Eco-Grief and Eco-Anxiety

Understanding the Psychology Behind Climate Crisis

This isn’t going to be a fun read.

I’ve been struggling with eco-anxiety for years. Recently, it’s been hitting me a lot harder when temperature drops - noticing how late in november it starts snowing and remembering Halloween as a kid in freezing temperatures. In Ottawa the canal hasn’t frozen over properly in a couple years, which was previously unheard of. Hearing about and reading about natural disasters which are becoming more and more common - which we are still not prepared to protect ourselves against. I struggle with knowing there’s so little I can do about it, that so much of the damage is permanent. Knowing we aren’t anywhere ready, as a culture, to take ownership of these issues.

To cope with these thoughts and feelings I often dive into research and books so I can at least feel like I understand the problem. My favorite author on the topic is Naomi Klien - her books on capitalism and climate change have gone a long way to inform my perspectives. Her book No Logo taught me two things in particular that I remind myself of often: 1) We, as a species, do not believe ourselves capable or or deserving of being saved, 2) Self-determination needs to be our top priority. 

I still don’t know much about the economy or chemical engineering or climate science. But I know the human person, I know how we work and what needs must be met before we can transition into action. Motivation requires hope. It requires anger, or something equally energizing. We need momentum to push us forward. It doesn’t matter what our rational selves believe if our emotional selves aren’t on board. We can talk and talk and talk about what is or should be or will be, but our emotional selves is where the trauma lives - the fear that we’ll never find a way out, that we have made our bed and thus should sleep in it. And until those emotional beliefs are identified, brought out into the light, and attended to, our rational selves remain powerless.

And make no mistake - climate trauma is universal. That’s why we’re all so defensive or dissociated about this topic. That’s why we can’t reach an agreement or make productive moves. This isn’t a culture where trauma wounds receive the care they need to heal. So, instead, we’re stuck - in anxiety or in denial. Neither of these responses are helpful. And yet, we can’t force someone out of these headspaces. That’s where self-determination comes in. As much as jumping in to save each other seems like a good idea - it rarely works, because people want help from each other even less then they want to help themselves. We have to leave each other to our mistakes - and hope that those mistakes teach us something about what to do better next time.

And so that brings us back to having no options, and no control. Which brings me back to eco-grief.

Grief is the Right Response

My problem with the term ‘Eco-Anxiety’ is that it implies that the thing I’m afraid of hasn’t happened yet and may not happen at all. But anyone up to date on climate research knows neither of those things are true. And so it isn’t anxiety at all, is it? I’ve heard the term ‘Eco-dread’ to describe the fear of what we know is coming. But I prefer ‘Eco-Grief’, which is becoming more and more frequently used according to a study done by Comtesses and company, linked below.

Grief isn’t the same as fear or anxiety - it’s a different feeling, it sits differently in the body and it’s processed differently, too. But grief is such a pervasive, exhausting, and intolerable experience that we often trade it out for simpler ones, like anxiety, or defensiveness, or anger, or disengagement. Eco-grief is what eco-anxiety is trying to put off. Those of us that are anxiety prone feel much safer in that fear than in the grief which waits underneath it. And while grief isn’t good for our mental health, it’s better in the long run then most of the other options.

My readings and reflection and conversation have led me to the conclusion that grief is the right response. That I am grieving, all the time, for the world I thought this was and have since lost. For the sense of control and certainty that the climate crisis has taken away from me. I am grieving my hope for the future. And my faith in humankind.

I have also decided that there is something radical about grief. Something powerful. I no longer get caught up in arguments about what is or isn’t a fact. I don’t spend hours pacing my apartment, looking out the windows, and worrying about what may come. I know what has come. I know what is true. I can sit with these things more or less peacefully, now. And the sadness that comes with it is an old friend - one I do not fear or resent. And in a world where this kind of grief isn’t accepted or acknowledged, my loss becomes a kind of rebellion.

Grief requires acceptance - recognition that this is the situation. And in a world filled with people that do not believe themselves capable of saving themselves or worthy of being saved, the most radical thing I can be is a person who denies both of those statements. Grief recognizes opportunity lost - that if I had the chance or control I could have done something about all this. Grief recognizes the unfairness, that I deserve better, and so do my loved ones. So do we all. And through my grief I can reconnect with these beliefs, with the earth that I love, and with the future that I yearn for.

Supporting links:

Article on eco-grief and ways to cope by Fialkow and Lavoie at the University of Calgary: https://ucalgary.ca/news/eco-grief-how-cope-emotional-impacts-climate-change

Study by Comtesse, Hengst, Rosner, Smid, (2021) on eco-grief: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7830022/

Article by Cunsolo and Ellis about eco-grief as a mental health response: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0092-2

How scientists are coping with ‘ecological grief’ by the Guardian and Gaia Vince: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jan/12/how-scientists-are-coping-with-environmental-grief