* Apple users running MacOSX 10.4 or later must install Microsoft's Silverlight software in order to view the streaming videos marked with *. Once installed, restart your browser before viewing. Silverlight 4.0 intel (14MB) | Silverlight 1.0 ppc (5MB) WATCH AND LISTEN under 10 minutes Textbook Trauma: The Emotions of Climate Change Peter Sinclair, Yale Climate Connections Part of Sinclair's ongoing series of insightful interviews with scientists, this discussion of the emotional impact of the realities is especially good. (9 minutes, September 2018) After Denial: How People React to the Hard Reality of Climate Change Bill Finnegan An interesting and thought-provoking film about how we might move beyond denial as we grapple with the anxiety created when we really think about climate change. Organized according to psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's stages of denial, the film was the 2nd runner-up in the 2016 Yale Environment 360 Video Contest. (August 2016) longer Climate Anxiety in the Trump Era Renee Lertzman This conversation with psychologist Renee Lertzman is quite interesting. Lertzman enters at 15:30 with an overview of the importance of our emotions in dealing with climate change (and how they interfere with our cognition and ability to act); at about minute 30, she shifts to how creativity is a counterforce to anxiety; at 39, to how talking about feelings helps us; at 45, to climate justice; and finally, to better ways we might frame the work of fighting climate change. (38 minutes, November 2016) The Biggest Story in the World: Psychology The Guardian Number six in this series of lively and informative audio podcasts linked to the Guardian's series climate change/leave it in the ground campaign focuses on the question of why we find it so hard to think, care about, and act on climate change‒and what we might do to get ourselves and others past the many emotional and psychological barriers. (22 minutes, 2015) READ books The Green Boat: Reviving Ourselves in Our Capsized Culture Mary Pipher, Riverhead Books, 2013, 219 pp. This very helpful and companionable book might be described as two stories in one, joined by psychologist Pipher's own journey from despair and grief about climate change to what becomes life-enhancing, empowering, and hope-creating action. One, she describes how she and other Nebraskans organized to fight the Keystone XL pipeline (designed to move crude oil from Canada's tar sands to the Gulf Coast, crossing the Nebraska Sandhills and Ogallala Aquifer). Two, she shares her considerable professional understanding of how to face and then move beyond despair. Here is a video of her good 19-minute TEDx talk about these subjects. articles & essays Study Warns of Cascading Health Risks from the Changing Climate Somini Sengupta and Kendra Pierre-Louis, New York Times, November 2018 This very informative piece summarizes a comprehensive report published in Britain's leading medical and public health Journal, The Lancet. (Contributors include "27 leading academic institutions, the UN, and intergovernmental agencies from every continent.") Perhaps the main point: wide-ranging health impacts won't hit individually so much as they will combine and compound into cascades or falling dominoes. You can register with The Lancet to read the article-length report for free. For more on the subject, see the World Health Organization's (WHO) report prepared for the COP24 meeting in 2018. The Big Lie We're Told about Climate Change Is that it's Our Own Fault: How To Deal with Despair over Climate Change and Feel Something, Learn Something, Do Something: A Care Package for Climate Grief Mary Annaïse Heglar, Vox and Medium, October-November 2018 This pair of well-titled personal essays (about coming to terms with the terrifying reality of climate change, then getting past depression and denial) is direct, relevant, and useful. As Heglar says, "Whether we admit it or not, we're all in the middle of one big, giant mourning process." Addressing Climate Grief Makes You a Badass, Not a Snowflake Jennifer Atkinson, Writers on the Range, High Country News, May 2018 Responding to negative public reactions to her seminar at the University of Washington on "Environmental Grief and Climate Anxiety," Atkinson's column argues that students who are trying to face and deal with the emotional impact of climate change, rather than avoid it through various modes of escape and denial, are the really tough ones. "My class is more like boot camp, preparing students for the long, hard fight ahead," she says. Addressing Climate Grief Makes You a Badass, Not a Snowflake Jennifer Atkinson, Writers on the Range, High Country News, May 2018 Responding to negative public reactions to her seminar at the University of Washington on "Environmental Grief and Climate Anxiety," Atkinson's column argues that students who are trying to face and deal with the emotional impact of climate change, rather than avoid it through various modes of escape and denial, are the really tough ones. "My class is more like boot camp, preparing students for the long, hard fight ahead," she says. In India, Summer Heat May Soon Be Literally Unbearable Somini Sengupta, New York Times, July 2018 This is a concrete, vivid, and well-researched piece on the effects of high heat in India. It's not just about the people who die: "Extreme heat is devastating the health and livelihoods of tens of millions more." How to Overcome "Apocalypse Fatigue" Around Climate Change Jill Suttie, Greater Good, February 2018 A useful interview with Norwegian psychologist (and economist) Per Espen Stoknes, one of the leaders in thinking about this subject. Hope and Mourning in the Anthropocene: Understanding Ecological Grief Neville Ellis and Ashlee Cunsolo, The Conversation, April 2018 A lucid discussion of this topic based on research with Inuit in the Canadian arctic and wheat farmers in western Australia, people whose lives are intimately connected with the changing natural world. We haven't often thought about "grief" as a response to environmental loss, but it is clearly a relevant term‒and thus it raises emotional and psychological questions that need more consideration. Breathing Fire John Upton, Climate Central, November 2017 The air pollution that comes from climate-change-charged wildfires is becoming a significant health nightmare. This is a lively introduction to why and how; if you have breathing issues, or know people who do, it may also make you wince. We Were Warned Anthony Doerr, New York Times Sunday Review, November 2017 This opinion piece is quite interesting on the ways many of us have known about climate change but still failed to act accordingly. As novelist Doerr says, after he first became alarmed at age 19: "So did I act immediately and decisively? Um, I did not." For how many of us is this true? And what might we do about it? The Lancet Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change The Lancet, October 2017 This report from an international group of medical professionals tracks 40 indicators to conclude that climate change is already hurting human health and livelihoods. Its website is easy to negotiate, and the full report is free to download. Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance American Psychological Association, Climate for Health, and ecoAmerica, March 2017 A lucid, comprehensive, and efficient survey of harms likely to ensue to human mental, physical, and community health from global warming, citing a wealth of primary sources. Includes recommendations to leaders for increasing resilience and for communicating these risks. Two good summaries are available from Inside Climate News and the Washington Post. Hazard Zone: The Impact of Climate Change on Occupational Health January, 2017 A very good, concise overview of this subject with an infographic, clear text, and sources. You may be surprised by the number of occupations affected. Fact Sheet: What Climate Change Means for Your Health and Family White House Press Office, April 2016 A good summary of key findings of the full (3-Year, 100-expert) report, The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment. Current and future impacts range from increased allergies and asthma through heat stroke and disaster injuries to mental distress and insect-borne diseases and, as always, some people are and will be more vulnerable than others. How Do People Cope with Feelings about Climate Change So that they Stay Engaged and Take Action? Susie Burke, February 2016, post on "Is this how you feel?" blog Dr. Burke, a senior psychologist at the Australian Psychological Society, has good things to say here about how we can best cope with uncomfortable feelings about this subject and keep active. The larger blog site is worth looking at, too. So is the short, easy-to-read, downloadable booklet she refers to, Let's Speak about Climate Change. Fact Sheets: Climate Change, Health, and Populations of Concern EPA, 2016 Climate change will affect our health in different ways depending on our age and circumstances, and these fact sheets cover some categories, including indigenous, pregnant, poor, disabled, elderly, and ill people. Excellent resources. Under the Trump administration, these pages have been taken down, but here are PDF versions downloaded in early 2017 about climate change, health, and: life stages, children, people with disabilities, environmental justice, existing medical conditions, indigenous populations, occupational groups, older adults, and pregnant women. When the End of Civilization is Your Day Job John H. Richardson, Esquire, July 2015 A moving and troubling story about the emotional toll on several leading climate scientists, who see what is coming but are all too often attacked rather than listened to. For more responses from scientists, see this August 2016 Vox story about the Dear Tomorrow project, which invites them to write a letter to the future. An interesting piece in Scientific American, "Facing Down 'Environmental Grief'" (by Jordan Rosenfeld, July 2016), looks at the emotional effects of climate work on ordinary citizens, activists, and scientists in terms of grief at environmental loss. And for two excellent related pieces by journalists about the emotional toll of covering climate change, see Mashable's Andrew Freedman and The Guardian's Michael Slezak column, both columns from January 2017. Where the Wildfires Are: If There's Smoke, There Are Costly Health Problems Amy Westervelt, The Guardian, September 2014 This good story about the (often surprisingly distant) health effects of wildfire smoke includes links to many primary sources. What is Climate Change Doing to Our Mental Health? Joanne Silberner, Grist, July 2014 Focused on Australia but with global ramifications. A good quick picture of the issue. Breaking the Climate Fear Taboo: Why Feelings Matter for Our Climate Change Communications Renee Lertzman, Sightline Daily, March 2014 Lertzman has focused her research on climate change communication and psychology, and this short, efficient blog post offers a set of four categories with which we think about engagement with the topic. One of them, the one having to do with feelings, we tend to neglect, to our loss. Here she offers five guidelines for allowing people to have their feelings without fear of judgment. Another especially good piece by her is Making Friends with Fatalism (2012). How to Be a Climate Hero Audrey Schulman, Facing the Change: Personal Encounters with Global Warming, Torrey House Press, 2013 What might change in our actions and our feelings if we thought about global warming in the context of what psychologists know about the "bystander effect"? Through a story of her own experiences with that effect, Schulman poses this the simple but eye-opening and potentially powerful question. Posted here with the permission of the press, editor, and author. Learning How to Die in the Anthropocene Roy Scranton, New York Times blog, November 2013 In this moving and provocative personal essay, Scranton brings to bear what he learned as an Army private in Iraq‒how to "own" rather than fear his end‒on our collective predicament (especially global warming) and its challenge to "our sense of what it means to be human." Hearing the Call Joanna Macy, from Stories of the Great Turning, eds. Peter Reason and Melanie Newman, Vala Publications, 2013; also published in Resurgence & Ecologist Magazine, March/April 2013; and (this entry's link) in Resilience. This short piece offers an introduction to some of Macy's influential work as a Buddhist ecophilosopher facing a planetary crisis, suggesting five guidelines that might help us "make friends with uncertainty" and to "pour [our] whole passion into a project when [we] can't be sure it's going to work." A Climate of Suffering: The Real Costs of Living with Inaction on Climate Change, The Climate Institute, Australia, 2011, and The Psychological Effects of Global Warming on the United States, Lise Van Susteren and Kevin Coyle, 2012 These reports survey the mental health problems we're likely to see as climate-change-linked severe weather events increase; the first (which includes a brief video) focuses on Australia, the second on the US. Both use information and lessons from recent traumas, including weather events like Hurricane Katrina and Australia's drought and wildfires and other events with comparable psychological effects, such as the 9/11 attacks and war trauma; both have good source notes. Both call for the mental healthcare community to get better prepared; for government to bolster its support structures; and for all of us to act now to prevent as much emotional suffering as we can. The Id and the Eco Rosemary Randall, Aeon, December 2012 "Thinking about climate change makes people feel helpless and anxious‒but that's why we must talk about it openly": so psychotherapist Randall explains in this terrific article. Rich in insights about human emotions as they interfere with our ability to deal well with climate change, and some good ideas about what we might do to face and cope with these emotions. To a Future Without Hope Michael P. Nelson, 2010 This short, challenging essay suggests that appealing to hope might be a distraction, not a motivator, a "sugary cereal . . . not protein." Instead, philosopher Nelson proposes, we can "replace 'I hope' with 'I resolve to do the work' or 'I will be this kind of person, I will live this kind of life' or any sort of utterance that focuses on virtue rather than on consequence"‒and thus keep from losing our motivation in the face of setbacks, limitations, or failures. Is There an Ecological Unconscious? Daniel B. Smith, New York Times, January 27, 2010 This article looks at current theories and investigations of what might connect "the health of the natural world and the health of the mind," including in the context of climate change, and discusses the term "solastalgia"--coined by Australian Glenn Albrecht to denote "the pain experienced when there is recognition that the place where one resides and that one loves is under immediate assault . . . a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at 'home.'" To Remake the World Paul Hawken, Orion Magazine, May/June 2007 This profoundly (and contagiously) optimistic essay describes Hawkens' gradual realization that there are now hundreds of thousands of grassroots organizations in the world that work for ecological sustainability and social justice: "tens of millions of ordinary and not-so-ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world." For a visual version of this insight, see photographer Chris Jordan's 2010 work "E Plurabus Unum." websites Climate Change and Human Health For this important topic, an excellent overview for the United States is the health chapter of the 2014 National Climate Assessment. Some federal agencies also have very good websites: see the National Institutes of Health and The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. TEACH resources Is there a Climate "Spiral of Silence" in America? Edward Maibach, Anthony Leiserowitz, and others, September 2016 How often do Americans talk (or hear) about climate change, and with (and from) whom? These questions have startling answers, as this study report illustrates. For a briefer update based on a November 2016 survey, published in January 2017, see here. Very useful background to the emphasis in many of the resources on this webpage on the importance of talking. Facing Difficult Truths: Climate Psychology Alliance A good resource for those with relatively professional interests in this topic, created and maintained by professionals. Psychology and Global Climate Change: Addressing a Multi-faceted Phenomenon and Set of Challenges American Psychological Association Task Force on the Interface between Psychology and Global Climate Change The chief aim of this report is "to engage members of the psychology community (teachers, researchers, practitioners, and students) in the issue of climate change." It addresses these questions: (1) "How do people understand the risks imposed by climate change?" (2) "What are the human behavioral contributions to climate change and the psychological and contextual drivers of these contributions?" (3) What are the psychosocial impacts of climate change?" (4) "How do people adapt to and cope with perceived threat and unfolding impacts of climate change?" (5) "Which psychological barriers limit climate change action?" and (6) "How can psychologists assist in limiting climate change?" Somewhat academic in style, but readable and full of useful ideas. Getting Real about It: Navigating the Psychological and Social Demands of a World in Distress Susanne Moser, Sage Handbook on Environmental Leadership, 2012 Drawing from a very wide range of resources, Moser's thoughtful essay about what it will likely take to be an environmental leader in a climate-disrupted world is well worth studying. The demands on such people, she suggests, will include having to face reality, working with grief, framing loss as part of a transition, learning to be with others in distress, holding paradoxes, valuing both accountability and forgiveness, and committing to nonviolence and restoration. Excellent sources for further reading. See the Sage Handbook (eds Gallagher, Andrews, Christensen) for the final version of this essay, or Moser's own website (linked here) for a pre-publication version.