Coping with Climate Change Distress

There has been a recent flurry of articles and radio stories regarding the rise of climate grief and ecological anxiety in Australia and abroad. 

For some support and advice on living with such distress a number of groups came together to publish this pamphlet on coping with climate change distress.

Read the pamphlet, download it here - “Coping with Climate Change Distress.”

Living in an echo chamber, just like everyone else

I live in an echo chamber.

I read about the climate crisis, frequently; I hear about the climate crisis, many of my friends talk about the climate crisis; often, I travel to and from Melbourne to listen to lectures about the climate crisis; I’m involved with two Shepparton-based groups focussed on climate matters; I maintain a blog (“Beneath the Wisteria”) and several months ago started a podcast (“Climate Conversations”) that are both about helping others better understand what damage we have caused to the world’s climate system.




And just a week ago I was in Myrtleford for a day-long conference/launch of a project to embed climate adaptation in agriculture.

 Further, last Saturday week, I spent the day at the Tatura Transition Towns annual film festival entitled “The Power of Youth”, which, in its own way, was an extension of the “School strike for Climate” movement.

And is that out of balance? 

No, not at all, especially when you consider the blinkered view of others who see the world through the prism of economics and profit, and so work tirelessly to maintain a way of life that is at odds with our wellbeing and is herding humanity toward an existential apocalypse.

And do I have hope? Well, most days yes, and others not so much. My spirit rises and falls, but to be without hope would be to deny my humanity and so I cling to the idea of American author Studs Terkel who said: “Hope dies last”.

What we understand as the market system can justifiably claim many of the advances enjoyed by humanity, but its sustenance in the last six decades, in particular, has seen the atomization of society leading to the stupendous enrichment of a few coupled with poverty and inequality in many corners of the world.

Ancient Greece philosopher, Aristotle, lamented, even then, the inbuilt damning contradictions of the market system, but I write with care for American professor and author, Steven Pinker, has dedicated entire books to reminding his readers just how good life is for most people.

The idea of doom prosecuted by much in the media distresses Pinker and in his view does not fit with daily realities presently faced by many around the world.

Pinker, of course, has made judgements about contemporary, tangible and understandable matters, but the climate crisis is, as writer and consultant Roger Molins, says is quite different; it is intangible.

“We do not perceive climate change as it is, we do not touch it; it absolutely defies the definition of what a thing is.” he writes.

Yes, the facts are grim but they alone will not change our behaviour and it was only last week that Dr Margret Hickey, speaking at Shepparton’s La Trobe University, when discussing writing through the Anthropocene, pointed to stories, true and otherwise, as being the lever that shifted humanity. 

Many practical things will help us mitigate the causes of climate change, and adapt to its unfolding difficulties, but the essence of who we are is to be found in our stories; stories that need to be told, urgently.