Almost overnight, I’d turned into that annoying person who manages to bring up climate trauma in every discussion. And when I cried about the climate, it was real deep grief, like someone I loved had died. I also felt new levels of rage and scorn for people who didn’t seem to care about ecocide…. …there is nothing pathological about feeling eco-anxious; how psychiatric trauma sets in after fast moving climate disasters and slower moving ecological events; how social injustice – the kernel of climate change – affects emotional wellbeing; what individuals can do to cope when the dark scientific data in their head takes over; why the secret sauce for emotional resilience lies in community ties; and what kinds of system overhaul are needed to climate-proof the mental health system. Dr Britt Wray
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Dr Wray writes not only about individual ecological angst but also about how we can harness that angst in the interest of community and our collective future.
Watch her TED Talk on ‘How Climate Change Affects Your Mental Health’
For me, just looking at that expression of quiet determination on her face gives me some confidence that there may be a way out of our global pool of tears. Not just determination, but Kenneth Clark’s ‘Smile of Reason’?
Things You Can Do
-Follow the various links to find more about Dr Wray and her contribution to ‘wellbeing’ in the ecological sense. -Follow her on Twitter here and get a sense of her journey by scrolling back through her tweets -See whom she follows? I, for instance, discovered Daniel Rubin, who has the deceptively simple tag in a tweet:Find Community & Reject Doomism: Tell Others To Do The Same
* Dr Wray is presumably intending us to read ‘Gen Dread’ as Generation Dread, (cf Generation X, Y etc). For Boomers like myself and others of previous generations, I hope she will not mind my including ourselves in this way as we of course share the dread. In fact, since the situation is unlikely to improve in our lifetimes, our situation is possibly worse – our hope lies in working for a future we shall not see.
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