Degrees of Change: Climate Anxiety and Depression. April 17, 2020, Part 1

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🗓️ 17 April 2020

⏱️ 48 minutes

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Summary

You Aren’t Alone In Grieving The Climate Crisis As the consequences of unchecked climate change come into sharper focus—wildfires in the Amazon and Australia, rising seas in low-lying Pacific Islands, mass coral bleaching around the world—what is to be done about the emotional devastation that people feel as a result? In 2007, Australian eco-philosopher Glenn Albrecht described this feeling as homesickness “for a home that no longer exists,” which he called “solastalgia.” Others have settled on terms like “climate grief,” or, since environmental devastation can come without a changing climate, simply “ecological grief.” For this chapter of Degrees of Change, Ira talks about adapting emotionally to climate change. First, he speaks with psychologist Renee Lertzman and public health geographer Ashlee Cunsolo about their research on the phenomenon of grief tied to environmental loss, and what they’ve learned about how people can adapt their grief into actions that can make a difference. Then, climate researcher Kate Marvel and essayist Mary Annaïse Heglar share their experiences simultaneously working on climate change, and grieving it. Inequality In The Air Air quality is a known public health threat, attributed to seven million deaths around the world every year. Minorities, especially African-Americans, often live in areas of high air pollution. Now, scientists say pollution is linked to high rates of COVID-19 deaths, which may help explain why people of color are dying from COVID-19 at disproportionate rates. Vox reporter Umair Irfan speaks with Ira about the pandemic’s inequitable impacts for some communities, as well as other coronavirus and climate change news from the past week.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato. The daily references and reminders about COVID-19 can be so
0:07.2	mind-consuming that other threats to our well-being may have fallen off our daily radar screen.
0:13.9	One in particular I'm talking about is our climate crisis. It's still here. It's still growing,
0:19.1	and it needs our attention. So we open up the next chapter of our series, Degrees of Change.
0:25.2	And this hour, we'll be talking about the psychological toll of the climate crisis.
0:29.7	We won't be taking your calls in this recorded hour,
0:32.7	but more info on how you can get involved in our coverage
0:36.0	and sign up for our climate newsletter is at
0:39.3	Science Friday.com slash degrees of change. First up, joining us to talk about the latest
0:45.6	coronavirus and climate change news is Umar Afan, reporter at Vox in Washington, D.C. Welcome back
0:53.1	to Science Friday, Mayor.
0:54.5	Thanks for having me, Ira.
0:55.6	Let's get into some of the top stories and start with a dramatic political move that
0:59.8	happened this week.
1:01.0	President Trump announcing that the U.S. will pull funding from the World Health Organization.
1:06.8	Tell us about that.
1:08.1	Yeah, President Trump has long been critical of the World Health Organization and its response to the coronavirus crisis.
1:14.8	And in particular, he's blaming them for inadequately reporting the true extent and the risk from this,
1:20.8	and as well as, you know, taking the Chinese government's party line on the extent and the scope of the outbreak and not being skeptical enough of that information.
1:29.5	And so this week he announced that essentially the U.S. would no longer be funding the World Health Organization going forward.
1:35.7	And that's a huge deal because the U.S. is the single largest funder of the World Health Organization.
1:40.2	And the WHA sort of acts as an intermediary between all countries, does it not? Yeah, it pools a lot of
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