Talking Climate: Grief

 

Our Second Fridays programming continued in February with Talking Climate: Grief. This event took place on February 12, 2021. 

As we confront the compounding crises of the global pandemic, racial inequality, and climate, grief has become a shared condition. Further, the deferral and suppression of grief and other powerful, painful emotions have long contributed to the astounding gap between the percentage of US adults who are worried about the climate crisis—66% in December 2020—and who speak about it with any regularity—6%. This gap must be closed.

Expert panelists Shahzeen Attari, researcher at Indiana University’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Mary Annaïse Heglar, writer and co-creator and co-host of the Hot Take podcast and newsletter, and Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, Founder and CEO of Dayenu discussed the layered and collective burdens of loss and trauma in communities across the US, and the weight of their impacts on marginalized communities.

 Like all our programs, Talking Climate: Grief aimed to create ground for community-building, democratic engagement, and civic action.

The event began with a reading by poet Otaniyuwa Ehue.

This resource guide is designed to complement our Second Fridays programming. If you enjoyed these readings or think we missed something let us know! 

Writings on Climate Grief and Environmental Trauma:

These articles provide background on the concept of climate grief and the ways it can be harnessed for collective action. 

Let’s Talk About Climate Grief and Anxiety by Juanita Constible (Natural Resources Defense Council, October 2019)

“There’s a famous slogan from the labor movement: ‘Don’t mourn, organize!’ I’d suggest taking the time you need to mourn. Just don’t stop there.

Plenty of people in the United States and around the world are grappling with what the climate crisis means for them, their loved ones, and a whole bunch of people they’ll never meet and species they’ll never see. We’ll be much more powerful if we connect with each other to create the future we want.”

The Whole City Concept talk by Dr. Mindy Thompson Fullilove (PopTech, 2013) 

“The fundamental thing when we have the city in mind is that there are neighborhoods that have been battered and destroyed, whose culture and economy and wealth and social networks have been pulled up apart and eliminated by horrific urban policies, and there are other neighborhoods that are doing just fine, thank you. But all of these cities are in the same system.”

The Empty Space Where Normal Once Lived by Bathsheba Demuth (The Atlantic, August 2020) 

“Long COVID and climate change are alike in this: live ill for long enough, and the absence of health threatens to become normal.”

What Climate Grief Taught Me About the Coronavirus by Mary Annaïse Heglar (The New Republic, May 2020)

“I believe that we have it in us to face the great unknown that’s on the other side of this collective trauma. But only if we allow ourselves to mourn our losses—be they temporary or permanent. If you’re putting pressure on yourself to hold it together, that very well may be what breaks you apart. If I’ve learned anything working on climate, it’s that broken hearts, much like broken bones, don’t mend until you tend them.” 

Got Climate Anxiety? These People Are Doing Something About It  by Susan Shain (New York Times, February 2021)

Other Strong Emotions

While grief is a common response to historical, current, and future climate impacts, the climate crisis also stirs a range of other emotional responses. 

The Case for Climate Rage  by Amy Westervelt (Popula, August 2019)

We Need Courage, Not Hope, to Face Climate Change by Kate Marvel (On Being, March 2018)

“Even while resolving to limit the damage, we can mourn. And here, the sheer scale of the problem provides a perverse comfort: we are in this together. The swiftness of the change, its scale and inevitability, binds us into one, broken hearts trapped together under a warming atmosphere.” 

Who is the ‘we’ in ‘We are causing climate change?’ by Genevieve Gunther (Slate, October 2018) 

The Case for Stubborn Optimism on Climate by Christiana Figueres (TED, October 2020)

“Optimism opens the field of possibility, it drives your desire to contribute, to make a difference, it makes you jump out of bed in the morning because you feel challenged and hopeful at the same time.”

But the Greatest of These is Love by Mary Annaïse Heglar (Medium, July 2019)

Climate Change and the Human Mind interview with Robert Jay Lifton (Yale Environment 360, October 2017) 

Work and Insights from our Expert Panelists

Shahzeen Attari, researcher at Indiana University’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs

Both Conservatives and Liberals Want a Green Energy Future, but for Different Reasons by Shahzeen Attari (The Conversation, May 2020) 

"Realizing the shared vision of an energy system dominated by renewable energy will mean reconciling partisan differences over how to achieve that future. While there is no single rationale that will convince all Americans to support a transition to low-carbon energy sources, our results are encouraging because we find consensus on the U.S. energy future – everyone agrees that it should be green."

Hope for the Future Lies in the Multitude interview with Shahzeen Attari, Sherri Mitchell, and Juliet Schor (Sierra Club, October 2019)

“The question that I've been thinking about is, Are there ways to rethink our capitalism culture altogether? How can stories about alternatives help us reimagine our world? I think that's what a lot of people, especially in the climate change world, are starting to think about. We need to rethink how to untether consumption from growth, happiness, and satisfaction.”

No One's Perfect: How to Advocate for Climate Conservation Anyway by Shahzeen Attari (Behavioral Scientist, April 2018) 

Facts, Feelings, and Stories: How to Motivate Action on Climate Change talk by Shahzeen Attari (The Interval, June 2018)

Mary Annaïse Heglar, writer and co-creator and co-host of the Hot Take podcast and newsletter

2020: The Year of Converging Crises by Mary Annaïse Heglar (Rolling Stone, October 2020)

"At the time, I was in the throes of what we now call climate grief, that complicated, neverending syndrome where you grieve the end of a stable climate, not unlike the loss of a loved one. Part of my climate grief cycle included something I’ve come to call — very, very unaffectionately — “climate vision.” It’s where you see disasters that aren’t happening as though they’re real. When I told people what I saw, they looked at me with pity or concern, maybe even disgust, and, often, dismissal."

"Now, though, I don’t need to imagine. The orange skies over San Francisco that I saw in my climate visions have become reality, and I’d give anything to go back to my tortured waking nightmare. For those of us who saw this coming, there is absolutely no joy in having been right, no “we told you so” parties, no gleeful vindication. Only deeper, more visceral mourning."

We Don’t Have to Halt Climate Action to Fight Racism by Mary Annaïse Heglar (Huffington Post, June 2020)

I work in the environmental movement. I don’t care if you recycle (Vox, June 2019)

“When people come to me and confess their green sins, as if I were some sort of eco-nun, I want to tell them they are carrying the guilt of the oil and gas industry’s crimes. That the weight of our sickly planet is too much for any one person to shoulder. And that that blame paves the road to apathy, which can really seal our doom.”

After the Storm by Mary Annaïse Heglar (Guernica, October 2019)

A poignant piece about the origins of Heglar's commitment to climate justice

When Climate Change Broke My Heart and Forced Me to Grow Up (Medium, October 2018)

You can subscribe to Mary Annaïse Heglar and Amy Westervelt’s newsletter Hot Take here. You can listen to their podcast by the same name here. 

Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, Founder and CEO of Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action 

Why Climate Change Must Be a Central Moral Issue of The Jewish Community panel (The Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest, January 2021)

“God says to us when we are wandering in the desert ‘לֹא בַשָּׁמַיִם הִיא  (lo ba-shamayim hi).’ It is not in heaven or beyond your reach, it is in your hand and in your heart and you can do it. We can do this. We have to hold urgency in one hand and hope in the other hand.”

'Who by fire?' isn't just a metaphor this year — but we still have time to change course by Rabbi Jennie Rosenn (Jewish Telegraph Agency, September 2020)

“There is no question that changing our personal behaviors and greening our institutions is necessary. But even if every Jew and Jewish organization reduces its carbon footprint, we will not avert the most catastrophic impacts of climate change. To do this, we must make change on a systemic level.”

Coronavirus is a Fire Drill for Climate Change by Rabbi Jennie Rosenn (Forward, April 2020)  

The Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest’s resources for taking action and Dayenu’s guide to Launching a Dayenu Circle  

Otinayuwa Ehue, Poet

“Karali” 

Originally written and performed as part of Climate Speaks 2019

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Support Indigenous Organizing  

In a virtual context where readers and audience members join us from all over the United States and beyond, we acknowledge this event, and our work and lives generally, take place on unceded Indigenous territories. Below, we have assembled a range of resources that highlight various Indigenous efforts towards sovereignty. We encourage readers to discover the longer histories of their particular locations and of others listed here, and to consider donating to efforts restoring land back to Indigenous stewardship. 

 
Miranda Massie