Front Burner - What to do about climate anxiety

Episode Date: August 20, 2021

From record-breaking heat waves to droughts and floods — people are acutely experiencing climate change this summer. Many are struggling with ‘climate anxiety’ as a result. Stanford Planetary Health Fellow Britt Wray explains why, and what can be done about it.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Alameen Abdul-Mahmoud in for Jamie Poisson. It's been a summer of record heatwaves, floods, droughts, intense wildfires. All those things are visceral reminders that climate change isn't some far-off problem. It's here.

And I have to be honest with you, I find it overwhelming. I understand it's happening. I keep up with the news. But after I'm done reading those stories, I file it away under things to worry about later. It's not because I don't think it's important. It's because it's hard to know where to even begin. Experts now tell us that even if we do everything right, global temperatures will continue to rise for a few more decades before they start to fall.

The report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns the Earth will hit its tipping point earlier than expected, warming 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels within just 20 years. That means decades of extreme weather, decades of devastating implications. And I'm telling you all this now while starting to feel like maybe I'll just talk about this later because it's making me anxious. There's a name for this. It's called climate anxiety.

There's a name for this. It's called climate anxiety. I'm like panic, like despair, like really big, bad feelings. So a lot of like kind of like almost nightmare scenarios would flash across my imagination, which would be like basically me like holding my little baby and like running, you and running from a forest fire or some other natural disaster. I was coming at that from the perspective of a new parent with a young child who, even if I was lucky enough to escape witnessing, experiencing the ravages of climate change, I didn't see how she could. Dana Snell lives in Scarborough, Ontario. Her anxiety around wildfires and other natural disasters has grown so much that she sought out

an online support group to talk about it. I feel like talking about the climate crisis is like talking about death. It's not a pleasant topic of conversation. It'll end the conversation like nothing else. So I just needed somebody to kind of join me and say, no, it makes sense to be worried about this. Your feelings make sense and they're appropriate for the, the level of the threat we're facing. And, and so I was able to just kind of Googled and they found

the Good Grief Network. So what they do is they follow like a 10 step program that's kind of modeled off of the, I believe it's the Al-Anon program. And after you reach the 10th step, then, you know, the group is, is done. I guess I have a little more tools to deal with these feelings. And I can compartmentalize it a lot more than I used to be able to. And I have people that I know I can talk to about it. But that doesn't, you know, the problem is there. It hasn't gone away. The idea of struggling to talk about climate anxiety and the feeling of the problem never really going away. That is something that Britt Ray knows well. She's a

planetary health fellow at Stanford University and is writing a book about the mental health impacts of the climate crisis. Hi, Britt. Hi, Elamin. Thanks for joining me. Oh, of course. It's good to be here. Listen, I used this term just now, climate anxiety. Some people say eco-anxiety, but what does it mean? Yeah, so eco-anxiety is described often as the chronic fear of environmental doom. That's actually the label that the American Psychological Association has put to the term. And climate anxiety is just a climate-specific set of concerns around environmental change. It's a subset of eco-anxiety, if you will. And I think that your caller there who described her experience with dealing with those overwhelming feelings of panic,

fear, grief, sadness, despair, really sum up the fact that although we call it anxiety, it appears with many emotions that appear alongside it quite naturally, all of which relate to stress. And how is it different from the regular run-of-the-mill anxiety that some of us may be familiar with? So run-of-the-mill anxiety often gets associated with anxiety disorders, things that might be rooted in a mental health diagnosis that link with effects such as catastrophic thinking and rumination that might not be based or rooted in a realistic threat scenario. Of course, sometimes it would be, but when it comes to climate anxiety, it's very important to not pathologize or medicalize this term or think about those who are experiencing it as living with a mental disorder. Mental health professionals

have rallied around the term to argue that it's very important that we see this as a normal and natural response to a real unfolding existential threat, to a mass social disruption, which is traumatic. The climate crisis is itself traumatic, and our nervous systems are getting activated by our direct experience with it, as well as our awareness of it. So even if we're not on the front lines of climate disaster, simply understanding the implications of the science can be enough to trigger these kinds of anxiety responses within us. But it's not that it stems from a disorder. It stems from an awareness of what is under siege in the natural world, who is vulnerable, what's playing out before our eyes in a disaster-prone summer like the one we have before us. And of course, as you already mentioned in your intro, knowing that this is going to only be an effect that is enhanced moving forward between now and the middle of the century,

no matter what we do. And what we have to learn about these emotions is how they can wake us up to move through that denial, move through that impact of, you know, just naturally wanting to stick our head in the sands around this or just give into that feeling of overwhelm and block it out, but rather harness these emotions to be able to move us to take the actions that will reduce harm in the future. Now, you yourself, you've been studying this idea for a while, and you've been studying the mental health impacts of the climate crisis. What draws you to that? Is that something that you are feeling as well? Yeah, absolutely. So I am one of many different kinds of professionals who get emotionally impacted by the climate crisis, perhaps more than most folks, because I think about it all day. You know, my undergrad degree had a focus on conservation biology, which is where you're kind of bearing witness to the biodiversity crisis day in, day out, the extinction and endangerment of species, which is pretty heavy in itself. But we know that climate scientists, conservation biologists,

activists, environmental journalists, people who are spending their intellectual and kind of emotional labor on these environmental issues every day bear a huge psychological cost for doing that work. And so my awareness definitely has brought up my own eco-anxiety around just the implications of the scientific reports that I read constantly as a researcher and science communicator. And I, a few years ago, started feeling much more immense amounts of it. And I wanted to understand what was going on, how I could cope with it better, what are healthy ways of integrating these emotions into one's life. And so that started me on the research process for the book that I've been writing about the mental health impacts of the climate crisis.

I have to imagine that this kind of anxiety, different people react to it differently. How much do we know about who's most affected by it? We know that the climate crisis is already in full force in many places around the world. Firefighters in northern Morocco are battling to put out two forest blaze as the North African kingdom swelters in a heat wave. to put out two forest blaze as the North African kingdom swelters in a heat wave. Floodwater spreading fear. The partly submerged city of Zhangjiao.

Its subway system now an underground river. Threatening disproportionately communities of colour in the global south, but also communities of colour all over the world and poor communities. So there is definitely, this is why we talk about climate justice, the need to frame justice at the center of action and where is most deserving of the kinds of supports and the kinds of actions that can protect community resilience and help people adapt to the changes that are happening versus, you know, other more privileged and protected communities who might be able to, for a longer period of time, afford to not necessarily think

about this crisis as a direct threat scenario because it's not yet on their doorstep, even though with each seasonal year of hot summers and new disasters, that seems to be changing, even in places where formerly people thought it was a far-out threat. At least 117 people are now confirmed dead as a result of flooding in parts of Germany and Belgium. Cars like charred husks, lampposts downed in the ash of what used to be a street. The Lytton fire burned so hot it liquefied parts of these parked vehicles. And in terms of experiencing the anxiety itself, what's the range of reactions that there can be? When one might be feeling just mild versions of the anxiety,

it could be that they're stressed out about recycling and how to do it properly, and they feel an urgent need to really take a specific kind of individual action. But they could be reassured by a focus on optimism, you know, a positive story about people coming together to work on this crisis, for example. When the feelings become a bit more intense than that, then perhaps the person will no longer be able to rely on those defenses as easily they could start to feel quite upset on a regular basis they might start having conflict within their relationships and when it gets to this more turning towards a significant level you You'll see couples, for example, in difficult situations because one really wants to have a child and the other one does not feel comfortable having a child, bringing

it into a climate-changed world anymore, and that can create interpersonal strife. But there's also a significant to severe state of this anxiety, which can become really dangerous in the sense that it's not just the emotions and the thoughts that are affected, but it's the person's functioning that's affected. So the inability to really carry out normal routines, get up out of bed, go to work, people can become suicidal. I mean, it really runs a large spectrum in terms of how distressed people feel about, you know, sensing a lack of safety about what the climate crisis is doing to their present and their future. I'm going to go. entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. household income. That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So it's one thing for me, a person who

lives in Toronto, to feel this anxiety, but it's a very different situation to have your entire life devastated by climate change. People have lost their homes to wildfires in BC. Drought is ravaging Manitoba. A reporter in Manitoba spoke to an auctioneer at an emergency cattle auction this week. Crops and hay aren't growing. Cattle farmers can't keep their animals fed. Many are selling off their herds. Their livelihoods and ways of life are at stake. Well, more than a thousand cattle have been dropped off here at the Ashern Auction Mart in the last 48 hours, set to be sold today.

Normally, cattle wouldn't be up for sale this early in the season. But with drought conditions and soil so dry, there's just not enough hay and pasture for farmers to feed them. I'm joined today by Buddy Bergner. He's the auctioneer here at the Asheron Auction Mart. Just tell me, how unusual is it to have these auctions this early in the summer? Well, this is the first time in 40 years. I've been here for 40 years, and it's the first time we've had to have summer sales and to have so many cattle. Like for people dispersing their herds, their cows and their calves and their livelihood because of the drought.

What's at stake for producers? What's the alternative to selling today? There is no alternative. They have to get rid of the cattle. Like there's no alternative at all. Like, if you don't have feed, you've got to sell them. Is climate anxiety the right term for that kind of experience? It's a really encompassing term that can apply to all kinds of threat scenarios,

and I think that's a very valid one indeed. Those are really devastating losses to have to contend with. And I know that farmers have been actually studied for quite a long time compared to some other groups because they have such a close relationship to the land in terms of what a changing landscape or a changing viability for their livelihood as a result of adverse effects on the climate does to their emotional well-being and mental health. And so there's also another term called ecological grief that often gets brought up in this context. It's the emotional experience of loss, of truly grieving

losses that are happening to, you know, your heritage. Perhaps these skills are passed down through your family generation to generation. Now it's becoming apparent that you can't pass that on to your children in any way that's sustainable, which is really difficult. Grieving for the animals that you love and care for, that you have to sell off in ways that you don't wish to. These kinds of things are well known in communities like farmers that live very closely with the land, but also in indigenous communities, where people have very close relationships to the land. And the scholars who have gone into

theorizing ecological grief also note that it isn't just about real losses that have already happened, but about anticipating further losses because of what the science tells us. So that awareness about future change can produce an anticipatory form of grief. You know, listening to how people's lives have been entirely turned around and turned upside down by climate change, I realized, I guess, like how small my anxieties are in comparison that maybe they're not worth talking about. And I got to say, whenever I tweet about, you know, being worried about climate change and not knowing what to do, a few people come back and say, you know, this kind of worry is natural, but it's kind of limiting. It's somewhat performative, and it's like not really useful. Can you talk a little bit about

the stigma around talking about climate anxiety? Well, it's a really nuanced and interesting thing. There has, I think, been an important conversation that's emerged around the fragility or the privilege that one shows when talking about climate anxiety, as though climate anxiety then is not a useful term to describe the very real lived experience of people who are dealing with existential threat day in, day out, who are losing their homes, who are losing their livelihoods, who are fleeing, who are already migrating threat day in, day out, who are losing their homes, who are losing their livelihoods, who are fleeing, who are already migrating with their babies on their backs, looking for any kind of safer place in which to homestead. And that is, of course, very important to recognize that although we are all in this storm together, we're not in the same boats, right? Some of us are much

more well-equipped to deal with these incurring costs of environmental change and adapt to them while others are already, you know, kind of dealing with the sea level rise coming close to over their heads. So in that sense, it's important to have this broad conversation that looks at those differences. However, we're also realizing that this distress can affect anyone and everyone. And there's something really useful about that. The fact that it is landing in people's nervous systems and making them feel something deep and visceral and waking them up is helping to shake off important defenses that we've many of us have afforded to be able to live with for far too long because those defenses we have a very impressive cadre of an unconscious defenses that hold us back from uh direct contact with pain you They're evolutionary. They're there to protect us from unbearable

feelings. And psychoanalysts have studied this very well with the climate crisis. We all need to lie to ourselves a little bit to get by when reality is tough to bear, so to speak. But in this kind of civilizational threat scenario, that's really not a feature. That's more of a bug that's holding us back from doing the kind of work that we need to do. And so there's actually a great opportunity here of building solidarity through an emotional stir up that the climate crisis is starting to cause in more and more people. It's like, oh, I can't ignore this. You know, this is really affecting my thoughts and my feelings and the way that I want to show up

in the world. So I think ultimately it's a good thing as long as people are supported to be able to recognize those emotions and work with them and then harness them towards more climate justice oriented actions. Well, let's talk about your relationship to that because like we talked about,

it can feel kind of overwhelming to even have this kind of conversation that we're having. What's helped you personally, because you're not running away from it. I mean, you're writing a book about this. describe the Good Grief Network at the beginning of the call. I've done that program. It is a 10 step program based on Alcoholics Anonymous, very helpful kind of emotional processing week by week in a group led not by a mental health professional, but it's a peer to peer support network that eventually kind of leads you through to reinvest the energy that you've lost from being anxious or stressed out or grieving into something that feels purposeful for you and authentic about how you can contribute to safeguarding the future that you want to be living in. And mindfulness and meditation are wonderful tools that I've found for helping me fit myself back into that window of tolerance. So we all have this window in which

life feels like smooth sailing, we can be our best selves, we can make decisions well, we can apply morality to our reasoning, and so on and so forth. But when we get pushed out of that window, because of stress, or we get not enough arousal and we go kind of below the threshold for that window, we can lose contact with a part of our brain called the prefrontal cortex, which is where higher functioning, executive functioning occurs, which is what we need in order to do those complex cognitions that I just mentioned and, you know, judge the future and then use that judgment to make decisions in the present, so to speak. But when it's knocked offline, we get kind of

hijacked by this stress response and we can go more into a fight, flight, freeze mode way of reacting. And that doesn't allow us to be capacious and creative and living with the kind of emotional flexibility that this scenario requires. However, mindfulness and meditation are really effective tools for soothing the nervous system, helping you fit back into that window. And then, you know, going forth from there, because this is a situation we all need to go forth in and find our own ways of being resilient within. And that's something that a lot of folks find really useful. But even more so, what's really important is talking about these emotions.

So legitimizing them, validating them, finding others who can sit with you and contain them and say, you know what, this is really overwhelming. This is the way that I'm responding to these feelings. How about you? Because in many of our families and many of our friend groups, it can still be really tough to bring the subject up. It feels a little bit like you're the permanent Debbie Downer. If you do, it does make people uncomfortable. They might want to shut it down. And that just increases the sense of alienation and isolation that eco-anxious folks have. That's a bubble of silence that really needs to be pierced in order to start to healthily process these feelings. So that's also really key. And the list kind of goes on and on. Britt, it sounds like I have some homework to do. Thank you so much for

guiding us through this field. Thank you. Thank you so much for guiding us through this field. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for wanting to talk about it. Before we go today, an update on developments in Afghanistan after the Taliban's takeover of the country. Access to the Kabul airport is still difficult, but military evacuation flights are ramping up. On Thursday, Canadian Armed Forces personnel arrived on the ground to coordinate with the U.S. and other allies on that front. Two military planes will begin making regular flights into

Kabul to help Canadians, Afghan nationals, and their families get to safety. That's all for this week. FrontBurner is brought to you by CBC News and CBC Podcasts. The show was produced this week by Ali Janes, Imogen Burchard, Katie Toth, Bryce Hoy, Simi Bassi, and Derek Vanderwyk. Our sound design was by Mackenzie Cameron. Our music is by Joseph Chabison of Boombox Sound. The executive producer of Frontburner is Elaine Chao. I'm Elamin Abdelmahmoud. It's been my pleasure to be in the host chair.

However, the original owner of this chair, Jamie Poisson, will return next week. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.