Climate Change
Guide to climate change, including research resources and discipline-specific tools
Climate grief and eco-anxiety
Psychologists have identified climate grief, also known as ecological grief or eco-anxiety, as the experience of anxiety, hopelessness or despair in the face of current and anticipated harms to species and natural ecosystems.
See below articles, books, videos, art resources, podcasts and support groups for eco-anxiety.
See also the library guide Climate Anxiety
- What is Climate Grief?Comprehensive introduction from Climate & Mind, compiled by psychotherapist Andrew Bryant
- Climate Mental Health Network - Resources“Mental health is not about feeling good or calm or relaxed. . . . It’s about having feelings that fit the circumstances you’re in and then managing those feelings well, even if those feelings are negative or unpleasant.” -- Lisa Damour
- The rise of eco-anxiety: scientists wake up to the mental-health toll of climate changeNews article in Nature, April 2024
- Climate change is affecting mental health literally everywhere"Extreme weather, water scarcity, air pollution, and more are taking a toll on people across the world." Yale Climate Connections, May 2024
- "A new campus offering: Climate anxiety therapy"Washington Post, Sept. 2022
- "Addressing climate grief makes you a badass, not a snowflake"Article by Jennifer Atkinson in High Country News, 2018
- "How climate change affects mental health""Experiencing disaster—or even reading about it in the news—can be stressful and scary. These steps can help." From Yale Climate Connections, 2020
- "How to Stop Freaking Out and Tackle Climate Change""A five-step plan to deal with the stress and become part of the solution." New York Times, 2020
- "People of Color Experience Climate Grief More Deeply Than White People""We are not only disproportionately affected by the climate crisis, but we carry a pain that comes from a long history of racial terror. " By Nylah Burton, 2020
- "Solastalgia or Climatic Anxiety: What It Is and How to Cope""Wildfires, lockdown, isolation. Do you feel anxious?" From Psychology Today, 2020
- "Why activism isn’t *really* the cure for eco-anxiety and eco-grief""It can certainly help tame difficult emotions but we need to go deeper than activism to build up resilience for the long haul." Gen Dread blog by Britt Wray
- Climate Emotions: How climate change affects mental healthSeries of articles by BBC Future
- Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications and GuidanceA report by the American Psychological Association, published March 2017
- Resources for working with climate emotionsBlog post by Britt Wray providing an extensive list of resources. August 2021
- Young people’s climate anxiety revealed in landmark surveyArticle in the journal Nature, Sept. 2021. "Children worldwide worry about the future and feel let down by governments, a huge study on attitudes towards climate change has found."
- Teens Are Struggling With Climate Anxiety. Schools Haven’t Caught Up YetArticle in Education Week, 2022
- Climate Change and Youth Mental HealthReport published by the Oregon Health Authority on how climate change is affecting the mental health of youth in Oregon. June 2022
Books
A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet by Call Number: Ebook and Cascade Main Collection 363.738/74
Generation Dread : finding purpose in an age of climate crisis by Call Number: Rock Creek Library 155.915 W73g 2022
I Want a Better Catastrophe : navigating the climate crisis with grief, hope, and gallows humor : an existential manual for tragic optimists, can-do pessimists, and compassionate doomers by Call Number: Southeast Library 363.738 B69i 2023Publication Date: 2023
Hope matters : why changing the way we think is critical to solving the environmental crisis by Call Number: Ebook and Cascade and Southeast Libraries 363.738/746
Facing the Climate Emergency : how to transform yourself with climate truth by Call Number: E-book
Saving Us: a climate scientist's case for hope and healing in a divided world by Call Number: Southeast Library 363.738 H39s 2021Publication Date: 2021
Take Heart : encouragement for earth's weary lovers by Call Number: Rock Creek Library 304.201 M66t 2022Environmental philosopher Kathleen Dean Moore has assembled a collection of short essays that offer courage, hope, and even some laughter to the people who have for years been working for environmental sanity and social justice.
- More books on addressing the mental health impact of the climate crisis.List from the Climate Mental Health Network
Podcasts
- Climate Change and HappinessA psychologist from Portland, Oregon and a climate emotions researcher from Helsinki, Finland have an international dialogue about climate change feelings and coping.
- Facing It: A Podcast about Love, Loss, and the Natural World6 part podcast by Dr. Jennifer Atkinson exploring the emotional burden of climate change, and why despair leaves so many people unable to respond to our existential threat. Dr. Atkinson leads seminars on eco-grief and climate anxiety at the University of Washington, where she is professor of environmental humanities.
Videos
- Bill Nye's Global Meltdown: the five stages of grief"Bill Nye, the famous science guy, is feeling down. He’s visiting his therapist—Dr. Arnold Schwarzenegger—wondering why he just doesn’t feel like himself. He feels as if a horrible weight is on his shoulders, and life seems so empty, so meaningless. The therapist listens sympathetically, and diagnoses the cause: Bill is suffering from grief. Climate change grief." 44 minute video
- How to Transform Climate Anxiety into Climate Action11 minute video by Ankur Shah. "With the ongoing climate crisis, it is easy to feel anxious and hopeless but action is our only way out. This is a video to encourage hope and optimism based in climate action."
- Scientists describe grief, hope about climate change4:34 minute video, from Yale Climate Connections
- Why Emotionally Intelligent Climate Work Matters12 minute video by Dr. Britt Wray, science communicator and author of Gen Dread: a newsletter about staying sane in the climate crisis.
PCC's Climate Grief Virtual Art Display
PCC's Climate Grief Interpreted Art Exhibit, arranged by ASPCC student leaders as part of the Climate Grief Committee. Spring term 2021. The virtual art display includes images, video, written word art and audio. Climate Grief: Interpreted Art Exhibit
Support resources for climate grief
- Good Grief Network"Our unique program helps build personal resilience & empowerment while strengthening community ties to combat despair, inaction, and eco-anxiety on the collective level."
- Climate-Aware Therapist DirectoryDirectory of climate-aware therapists -- "a professionally-trained psychotherapist who recognizes the current climate crisis both as a globe-spanning challenge to the sustainability of human and non-human life on Earth and as a deeply personal challenge with many psychological impacts."
- PCC counseling resourcesPCC offers free, short-term counseling to currently enrolled students (excluding Community Education). Service eligibility begins two weeks prior to a given term. In counseling, we discuss personal concerns students may be facing and work with students to develop new ways of addressing concerns. Many concerns are addressed within eight sessions or less.
- Eco-Anxiety WorkshopsResource list for PCC Eco-Anxiety workshops, spring 2021.
Quick hits of hope
- The Climate OptimistMonthly newsletter from the Harvard School of Public Health with good news about climate change.
- Reasons to be CheerfulNewsletter and website founded by artist and musician David Byrne, with a focus on solutions.
- Schoolchildren Give Sweet Pep Talks on New Hotline You Can Call Now: 'Pure Joy'The PepToc hotline offers recorded words of encouragement from kindergarteners to callers.