On my way to work one morning in late April, I noticed that my surroundings were tinged in amber. The sky was a chalky gray and the sunlight was diffuse and faint, a hue that reminded me of previous summers when smoke blotted out the sun and shrouded Vancouver, where I have lived for over 30 years. I felt a sliver of dread, fearing that another season of wildfires was upon us. It was only April, and yet a sense of foreboding held me in its grip. Since then, wildfires across Canada have devastated communities. The early onset of wildfires may be an ominous sign of the coming months. Yet, before my lungs are seared by smoke, something about my own mental composure had already lost its balance.
Summers bring memories of fun and cheer: frolicking in the forest with friends, swimming in lakes, and backyard barbecues. Summer looms large in the collective imagination as the cheery season, a time of relaxation and conviviality. For Canadians and others who live in the Northern Hemisphere, summer brings long-awaited salvation. The swiftness with which crowds gather by the water, ice cream cones in hand, reveal a collective longing for sun and warmth. We go camping and enjoy the company of friends and family on patios and balconies. Children relish the days of summer as a relief from the tedium of school. However, the climate crisis has dramatically upended the prevailing weather patterns that composed the backdrop of collective memory. The pleasant summer days of enjoyment and relaxation are now replaced by scorching temperatures, blazing fires, air quality advisories, devastating floods, and a host of extreme weather events that ravage communities both local and global. The onset of this troubling season is accompanied by a psycho-emotional malaise, an uneasiness that erodes mental wellbeing. Rather than look forward to outdoor activities, we fear the adverse health-effects of air pollution, or dread the sweltering days brought on by heat waves. We experience with anxiety what we once enjoyed with levity. Summer, as we know it, is gone.
The end of summer marks a shift our emotional lives, a shift characterized by varying degrees of uneasiness, anxiety, fear and despair. Ecological Distress refers to a cluster of afflictive emotions associated with environmental degradation. Others have referred to this phenomenon as climate anxiety, ecological grief, eco-angst and environmental melancholia, to name a few. Researchers have been documenting and studying this growing phenomenon in recent decades. This development in research coincides with reports of increasing alarm over the state of the planet. This anxiety forms a backdrop of stress and uneasiness, an anguish that attends the degradation of the biosphere. Unlike temporary stressors that resolve themselves in time (such as an exam, or a busy holiday season), ecological distress does not subside; its persistence can undermine resilience and destabilize mental wellbeing. As the climate crisis intensifies, our faith in the future begins to wither. Thus, the ecological crisis transforms both landscape and mindscape.
Some scholars suggest that the climate crisis constitutes a superordinate form of collective trauma, a severe stressor on a magnitude that can exceed our individual and collective ability to cope. A planetary crisis affects every organism on earth. Even those who have not been severely impacted by extreme weather are struck by a sense of pending doom. The anticipation of disaster, or pre-traumatic stress, afflicts young people in particular. Millennials and Gen Z, who will live well into the twenty-first century, are likely to experience the worst consequences of climate change. They also suffer most from ecological distress. Greta Thunberg’s emotional speech to the United Nations instantiates the outrage and despair that many young people feel regarding their future prospects.
Beyond the daunting magnitude of the crisis, ecological grief can overwhelm the inner resources that help us cope with stress and change. The emotional pain that unfurls from the end of a romantic relationship can be acute and excruciating, but this heartbreak stems from one event that can be distinguished from other stressors. However, the source of ecological grief is amorphous and indeterminate. The life blood of industrial-capitalist society, fossil fuel is pervasive and appears everywhere. One looks out onto the street full of cars, the sky etched with contrails from airplanes, and realizes that this modern way of life is contributing to global heating. It is hard to muster a course of healing when the source of the pain is ubiquitous. That modern industrial civilization is the source of inner anguish confounds our ability to cope and overwhelms our capacity for recovery.
Furthermore, our involvement in the modern economy complicates our response to the ecological crisis. We may feel complicit in the establishment, ashamed of our involvement in the implicate order. At the same time, we may not know how to extricate ourselves from the situation, unable to actualize an alternative to the status quo. Guilt features prominently in ecological grief as we lament our contribution to the climate crisis. At the same time, the weight of grief might be coupled with outrage over the inaction of governments, corporations, or the apparent apathy of others. In regard to the end of summer, we may feel bereft of a beautiful season that once brought us joy and rejuvenation. This bewildering mixture of emotions can make ecological distress all the more difficult.
Because emotional distress brings a host of emotions, part of our inner work lies in building a capacity for ambiguity. Rene Lertzman, a psychoanalyst and researcher, has suggested that environmental distress brings about three main valences: anxiety, ambivalence, and aspiration. For example, someone who is concerned about the carbon footprint of air travel will be troubled by the impact of flying (anxiety); at the same time, they feel caught in dilemma when obligated to fly to distant destinations for work (ambivalence); they also feel a desire to reduce or cease air travel due to their environmental values (aspiration). This mixture of emotions is not easy to handle and can surpass our ability to make sense of our experience. Yet the psycho-emotional challenge lies in strengthening our capacity to hold conflicting emotions, building a tolerance for ambivalence, maintaining our ethical commitments even though our choices are limited.
For those struggling with ecological distress, we begin by normalizing what we feel. The earth is indeed undergoing dramatic change, and the alarm that we feel is both appropriate and necessary. There is nothing wrong with our concern over the state of the planet, given its current trajectory. In fact, those who are not concerned may be enacting forms of repression or dissociation. The challenge lies in acknowledging, affirming and befriending our grief. We mourn the extinction of species, the erasure of splendid places, because we appreciate the gift of life on this planet. If we love life in all its forms, we will grieve its demise. Grief is what love feels like when we lose what we cherish. Suffering from ecological distress, there is a temptation to chase away the pain with easy answers of false hope. However, staying with the grief can help us re-examine our values, shift our priorities, and re-align our commitments. When we learn to befriend this grief, we enter more deeply into our humanity and foster a new consciousness that stands in solidarity with life.
For those suffering from ecological distress, finding a community of support is vital to the healing process. There is solace in articulating and expressing our emotions, listening to others’ with compassion, walking together in solidarity as we mourn the changing climate. Because ecological distress stems from the disjuncture between the magnitude of the crisis and our power as individuals to affect change, the path of healing lies in the cultivation of agency in the face of what seems intractable. In the social domain, this means finding practical ways to build the society we want to live in: joining with others to build community gardens, supporting local food collectives, lobbying governments, building grassroots support for green policies. In addition to social change, conscientious action has the potential to serve a therapeutic function. On the personal front, the ecological crisis presents an opportunity to deepen personal exploration and development. As culturally sanctioned ideals of consumption come under scrutiny, we redefine the meaning of a good human life, one comprised of relationships, service, community, and creativity. By holding grief within the space of unflagging courage, we can usher in a new consciousness that cherishes the land, honours the biosphere, while facing the conflagration with equanimity.
As we contemplate the end of summer and the difficult times that lie in ahead, the task lies in accepting the plethora of emotions that arise, from anxiety to resignation, grief to indignation. These are normal and appropriate reactions to an outrageous situation. As we learn to embrace these emotions, we work with them to shift our lives into alignment with our values. In so doing, we practice steadiness and constancy amid turbulence and disruption. There will still be some beautiful days under a radiant sun, and we can take comfort in them without scruple. We can be refreshed by flower-studded meadows and breath-taking sunsets. Our appreciation of the warm season becomes an affirmation of life itself. As we savour the disappearing days of summer, we face an invitation to live in accord with the season we long for, the season that is now disappearing before our eyes.