{"id":54937,"date":"2022-08-05T03:46:51","date_gmt":"2022-08-05T01:46:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/?p=54937"},"modified":"2025-08-26T17:31:20","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T15:31:20","slug":"coping-with-climate-grief-advice-from-an-environmental-psychologist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/story\/54937\/coping-with-climate-grief-advice-from-an-environmental-psychologist\/","title":{"rendered":"Coping with climate grief: advice from an environmental psychologist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This story was originally posted by<\/em> Greenpeace Australia Pacific<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n

The crisis in Ukraine, floods on one side of the country, and record-breaking heat on the other, it\u2019s understandable if you\u2019ve been feeling a little stressed or sad.<\/p>\n\n

When we feel helpless in the face of threats, everything gets worse.<\/p>\n\n

We release stress hormones into our bodies.<\/p>\n\n

We feel despairing, anxious, angry, guilty.<\/p>\n\n

We look for people or things to blame. Our thinking can become less compassionate, less creative and less flexible. In this state, it\u2019s very hard to know how to respond to complex problems.<\/p>\n\n

Despair, however, is not a strategy.<\/p>\n\n

As a psychologist who has worked for years on the impacts of environmental and climate grief and anxiety, I find that an approach known as \u201cAcceptance and Commitment Therapy\u201d can help people manage how they are feeling and thinking in response to challenging times, without totally disengaging from the problem.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"
Aerial view of the remote Millstream National Park, Western Australia, near Woodside’s Burrup gas hub region. Woodside Petroleum is planning to drill for gas nearby in what would be the most climate polluting project Australia has ever had.
\u00a9 Luke Sweet \/ Conservation Council Western Australia \/ Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Part 1: Open up<\/h2>\n\n

\u2018Opening up\u2019 is about noticing, naming, and making room for painful feelings and thoughts. It involves locating a feeling inside our body \u2013 observing its size, shape, texture, temperature, movement; giving it a name \u2013 for instance, \u2018this is fear\u2019 or \u2018this is grief\u2019, and being willing to make room for it, acknowledge its presence, and accept that painful feelings are a (tricky!) part of being human.<\/p>\n\n

Our uncomfortable feelings about existential threats are appropriate, and there for a reason. They require us to process our losses, to face the reality of our world being in danger, plus they motivate us to do something.<\/p>\n\n

\u00a9 Michael Amendolia \/ Greenpeace<\/div>” alt=”” class=”wp-image-54942″\/>
A migrating humpback whale makes its way through the Whitsunday Islands.
\u00a9 Michael Amendolia \/ Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Next, we can do things to allow our feelings to move. Emily Nagoski<\/a> reminds us that feelings are \u2018travellers, not residents\u2019. They arise, stay awhile, then go. Good practices to help complete the stress cycle includes things like moving your body, having a cry, having a stress-reducing conversation, being in nature, or having a hug.<\/p>\n\n

Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone in Active Hope<\/a>, remind us that it can be enlivening to go with, rather than against, the flow of our deep felt responses to the world, and that when we touch into our depths, we find, in fact, that the pit isn\u2019t bottomless.<\/p>\n\n

Part 2: Be present<\/h2>\n\n

Being in the present moment is another especially useful strategy when we feel overwhelmed.<\/p>\n\n

Learning to \u2018drop an anchor<\/a>\u2019 in the midst of an \u2018emotional storm\u2019 can help to hold us steady in the present moment whilst the storm buffets around. An anchor is anything that is a part of the present moment other than the storm itself. A simple grounding exercise can be: Notice 5 things you can see, <\/strong>4 things that you can hear, <\/strong>3 things that you can feel<\/strong>, 2 things that you can smell or taste,<\/strong> and end with noticing what you\u2019re doing right now, in the present moment.<\/p>\n\n

\u00a9 Ella Colley \/ Greenpeace<\/div>” alt=”The Daintree River, Queensland.
\u00a9 Ella Colley \/ Greenpeace<\/div>” class=”wp-image-54940″\/>
The Daintree River, Queensland.
\u00a9 Ella Colley \/ Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Part 3: Do what matters<\/h2>\n\n

What we do, <\/strong>matters. When we act in line with our core values, we are most likely to feel engaged and fulfilled. Values<\/a> are like guiding principles, helping us to choose what to focus our energies on. One way to help identify the kind of action you might like to take is to ask yourself: \u2018What do I want to stand for in the face of this crisis, or in the face of this great pain that I feel?\u2019<\/p>\n\n

Doing things is also an example of problem-focussed coping \u2013 the things that you do to reduce the problem (like the climate crisis) which is causing the stress. Any action that we take to reduce Australia\u2019s reliance on fossil fuels, for example, has double potency because it moves us out of helplessness and hopelessness, PLUS it helps to restore a safer climate.<\/p>\n\n

Hope is a strategy<\/h2>\n\n

The pain we feel about the climate crisis invites us to grapple with what our place is in the climate crisis. Solutions to climate change are already readily available. When we raise our expectations about what is possible, grow our inner strength muscles, and do what matters, we can have a personal and a collective impact. Cultivating hope is <\/em>a strategy.<\/p>\n\n

\"Cathedral
Cathedral Rocks Wind Farm is a wind power station located about 30 km west of Port Lincoln in South Australia, near the southern tip of the Eyre Peninsula.
\u00a9 Michaela Skovranova \/ Greenpeace<\/div><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n

Dr Susie Burke is a psychologist, researcher, writer and climate change campaigner.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

Guest authors work with Greenpeace to share their personal experiences and perspectives and are responsible for their own content.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we raise our expectations about what is possible, grow our inner strength muscles, and do what matters, we can have a personal and a collective impact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":54943,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"Coping with Climate Grief: Advice from an Environmental Psychologist","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"not set","p4_local_project":"not set","p4_basket_name":"not set","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[91],"p4-page-type":[59],"class_list":["post-54937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-and-economic-systems","tag-health","p4-page-type-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54937"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78121,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54937\/revisions\/78121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54937"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=54937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}