Climate Grief

About 9 years ago, my life partner of 6 years died suddenly and unexpectedly. She was laughing and joking at breakfast, and nearly gone by evening. My mom, dad, and companion animal, about the same time, also suffered horrible deaths. The family thought mom had the flu, but it was much worse. One moment we were talking at the dinner table, and shortly after, I and paramedics were unable to save her. I will spare you the gory details. The Tibetan Buddhist idea of "impermanence" I teach in World Literature was becoming clear. The point is my grief counselor taught me 4 things that may help those waking up to climate reality, and suffering climate grief:

1) "Emotions come through in waves. Accept the waves."

2) "Take time to grieve, and not to grieve."

3) "Know you will feel different tomorrow than today."

4) "Understand the importance of storytelling in healing."

As the climate crisis necessarily accelerates, because, as Brian Kahn on December 3, 2014, at climatecentral.org noted, "CO2 Takes Just 10 Years to Reach Planet’s Peak Heat," more people will wake up and grieve. There seems to be a natural grieving process when, for example, a Jan. 14, 2020, Los Angeles Times article “An Australia in flames tries to cope with an ‘animal apocalypse.’ Could California be next?” reported "Scientists estimate that, so far in Australia, fires have killed from hundreds of millions to more than 1 billion native animals," or students see one koala bear rescued. Similarly, it was stressful when The International Organization for Migration, “a related agency of the UN system” (according to its Website), reported in 2015 “Current forecasts for the number of climate induced migrants by 2050 vary between 25 million and one billion, depending on various climate scenarios, the adaptation measures taken and other political and demographic factors.4” A Sep. 12, 2019 Vice magazine article, citing The International Organization for Migration, updated the number to as high as “1.5 billion.”

Even climate scientists are grieving. As I wrote in a previous post, “Scientist and Forbes writer James Conca noted September 10, 2019, ‘To bring this home, all you have to do is see how climate scientists are seeking psychiatric help for the depression, anxiety and PTSD that happens when you see a train wreck coming but no one seems to want to do anything about it - and you’re on the train.’"

Previously, I posted about "Climate Scientists Expressing Nightmare/Anger/Fear/Gratitude/Other Feelings." In the first letter, Professor Stefan Rahmstorf, Head of Earth System Analysis, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, wrote "Sometimes I have this dream. [par break] I’m going for a hike and discover a remote farm house on fire. [par break] Children are calling for help from the upper windows. So I call the fire brigade. But they don’t come, because some mad person keeps telling them that it is a false alarm."

NASA climate scientist Peter Kalmus' 2018 Yes! Magazine article "The Best Medicine for My Climate Grief" clarified what was coming, and yesterday's Guardian article by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac, "‘The only uncertainty is how long we’ll last’: a worst case scenario for the climate in 2050," shows where we may be going barring major changes for better or worse.