I love how the author turned her anxiety into action which helped her find community and improved her mental health. For me, to have hope requires I act, just like the author.
Thanks for this. Kate's story and practice is powerful. Sensemaking and weaving meaning into these times is a vital to cultivating community and diverse kinds of relevant action. I will be ordering her book. I also have GenDread on my mind to reach out to with respect to whether and how some collaboration might be fruitful with what we are doing at the Synergia Institute www.synergiainstitute.org.
I love that Kate took inspiration for her booth from cartoon character Lucy and her creativity helped others and herself. Congrats to Britt Wray on another award and raising the profile of this important work of internal activism.
"if i had a nickel for every time i heard about climate catastrophe, i'd be a professor of planetary science" =^.^= thanks for highlighting unsung heroes! (ask Dr. Linda Billings at NASA: https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-an-astrobiologist/)
Have read your book in full, answered every question and took extensive notes. Thank you!! Okay :D I triiied to answer every question. Am sure there are still some question marks ‘???’ in my notes; some ‘Um’s’... ‘Hmm’s’… It’s an amazing thought process and thoughts become actions when we write them down, yes?
I shared ‘Land Back’ with one of my professional teams. Trying to figure that out... Hmm…
We have a small Climate Change Book Club here run by my dear friend Hailey Brock, owner of the Nature of Reading Bookshop, and we will be meeting in person to discuss “Lessons From The Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth” this coming Tuesday. Whoop!
I’ve commented to Hailey publicly that I feel like I’ve already lived half of your book – she is pivotal in that lived experience – and the other half keeps me going. And haha, I finished a week early for book club. First time for everything!!
Gen Dread is this quote to me (from you): “I do know that we weather hardship, disaster, and even violence better, and find more reasons to summon courage and endurance, when we know other people and other people know us.” PG 199
Kind regards,
Sidney
PS Hoping the Gen Dread team might get this note to you. :)
What a brilliant piece, full of hope and actionable insights! I fully relate to what has been said here. On my end, my involvement in the climate narrative started with fear. During my college internship, I was in charge of reading climate-related news and studies for a few hours a day; great way for a young adult to feel paralyzed about the future! I had all the regular symptoms of climate anxiety. But, eventually, I decided to turn this fear into action, starting The Green Journey and interviewing climate leaders around the world who are working on concrete solutions. The motto « Action against depression » has guided me every day since then!
Good luck to y’all out there, take care of yourselves and enjoy climate action!
Kate Schapira's groundbreaking work on solar cycles is something everyone should study. Record keeping of the solar cycles began in 1755, with solar cycle 1. In December 2019 solar cycle 24 ended.
(It was the 4th smallest in intensity and lasted 11 years.) Solar cycles are hugely important to Earth.
At a MINIMUM, everyone should know that we are currently in a SOLAR MINIMUM.
SOLAR MINIMUM means MORE VOLCANIC ACTIVITY. The sun has become more active than NASA predicted and solar cycle 25 may be the strongest one since record keeping began. Our next cycle -
solar cycle 25 - will be a solar maximum cycle and could begin as soon as November 2024 and no later than March 2026.
Consider how the sun and volcanic eruptions on planet Earth are connected. The volcanic explosivity index (VEI) is an open-ended scale. Remember Mount St. Helens? That was given a magnitude of 5!
Mount Tambora, back in 1815, was given a magnitude of 7! Weather was disrupted worldwide.
Crops failed. There was famine.
Now think about Yellowstone National Park. Think about the massive eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera 600,000 years ago. That one is estimated to have had a VEI magnitude of 70 ! Ten times more powerful than Tambora! If our understanding of solar cycle 25 and the powerful electromagnetic changes taking place in our solar system prove true, another cataclysm is likely in the near future. An eruption event, followed by a runaway cool-off, a massive die-off, and cooling.
A stoic philosophy of life is the antidote to modern "climate anxiety." Epictetus - who was born a slave and lived one generation after Jesus - dictated a book called How to Be Free, which is still in print in 2024. FREEDOM for him was not a human right,
or a political prerogative, but a PSYCHOLOGICAL ACHIEVEMENT and an ETHICAL ACHIEVEMENT.
It is a gift we alone can give ourselves! How, you may ask?
We can be FREE only if we learn to assign PARAMOUNT VALUE to what WE can control!
Treat anything you can't control with equanimity!
View your circumstances in life as opportunities to do well and be well, as best you can, no matter what happens to you through various misfortunes or the actions of other people. It is a powerful method for managing one's emotions - such as the "climate anxiety" described in this article - and it is a remedy for negative emotions today, just as it was in Ancient Rome.
"Nothing I can do about it. Not my business." The VEI 7 or VEI 8 eruption is eminently due - likely before 2030. There is nothing you can do about it, and any business action you might take is futile. Accept the idea that if you assign paramount value only to that which you can control, you can be psychologically free. Climate hysteria affects only those who allow it to have influence over their thoughts and emotions. By following the precepts of the stoic tradition, you can easily overcome this.
I love how the author turned her anxiety into action which helped her find community and improved her mental health. For me, to have hope requires I act, just like the author.
Thanks for this. Kate's story and practice is powerful. Sensemaking and weaving meaning into these times is a vital to cultivating community and diverse kinds of relevant action. I will be ordering her book. I also have GenDread on my mind to reach out to with respect to whether and how some collaboration might be fruitful with what we are doing at the Synergia Institute www.synergiainstitute.org.
I love that Kate took inspiration for her booth from cartoon character Lucy and her creativity helped others and herself. Congrats to Britt Wray on another award and raising the profile of this important work of internal activism.
"if i had a nickel for every time i heard about climate catastrophe, i'd be a professor of planetary science" =^.^= thanks for highlighting unsung heroes! (ask Dr. Linda Billings at NASA: https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/ask-an-astrobiologist/)
Dear Kate,
Have read your book in full, answered every question and took extensive notes. Thank you!! Okay :D I triiied to answer every question. Am sure there are still some question marks ‘???’ in my notes; some ‘Um’s’... ‘Hmm’s’… It’s an amazing thought process and thoughts become actions when we write them down, yes?
I shared ‘Land Back’ with one of my professional teams. Trying to figure that out... Hmm…
We have a small Climate Change Book Club here run by my dear friend Hailey Brock, owner of the Nature of Reading Bookshop, and we will be meeting in person to discuss “Lessons From The Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth” this coming Tuesday. Whoop!
I’ve commented to Hailey publicly that I feel like I’ve already lived half of your book – she is pivotal in that lived experience – and the other half keeps me going. And haha, I finished a week early for book club. First time for everything!!
Gen Dread is this quote to me (from you): “I do know that we weather hardship, disaster, and even violence better, and find more reasons to summon courage and endurance, when we know other people and other people know us.” PG 199
Kind regards,
Sidney
PS Hoping the Gen Dread team might get this note to you. :)
What a brilliant piece, full of hope and actionable insights! I fully relate to what has been said here. On my end, my involvement in the climate narrative started with fear. During my college internship, I was in charge of reading climate-related news and studies for a few hours a day; great way for a young adult to feel paralyzed about the future! I had all the regular symptoms of climate anxiety. But, eventually, I decided to turn this fear into action, starting The Green Journey and interviewing climate leaders around the world who are working on concrete solutions. The motto « Action against depression » has guided me every day since then!
Good luck to y’all out there, take care of yourselves and enjoy climate action!
- Polo
Kate Schapira's groundbreaking work on solar cycles is something everyone should study. Record keeping of the solar cycles began in 1755, with solar cycle 1. In December 2019 solar cycle 24 ended.
(It was the 4th smallest in intensity and lasted 11 years.) Solar cycles are hugely important to Earth.
At a MINIMUM, everyone should know that we are currently in a SOLAR MINIMUM.
SOLAR MINIMUM means MORE VOLCANIC ACTIVITY. The sun has become more active than NASA predicted and solar cycle 25 may be the strongest one since record keeping began. Our next cycle -
solar cycle 25 - will be a solar maximum cycle and could begin as soon as November 2024 and no later than March 2026.
Consider how the sun and volcanic eruptions on planet Earth are connected. The volcanic explosivity index (VEI) is an open-ended scale. Remember Mount St. Helens? That was given a magnitude of 5!
Mount Tambora, back in 1815, was given a magnitude of 7! Weather was disrupted worldwide.
Crops failed. There was famine.
Now think about Yellowstone National Park. Think about the massive eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera 600,000 years ago. That one is estimated to have had a VEI magnitude of 70 ! Ten times more powerful than Tambora! If our understanding of solar cycle 25 and the powerful electromagnetic changes taking place in our solar system prove true, another cataclysm is likely in the near future. An eruption event, followed by a runaway cool-off, a massive die-off, and cooling.
A stoic philosophy of life is the antidote to modern "climate anxiety." Epictetus - who was born a slave and lived one generation after Jesus - dictated a book called How to Be Free, which is still in print in 2024. FREEDOM for him was not a human right,
or a political prerogative, but a PSYCHOLOGICAL ACHIEVEMENT and an ETHICAL ACHIEVEMENT.
It is a gift we alone can give ourselves! How, you may ask?
We can be FREE only if we learn to assign PARAMOUNT VALUE to what WE can control!
Treat anything you can't control with equanimity!
View your circumstances in life as opportunities to do well and be well, as best you can, no matter what happens to you through various misfortunes or the actions of other people. It is a powerful method for managing one's emotions - such as the "climate anxiety" described in this article - and it is a remedy for negative emotions today, just as it was in Ancient Rome.
"Nothing I can do about it. Not my business." The VEI 7 or VEI 8 eruption is eminently due - likely before 2030. There is nothing you can do about it, and any business action you might take is futile. Accept the idea that if you assign paramount value only to that which you can control, you can be psychologically free. Climate hysteria affects only those who allow it to have influence over their thoughts and emotions. By following the precepts of the stoic tradition, you can easily overcome this.