Climate Anxiety is Real

Chasing Life

CNN

Nutrition, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.5 • 8K Ratings

🗓️ 9 August 2022

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Climate change has long been an existential threat, but for many young people, government inaction and increasing natural disasters are now taking a mental toll. Psychologists describe this phenomenon as climate anxiety, or ecological grief. On this episode, Dr. Sanjay Gupta talks to climate researcher Britt Wray, and climate activist and writer adrienne maree brown, about how to deal with climate anxiety and ways of finding joy amidst the darkness. You can find more of adrienne maree brown’s writing here. As well as some of the resources mentioned at the end of the episode: Gen Dread Newsletter Good Grief Network Climate Cafes To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Oh yeah, I definitely have climate anxiety.
0:07.1	Sometimes I might even say I have climate despair, you know.
0:10.7	That's Adrian Marie Brown, a social and environmental justice activist and author of Emergent
0:17.2	Strategy.
0:18.2	A book about shaping our relationship with the changing Earth.
0:22.8	After I had been organizing for like 15 years, I was feeling very hopeless.
0:27.5	You know, I was just like, I don't understand how we get ourselves into a formation that
0:31.8	can survive.
0:34.0	Adrian has been an activist for decades.
0:36.6	It's a constant uphill battle without a finish line.
0:39.9	I think a lot of what happens with climate anxiety is people like we can't even possibly
0:44.6	win.
0:45.6	It's all too big.
0:46.6	There's no chance to engage.
0:48.6	So I just have to sit here being anxious with no way out.
0:52.3	Adrian says the anxiety has affected their life choices, including their decision not
0:56.7	to have children or even live in a place they love.
1:00.5	If it was in my heart that I was the only one making the decision, I'm pretty sure I would
1:04.4	live in New Orleans, right?
1:07.9	It calls to me, but climate anxiety, I think, is too overwhelming for me to live in a place
1:13.1	where I'm like, oh, the level of crisis that happens here is so intense.
1:17.4	And I think that's happening for more and more people.
	...

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