So much to say and not enough time to say it all. It would require a full essay onto itself. So I'll briefly counter Albrecht's problematic coverage of grief.
First, grateful for Britt Wray's work and the reflection at the end of this piece. Grateful for the variety of voices included in GenDread. I extend my gratitude to Albrecht and his term solastalgia, because when I began researching what now fits under the umbrella terms of “eco-anxiety” and “climate grief” (a decade ago), he was one of the only ones talking about these complicated feelings.
Now, onto the critique: I'm frustrated by Albrecht’s discussion on grief, "I'm very critical of the concept of grief being used in connection to ecology or climate change, because it devalues what's going on in humans, particularly during a pandemic of COVID-19."
This argument seems to come from a scarcity mindset, like there isn't enough room for grief over the pandemic, so we can't afford to also grieve over the climate crisis. I assure you, we can (and must) grieve for human lives lost due to COVID and the impact that humankind (mostly industrialized nations) are having on the planet. We are complex enough beings we can hold grief for a multitude of things without it taking away from the grief over one issue.
GA: "climate, or ecosystems, whatever they might be, have not died at all"
The amazon is on the verge of becoming a savannah, icebergs are calving faster than we expect, sea creatures are dissolving because the oceans are too acidic, we're close to having more plastic than fish in the oceans, etc. To say our ecosystems have not died at all is a drastic misrepresentation of what's happening in the world. Do we wait until these systems and beings, are fully dead before we are granted permission to grieve them? That seems counterproductive.
I feel like he's telling me that I cannot grieve that my left arm has been crushed and no longer works the way it used to because it's still attached.
GA: "If I had reached that conclusion, I would be sitting in the corner rocking back and forth with my hands on my head."
Perhaps his insistence to keep grief at arm’s length is preventing him from sitting with the harsh realities of what we're doing to the planet, each other, and ourselves. It’s not just climate, it’s full out ecocide where we’re slicing up every habitable part of our planet and selling it off. It’s industrialized agriculture that commodifies lives. It’s the systemic othering and white patriarchy that allows us to mutilate and murder BIPOC folks and women. Climate chaos is a symptom of much larger systemic issues. I grieve for all of this.
With regard to restoring ecosystems: Yes, we can (and ought to) focus on regeneration and help ecosystems heal from some of the devastation humankind (again, largely industrialized nations) has perpetrated. Yet, we know from ecological succession that habitats never grow back the way they were before a disturbance. His insights shared here lack a biological understanding of how our natural world "heals" and what it means to engage in “healing.” Even if we stop all carbon emissions now (which is impractical and will cause significant suffering on a global scale), we cannot reform ice, stop micro-plastics from reaching every place on the planet (including the inside of our own bodies), or restore ecosystems to the level they were at before we devoured them.
Grief is a feeling of sadness over a loss. If we allowed ourselves to lean into it, to feel it, and come out on the other side, we are reminded that grief is what love looks like. We grieve because we feel that something is deeply wrong with the way humankind (once more, for the people in the back, mostly industrialized nations) operates on the planet. This is not dread. This is me feeling into the losses that I witness, that I feel in my bones, and that I choose not to turn away from. I feel grief because I know that I, as an individual, and we as a species, and culture, can do better.
There is deep wisdom to be found once you get to the humbling level of "rocking back and forth with (your) hands on (your) head." This sounds more like a fear of grief to me. An avoidance. We see this a lot in our Good Grief spaces. The dominant culture has convinced us that if we allow the despair or grief in, we’ll get stuck there. So, cultural messaging tells us it is our duty to remain committed to the positive, feel-good emotions (which are not in danger of going away and have been over-prioritized in the dominant culture). The invitation to lean into the heavy and painful feelings does not make us stuck there. As each of us acts with courage to actually feel and process the grief (a bonus if it’s in community!), we open to a whole new range of perspectives and energy that wasn’t available when we were avoiding or denying these feelings. We can use grief to inspire action, to motivate change, and to provide a depth of understanding about what it is we’re losing each and every day.
There is no shortage of positive emotions out there. But the dominant culture's rush to gloss over the heavy or painful ones stunt us and our emotional intelligence. It lessens our ability to collaborate and find new/nuanced solutions that are outside the systemic box.
Couple of thoughts. Thanks for the important discussion.
I did a book in Finnish (October 2019) about "ecological" feelings & emotions: feelings which are significantly connected with environmental issues. There’s always many factors at play. Sometimes the ecological condition and relation is the exact cause of the emotional reaction, and sometimes the reaction is the results of multiple factors.
In the book, there’s more than 100 feeling words. In relation to grief/sadness, I ended up using 8 main words and then discussed several sub-forms of them. Sadly (sic), the book is so far available only in Finnish, but a couple of the ideas are in my essay for BBC Climate Emotions series (link at the end of the post).
My main point with the above is that there are numerous kinds of ecological grief/sadness. I have personally seen in my work as workshop leader (and as a participant) the potential empowering effects that encountering grief&sadness can have (echoing Laura S. above). It is sometimes helpful to name particular types of ecological grief&sadness, such as “climate-childlessness-grief” (see Amanda’s comment above, I have a Finnish name for this feeling in my book), or “climate-bittersweetness” (when the ‘weather’ conditions allow you to be happy, but in the background is the sadness about the vast changes that are going on).
The second point is that, in my experience and based on research, ecological emotions & climate feelings (whatever terms we use of them) experienced at any given moment are usually combinations of several feeling tones. Some of these combinations are more common, such as sadness + guilt, or dread + grief (see Leora’s comment above), but then there is a huge number of various conglomerates. For example, sadness + flares of indignation + anxiety about freedom & responsibility + strong desire to do good (aspiration, in Renee Lertzman’s terms). Thus, in addition to the important task of discussing and recognizing various emotions & feelings, there’s a need to encounter the mixes, the assemblages, the conglomerates.
I think that in addition to more nuanced discussions shaped partly by academic studies, we should encourage people (and each other) to explore feeling words. And we should respect the ways in which people like to describe their emotions: if the words speak to them, if they help them to make some sense of what they are feeling, the words are valuable. That’s a key reason behind solastalgia’s popularity, and behind the growing popularity of ecological grief, I think. With these words and the explanations of them that others have offered, people have found insight about what they already were feeling – and growing understanding of what others are feeling. That way this whole enterprise has a strong ethical dimension.
Two comments. One: Surely it can't be right that we've lost only one species to climate change so far? I thought we were in the middle of the Sixth Great Extinction...
And Two: I wonder whether Indigenous words already exist for some of the things we're feeling. Indigenous people have been witnessing and feeling the disappearance of the lands and creatures they've known and loved for a very long time. Does anyone out there know about this?
Personally, I’m really tired of the adaption versus mitigation debate. I find it to be a distraction from the actual work that needs to be done. If we stop the climate gas spewing today we would still need to adapt. We are a decade away from blowing past the arbitrary line in the sand “best case” scenario. Semantics have a place in this conversation but at the end of the day we have to discuss policy, action...and therefore how we do the deep social work of getting along enough to act. We need BOTH deep emergency mitigation (I like that phrase) AND deep just adaption. And we are headed towards failing at both. So why climate aware people spend their time arguing this when they could say hey... many actions can be both adaption and mitigation simultaneously lets find ways to work together on these concepts. Building soil organic matter makes managing weather extremes a bit easier in agriculture and it is a way to trap carbon. We need a lot more of that kind of thinking. I agree words get used up and appropriated and get tired and old (sustainability etc). I’m much more interested in being specific- what are the strategies we are looking at from all levels. Making adjustments to adapt is facing reality. We need to do adaption and instead of throwing away the concept as only for the rich/privileged, we need to ask how we are helping and distributing resources for adaption. As individuals we cannot stop the train. As societies we need to revolve, restructure, reinvent. Sure ecology might seem like the new over-used word but I don’t actually agree with discarding it out of hand because of its relationship to economy- I think we need to study our home and how we relate to it, how we understand what home means. How do we “come home”? Just my two cents. I’m biased... as a trained ecologist. In any case, I appreciate the conversations around getting to a more just, co-cocreative society. So I will accept critique of my argument...
The distinction he draws between grief and dread is interesting. I do feel a distinct emotion I would describe as grief when I think about the future I hoped for no longer being possible. That future, of course, never really existed except in my mind. So its absence isn't really about the future, but rather the loss of that fantasy in the present. I think you can define that as grief. Dread, on the other hand, is anticipating a bad event, rather than feeling an absence of something you longed for. I feel dread when I think about mass drought, for example. But I feel grief when I think about possibly not having grandchildren. I wouldn't say I dread not having grandchildren.
Deep Adaptation is defined in contrast the the mainstream of climate change adaptation, which is an established field in scholarship and policy, for decades. The implication is that the mainstream approach to adaptation is superficial, by seeking to maintain societies rather than recognise they must and will change. As you know Britt, the term adaptation is also used in psychology, which I find relevant i.e. whether certain patterns of thought and action are maladaptive or adaptive. Retreating to artificial binaries, where adaptation is pretended to be an agenda instead of, or against, carbon cuts and drawdown, is neither logical nor reflective of where climate policy has reached in the last decade. As DA has spread peer to peer, it's an obvious way to get some attention for one's views to start an argument about it. But I also wonder if it could be a form of bullying: scared people needing a sense of power by picking on people who freak them out 🤣
Wow, there is so much in this interview to unpack! As someone who has worked extensively with the emotions that pregnant people feel over miscarriage or pregnancy loss, it’s been my experience that we can absolutely feel grief over losses that cross time to extend into the future, and agree with some of the other commenters that I can’t align with Albrecht’s assessment of what counts or doesn’t count as grief. I also appreciate your commentary, Britt, on the usefulness of using words that are easily translated to the general public. I love Albrecht’s new vocabulary and have written about it as well, but I also wonder if there’s an element of privilege in a vocabulary that might not be easily accessible to the general public. Lots of food for thought here. I appreciate your bringing this conversation to us!
The statement that only one species has gone extinct (a small mouse) due to climate change is completely inaccurate. Check the Union for the Conservation of Nature, their website, and their Red List, among thousands of other sources about species extinction and climate change.
So much to say and not enough time to say it all. It would require a full essay onto itself. So I'll briefly counter Albrecht's problematic coverage of grief.
First, grateful for Britt Wray's work and the reflection at the end of this piece. Grateful for the variety of voices included in GenDread. I extend my gratitude to Albrecht and his term solastalgia, because when I began researching what now fits under the umbrella terms of “eco-anxiety” and “climate grief” (a decade ago), he was one of the only ones talking about these complicated feelings.
Now, onto the critique: I'm frustrated by Albrecht’s discussion on grief, "I'm very critical of the concept of grief being used in connection to ecology or climate change, because it devalues what's going on in humans, particularly during a pandemic of COVID-19."
This argument seems to come from a scarcity mindset, like there isn't enough room for grief over the pandemic, so we can't afford to also grieve over the climate crisis. I assure you, we can (and must) grieve for human lives lost due to COVID and the impact that humankind (mostly industrialized nations) are having on the planet. We are complex enough beings we can hold grief for a multitude of things without it taking away from the grief over one issue.
GA: "climate, or ecosystems, whatever they might be, have not died at all"
The amazon is on the verge of becoming a savannah, icebergs are calving faster than we expect, sea creatures are dissolving because the oceans are too acidic, we're close to having more plastic than fish in the oceans, etc. To say our ecosystems have not died at all is a drastic misrepresentation of what's happening in the world. Do we wait until these systems and beings, are fully dead before we are granted permission to grieve them? That seems counterproductive.
I feel like he's telling me that I cannot grieve that my left arm has been crushed and no longer works the way it used to because it's still attached.
GA: "If I had reached that conclusion, I would be sitting in the corner rocking back and forth with my hands on my head."
Perhaps his insistence to keep grief at arm’s length is preventing him from sitting with the harsh realities of what we're doing to the planet, each other, and ourselves. It’s not just climate, it’s full out ecocide where we’re slicing up every habitable part of our planet and selling it off. It’s industrialized agriculture that commodifies lives. It’s the systemic othering and white patriarchy that allows us to mutilate and murder BIPOC folks and women. Climate chaos is a symptom of much larger systemic issues. I grieve for all of this.
With regard to restoring ecosystems: Yes, we can (and ought to) focus on regeneration and help ecosystems heal from some of the devastation humankind (again, largely industrialized nations) has perpetrated. Yet, we know from ecological succession that habitats never grow back the way they were before a disturbance. His insights shared here lack a biological understanding of how our natural world "heals" and what it means to engage in “healing.” Even if we stop all carbon emissions now (which is impractical and will cause significant suffering on a global scale), we cannot reform ice, stop micro-plastics from reaching every place on the planet (including the inside of our own bodies), or restore ecosystems to the level they were at before we devoured them.
Grief is a feeling of sadness over a loss. If we allowed ourselves to lean into it, to feel it, and come out on the other side, we are reminded that grief is what love looks like. We grieve because we feel that something is deeply wrong with the way humankind (once more, for the people in the back, mostly industrialized nations) operates on the planet. This is not dread. This is me feeling into the losses that I witness, that I feel in my bones, and that I choose not to turn away from. I feel grief because I know that I, as an individual, and we as a species, and culture, can do better.
There is deep wisdom to be found once you get to the humbling level of "rocking back and forth with (your) hands on (your) head." This sounds more like a fear of grief to me. An avoidance. We see this a lot in our Good Grief spaces. The dominant culture has convinced us that if we allow the despair or grief in, we’ll get stuck there. So, cultural messaging tells us it is our duty to remain committed to the positive, feel-good emotions (which are not in danger of going away and have been over-prioritized in the dominant culture). The invitation to lean into the heavy and painful feelings does not make us stuck there. As each of us acts with courage to actually feel and process the grief (a bonus if it’s in community!), we open to a whole new range of perspectives and energy that wasn’t available when we were avoiding or denying these feelings. We can use grief to inspire action, to motivate change, and to provide a depth of understanding about what it is we’re losing each and every day.
There is no shortage of positive emotions out there. But the dominant culture's rush to gloss over the heavy or painful ones stunt us and our emotional intelligence. It lessens our ability to collaborate and find new/nuanced solutions that are outside the systemic box.
Couple of thoughts. Thanks for the important discussion.
I did a book in Finnish (October 2019) about "ecological" feelings & emotions: feelings which are significantly connected with environmental issues. There’s always many factors at play. Sometimes the ecological condition and relation is the exact cause of the emotional reaction, and sometimes the reaction is the results of multiple factors.
In the book, there’s more than 100 feeling words. In relation to grief/sadness, I ended up using 8 main words and then discussed several sub-forms of them. Sadly (sic), the book is so far available only in Finnish, but a couple of the ideas are in my essay for BBC Climate Emotions series (link at the end of the post).
My main point with the above is that there are numerous kinds of ecological grief/sadness. I have personally seen in my work as workshop leader (and as a participant) the potential empowering effects that encountering grief&sadness can have (echoing Laura S. above). It is sometimes helpful to name particular types of ecological grief&sadness, such as “climate-childlessness-grief” (see Amanda’s comment above, I have a Finnish name for this feeling in my book), or “climate-bittersweetness” (when the ‘weather’ conditions allow you to be happy, but in the background is the sadness about the vast changes that are going on).
The second point is that, in my experience and based on research, ecological emotions & climate feelings (whatever terms we use of them) experienced at any given moment are usually combinations of several feeling tones. Some of these combinations are more common, such as sadness + guilt, or dread + grief (see Leora’s comment above), but then there is a huge number of various conglomerates. For example, sadness + flares of indignation + anxiety about freedom & responsibility + strong desire to do good (aspiration, in Renee Lertzman’s terms). Thus, in addition to the important task of discussing and recognizing various emotions & feelings, there’s a need to encounter the mixes, the assemblages, the conglomerates.
I think that in addition to more nuanced discussions shaped partly by academic studies, we should encourage people (and each other) to explore feeling words. And we should respect the ways in which people like to describe their emotions: if the words speak to them, if they help them to make some sense of what they are feeling, the words are valuable. That’s a key reason behind solastalgia’s popularity, and behind the growing popularity of ecological grief, I think. With these words and the explanations of them that others have offered, people have found insight about what they already were feeling – and growing understanding of what others are feeling. That way this whole enterprise has a strong ethical dimension.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200402-climate-grief-mourning-loss-due-to-climate-change?utm_campaign=Hot+News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=85704446&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_jmsb10miJso8-STDmVaSO5qsPmiY_8kpnyT4G7jpvJQL7zedMIhPU16RHY19OOzO5eVcz51aVHjTBNyksZeEDsML5bQ&_hsmi=85704446
Two comments. One: Surely it can't be right that we've lost only one species to climate change so far? I thought we were in the middle of the Sixth Great Extinction...
And Two: I wonder whether Indigenous words already exist for some of the things we're feeling. Indigenous people have been witnessing and feeling the disappearance of the lands and creatures they've known and loved for a very long time. Does anyone out there know about this?
Personally, I’m really tired of the adaption versus mitigation debate. I find it to be a distraction from the actual work that needs to be done. If we stop the climate gas spewing today we would still need to adapt. We are a decade away from blowing past the arbitrary line in the sand “best case” scenario. Semantics have a place in this conversation but at the end of the day we have to discuss policy, action...and therefore how we do the deep social work of getting along enough to act. We need BOTH deep emergency mitigation (I like that phrase) AND deep just adaption. And we are headed towards failing at both. So why climate aware people spend their time arguing this when they could say hey... many actions can be both adaption and mitigation simultaneously lets find ways to work together on these concepts. Building soil organic matter makes managing weather extremes a bit easier in agriculture and it is a way to trap carbon. We need a lot more of that kind of thinking. I agree words get used up and appropriated and get tired and old (sustainability etc). I’m much more interested in being specific- what are the strategies we are looking at from all levels. Making adjustments to adapt is facing reality. We need to do adaption and instead of throwing away the concept as only for the rich/privileged, we need to ask how we are helping and distributing resources for adaption. As individuals we cannot stop the train. As societies we need to revolve, restructure, reinvent. Sure ecology might seem like the new over-used word but I don’t actually agree with discarding it out of hand because of its relationship to economy- I think we need to study our home and how we relate to it, how we understand what home means. How do we “come home”? Just my two cents. I’m biased... as a trained ecologist. In any case, I appreciate the conversations around getting to a more just, co-cocreative society. So I will accept critique of my argument...
The distinction he draws between grief and dread is interesting. I do feel a distinct emotion I would describe as grief when I think about the future I hoped for no longer being possible. That future, of course, never really existed except in my mind. So its absence isn't really about the future, but rather the loss of that fantasy in the present. I think you can define that as grief. Dread, on the other hand, is anticipating a bad event, rather than feeling an absence of something you longed for. I feel dread when I think about mass drought, for example. But I feel grief when I think about possibly not having grandchildren. I wouldn't say I dread not having grandchildren.
Or maybe we need a new word for that feeling?
Deep Adaptation is defined in contrast the the mainstream of climate change adaptation, which is an established field in scholarship and policy, for decades. The implication is that the mainstream approach to adaptation is superficial, by seeking to maintain societies rather than recognise they must and will change. As you know Britt, the term adaptation is also used in psychology, which I find relevant i.e. whether certain patterns of thought and action are maladaptive or adaptive. Retreating to artificial binaries, where adaptation is pretended to be an agenda instead of, or against, carbon cuts and drawdown, is neither logical nor reflective of where climate policy has reached in the last decade. As DA has spread peer to peer, it's an obvious way to get some attention for one's views to start an argument about it. But I also wonder if it could be a form of bullying: scared people needing a sense of power by picking on people who freak them out 🤣
Wow, there is so much in this interview to unpack! As someone who has worked extensively with the emotions that pregnant people feel over miscarriage or pregnancy loss, it’s been my experience that we can absolutely feel grief over losses that cross time to extend into the future, and agree with some of the other commenters that I can’t align with Albrecht’s assessment of what counts or doesn’t count as grief. I also appreciate your commentary, Britt, on the usefulness of using words that are easily translated to the general public. I love Albrecht’s new vocabulary and have written about it as well, but I also wonder if there’s an element of privilege in a vocabulary that might not be easily accessible to the general public. Lots of food for thought here. I appreciate your bringing this conversation to us!
I saw the link to National Geographic; beyond mammals and the mouse in question, many other species are extinct due to climate change.
The statement that only one species has gone extinct (a small mouse) due to climate change is completely inaccurate. Check the Union for the Conservation of Nature, their website, and their Red List, among thousands of other sources about species extinction and climate change.