The helicopter whirs above me, sharp blades chopping the too-hot August air. Our electricity is out for the second day in a row, and the aircraft belongs to the local utility company, Pacific Gas & Electric. It’s flying low to inspect the power lines, in hopes of avoiding a spark that would inflame Northern California’s tinder-dry vegetation. I distract myself by entertaining my 4-year-old daughter. She had wanted to play school. We shift through miniature segments of her day: 10-minute play time, five-minute snack time, one-minute nap time. During snack time, she fills my plate with pretend fruit: grapes, apple, watermelon. At one point, the helicopter circles back, so close I think it might trim the tops of the redwoods. I press a toy stethoscope to my daughter’s tiny chest. Her heartbeat is normal. Mine is racing.
I didn’t know there was a name for what I’m feeling until I read it in a book: eco-anxiety. Living through our ecosystem’s collapse is causing tremendous anguish. What sweet relief to put a name to it, to know others feel the same way. There’s not a day — sometimes not an hour — that I don’t contemplate our gorgeous world falling away: coral reefs disappearing, ancient forests burning down, sea levels rising. What will be left for my children?
California is Ground Zero in the battle against a changing climate — a battle we are not winning. I have friends who have been evacuated ahead of wildfires; I have an aunt whose town is being surrounded by a seawall because otherwise it will be underwater in 20 years; I have neighbors who are moving because of drought, their well so dry they needed seven truckloads of water brought in this summer.
Yet I’ve experienced great comfort in giving my fears a name. It turns out this is an important part of the coping process: “Naming is a shame reducer,” says Shari Botwin, a therapist who is the author of “Thriving After Trauma: Stories of Living and Healing.”
While eco-anxiety remains one of the most common terms, a panoply of others have also emerged to capture the complex feelings around environmental devastation: climate grief, climate distress, pre-traumatic stress disorder, solastalgia.
Solastalgia, coined by Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht, combines the words “solace” and the Greek algos (pain) to capture the idea that places where we once felt comfort now cause distress. I know that feeling. I find it hard to relax in the rural places I adore. My eyes scan the landscape, wondering which place will burn next. The smell of a campfire, which once conjured sticky s’mores and stories under the stars, now makes my throat thick with fear.
The response to climate distress is not that different from other trauma responses, Botwin says. “Our brains try to push away what feels unmanageable, but we need to talk about it and honor our feelings.” During my interview with Botwin about climate instability, she had to retreat to her bathroom in Philadelphia because tornado warnings associated with Hurricane Ida were flashing across her phone.
My first major blaze as a Californian was the Rim Fire of 2013. I was leaving Yosemite National Park, having visited a gorgeous forest where I was planning to get married, when I saw a fire burning in the distance — a faraway cloud of smoke visible from a roadside overlook. That fire grew to be the third-largest at the time, destroying more than 250,000 acres. I eventually learned that the forest cathedral where I’d hoped to say “I do” had burned to the ground.
Every year, the fires get bigger and more destructive. Californians like to think of themselves as on the cutting edge — of technology, social justice, innovation. Yet being ahead of the pack in climate disaster is something else altogether.
I once thought the apocalypse would come from terrorism, from people who hated other people. But now I think the apocalypse will be our own doing, because we haven’t learned how to live in harmony with the planet. How easy it is to take for granted that you will always have your town, your view, your water running from the faucet. I yearn for the days when I worried about simple things: boys, grades, friendships.
Chop, chop, chop. The helicopter blades circle, every whir slicing through me. “This watermelon tastes delicious,” I tell my daughter, taking a pretend bite of the plastic fruit. The helicopter dips down closer, circles around.
Many acknowledge that a mental health crisis is looming due to climate change. A 2012 report by the National Wildlife Federation notes that “global warming in the coming years will foster public trauma, depression, violence, alienation, substance abuse, suicide, psychotic episodes, post-traumatic stress disorders and many other mental health-related conditions.”
But while we now can refer to this as eco-anxiety or the like, psychology departments do not require their students to receive any training in managing climate distress, and psychologists can inadvertently invalidate clients’ feelings by not recognizing the existential threat of climate change. “It’s a parallel process for many of us,” says Kelsey Hudson, a clinical psychologist specializing in climate distress. Susanne Moser, an independent researcher and climate adaptation consultant based in Western Massachusetts, says, “Psychologists are so far behind — 10 to 15 years behind.” The only officially recognized diagnosis related to the environment remains seasonal affective disorder.
There are pros and cons to making climate distress a diagnosis, argues Leslie Davenport, a climate psychology educator and consultant. On the one hand, Davenport says, it gives credence to the term and builds awareness. On the other hand, it risks pathologizing a healthy response to cataclysmic events.
Scientists and other professionals may have particular difficulty acknowledging the complex web of emotions around ecological disintegration, out of the fear that “it will undermine their credibility, because their obligation is to be completely rational,” Moser says. Davenport notes that her colleagues can have difficulty speaking about it because “it’s just too hard” and “people are waking up [to it] at different times.”
Nevertheless, Moser says, “there is a transition happening in psychology.” The emergence of ecopsychology reminds us that we don’t live in isolation as individuals but in the context of our communities and environments. A recently founded Climate Psychiatry Alliance offers resources and allows people to seek out climate-aware therapists near them.
Managing our response to climate distress can take a variety of forms. Davenport outlines internal and external strategies. Internal strategies begin with validation — simply acknowledging the emotions and traumas. From there, it’s important to stretch what’s called our “window of tolerance,” making ourselves more resilient in the face of overwhelming realities. This can look different for every individual and can include simple things like exercising, eating well, and limiting news intake.
External strategies include becoming part of meaningful climate-related action. “There are so many ways to make a difference,” Davenport says. There are many organizations to plug into for both support and activism: the Climate Psychiatry Alliance, the Good Grief Network, the Climate Mobilization Network, 350.org. But coping by diminishing the problem or distracting ourselves is not helpful. We need hope — hope that’s not fantastical but “totally embracing what’s happening now,” says Moser. Given our brain’s “negativity bias” — the predilection for focusing on what’s going wrong — it’s important to learn about the positive work being done, according to Davenport.
While I can’t ensure my children will grow up with all of the same species of butterflies and the same number of coral reefs, I can make space to address their fears. When my older daughter started having nightmares about fire, we talked about when firefighters might come and how we’d be able to escape.
Coming together as a community to prepare, educate, and be involved is also important. Assembling emergency bags became a family project my children met with enthusiasm; it allowed everyone to feel a heightened sense of control in the face of distress. As Botwin says, “We need to find ways to come together and join forces — it will be healing for all of us in this time of uncertainty.”
Chop, chop, chop. The PG&E helicopter has circled back. I am praying for no wind, cooler weather, droplets of rain. “You want some more watermelon, Mommy?” my daughter asks me, her voice tender. I hold the gaze of her beautiful brown eyes. What we have is this: the present moment, our love, the pretend watermelon. “Sure, honey,” I say. “I’d love some.”
Julie Zigoris is a writer based in Northern California.