In the recent trial of Held v. Montana, Lise Van Susteren did an excellent job of explaining the mental and physical harm being done by climate change.
Imagine being invited to the World Economic Forum and thinking you're part of "The Resistance". Greta's Green Guards are the new Red Guards. Textbook examples of a useful idiots.
I find this term "climate anxiety" interesting and revealing. For me, the emotion isn't about fear of being subject to disasters in the future -- I think it's impossible to feel a prediction as strongly as you feel a real event, and once you have experienced the real event, you've got "climate trauma" not "climate anxiety." I think you hit much closer to the mark when you say:
"45% of youth globally reported that their thoughts and feelings about the climate crisis are interfering with daily life tasks, such as eating, sleeping, and concentrating, and this jumped to an average of 70% in the Global South countries."
It is something that interferes in our daily life tasks, but that is because all of our daily life tasks have been petrolocized, especially in the Global North but also in the middle classes of those Global South countries, who are not to be dismissed or ignored. Our every daily tasks have ecological consequences that our beyond our control, unless we are hypervigilant consumers (which causes more anxiety). So what we (what I) have is acute "climate guilt." Our foods are grown with synthetic fertilizers that exacerbate dead zones. It is very difficult to be a responsible parent (at least here in California) and not drive constantly. I am forced into a state of ongoing cognitive dissonance where every small action I make is weighted with existential responsibility, and I'm doing the wrong thing. Because of that individualistic, atomized culture you speak of, which sees each person as a consumer and not a worker, putting the responsibility to avert climate disaster on an individual is damaging and it is irresponsible; it conveniently lets the owners of the means of production off the hook. So its our consumerist response to climate change that says, "stop driving, stop eating meat, stop flying" that is driving the emotional crisis, the "climate anxiety." It can only be repaired by broadly adopting a more Marxist view that lets us join together as workers against the bosses, so that we can truly hold accountable the people whose decisions actually have perpetrated this ecocide.
I recently read about Bill Mckibben's quote that speaks to your point of our everyday tasks: '"Hypocrisy” is the price of admission in this battle'. Even as we fight for a safer world, we are deeply entrenched in a fossil-fuel-dependent system. But I do think that climate anxiety does exist outside of these existential daily choices we try to make, and we can be anxious about where the planet is heading and the amount of danger and suffering that may be inflicted on humans and all living things. I personally struggle with this, so it heartening to read Britt address it and normalize it.
I think that framing it as hypocrisy amounts to victim-blaming. Once you understand the violence and coercion that it took to build the petrocapitalist world order, the real criminals become clear. That's why I think everyone in this movement needs to study petrohistory: the specific story of how oil came to dominate human politics. https://thespouter.substack.com/p/the-autonomous-chemical-weapon#details
We need to engage personally, publicly, and politically. Of course trying to do everything we can generally leads to overwhelm. I personally put more emphasis on the personal and political. I talk to others about climate and I vote for climate champions and join demonstrations etc. But taking individual/personal actions can also be a part of addressing our dissonance and contributes to reducing GHGs. If we live in a house and can afford a heat pump and/or solar panels, and if we have access to public transit and can take it without overburdening ourselves rather than drive, then we can support our city’s climate action strategies. Here in Toronto we have TransformTO, and meeting its targets does require individual/household actions. People can reduce think more critically and act more consciously when it comes to their consumption. But I agree that we need systemic change and that the current system makes us all “climate hostages” as Thomas Doughty has said in The Climate Change and Happiness podcast.
Well, after all the comments I have read on this page, I very much doubt that anything I could say would change Jaime's mind. So this post is for everyone else.
I am 75 years old. I have a good background in Math and Physics, and some knowledge of Chemistry. I have believed since the 70s in the ideas in 'Limits to Growth'. I have been concerned and alarmed about global warming since 2000.
Thank you for your concern and alarm, and for these links. Sadly, some will deny and disavow that the “house is on fire”. There are psychological, psychosocial and systemic roots to the crises. But the “climate bubble” is busting as Sally Weintrobe and others write about, and more are able to understand what’s happening and respond with urgency and care. We will lose a lot but there is much we can save.
I used to be unusual. A wildfire survivor still triggered by smoke. Now everyone gets a taste of my deepest nightmare fuel as I write official memos about how to stay safe from smoke. It's so very real and surreal.
When the California wildfires blazed and the San Francisco sky eerily turned orange, headlines blamed "climate change," without examining the shocking changes that have occurred in California's timber industry due to tighter environmental controls. When I was a teenager in the late 1970s, living in Trinity County, logging jobs were plentiful and the roads were filled with logging trucks. Foresters until about 1990 harvested 10 to 12 BILLION board feet a year in California.
By 2013, it was just 2.5 BILLION board feet - a quarter or less than a quarter of what was harvested in an earlier era. What happens when harvest declines? So does tree thinning, and clearing of brush and dead trees. Harvesting on public lands is controversial but it helps pay for much needed brush clearing. Many environmental groups vigorously oppose BOTH the tree harvesting and the brush clearing. Public lands in California are immense - about 46% of the state is controlled by federal government, and much of this is managed by the forest service.
WHY HAS CALIFORNIA'S TIMBER INDUSTRY COLLAPSED?
- tighter environmental controls
- higher costs of timber harvesting
- competition from overseas
- competition from the southern United States
Fires emit tens of millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide - about 1/8 or more of California's entire annual emissions - mostly because we have allowed the timber industry to collapse, we have
allowed environmental groups who do not understand the consequences of their emotionally-driven
demands to push for harmful legislation, and consequently there is way too much dead wood and dead brush ready to ignite. UCB researchers say that before 1800, about 4.5 million acres of California forest burned in a typical year - half because Native Americans intentionally burned,
and half as a result of nature - typically lightning striking. It's important to understand that prescribed burns (as practiced by Native Americans long ago) eliminate some of the fuel. It is even more important to realize that rampant California wildfires are the unintended consequence of allowing California's timber industry to utterly collapse, which happened partly because of the environmentalists' agenda and partly because of economic reasons.
Climate worriers are mentally ill. Seriously mentally ill. You’re not ‘living meaningfully with climate anxiety’, you are living a massive lie - at the expense of the actual environment and the rest of humanity. There is no scientifically, evidentially demonstrable ‘climate crisis’ - the term was INVENTED because not enough people were getting alarmed by very unalarming ‘climate change’ , previously known as global warming. Your denial of reality is doing MORE harm to the environment than the fossil fuels which you are so ideologically intent upon demonising and eradicating.
Jaime I'm sorry to say that your mind has been possessed by evil, anti-human jinn who are compelling you to turn against your own species and do the bidding of Oil. A common malady, unfortunately. I prescribe prayer, meditation, and research. If you don't like the way that liberal environmentalists react to and talk about the objective reality of the climate crisis, do what I have done and find your own response that doesn't involve lying to yourself, because that is spiritually unhealthy.
There is no objectively real, scientifically demonstrable 'climate crisis'. It was invented by the Guardian in 2019 as part of their new editorial 'style guide'. My mind has not been possessed by jinn, not even gin, although I'm not impartial to a good wine occasionally I must admit!
I point you to direct evidence that the mainstream media has used language to deliberately engineer the public's perception of reality and you accuse me of confusing language and reality, and that this is a common symptom of demonic possession! Somebody needs help here, but it isn't me.
You're a scientist - really? Your profile says 'climate and health adaptation professional'. I'm not sure exactly what that is, but it doesn't sound very scientific. The 'science' which supposedly verifies 'dangerous' anthropogenic climate change is decidedly underwhelming. You are certainly not very familiar with it, nor with the science and considerable data which tends to undermine the 'overwhelming' scientific evidence of man-made climate change, because if you were you would not be parroting such boiler plate nonsense.
The Guardian was 10 years late changing its language, but it was right to do so, in order to try to popularise the awareness of the crisis. It is not invented by the Guardian! Do some research.
"The term climate crisis had appeared in scientific articles since at least 2009, but this term has recently been commonly used by world governments and the United Nations. Often, climate crisis is used when discussing actions, initiatives, or legislation that could be enacted to try to fight climate change."
No examples given I note. In my experience, NO peer-reviewed scientific articles on climate change used the term 'climate crisis' prior to 2019, and even after then, very, very few. This does not preclude the possibility that it may have been mentioned in some previously, but I would suggest it was vanishingly few. Even now, the unscientific term is used mainly by policy advocates and main stream media wishing to convey a false sense of urgency.
"Many professionalmedia outlets adopted new editorial policies (perhaps most notably The Guardian in its Climate Pledge; see The Guardian, 2019), committing to talk about “crisis”or even “catastrophe” and “emergency”. Political institutions followed suit."
Exactly like I said. Nowhere in your research article does it point out that climate crisis was commonly used prior to 2018, even by the media. Its use in respected scientific journals prior to that year was virtually non-existent.
Jamie, please go and actually read some evidential research that has been done. I refer you to a really great video summary by the international expert, Prof. Johan Rockstrom, of his decades (literally, a lifetime) of research on this, delivered as a talk this April at the Frontiers Forum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KfWGAjJAsM.
Please, please, realise that this *is* a crisis, we are too close to the edge of destruction not to call it that. The 9 planetary boundaries are very close to being irrevocably tipped over, and if we do that, humanity will not survive as we know it. Please don't write crap against science before you've actually studied the science.
There is no robust scientific evidence for imminent 'tipping points'. Again, this is just more scare-mongering labouring under the term 'science'. Rockstrom is a climate activist with academic qualifications.
Rockstrom is the activist voice for this research, but he is a tenured professor and whole teams at the Potsdam Climate Institute (PIK), and the EAT-Lancet Forum, beyond, have collectively endorsed this view. This is hundreds of scientists.
Please don't play the 'consensus' tune. I've heard it all before. 'Consensus' is not evidence, it's not science, even if hundreds of scientists sign on to it.
Thank you Britt! I’m not going to judge you for speaking at the WEF in China. In fact I support your choice to travel and speak to this audience about this public and planetary health crisis. Until there is systems change we all face many ambiguous situations that make us feel ambivalence but require us to choose to try to do what we think will serve the greater good while also balancing that with meeting our own needs (not that these are mutually exclusive). This work of helping in our warming world can’t be done perfectly. Let’s not expect perfection of others or ourselves. Again, thank you for your speech and for continuing to raise awareness about climate mental health.
Oh, in case you don't know about Held v. Montana, some youths in Montana are suing the state government for violating their constitutional rights to a healthy environment:
I began to worry about the climate as a wildlife adoring young person, seeing the disregard for wild things so deeply entrenched in our culture, attitudes and behaviour.
In the recent trial of Held v. Montana, Lise Van Susteren did an excellent job of explaining the mental and physical harm being done by climate change.
Yes, Lise is a powerful voice in this space and did a wonderful job with her testimony!
Imagine being invited to the World Economic Forum and thinking you're part of "The Resistance". Greta's Green Guards are the new Red Guards. Textbook examples of a useful idiots.
As opposed to useless idiots going massively of topic with archaic mccarthyistic "insults"?
Thank you for this <3
I find this term "climate anxiety" interesting and revealing. For me, the emotion isn't about fear of being subject to disasters in the future -- I think it's impossible to feel a prediction as strongly as you feel a real event, and once you have experienced the real event, you've got "climate trauma" not "climate anxiety." I think you hit much closer to the mark when you say:
"45% of youth globally reported that their thoughts and feelings about the climate crisis are interfering with daily life tasks, such as eating, sleeping, and concentrating, and this jumped to an average of 70% in the Global South countries."
It is something that interferes in our daily life tasks, but that is because all of our daily life tasks have been petrolocized, especially in the Global North but also in the middle classes of those Global South countries, who are not to be dismissed or ignored. Our every daily tasks have ecological consequences that our beyond our control, unless we are hypervigilant consumers (which causes more anxiety). So what we (what I) have is acute "climate guilt." Our foods are grown with synthetic fertilizers that exacerbate dead zones. It is very difficult to be a responsible parent (at least here in California) and not drive constantly. I am forced into a state of ongoing cognitive dissonance where every small action I make is weighted with existential responsibility, and I'm doing the wrong thing. Because of that individualistic, atomized culture you speak of, which sees each person as a consumer and not a worker, putting the responsibility to avert climate disaster on an individual is damaging and it is irresponsible; it conveniently lets the owners of the means of production off the hook. So its our consumerist response to climate change that says, "stop driving, stop eating meat, stop flying" that is driving the emotional crisis, the "climate anxiety." It can only be repaired by broadly adopting a more Marxist view that lets us join together as workers against the bosses, so that we can truly hold accountable the people whose decisions actually have perpetrated this ecocide.
I recently read about Bill Mckibben's quote that speaks to your point of our everyday tasks: '"Hypocrisy” is the price of admission in this battle'. Even as we fight for a safer world, we are deeply entrenched in a fossil-fuel-dependent system. But I do think that climate anxiety does exist outside of these existential daily choices we try to make, and we can be anxious about where the planet is heading and the amount of danger and suffering that may be inflicted on humans and all living things. I personally struggle with this, so it heartening to read Britt address it and normalize it.
I think that framing it as hypocrisy amounts to victim-blaming. Once you understand the violence and coercion that it took to build the petrocapitalist world order, the real criminals become clear. That's why I think everyone in this movement needs to study petrohistory: the specific story of how oil came to dominate human politics. https://thespouter.substack.com/p/the-autonomous-chemical-weapon#details
We need to engage personally, publicly, and politically. Of course trying to do everything we can generally leads to overwhelm. I personally put more emphasis on the personal and political. I talk to others about climate and I vote for climate champions and join demonstrations etc. But taking individual/personal actions can also be a part of addressing our dissonance and contributes to reducing GHGs. If we live in a house and can afford a heat pump and/or solar panels, and if we have access to public transit and can take it without overburdening ourselves rather than drive, then we can support our city’s climate action strategies. Here in Toronto we have TransformTO, and meeting its targets does require individual/household actions. People can reduce think more critically and act more consciously when it comes to their consumption. But I agree that we need systemic change and that the current system makes us all “climate hostages” as Thomas Doughty has said in The Climate Change and Happiness podcast.
I meant to say I put more emphasis on the public (climate communication) and political
I just write overly long and obtuse internet articles about it and that's it.
https://thespouter.substack.com/p/revised-hydrogen-corpse-juice
I can appreciate “overly long and obtuse” since I tend to write that way too. Appreciated the one article I’ve had a chance to read so far.
Well, after all the comments I have read on this page, I very much doubt that anything I could say would change Jaime's mind. So this post is for everyone else.
I am 75 years old. I have a good background in Math and Physics, and some knowledge of Chemistry. I have believed since the 70s in the ideas in 'Limits to Growth'. I have been concerned and alarmed about global warming since 2000.
Here is some info that has helped me;
- History of climate change science: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_climate_change_science
- Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt
- Exxon Knew about Climate Change almost 40 years ago: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/
- Explaining climate change science & rebutting global warming misinformation: https://skepticalscience.com/
- The conversion of Jerry Taylor from climate denier to accepting climate science: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Taylor
Gerry
Thank you for your concern and alarm, and for these links. Sadly, some will deny and disavow that the “house is on fire”. There are psychological, psychosocial and systemic roots to the crises. But the “climate bubble” is busting as Sally Weintrobe and others write about, and more are able to understand what’s happening and respond with urgency and care. We will lose a lot but there is much we can save.
I used to be unusual. A wildfire survivor still triggered by smoke. Now everyone gets a taste of my deepest nightmare fuel as I write official memos about how to stay safe from smoke. It's so very real and surreal.
When the California wildfires blazed and the San Francisco sky eerily turned orange, headlines blamed "climate change," without examining the shocking changes that have occurred in California's timber industry due to tighter environmental controls. When I was a teenager in the late 1970s, living in Trinity County, logging jobs were plentiful and the roads were filled with logging trucks. Foresters until about 1990 harvested 10 to 12 BILLION board feet a year in California.
By 2013, it was just 2.5 BILLION board feet - a quarter or less than a quarter of what was harvested in an earlier era. What happens when harvest declines? So does tree thinning, and clearing of brush and dead trees. Harvesting on public lands is controversial but it helps pay for much needed brush clearing. Many environmental groups vigorously oppose BOTH the tree harvesting and the brush clearing. Public lands in California are immense - about 46% of the state is controlled by federal government, and much of this is managed by the forest service.
WHY HAS CALIFORNIA'S TIMBER INDUSTRY COLLAPSED?
- tighter environmental controls
- higher costs of timber harvesting
- competition from overseas
- competition from the southern United States
Fires emit tens of millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide - about 1/8 or more of California's entire annual emissions - mostly because we have allowed the timber industry to collapse, we have
allowed environmental groups who do not understand the consequences of their emotionally-driven
demands to push for harmful legislation, and consequently there is way too much dead wood and dead brush ready to ignite. UCB researchers say that before 1800, about 4.5 million acres of California forest burned in a typical year - half because Native Americans intentionally burned,
and half as a result of nature - typically lightning striking. It's important to understand that prescribed burns (as practiced by Native Americans long ago) eliminate some of the fuel. It is even more important to realize that rampant California wildfires are the unintended consequence of allowing California's timber industry to utterly collapse, which happened partly because of the environmentalists' agenda and partly because of economic reasons.
Strawman meet timberman
Climate worriers are mentally ill. Seriously mentally ill. You’re not ‘living meaningfully with climate anxiety’, you are living a massive lie - at the expense of the actual environment and the rest of humanity. There is no scientifically, evidentially demonstrable ‘climate crisis’ - the term was INVENTED because not enough people were getting alarmed by very unalarming ‘climate change’ , previously known as global warming. Your denial of reality is doing MORE harm to the environment than the fossil fuels which you are so ideologically intent upon demonising and eradicating.
https://envmental.substack.com/p/saving-the-planet-to-death
Jaime I'm sorry to say that your mind has been possessed by evil, anti-human jinn who are compelling you to turn against your own species and do the bidding of Oil. A common malady, unfortunately. I prescribe prayer, meditation, and research. If you don't like the way that liberal environmentalists react to and talk about the objective reality of the climate crisis, do what I have done and find your own response that doesn't involve lying to yourself, because that is spiritually unhealthy.
https://thespouter.substack.com/p/benzin-al-jinn
There is no objectively real, scientifically demonstrable 'climate crisis'. It was invented by the Guardian in 2019 as part of their new editorial 'style guide'. My mind has not been possessed by jinn, not even gin, although I'm not impartial to a good wine occasionally I must admit!
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/17/why-the-guardian-is-changing-the-language-it-uses-about-the-environment
you are confusing language and reality, a common symptom of demonic posession. Seek help or don't.
I point you to direct evidence that the mainstream media has used language to deliberately engineer the public's perception of reality and you accuse me of confusing language and reality, and that this is a common symptom of demonic possession! Somebody needs help here, but it isn't me.
I'm a scientist who largely ignores the media. The science verifying climate change is overwhelming. Your ostrich meets Qanon act is amusing at best.
You're a scientist - really? Your profile says 'climate and health adaptation professional'. I'm not sure exactly what that is, but it doesn't sound very scientific. The 'science' which supposedly verifies 'dangerous' anthropogenic climate change is decidedly underwhelming. You are certainly not very familiar with it, nor with the science and considerable data which tends to undermine the 'overwhelming' scientific evidence of man-made climate change, because if you were you would not be parroting such boiler plate nonsense.
And just FYI, the term "Climate Crisis" has been used in respected scientific articles since at least 2009. https://www.dictionary.com/e/new-words-surrounding-climate-change/.
The Guardian was 10 years late changing its language, but it was right to do so, in order to try to popularise the awareness of the crisis. It is not invented by the Guardian! Do some research.
"The term climate crisis had appeared in scientific articles since at least 2009, but this term has recently been commonly used by world governments and the United Nations. Often, climate crisis is used when discussing actions, initiatives, or legislation that could be enacted to try to fight climate change."
No examples given I note. In my experience, NO peer-reviewed scientific articles on climate change used the term 'climate crisis' prior to 2019, and even after then, very, very few. This does not preclude the possibility that it may have been mentioned in some previously, but I would suggest it was vanishingly few. Even now, the unscientific term is used mainly by policy advocates and main stream media wishing to convey a false sense of urgency.
*sigh* OK Jaime, here's a scientific research article actually on the use of the term "climate crisis": https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/njms-2021-0001. See Fig 2.
"Many professionalmedia outlets adopted new editorial policies (perhaps most notably The Guardian in its Climate Pledge; see The Guardian, 2019), committing to talk about “crisis”or even “catastrophe” and “emergency”. Political institutions followed suit."
Exactly like I said. Nowhere in your research article does it point out that climate crisis was commonly used prior to 2018, even by the media. Its use in respected scientific journals prior to that year was virtually non-existent.
You are delusional.
Jamie, please go and actually read some evidential research that has been done. I refer you to a really great video summary by the international expert, Prof. Johan Rockstrom, of his decades (literally, a lifetime) of research on this, delivered as a talk this April at the Frontiers Forum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KfWGAjJAsM.
Please, please, realise that this *is* a crisis, we are too close to the edge of destruction not to call it that. The 9 planetary boundaries are very close to being irrevocably tipped over, and if we do that, humanity will not survive as we know it. Please don't write crap against science before you've actually studied the science.
There is no robust scientific evidence for imminent 'tipping points'. Again, this is just more scare-mongering labouring under the term 'science'. Rockstrom is a climate activist with academic qualifications.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/10/211007145818.htm
Rockstrom is the activist voice for this research, but he is a tenured professor and whole teams at the Potsdam Climate Institute (PIK), and the EAT-Lancet Forum, beyond, have collectively endorsed this view. This is hundreds of scientists.
Please don't play the 'consensus' tune. I've heard it all before. 'Consensus' is not evidence, it's not science, even if hundreds of scientists sign on to it.
That's how science works, honey.
That's not how science works, honey.
I think you are not qualified to make this determination.
I think you are not qualified to state that I am not.
Where's your license to practice psychiatry and you medical credentials?
I'm not practicing psychiatry, but many people who do obviously need a lot more practice, even if they have got a licence.
Thank you Britt! I’m not going to judge you for speaking at the WEF in China. In fact I support your choice to travel and speak to this audience about this public and planetary health crisis. Until there is systems change we all face many ambiguous situations that make us feel ambivalence but require us to choose to try to do what we think will serve the greater good while also balancing that with meeting our own needs (not that these are mutually exclusive). This work of helping in our warming world can’t be done perfectly. Let’s not expect perfection of others or ourselves. Again, thank you for your speech and for continuing to raise awareness about climate mental health.
Oh, in case you don't know about Held v. Montana, some youths in Montana are suing the state government for violating their constitutional rights to a healthy environment:
https://www.youthvgov.org/held-v-montana .
and, in case you have not heard of Lise Van Susteren: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lise_Van_Susteren
Thanks for these links Gerry!
Troll: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(slang)
I began to worry about the climate as a wildlife adoring young person, seeing the disregard for wild things so deeply entrenched in our culture, attitudes and behaviour.