell the truth{
}, fundamentally, but they
should set a tone of crisis because we really haven’t wokenup yet to climate change as a society.”
The Vancouver school board is hosting a
Be The Change professional development workshop
for 60 secondary school teachers, who often see firsthand how vulnerable teens are to despair in the face of climate emergency messaging.
Teachers will take part in “
experiential processes” designed to explore their own “planetary grief.”
Be The Change has created resources
tailored to the B.C. curriculumaround themes of sustainability.
Teachers can apply those lessons in the classroom and with “
students looking for opportunities to have hope and take action,” the board said.
The
VSB sustainability plannotes that “
evolving researchindicates that presenting environmental ‘disasters’ to children at an improper age does not foster action — rather it can dissuade engagement with nature.”
“The Plan focuses on education and highlights that a connection to nature is an important part of sustainability,” the board said.
该地区为斯图提供精神卫生资源dents in schools and through partners such as
B.C. Children’s Kelty Mental Health Resource Centre.
A heavy burden
Kaiya Jacob can barely remember a time when she wasn’t concerned about the state of the planet.
“The burden of trying to fix the world is a constant in my life,” she said.
She feels the 2030 deadline for action
敏锐地.
“I feel it very heavily, and just saying
that I feel sweaty, like there’s a giant weight on my chest,” she said.
“When I talk to my friends
it’s rare that climate doesn’t come up. I try to find moments of humour, so I don’t feel overwhelmed.”
Jacob
is studying climate messaging in her communications studies at Simon Fraser University.
“Right now, the language is too crisis-oriented,” she said. “There’s not enough connection and shared caring for the environment. I’d like to see more messages about direct action, so we can start to solve these problems.”
Chest-tightening and the feeling of butterflies in the stomach, along with problems sleeping, are classic manifestations of anxiety, said psychologist Christine Korol, director of the Vancouver Anxiety Centre and an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia.
While children experience anxiety much as adults do, they may lack coping skills to manage their feelings.
“As people get older they’ve seen more things
and they know that predictions of doom aren’t new,” she said.
In the past 40 years, the threat of global nuclear annihilation, acid rain and the hole in the Earth’s ozone layer were all punctuated by end-of-the-world scenarios.
“Having seen doomsday predictions come and go, (older adults) are better able to take a wait-and-see attitude and they trust that when something terrible does happen, we can cope with it,” she explained. “
Young people don’t have that experience.”
If you have a teenager worried about climate change, as a parent you can ask specifically what they are worried about.
“Kids sometimes have misconceptions and they might be afraid of something they don’t need to be afraid of,” she said. “You can also help them to understand what their power is and how they can channel their energy into something constructive.”
Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg took her anxiety and did something constructive with it, promoting
Fridays for Futureschool climate strikes, she said.
Indeed, Thunberg notes emphatically in her book that “No One is Too Small To Make a Difference.”
{
her ghost written book 'Our House Is on Fire' is bound to be a smashing success in the mobilization efforts to take further action. However, at least in Germany, there is already a backlash - horrible:
and then there is the Anti-Greta:
Thought-police come for Koch-funded 'anti-Greta' - but unlike 'real Greta,' her conflicts of interest are in public view -- Sott.net}
“We all have different gifts, we all have different strengths and weaknesses, so it’s important to do what feels right to you,” said Korol. “That might mean going to a protest, or getting outside and doing environmental work.”
If you or your child are struggling with symptoms of anxiety, such as sleeplessness or obsessive behaviour,
treatments are available to address fears and to develop coping strategies, she said.
{
children and their parents may want to seek help from the official
climate shrink
,
Margaret Klein Salamon}
While climate anxiety
is not a medically recognized disorder{
soon to be classified in the DSM-5 revision no doubt}, “climate change has been associated with numerous mental health conditions including
post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, grief, substance use disorders, and suicidal ideation,” according to a recent article in the
B.C. Medical Journal.
Dr. Elizabeth Wiley notes that catastrophic fire seasons, poor air quality due to wildfires, evacuations and water insecurity all have mental health implications for people directly affected by climate-related disasters.
The American Psychological Association notes
that pondering the economic, political and environmental implications of climate change can fuel fatalism, resignation, fear and helplessness.
An APA special report notes that pursuing solutions such as cycling, using clean energy and adopting green spaces can curb stress and anxiety.
The complexity of climate science also has an impact on people’s ability to accept that change is coming and their ability to respond to that change.
“Information that increases perceptions of the reality of climate change may feel so frightening
that it leads to denial and thus a reduction in concern and support for action{
guilty as changed
},” the report says of a recent study.
Sonja Schutte (lower left) and the Sustainabiliteens after the Climate Strike rally and march on September 27, 2019. PNG
Together we can
When people take action as part of a community, they are far more engaged and that is one of the reasons the Fridays for Future climate strikes have been so successful, argues Radner.
“People want joy and friendship and these movements can offer that,” he said. “Whether it’s a project in green energy
or civil disobedience, when you do it in a group it makes a big impact.”
Climate strikes are also a way for young people
to vent their frustrationwith the pace of change.
“I think Greta Thunberg is delivering hope, but with a different tone,” he said. “When she talks to the UN she’s very serious and grave. But the impact of her actions
have really inspired a lot of young people and helped build real momentum in the youth global climate movement.”
Thinking about the consequences of climate change was taking a heavy emotional toll on Grade Ten student Sonja Schutte.
“I feel like the news is all bad,” she said. “Australia is on fire and everything you hear about that is really scary. We are teenagers having to fight one of the biggest crises Earth has ever seen.”
So, last year Schutte joined
Sustainabiliteensand began organizing mass protests and student walkouts, including an October rally in Vancouver attended by Greta Thunberg.
“I’ve been worried about climate change
all my lifeand I felt like it was time to do something,” she said.
Activism
can be a double-edged sword, though.
“As you become more involved, you become more aware of how big the problem is,” she said. “But in Sustainabiliteens, I feel like I’ve found a community of people who help each other.”
rshore@postmedia.com
).
}, fundamentally, but theyshould set a tone of crisis because we really haven’t wokenup yet to climate change as a society.”
},” the report says of a recent study.
