Climate Change and Happiness

Rebecca Weston at a march on Oct 18, 2025

Thomas and Panu engaged with Rebecca Weston, lawyer, clinician and Co-Executive Director of the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America. Rebecca shared her journey of empowerment about climate therapy, emphasizing the need for empathy and understanding of denial and fear surrounding climate change. The conversation delved into the significance of attachment and relationships in shaping our responses to environmental crises. As an organizational leader, Rebecca reflected on the challenges and growth opportunities within the Climate Psychology Alliance, such as securing funding and support for grassroots climate initiatives.

Links

• Rebecca Weston 

• Climate Psychology Alliance - North America

• Become a CPA member

• Upcoming CPA Book Talk: Ari Cook-Shonkoff & Thomas Doherty

• Thursday, Dec 4, 2025

Transcript

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

Introduction voice: Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala.

Thomas Doherty: Well hello, I’m Thomas Doherty.

Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. This is our podcast. This podcast is a show for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about climate change and other environmental issues. This started as a dialogue between Panu and I that we decided to make public. And, you know, we were a bit of early adopters in this when we were starting to do this work, but now it's much more common to have these conversations. And it's much more common for therapists and other people to be doing public versions of this work. And on that note, we have a really special guest with us.

Rebecca Weston: Hi, my name is Rebecca Weston and I am a private practice clinician full-time and I'm co-executive director of the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America. And I'm really excited and honored to be with you guys.

Doherty: Yes, and so Rebecca knows very well about this idea of public dialogue and she's been helping to steward a huge organization of people that are trying to do climate cafes and put the word out and help the counseling, psychology, therapy field, address all these broad issues of climate and environmental things and all the other associated issues that

are stressing us in the world. And so we're really glad to have Rebecca here to give us a little perspective of her work. Panu, do you want to get us started?

Pihkala: Warmly welcome, Rebecca, also on my behalf. Lovely to be talking directly with you, We have been following each other's work, but we haven't been in actual dialogue. So it's a great pleasure. And I'm a member of the Climate Psychology Alliance, the international one, but of course, much of its European activities are based in Great Britain. And then there's an active North American chapter. We'll probably talk a bit more about that today since you have been very active in that. But before going there, it would be very interesting to know something about your path towards being so engaged with climate matters and climate psychology. So would you like to start by sharing something about that journey?

Weston Sure. My journey, I come from a family of social and political activists and from Holocaust survivors to civil rights activists and towards the end of my father's life he was very, very involved in the human rights basis of climate change and was very sort of one of the early thinkers around how to use international legal systems to protect the planet for future generations. But I was actually a Johnny-come-lately to climate because I had very absurd notions about what the environmentalist movement was. I think in part because I was reacting to my father. I didn't want to do what he was doing.

Doherty: Mm-hmm.

Weston: But also I had this kind of archaic split in my mind between the environment and human issues. And I somehow took a kind of, there was a hubris in my idea that somehow I was gonna focus on poverty, I was gonna focus on racism, I was gonna focus on the hard issues. And environmentalism was just those people who cared about owls. And I was very dismissive, to be completely honest. And it wasn't until, well, I guess with the recognition of climate change, it became something clearly very different to me. I am very deeply committed and connected to my own environment, have been for a long time, but it was really around climate change that I began to think there's something more to this. And I've clearly missed the boat on a huge number of very, very important issues ranging from environmental justice and everything else. But that was not even enough to get me moving because then I went straight from awareness to denial. I was raising two very young kids and my father would give me book after book after book about climate crisis and every single gift-giving occasion he would give me these books and I would put them at the bottom of my bookshelf. I could tolerate understanding and looking at literally every other issue but I could not tolerate this one. I would turn the open the page and my anxiety level will rise and I would say not today.

Doherty: Hmm.

Weston: Part of what led me ultimately to this work is that I think that if I went through such a process of denial and pushing away and avoidance, surely I could understand where other people were coming from about why they felt the need to push it away. And I felt like I had a way of understanding that and having empathy for that and wanting to connect to the love of life that is often part of that denial, actually dysfunctional refusal to see, you know? And I really wanted to connect and I did not want to be in judgment towards people who were feeling those things because I knew for myself it was not because I was stupid, it was not because I was politically to the far right, it was because I cared too much about my children and my life that I was scared to see it. And I found that to be immensely eye opening and it gave me a foothold into the work that I could feel connected to and not run away from. So that was really my own origin and since then from that basis I have felt like I could stay with the problem and not flinch and that's been really important to me.

Pihkala: Thanks for sharing all that and really appreciating the honesty about those reactions even though they are not the ethical ideal but I really think that we need to be honest about that and I also believe as you said that it can give lots of understanding about where people are and trying to avoid binary interpretations between good and bad folks for example.

A couple of the emotional dimensions are course fear or threat related emotions which you are voicing and then also potential guilt dynamics and that may be also very difficult if one doesn't find a way to connect with these issues. I know that you have found so that probably helps with that also.

Can you share something about the work that you have been doing in practice? As a therapist, has it been so, as you supposed, that this history has helped you to understand the variety of people's responses?

Weston: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I think one of the things I love most about being a clinician is that something happens when you go into the room theoretically or like the literal room or the metaphoric room where judgments really do go out the window and trying to stay very near to an experience that somebody has. And I find it incredibly powerful to relate to the experiences that people share. Why they are afraid, why they feel hesitant, why they have ambivalence, why they feel helpless, why they feel entitled. All of the different feelings that people have that can interrupt climate action or even climate awareness. I find it quite natural in many respects to have empathy for those starting points. Its interesting because I have tremendous political judgment, I have tremendous political sort of opinions and very strong moral and ethical codes that I think about in a larger political world. But there is something incredibly special about the therapeutic space that enables one to find a sense of empathy to the feelings that we might not feel otherwise find approachable.

That to me is incredibly important, again, to bring people closer and to recognize the humanity that is often part of the story that gets missed about why people turn away, disavow all the other things. So yes, I find my own experience to be immensely helpful. I find also being a clinician in general being immensely helpful to understanding how to communicate about this issue to the larger world, absolutely.

Doherty: That's lovely. That's lovely. You speak to something that's really important to me to that idea, the importance of the therapeutic space. And I think you've done a good job articulating this, this kind of holding two different realities. There's that political reality, like you say, where there has to be action and, and we have to commit to fighting battles against oppression and various things in the real world. But also, it's hard to put into words, but basically being able to have this, this space outside of the battlefield. What the metaphor I use is like the athlete, like they come off the playing field and they go to the sidelines or they go into the locker room. And during that time, they're not on the field. They're able to be real and to think and to share their feelings and so that's to me that's like the that's the therapy space it is special and then philosophically there's that old Rumi poem about “ there's a place beyond good and bad you know I'll meet you there” you know so it's philosophically a place we could we can examine our assumptions and on all that sort of stuff.

Its really helpful for people because some people haven't experienced that. They're always in the game 24-7. And they can't imagine stepping out of the game. So I think that's one of reasons why people don't want to get in the game. Does that make sense? They don't actually want to take it on because I feel like if they do, it'll be a never-ending cycle.

What were some of the books you remember some of the books your father gave you or what time frame in years are we talking about here when you were when you were still in your cocoon there?

 Weston:  The fifth extinction was one of them. Something by Gus Speth.

 Doherty: They Knew by Gus Speth

 Weston: certainly stuff by Bill McKibbin. I'm not remembering all of them now. My dad died in 2014. And I didn't really come to sort of full awareness of my own capacity to take this on until 2016. I don't think it's surprising that it wasn't until after he died. I felt very much an open space finally to sort of embrace it, to take it on, to see the magnitude of it.

I also think it's important to sort of name, which I have in other places as well, what the space was that enabled me to do that, which speaks to the collective nature of this, is that I was living in Missoula, Montana at the time, a friend of mine who had been very involved in climate work prior to this, he was part of holding something called the Climate Smart Communities, which is something that happens all over the country. And the particular one that she helped put together included experts, lay experts as well as professionalized experts in the entire, an unbelievable array of fields ranging from people who understood roofing to people who understood seeds, people who understood paint and climate, the tourism industry, the Native American sort of indigenous food sovereignty movement, like issues of homelessness.

Which they brought into the room such an extraordinary wealth of human resources and knowledge and capacity that was both professional and lay, that was both earned expertise and intellectualized expertise in the room, all gathering to talk about how are we going to adapt to climate change. And it was, think, the first time, think, where the Sunrise Movement had just sort of occupied I can't remember whose office it was, but the Sunrise Movement had just occupied somebody's office. And so there was this real energy around sunrise and then in the space of, I would say 150 people all talking about how we can preserve the world we love. And it was in that space that I finally opened up, I can do this, I can do this, I can step in, I'm not alone. People are bringing all sorts of histories and expertise to this, I can bring mine and mine is a mine is a psychological, mine is an attachment, mine of the understanding of trauma, the need of parenting. Like I all of sudden realized I had something to offer and it didn't need to be everything. And that I could join the multitude of people. And that gave such a space and permission to be part of, but not the only source. And that was just huge, a huge opening for me. And that was the time when my father had been giving me the books. I finally took them out and finally could get past the first or second page and say okay I'm stepping in stepping in and I'm ready and and I feel support support of a larger community of people.

Pihkala: Yeah, thanks for sharing that and it sounds like there was container big enough and also enough safety and one might name co-regulation of course here and some previous episodes of this podcast feature discussions about these dynamics. I'm thinking of the one with Rosemary Rorandel and one with René Lerchman for example and some discussions with Caroline Hickman also and the dynamic which was very eye-opening for me around 2015 that's if a person is scared it doesn't help to increase threat levels, it just works the opposite. But this also reminds me of a task I had just one and a half weeks ago, which was being the opponent of a dissertation defense, where the dissertation was about using trauma-informed methods in high school education on environmental themes, especially in relation to texts and language. So that was a quite interesting. Greetings to Päivi Koponen who was the dissertation defendant and there was lots of discussion about trauma dynamics and co-regulation and the need for safety also in relation to school spaces. Since I know that you have been much involved with these topics and you named attachment and trauma, so would you like to tell the listeners a bit about how do you see the connections between trauma and attachment to these dynamics we are talking about?

Weston: Yes, well, that's quite an opportunity. I believe so deeply in the social basis of being human and in the early, early, early formation and co-regulation that Winnicott said, there's no such thing as a baby and there's no such thing as a mother, there's a unit. We are always in dyad, if not triad and community, right? Like how far do we extend that out? And I think that the process of being able to hold intense feeling and recognizing one's ability to think oneself through it and feel oneself through it is utterly dependent on a relational space. And so the relationship of attachment is profoundly related to our individual collective capacity to honor and know and experience a feeling and make meaning out of that feeling, make meaning and then therefore take action on the basis of it. If we aren't in a co-regulated space, if we're not in a relationship where that is a safe thing to do, we're going to shut those parts of ourselves down, right? And they will be inaccessible to us as sources of information, as sources of validation about what we might need or want or do for the world in a traumatized system.

I did a lot of sort of family trauma assessments, in a traumatized system, the parent is going to check out, will not be available for a child, and therefore the whole system gets dysregulated. And you think about how do they then approach feelings of threat? How do they approach feelings of insecurity? How do they approach feelings of scarcity? All of those other kinds of things. There's not going to be a flexibility, a pliability, an emotional trust that if one names what you need, you will get it. And all of those things are vital for a resilient world that we're trying to create in this moment. So I deeply believe in attachment as a primary basis for healing and understanding trauma-informed care to your point, a scared person is not going to respond in a way that feels productive or collective out of fear. That's not going to happen. They will shut down. They will protect. They will defend. They will do all the things that people do. So I mean, there's a lot to say about that. I fear I'm not being particularly articulate about it right now. But to me its indispensable. And I've been working quite a bit with climate journalists and trying to understand what it's like to be a journalist reporting about this work while they're living in the communities where it happens. The level of trauma in the climate journalism field, how do they then write from that experience? How do they honor that experience? How do they write to an audience that's traumatized by the news, by the images? How do we not encourage avoidance? All of those kinds of things. Again, trauma-informed writing, trauma-informed care, trauma-informed education, how do we keep people regulated enough to stay present?

Which I think is what ultimately happened in that large collective space I had, right? That large collective space helped me regulate my own panic, which softened me into being able to actually take in the information, not defend against it, not push it away. That to me is the heart of why we do collective work, why we need to think of it at a community level, is that we need to keep people safe enough internally to hear what's happening, and then to relate to each other as allies as opposed to threats.Very hard work, given the political system and the terrain that we're in at the moment.

Pihkala: Yeah, that's wonderful and before I give the floor to Thomas who probably has a lot on his mind, I'll just say that I think you are being very clear and articulate about quite complex dynamics. So well done.

Doherty: Yeah. I agree. I was I was going to say the same thing. It is you. You kind of gave a very concise, definition of attach an attachment, trauma based approach to this work. So it does start with the family and it is a lot. Yeah, It's so great to have these conversations to get really into the nitty gritty of this kind of work because in the climate elephant I talk about, where there's all different parts of the elephant and we're blind and we get our part and we think this is what climate change is. And then we talk to someone else and they say, well, yes, but this is also what climate change is, and then we realize, okay, we have multiple truths going on. And that I think is one of the hardest things. That's why I really love your story about the climate smart communities, because the other entree into this is more of a positive psychology direction as well, which is not about trauma, but about, I can contribute. The fact that they call that a climate smart community, they didn't call climate traumatized community. So they're approaching it from a position of strength, positivity. And so many people gravitate to that. They would not go to a therapy group. That's not what they're interested in. Many of those climate smart people are not interested in therapy. They're interested in making a change. And so the idea of being smart is really a great framing and that provides a container as well. And then you can approach this as, oh I have a job, you're a roofer, you do HVAC systems, you do the community planning, but I'm a therapist and I have a job in the community. So that's so important.

Because therapists are just as important as firefighters and doctors and plumbers. And so you were able to say, wait a minute, I think, that's what Rosemary Randall, when she was doing her climate, that's what she realized too, was like, wait, I do have a role here already just right off the shelf. And so that's the other important piece about things like the Climate Psychology Alliance is that we have a lot of willing workers. So it's very much the same as climate and sustainability moving through other industries. It's moving through the therapy industry. And there's many highly, highly trained, highly gifted, highly gifted people who do know all this nuanced stuff about attachment and trauma and positive psychology and cognitive behavioral psychology, interpersonal and, you know all the different therapy flavors. And so you were able to say, wait a minute, I can help.

If we had another episode maybe you can unpack your complex relationship with your father because, know, we all have parents. We all have parents. You can have issues with authority and issues with authority, right? I mean, you have issues with authority in the larger sense, but you also had issues with authority, right? so, but we're all, we all family. yeah. What?

Weston: We sure do. My first political button, Thomas, was a question authority! My first political button was a huge one that said “question authority,” and that has remained.

Doherty: Yeah, and the psychoanalytic people out there always know that, you know, the parent and the family relationships are not very far behind us. But, you know, that's another story. But you don't even have to go into it just to name that there are those dynamics. That's helpful for people to know. My daughter will probably have a similar experience because, you know, she grew up in a household where climate change was talked about. luckily she is in Portland, so it's quite normative for everyone to be conscious. So she doesn't feel like she has to be the truth teller in the family, you know, but you know, everybody will have their family individuation process or whatever that, whatever that means.

How about we move to the present and Climate Psychology Alliance has got so many things going on and I know behind the scenes you just deserve like a really big award and a know a big bouquet of flowers for all the work that you've been doing. We know it's very difficult to run nonprofit groups and things like that so there's a lot there but what are you what are you proud of with the CPA right now and what what are some of the growing edges? in the organization that would be nice to shed some positive attention to, do you think?

Weston: That's a wonderful question and thank you. And I bet many people would have different answers to that same question. I think the thing I'm most proud about within CPA and what makes it somewhat different from other organizations and I just wrote about this in the newsletter in a kind of smaller way, is that it takes seriously that it's a membership-based organization. It's not a small staff that is determining a whole bunch of policy around grants. It really is membership-based and we have close to 750 members. I think its growth is entirely limited by capacity to hold who joins and finding kind of productive ways for people to feel connected and in community with each other. think that 750 by no means represents the volume of people in the mental health field who are wanting to take part and engage around issues of climate. And so I think it's just incredibly powerful to envision that there's even 750 clinicians in communities all around the United States who are trying precisely to think about how can I contribute my skills?

Of a community that needs lots and lots of skills, as you say from plumbing to seed work to farming to creating sort of alternative school systems around the summers, all of these other kinds of things. What can I contribute as a therapist in this idea of a mutual world, mutual creating of a world, to think that we are teaching people that it's okay to do that, that they can be part of a larger process, that they don't have to think of their clinical skills as being narrow and individualized, but they can be part of a larger collective process around the climate movement. That that is something that's happening all around the country, even in an embryonic state, to me is so inspiring and so beautiful and frankly different from all of the other, most of the other climate organizations. And that's with intention. What that also means is it's far messier. It's messier, it's harder. The kinds of questions that we are engaging in and how do we communicate effectively? How do we have a democratic process and still organize? How do we raise grants when we're this weird hybrid wonky thing? Are we membership? Are we mental health? Are we climate? What are we? It makes it very, very wonky, but it also makes it to me have a heart and a soul that I really value deeply.

I think some of the growth points, and I don't think there will be an answer to this, to something that Panu and I were talking about at the beginning is how do we situate ourselves in a political moment that is deeply, deeply fraught and where the issue of climate might not be front and center for many, many people. And that's not again because of denial. It's because the threats that we're facing as a community, as a population, as a country, as a planet are so interwoven, right? So when we think about threats to immigration, when we think about threats around authoritarianism and democracy. That's not unrelated to climate. Our ability to be active, our ability to name, our ability to collectively organize, all of those things are deeply implicated. But as a membership organization, we all have very, very different comfort levels with those questions. We are located geographically in very diverse places, politically diverse, suffering from climate change does not have a political label on it, although you might acknowledge some may have may not acknowledge it as climate. So how do we situate ourselves ethically and responsibly and clarity in this political moment? That's not an easy thing to figure out. And it is what keeps me up at night. It's what gives me tremendous excitement and tremendous fear. It makes me feel like I'm doing terrible work as well as very important work. It's very confusing. And I think that's a growth point for all of us. And we hold different pieces in the organization around that.

I think the other growth point is to move away from being kind of a virtual training organization to really empowering community members and clinicians on the ground to do the work in person. So we are trying to get, and this is where the philanthropy field really, really needs to step up. How do we actually fund the work on the ground so that we can go into agricultural communities and have some of these listening circles that are tailored to the geographically and politically specific spaces they're in. How do we reach STEM scientists who are feeling horribly demoralized after they've lost all their jobs and are seeing what's happening in the federal government? How do we provide support? How do we learn about mutual aid if we don't have money to actually fund clinicians to do this work when they're still working out their own livelihoods, right?

So we want to move away from being a training organization that thinks only about resilience and the importance of doing these things and actually having the capacity to do it all over the country. Because that's where really rubber hits the road, right? We're all committed to actually doing the work and feeling the work and not just talking about the work. And that needs real money because people can't do this on volunteer fumes over the long haul. And this has been profound, an organization of unbelievable volunteers.

Primarily volunteers still, which speaks to the dedication people are feeling. mean, people are giving unbelievable amounts of time that's not compensated. And you imagine what could happen if people felt like there was some breathing room to actually do the work on the ground and make the connections that need to be made.

So that's to me the biggest growth edge and that's a direct sort of commentary about sort of the climate and philanthropy world. Is there space for climate and mental health? How do we forge that space?

Myself, our organization is part of a coalition that's trying to develop that, is to really begin the process of educating the philanthropy world to this need. Because otherwise, it's only going to stay up here in the internet sphere and the webinar sphere. And that reaches such an exceedingly limited group of people that it's really not where we want to stay. So that's what I would say.

Doherty: Yeah, I'm glad you brought it to that level because that is, you have a job, but like, you as one of the directors, co-directors, you you're in the real nitty-gritty of one very specific part of the climate field, which is helping to run a large nonprofit organization. And there's many listeners that would know what that is like. Not all of us have to do that particular job, but that is itself a very special job. And also, I just want to say, yes, let's just give a shout out to all the volunteers that have helped with the CPA. I feel like it's a right of passage for a lot of therapists to have done a tour in the CPA world. And you do what you can. you know, lot of us, Panu and I have dealt with this over the years too. I know we don't know what we're capable of and we over commit and then we give what we can and then we realize we need to pull back and that's a natural part of this work.

So, but it's, there's a place to go for it, you know, that doesn't require you just to be a sole person. And for some people, they really need a group to get going. So, so congratulations to everyone in the CPA and that whole—I don't even know, there was not one person that started it. Obviously, it was this coalescence of coalescence of things. But Rebecca, you're holding the holding one of the, you know, the place, place of director, directorship today. So we're honoring you. Well, we could go further, as we always say, but we have to wrap up. But this has been a really nice little window into your world, Rebecca. I really, know you're so busy. I really appreciate you coming in today to talk with us.

Weston: Thank you.

Pihkala: Yeah, warm thanks also on my behalf. There would be many teams to continue and also honouring and being grateful for the integration of realism and a positive vision that you are showing. So all the best with that.

Weston: Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity.

Doherty: We are, we're going to stop in a second, but you are still alive.

Weston: Well, so then I will plug your book because I am in the middle of reading it and I am finding it to be, not all of it is particularly new, but the way you're framing things and the way you're talking about the need to hold all of the different feelings very much was top of mind today for me. And I look forward to writing something about it, but I've been really excited reading it and I want everyone on this podcast to check it out when it comes out. That it really does offer a way into these feelings, a way into being a whole person in these feelings. And especially bringing the parts of oneself that feels capable, that can feel joy, and how those need to be parts of our wellspring of action. Again, just really, really like the book so far, really value it, and want to, and I will be finishing it and getting something to you. So, high praise.

Doherty: Well, thank you that I didn't I didn't even ask for that nice little testimonial but I really appreciate that. Surviving climate anxiety is the book that I finished that's coming out on October 7th. So thank you so much for that.

We're going to wrap it up, Panu. I know you've got another meeting to go to and you're doing your research work. So thank you all very much and listeners and everyone, take care.

Weston: Thanks. Bye bye.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

The Climate Change and Happiness Podcast is a self-funded volunteer effort. Please support us so we can keep bringing you messages of coping and thriving. See the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.

image credit | Shelby Bowman

Season 5, Episode 4: Meaning, Values, Nature, and Family

Your environmental identity is a core source of strength and long-term coping with eco and climate stresses. This was the theme of this episode as Panu spoke with Thomas about Part II – Identity – of Thomas's new book Surviving Climate Anxiety. As Thomas explained, each chapter, “Meaning,” “Values,” “Nature” and “Family” highlights a core aspect of environmental identity and how it's made and maintained.  Panu and Thomas also discussed the recent New York City Climate Week activities as an example of positive changes and opportunities to engage with gifted leaders and innovators. Join us for an inspiring discussion!

Links

• Surviving Climate Anxiety Book 

  • Review and Preview Publisher’s Weekly

• New York Climate Week 2025 Highlights

• Meaning and Eco-anxiety Featuring: Panu Pihkala

• Hila The Earth

Transcript

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

Introduction voice: Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala.

Thomas Doherty: Well hello, I’m Thomas Doherty.

Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. This is our podcast, for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling and dreaming deeply about climate change and other environmental issues. And we ask this provocative question, what does it mean to be happy in the modern world? And that usually animates our discussions. Panu, how are you doing today?

Pihkala: Thanks for asking, Thomas. It's early evening in Helsinki as it is usually when we record and this is going to be the second in line on episodes where we heavily discuss Tomas's new book which is soon gonna come out of the printing houses. Surviving Climate Anxiety, A Guide to Coping, Healing and Thriving.

And this episode we are looking especially at part two, which has the general heading of identity, but it has four chapters on meaning, values, nature and family. All topics that we love to discuss in this podcast. And also, I know, Thomas, as we record this, you're soon about to end your trip to the New York Climate Week. So I wanted to get us started by asking how has that experience been?

Doherty: Yeah, thanks Panu. Yeah, I'm coming in from a non-traditional location here in New York City, and currently in Manhattan. yeah, it's been a really nice week and I've had a chance to visit some. Travel is a big deal these days and so you want to make the most of your travel opportunities. So I've been able to visit with family here and be a tourist in New York and get my daughter Ava off on her own travels. She's turned 18 and she's doing some world travel. So that's a big developmental stage for us and our family. And then meeting with my publisher.

And then, yes, attending, and it all happened in the context of this climate week, which is just a general open series of meetings and events across New York related to climate change, and also held in tandem with the current UN General Assembly. So there's a lot of events, actually way more than you could possibly attend, but I was able to see some really great events about education and talk to public school teachers and Sarah who we know from the Climate and Mental Health Network. We've also interviewed Anya Kamenetz. So I've got to meet a couple of the people that we've interviewed and saw a really good talk on food production and chefs and people being creative about making food taste good and also be sustainable. And then there was talks about policy and economics and the arts. I also did a really nice nature-based therapy group with a therapist named Maya in Brooklyn, New York who did a movement-based therapy group. Another artist named Hila the Earth who's a really fun performance artist. So I really got a chance to do a lot of things and at another point we can talk about the arts but I got to see the Waiting for Godot play, the current production of Waiting for Godot on Broadway which is something we can bookmark for another conversation about the arts. But yes, a full week and I should say that was all the messages around climate and action I heard were positive.

Pihkala: Yeah, quite a counterbalance to some of the content in the global news, but great to hear about how rich the experience has been there. Whenever I went to social media during the week, I've seen photos of my American colleagues at New York climate week. So lots of people working with these issues there, as you say.

Some of the things you mentioned have quite explicit links to the chapters and themes in the parts two of your book. For example, different identities and values. Sometimes they might have something to do with food and preparing food and for some other people some different things. And of course identity as a broad steam has been very much present in this podcast and in this form.

These chapters, are partly doing a sort of general audience presentation of some of the classic research in environmental psychology, but I would say in a quite user-friendly way. So there is more information and concepts, it's not very technical. It's not an academic course book, but it's linking the important research to the teams that you are discussing.

If you're thinking of part two and of course your experiences in New York during the week, what are some of the themes that most powerfully come to your mind?

Doherty: Yeah, well one of the messages I wanted to get out in the book and potentially the biggest message is this idea of environmental identity, which we talk about on the podcast a lot. It's still an unfamiliar term for a lot of people and it's just basically really tapping into our sense of our identity and our sense of self and personhood in relation to nature and the natural environment, not just our possessions and our physical environment.

Everyone has one, an environmental identity of different kinds, and often it's sort of just under the surface and when you get people talking about it, it leads to these conversations. That's sort of how that section of the book got designed because, the overall section is called identity, but the meaning is really like how we make sense of the world and how we see ourselves, you know, this eco timeline, you know, from our birth to the present, on the episodes in the podcast here, when we talk about people's background and how they got to their work, that's what they talk about is where they grew up, their sense of place, their family, connections with nature.

And so, the whole book was a strategic question of how to sequence all of these ideas for the reader so they can kind of follow along and have this building sense of themselves. that part two is really important because a lot of people want to rush to the eco-anxiety and the eco-despair and the most difficult issues, but if you don't have a sense of your identity and your values and your own sense of place and your family background and all that's the solid foundation, it's really hard to know what to do with all of that angst and anxiety. the identity just a super foundational piece. With anything, if you want to learn how to play a musical instrument, you have to start somewhere with some basics.

So the identity piece helps us to sort of start where we are. And then maybe later we can talk about action because there's a lot of political denialism about climate change happening in the US and so it there's this pull to really push against that and I think that environmental identity is the way to push against it to say I have this values I have these beliefs I this is my lived experience and you can't deny that and take that away from me

Pihkala: Thanks for discussing all that and identity and values and relationships, attachments, emotional bonds, lot of things related to quite deep stuff in us and related to dynamics of what do we do and why do we do it.

The concept of values is often used here. It's and evidently important. And then I often find myself wondering about how to give words to those kinds of factors which are not explicitly values but still guide what we do. Well, habits would be one thing, but I'm thinking about the climate deniers, for example. So I guess not many of them would say that they have sort of misanthropic values, and because they don't care about what happens to other folks, they don't care about climate matters, but there's something driving their behavior. I'm not sure if you have an idea what I'm pointing at here, but perhaps this is a very general question about what kind of factors drive our behavior.

Doherty: Yeah, I mean it's all linked together. I mean that's a challenge in the book is that everyone, everybody wants to do everything all at once. And you have to say, okay, take a breath and let's just be systematic and take some steps. So the first section of the book is about just basic coping, like how to think more effectively about how big climate change is and how complicated it is and that you see one part of it.

And then, you know, how to have a growth mindset, you know, where you realize you can learn and change and we collectively as humans can learn and grow and then all the emotion work that you do. And then I talk about in terms of emotions wheel and emotional intelligence. And then stress reduction and taking care of our bodies and doing our adaptation work that we need to do wherever we live. That’s all that basic stuff and then there's this identity piece.

One of the important values and feelings is being patient, you know, like at one step at a time. And I get this question a lot. Almost every talk someone will say, well, what do I do about this person who doesn't care about climate change or a relative or someone? And they always go to this recalcitrant person. And it's really interesting just to stop and step back and say, why do we even care about these people? Why is it so important for us to speak to these people? And I think underneath it, you know, we're social. We're social beings. We're mammals. We are primates. We have evolved to live in social groups very closely together. And in-group, out-group dynamics are really important to us. And if someone in our tribe doesn't agree with us and we feel conflict, it's really troubling for people. they're pulled to want to debate and want to find common ground, particularly if you do have values about unity and justice, so it's a paradox. But what I was talking about yesterday in a similar discussion is that just, well first of all, make sure that you're talking to the people that agree with you, right? Spend your energy with the people that agree with you and that you feel safe and comfortable with first. That builds your foundation, you know, because that's where the energy, that's where the positive action's going to come from.

With climate propaganda and some of the just gross denialism that's coming out of Washington right now is that it's not meant to spark a positive discussion or even a true discussion. It's not even based in the truth. so sometimes it's a waste of our time to involve ourselves with people who are actively denying, because they want to waste our time. They want to pull us out of the game and monopolize our attention and make us feel bad and make us feel doubtful. it's a strategic thing, but really make sure that what I tell everyone is make sure you're first spending time with people that care about you and care about what you believe. So you can work together and be aligned and have a team and have some unity and power. And then just as needed, selectively, you can work with people that are recalcitrant if you need to. But sometimes you don't need to. You need to bypass them and work with the people who want to make change. But it's easier said than done because I think at a primal level, we're drawn to want to connect with these other people. But it is ultimately, you know, later in the book I talk about action and so this all does come down to very important questions about strategy. But that's a different, you know, that's a later conversation, that's a more advanced conversation than identity. But again, when people are new they jumble all this stuff up. So part of the process is disentangling this and saying, first take care of yourself, then clarify your identity and values.

Heal where you're really feeling hurting, how to reclaim happiness, and then based on all of that, what is your action identity going to be? And that could change again and again, depending on the new technologies we have and what the circumstances are in your stages of life. yeah, it's a little bit of challenge to slow people down and say one step at a time, you can do this. This is a lifelong thing. We're not gonna solve these problems this week. Yeah, it's a lot. Does that make sense what I'm saying?

Pihkala: Yeah, yeah, it definitely does. This fact of humans being social creatures often shows in people's need for the other to agree with the approach they are taking on things. And of course, if a climate denier is not completely on that side, there's, you know, many people who have this dissonance and uncertainty in them. And while they are apparently just saying that they are certain that climate change is not a threat, are, many of them sort of asking for others to help them in denying climate matters. So it's sort of way of trying to get support for their take.

Doherty: It's interesting and what you're saying reminds me of, I think for some of our listeners where this becomes really difficult is in close families because we have multiple alliances and duties. Part of our alliance is to keep our family connected and to keep us together and it's very painful when families become split and schismed. And so it's really touchy. So the question is, what's more important, keeping the family together or telling the truth? You know, or keeping us healthy? And right now we've got messages here, particularly from the right in the US that's... It's all about, you know, you're with me or you're against me and you need to believe in a certain way and you can't say certain words. Otherwise, you're, you know, you're going to be ostracized. And so it's really dangerous. But I do think that one of the things that I think about also is not fighting people who don't believe. Not debating, but just listening. Like I say in my book, if I run against someone who really is strongly somehow denying...

I mean, there are stages of denial. Like, someone can deny the seriousness of climate change or not like certain policies, but that doesn't mean you're denying the very reality of the atmosphere and greenhouse gases. But you might also find people that really are truly uninformed or misinformed about the basic science of our planet. So what I tell myself is if they don't care about climate, these issues, then they must care about something else more. So what is it that they what is it that they care about more and I asked them and I talked about that. I don't have to agree with them, but it does change the conversation around and then we often can hear because they care about their family.

I'm a combination of a cynic and an optimist because I do feel like people do have a healthy core inside. Ultimately, they are mostly healthy, but they get twisted around. But just letting them say what they care about. Sometimes people have other political values that are being threatened. There is a reality testing, reality based thing that will happen. Like when I'm talking to someone, I this happen with a very old friend during the recent political election. We hadn't talked in some time and we were chatting and I realized that he really had a very different political belief than I do. And as we talked, I was hearing what I thought was conspiratorial thinking and I didn't think his position was truly based in what I understand to be objective reality about the world.

And when that's the case, you just have to be careful there because you're like talking to someone from another planet. sometimes you just have to stop and say, well, we're going to have to agree to disagree because this is my life and this is what I'm doing and what I think is important. So I'm going to pursue this. if I can't convince you, then I'm going to wish you peace and wish you well, but I'm gonna move forward. Because otherwise, it's not helpful if someone doesn't understand reality. If I told you, Panu, you don't understand reality, I know reality better than you, that's not gonna go over very well. You're not gonna like that. So there is a time of just saying, I'm not gonna fight this battle. And then I'm gonna move to my allies and with people that really are wanting to push forward. Does that make sense?

Pihkala: Yeah, it perfectly does and gives an occasion to say tribute to Robert J. Lifton who passed away some weeks ago and a collection of his writings or parts of it is called Losing Reality. So that's a very, I would say, unfortunately timely read for the time in which we are living. And you have a chapter about family in this part too. listeners, you will find more content about family dynamics from that chapter. And there's lots of prompts and exercises for people to think about their histories in relation to how they have been connected or not connected with the natural world. there's the eco timeline exercise that we have mentioned several times and which I think is highly useful. Telling your eco story and your eco family tree. I guess that could be linked with also telling them history of your social and political participation or non-participation. I guess that might be a strand in itself.

Doherty: Yeah, luckily a lot of people have positive mentors and connections in their family, people that they really admire. And so it's nice to really honor those positive elders that helped us, grandparents, parents, relatives, neighbors. And I do talk about the conflicts that I lean on, the work of William Doherty, the family therapist who does the Braver Angels, which are political partisan discussions, and the different roles that people take on in the family in these discussions. He has these great names. There's the sniper, which is the person in the family that makes outrageous statements and starts to cause conflicts. And then there's the gladiator, the person that wants to fight the battles and the bystanders and the peacekeepers. so a lot of the family therapy concepts are quite applicable in these climate debates and we can take on all these roles ourselves.

Pihkala: Yeah, yeah, and think easily recognizable by people who think of large family dinners, for example, whether that's over Christmas or Thanksgiving and those dynamics. So sometimes it's got to do with group dynamics and social dynamics more than environmental values. But that's something we have been discussing here also.

You have a chapter on meaning at this point of the book in my life experience that of course links strongly with the topic of spirituality which is only much further away in the book and I don't want to jump there but would you like to say something to the listeners about the meaning chapter and why did you decide to put it as number five?

Doherty: Yeah, you know again it was very strategic like the whole or I think originally that that chapter was called environmental Identity, but then since the whole section was called identity I tried to keep backing up and getting to what I thought were really like basic more timeless concepts because the book is not meant to be just for today. It's meant to be useful for many years. Maybe for your whole life really so I think meaning is a process that never stops. Also the way the book is set up. It's sort of like I introduce an idea in chapters early and characters and case studies and then we revisit at different levels. So there's a later chapter on healthy relationships in the thriving section, which revisits a lot of the family stuff, but on a positive sense. And then there's a chapter on caring for damaged nature in the healing section that builds on the basic nature chapter in part two.

So all of these thing build on themselves and you know ultimately the best way to frame environmental identity is how you make sense of the world—you're meaning, your story, what makes your life meaningful and significant and unique. what's wonderful about it is that you don’t  have to be super outdoors adventurer, you don't have to know how to be a gardener or grow your own food. There's all different ways to be environmentally conscious. And then it prefigures later at the very end when I talk about action,

You know the action chapter again this talk it starts with duty So the first chapter and that is called so that you can see how them there's the meaning that begins section two And then duty begins the action. So it's like these are more timeless concepts. Like what is my duty? And it's hard to know what your duty is of unless you know what your meaning is, know what I mean? And so And then there's the our action identities, which I talk about it toward the end which you know, you could be a climate detective

I tried to offer some basic identities, not tied to specific behaviors because behaviors keep changing and technology is changing but I'd like to some basic, there's the detective role that we can play. Which is sort of like understanding climate change and studying it and also dealing with injustice and the criminal actions that are happening regarding stifling climate improvements around the world. there's that detective, which a lot of people are drawn into. Then there's the hero, climate hero, and that's the people that really have programs. And they say, this is how we solve it through technology and through the people who want to start nonprofits and be innovative. They're the heroes that we love. And then there's the climate survivor, which is just the person making do and surviving these disasters. So sometimes we're placed into the role of just being a survivor when we're dealing with stuff. So anyway, the book has these different levels. And right now, just this week with climate week, all of it was important to me when I was talking to educators, I was really like, you're missing this identity piece. The smart educators, I think, got it, but a lot of the educators were so focused on the information and giving all, especially young people, all this information that they didn't want really building their empowerment or identity. So I think that's important. And then because of the really gross climate propaganda, I think there's a strong pull to push back and to be that climate, climate detected to be that climate hero. So yeah, there's a lot going on. The book is like a Swiss watch that's got all these ideas crammed into it and then you can just keep expanding and playing with it in different ways.

Pihkala: Yeah, that's a nice structure, of spiral and coming back to different teams and building resonances and so appreciating that and the roles can be quite varied in character. Sometimes agents or partisans is what one needs perhaps to do if the general opinion is against you, but hopefully that may not be the case overly often. Purpose is one word that you mention in the meaning chapter and that's going to come up later also, closely connected possibly with duty and also with the idea of vocations or callings and you sort of hint at this by mentioning your experience in Joanna Macy's workshop. We actually discussed that at an earlier episode which was a tribute to Joanna Macy and the work that reconnects. So being a person who has much engaged with spirituality I was glad to this element of sort of deeper, higher self. Taking a look at one's life and wondering about vocations and callings and purpose.

Doherty: Yeah, I mean, the book was written in keeping people like you in mind, because I knew a lot of people who are quite advanced in these concepts would be reading and kind of hopefully seeing what I was trying to do is, as you say, trying to talk about some of these concepts in a way that was accessible to the general reader. But also never straying too far from what I understand is the science and the research and trying to keep it pretty close to what you would learn in a classroom if you were actually studying the basic principles. And you know that's part of my meaning myself and my strength is that I'm a psychologist and an educator and I'm not just and when I can stay with my strength about well this is what I know and this is what I think is helpful and you can decide what you think is helpful you know yourself is to the reader. I feel like I'm speaking the truth, you could say, at least the truth is, as it's generally understood and as I understand it now. So there's a lot of things I'm trying to like get in there, meaning pieces to get in there without sounding too grandiose or dry or intellectualized . We to be careful of all that stuff you know people start to like fall asleep like they're in a philosophy class or something so we want to sort of like keep it keep it real you know keep it keep it living keep it living so that was part of the goal and luckily I had some writing help to try to make sure that it was understood you know for people's not too academic.

Pihkala: That's a great mission and some really beautiful sentences like one at the end of the page where the whole part two is introduced. So which is that “where we love is where we find ourselves”. So that's beautifully said and I think a nice way to start ending our conversation on part two and climate week and times in which we are living.

I hope your travels from New York back towards Oregon go well. I'm going to see a friend in the darkening Helsinki evening.

Doherty: Yeah. Well, I've got one more day here in New York and then and then I'm flying back this evening and I have some trepidation about flights and government shutdowns and things so wish me well here. But yeah, as always Panu, it's really great to chat and you have a good evening and listeners, everyone keep the faith, think about your identity and values. No one can take those away from you. You have your right to think, to feel and to dream and that's the message for today. So everyone, Panu, take care, be well.

Pihkala: take care.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

The Climate Change and Happiness Podcast is a self-funded volunteer effort. Please support us so we can keep bringing you messages of coping and thriving. See the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.

image credit | Jessica Harper

Season 5, Episode 3: The Pathway from Eco-Anxiety to Thriving

Thomas and Panu discussed Thomas's new book, Surviving Climate Anxiety and its messages about coping with climate change by focusing on happiness and thriving. Thomas offered an inside view of the book and how it would benefit readers. He shared insights from his psychology background and emphasized the importance of understanding our emotions and identities. Panu and Thomas also talked about using storytelling to connect with readers and how personal stories can help us understand and tackle climate-related challenges. Join us for a thoughtful conversation about finding hope in difficult times.

Links

• Surviving Climate Anxiety Book 

• Thomas Doherty on CBS News

• Book Excerpt on Oprah Daily: 3 Surprisingly Effective Ways to Combat Climate Anxiety

• Daphne Chouliaraki Milner How to Live With Climate Change Without Burning Out. Atmos

Transcript

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

Introduction voice: Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala

Doherty: Well hello, I'm Thomas Doherty.

Pihkala: I am Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. This is our podcast, a show for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about climate change and other world issues and environmental issues and social issues and political issues and our personal lives. We asked this kind of provocative question about, what would it mean to be happy in the modern world?

Pihkala: Yes, and today we are starting a conversation on Thomas's new book. We have been mentioning that several times in the podcast episodes, but now it's actually coming out in October 2025 with the title Surviving Climate Anxiety, a Guide to Coping, Healing and Thriving.

I'm happy to have a paper copy of the galley, sort of the pre-version in my hands here in Finland and I got the electronic version slightly before. So in the cover, at least of this version, there's a green mountain and a human being on top of it raising their arms and hands to the air as I made it. So does that resonate with some of your feelings after the long arduous work of finishing the book?

Doherty: Thanks, Panu. I really appreciate that. You know, I hadn't thought about that interpretation of the cover, so I'm looking at it right now. And yes, that's that is that is that that's a true that's a good example of a feeling of a climate feeling that I inhabit a little bit, making it making it to the top.

It really, you know, it's also a we made it to the top because someone designed or created that image and suggested that image. So I am aware that behind the scenes, there was like a conversation even about the cover itself and the colors and the and the design, you know. But I do love the cover of the book.

And it was part of the mission of the book to be accessible and to bring some energy of calmness and lightness to these heavy topics. And so I think the art design of the cover is very successful in that regard. We could talk more if you like, you know, I've talked to different people about the cover and their interpretations of it, but it works well as a multi-level sort of stimulus, know, people look at it from different directions.

Pihkala: Yeah, thanks for the reflections and the text is also easy to pick out if you see this in a bookstore or at an internet bookshop. Having worked with publishing houses myself, I know that it's a collaborative effort and for some of you dear listeners it may come as a surprise that authors might not have a final say in relation to the title for example and I know that there was a discussion you had about that also and now climate anxiety and surviving that features heavily in the cover but of course this book is even more widely about living in the midst of the climate crisis so lots of synergies with this podcast and on the pages. There's also references to what we have been talking about here. How would you formulate it, Thomas, if someone asks you what's the sort of mission of this book or what would you especially like to bring to the world via this book?

Doherty: Yeah, I think the mission is, you know, the subtitle speaks to the mission, you know, a guide to coping, healing and thriving. because, the climate anxiety, just like we have talked about many times in the podcast, that that's sort of like is the stimulus. That's what brings you into the space sometimes, that natural sense of anxiety or fear or concern.

That's just the beginning of the journey. We talked about, could we call the book climate change and happiness or, you know, personal sustainability or, you know, so it was really important. I think what's most what's most there's two things that are unique about this book, I think one, the biggest thing is that I talk about being happy and I talk about thriving, which is often not talked about. Much of the discourse on climate change is still sort of stuck in the early stages of we're in a crisis and people are trying to raise the alarm and that is still needed for some for some parts of the population but for much of the world we've been alarmed for years and years and years so the need is for how do we recognize our our moments of happiness while we're while we're struggling.

I think that have that being risky and brave enough to talk about what does it mean to be happy? Just like again, with this podcast is really what's unique about the book. And then also the, you know, there's the sequencing of the book where it's coping. Yes. But then we, know, a lot of it is about identity, you know, and that's the missing factor for most people in their coping is that they haven't been able to clarify their identity about nature, their environmental identity, all their values and their personal history and their childhood experiences and all the things that form them are kind of still unprocessed. They're just in there. So it's a consciousness raising about, you have an environmental identity. So identity is so important. And that even among environmentalists and long-term activists, they haven't really had a chance to do that work. So I think that identity piece is really a key and I think once people have it, then they can use it and grow it on their own.

Pihkala: Yeah, totally agreeing on that. I have been reading and glancing a lot of books about eco-anxiety and climate anxiety, as you know, and we have talked about many of them in the podcast and even interviewed several authors of them. But I haven't seen as much emphasis on identity in other books. think it's a theme which is present in some other volumes, but I do think that's a strength here. And of course for a long time you've been a proponent of the importance of environmental identity and that is something we usually always discuss with the podcast guests also and this general idea of flourishing and striving for happiness also in these troubled times. If that would come from a person who is sort of bright-siding I would be quite critical about that. I've seen some texts on climate anxiety, which are more like, well, you know, don't be so anxious. Let's focus on the good instead. And that's part of the thing, but also the troubles need to be taken seriously. But you are taking the problems seriously and you have long life experience and history. So that I also think is one of the strengths of this book. That's even though there is this emphasis on flourishing, there's also understanding of the darker sides of life. So that's not really a question, but if you want to reflect on that, that's one possibility.

Doherty: Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of parts in the book that are quite dark really in the sense of really trying to look honestly at problems in the world. You know, whole chapter four is on adapting so it's on doing your own personal climate. You know, your IPCC report, your individual problems with climate change report, which actually requires you to, you know, look at how, where you live in the world, what the threats are to you from weather and and upheavals and so it's actually going even deeper into some of these problems than we would even be comfortable doing typically. And then of course the healing section part three is the hardest in some ways the hardest one of the hard sections because that's what we talk about being a hostage politically to a lot of the political propaganda and corruption in the world and dealing with our anxiety, dealing with despair. Dealing with broken places and nature.

And if we're on a tour of the hard parts of the book, where I really waited to put the really, really hard stuff was in the challenges chapter toward the end. And that's really where we kind of list just the many challenges that people are likely to face when they're trying to make positive change, whether it be political corruption, whether it be ignorance or propaganda or entrenched habits or you know all of those things and that if I only wrote that book no one would want to read it you know if only you know and that's how it is with a lot of books that we get we feel like we need to read them out of duty out of some sort of grim duty.

I remember years and years ago, I saw a video from the thinker Theodore Roszak talking about eco-psychology in the 90s. And even then he was saying, you know, we're trying to find something beyond just grim duty, you know, and that was his term. So this book is trying to get trying to we're doing the duty of being honest and looking at these things for sure. And it can indeed be grim but it's not the only part of the process. There's a lot of place for joy and gratitude and contemplation and reverence and patience and compassion, you all those sorts of soft, softening feelings also.

Panu: Yeah, thanks for spending time on that and I love the wording about grim duty and the importance of being open to that full spectrum, not just the grimness of things. And speaking of the difficulties and the troubling, one interesting dimension here is that you draw from your experience in healthcare also. Well it's been a while I think now since you were working full time there but for example the harm reduction approach I don't think I've seen that linked with climate distress dynamics before so would you like to describe that to the readers?

Doherty: Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, the book does draw from a lot of influences that are not traditional because again, working when I was a graduate student, I ended up working a lot at hospitals and health psychology and behavioral medicine. So working with people that were dealing with medical illness, I did my dissertation research on a cardiac rehab unit. So it was people that were had suffered heart attacks or had open heart surgery and were trying to recover.

And anyone who's a who's actually a medical care provider, health care provider knows that many, many cases in the hospital or in the clinic are people that are anxious or depressed or coping. And so you need you need some skills for this. one and one of the big issues is addiction, people that are addicted to tobacco smoking or other behaviors, alcohol where sometimes you can't get them immediately to stop doing the behavior because they're addicted to it and because, you know, all the different structural things involved there.

Harm reduction is sort of like recognizing the harm and shrinking it as much as you can without assuming that it's going to go away entirely. And it's a generally very effective approach across all kinds of health behaviors, whether it be sexual transmitted diseases or alcoholism or drug use or really any problematic behavior. You shrink it. I mean, concretely, if you're smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, that's very terrible for your body and your lungs and will shorten your life. if you can shrink that to smoking one cigarette every six months, you know, at a party, then someone who's addicted to nicotine might be able to do that and still, you know, really be quite healthy.

So it's just flipping it around because often we try to eliminate the problems entirely. And that's a good strategy, but if you can't do that strategy, you need another strategy. That's where harm reduction comes in. And of course, with broadly more accurately with climate change and also metaphorically that the harm reduction model is helpful because we realize, well, I can't, I can't change the state of the world and I can't change the fossil fuel companies immediately or any of these things, but I can certainly do what I can to reduce the harm, shrink the impacts, and then I can also think about that in my personal life. I don't have to be perfect. So it's the opposite of perfectionism.

Pihkala: Yes, sort of restraining from the idea that all problems can be solved in the near future. That reminds me of the work of, for example, Vanessa Andreotti, who I was listening on online at an event in Helsinki last week. They make the very good point that part of the problem are our ways of reacting to problems, our ways of framing problems, including the idea that things can be neatly solved. But anyway, this connects with the idea of living with ambiguity and ambivalence, which we have been discussing a lot in the history of the podcast.

Doherty: Yeah, not all problems can be solved, period. Like life, aging, illness, infirmity. You know, it's challenging to live on the planet as human societies and groups in the best of times. And there are wicked problems and things like that. So it's really about engaging.

You know, part of the section one of the book is very, very basic and concrete. chapter one is how to think. So it's not what you should think, because in my book I'm not telling people what they should think. I'm not advocating for positions per se, but I'm telling them these are, I'm advocating for ways that you could think about things and ways to have, you know, metacognition to think about your thinking and, and be aware of assumptions you're making. So that's where like something like higher reduction comes in because it sort of changes your thinking. It gives you another way to look at problems.

That's a big part of this book is just, you know, getting better at your thinking, getting better at how you're feeling and how you're managing emotions, getting better how you're dealing with your nervous system and stress. So part one is very concrete. It's basic really, even if you're an expert, it's helpful personally to remind yourself to think about your thinking and think about your feelings.

Pihkala: Yeah, and very pragmatic also. So skills of living in a reality like this. And as you know, I'm always happy if people include at least implicitly existentialist themes of living with finitude and those limitations to the human condition. But for listeners, part one in Thomas’s book is called Coping. It has four chapters, Thinking, feeling, calming, adapting. Listeners of this podcast will find many common themes in our episodes also from these sections but also you'll find new information and new ideas and also practical ideas for how to calm oneself down and also how to reframe one's thinking like the upside down pyramid, which we have been discussing with some guests also in this podcast. Thomas, if you think about part one, what are some of the major takeaways? I know that you already mentioned some of them in our talk this far, but what's on your mind when thinking about part one?

Doherty: Yeah, well, you show up, Panu, of course, in the book a fair bit as well. One of the takeaways is the climate emotions wheel and different ways that we think about feeling. So that's an important one. You know, it's the idea of 360 emotions or, know, that we're able to be cosmopolitan in our emotions and really have the capacity to feel intense feelings of all kinds. So whether it be sadness or anger or frustration, you know, to feel what we're feeling as deeply and honestly as we can. That also includes calmness or boredom or reverence or patience. We then get into this idea of emotional regulation and that you can regulate your emotions. So question one is what am I feeling, which is very helpful. And you can spend a lot of time sorting that out with feelings vocabulary. Then the second is what do I want to be feeling, which is more of the aspirational question. Like, well, if I could access some feeling states I'd like to access this kind of feeling or that kind of feeling. So if I'm a parent and I'm spending time with my child on a nice sunny day, I want to access some feelings of joy and gratitude and presence. Or if I'm dealing with a problem, I want to activate my determination and my grit and my creativity. The third question is more of the existential question of what should I be feeling like what is the true feeling that I should inhabit here even if it's uncomfortable or difficult that's where the growth is so that's a good takeaway from the emotions chapter.

Pihkala: Totally agreeing and some of the sentences have lots of beautiful content like this one from its page 43. “As with breathing, we can come into awareness of our emotions by paying attention to them and assigning them words. We can become attuned to their rhythms and even influence their depth and pace”. This is the emotional regulation we discussed above. I like the images of becoming attuned and rhythm and influencing the depth and pace. It's related to this idea you mentioned that we can't fully control our emotions and feelings. It goes back to the surfing metaphor for example, which we sometimes have been discussing here. That as a surfer you can't control all the waves but there's a lot of skills that you can learn how to ride them.

Doherty: Exactly, even the even the master surfers that we marvel at they can't have they have no control over the wave itself at all. But they have control over their angle and approach to you know slipping on top of it. I'll tell you another thing that people have asked me this kind of question and the “how to think: points that I think is really interesting is this idea that we're all familiar with this idea. This is attributed to Albert Einstein that we cannot solve problems at the same level we created them. That's a famous saying from Albert Einstein, which is, you know, really helpful for us. It's sort of if we live in a certain way or had a certain practice that created problems, then often we'll have to create a different way of living or a new practice to not have the problems. Otherwise, we'll just keep recreating them over and over again. So that's a huge insight in itself. But one thing that came to me in the writing of the book was that we also cannot solve problems at the same level we discovered them and that was an insight for myself. you know, because when I discover a problem that I need often to then educate myself more about the issue and build my capacity. So I can then overcome it.

When we discover problems, we're often quite naive and we don't know the whole story. But if you stop there and just start trying to solve right there, you're kind of stuck in the same emotional and thinking system and you're not really growing. So, that I think is really helpful because you know for example as we've talked about many times there's these feelings of grief and loss and fear but that's what happens when we discover yet. That's the feelings of discovery that are happening but the solving requires often different kinds of feelings. So you can't solve problems at the same level of emotional functioning that you discovered them or the same level of intellectual functioning. So that I think is in a nuanced approach that is helpful for people in the book.

Pihkala: Hmm, yeah, very interesting and in my mind links with thinking about processes and trajectories which have been close to me as you know. And one very important dynamic in the book is that you include these case examples of people who come to talk to  therapists, namely you, and you're able to illustrate many kinds of issues people may have in relation to climate matters and also their personal issues via these case examples. And of course, I know that you have been modifying them so that they are not completely recognizable as people but as combinations. Would you like to say a bit about that part of the book?

Doherty: Yeah, no, that's a great one. Let's let's focus on that for the last part of our conversation because that that's another interesting one because that was one of the case stories was one of the initially one of the hardest parts of the book for me to write and the most challenging at the outset and then became one of the more enjoyable processes of the book as well you know, because I'm a clinical psychologist and I'm really trained to be an academic writer and you know, I didn't go to a creative writing program. I went to a clinical psychology writing program. So, I did have literature and poetry experience in my younger life when I studied literature, but you know, graduate school, as anyone knows who's gone to graduate school, they'll beat all that out of you. All of that creativity will get driven out of you to write articles with footnotes and all this sort of academic scientific writing. And it isn't about telling stories really. It isn't about creating characters like in a novel or in a in a nonfiction narrative book. It's really about all the facts.

So even myself, I'd learned to like dispense with all the case studies when I read a book and just kind of drill down and figure out the facts. What is this writer trying to tell me? And I don't need to hear all these fluffy stories of people. But I had to really flip that around for this book because, rightly so, the publishers made it clear that if you want to speak to the public, Thomas, you need to tell stories. That's how people understand. And so luckily I had help. And then of course I did all the characters that are described in the book have a core of a real person or multiple cores of multiple people that were because what happened is I only have one book to write and I couldn't have it was in like war and peace where I could have 100 characters so I only have about 20 so I had to really condense and so some of the characters had to do double or triple duty you know to illustrate different aspects of the problem so there was no one person that I have met that could that could be the only character because we talked about so many things.

But once these characters started to get created they did you know much like in fiction? They took they take on a life of their own like you start to see “How would brandon the character do this? what would they say ?” I came to really love the love the case studies and you know again really nothing's in there that isn't true to life for people and I've actually had people think that some of the case studies were more real than they were. So I had to say, “well, these are composites”. So literally this person that lived in the world, I there isn't a person just like that. But it's based on several people. And just last night, someone, one of my friends who I've given an advance copy said, I really, they wanted to meet Brandon. They wanted to meet this character. I I'm sorry, well, you can't meet them because they don't exist for real. But they felt a kinship with the character.

Yes, it was our friend Greg Hill's birthday yesterday. Just a Panu it will know this. We interviewed Greg on the podcast. It was his birthday yesterday. So I got to spend some time with him and some other friends. We were talking about the book. So, yeah, he could have been because he could have easily in real life, there could be a character like that that would walk into the room and be known by these people because it was.

So anyway, that the characters are really and I think readers will naturally gravitate to certain characters because they resonate with the story and the character and, It's less shameful for us as readers to identify with someone else having a problem than to just put it only on myself. Like Christina, the character who's the really savvy political operator and climate and environmental advocate who really does well in politics and understands policy and all that really was harboring this secret shame that she wasn't comfortable going in the outdoors herself or hiking on a solo hike and just being competent in what she considered to be the outdoors or the wilderness and so really helping her to build that that confidence so she could go do her pilgrimage trip, you know, in Europe. It was really fun and rewarding to sort of, you know, put those stories together because I do think they'll be inspiring to people.

Pihkala: Yes, thanks for spending time on that and I do agree there's lots of things that people can resonate with and human interest will be generated and in relation to the style of the book this also has the benefit of you having to lecture much less because you can describe dynamics via stories and it's always pleasant when there's less lecturing and not to mention teaching in the boring sense. So that brings a lively character to the book and I think that was a great thing to do. Well, dear listeners, as we said this is the first one of several episodes which will be focusing on Thomas's new book Surviving Climate Anxiety soon available at your virtual bookstore. I hope you have enjoyed the conversation. I surely have. Like usually, I've been speaking from the Helsinki evening before the boys come home and there will be family sauna. Thomas how does the rest of the day look like for you? There might be some book related issues I suppose.

Doherty: Well, know, life goes on. actually have, I still see clients in my practice and I've got to go actually talk to one of my clients. So that's keeping me real, keeping me honest. Yeah. And I've got one of the practitioners. I know a young person is doing an internship here in Portland, so I'll get a chance to meet them. And so I get to support some younger, younger scholars and therapists and take my daughter to the dentist and you know do all the life things that we have to do. So that's my day but thanks Panu I really it's an honor to chat with you about the book and I really appreciate it.

Pihkala: Yes, feeling very glad and honored about that. That's to listeners. You can find us at climatechangeandhappiness.com. thanks to everyone who supports us at Patreon. That's an opportunity. And until we meet virtually next time, take care.

Doherty: Thanks, Panu.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

The Climate Change and Happiness Podcast is a self-funded volunteer effort. Please support us so we can keep bringing you messages of coping and thriving. See the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.

image credit | Plastic Lines

Season 5, Episode 2: Lessons From the Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth with Kate Schapira

From Lessons From the Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth

“In 2014, when Kate Schapira first set up a Climate Anxiety Counseling booth in her hometown of Providence, Rhode Island, far fewer people were talking about climate change and its attendant anxiety, leaving those who couldn’t ignore climate change and the forces that cause it feeling frantic and alone.  Seeking a way to reach out and connect, Schapira set up a  Peanuts-style "The Doctor Is In" booth to talk about climate change with her community. Ten years and over 1200 conversations later, Schapira channels all she’s learned into an accessible, understandable, and aware guide for processing climate anxiety and connecting with others to carry out real change in your life and in your community.”

Join Kate in discussion with Panu and Thomas, and learn how you too can create safe spaces to talk, feel and dream about how we can master and move through the climate crisis. 

Links

• Kate Schapira

• Lessons From the Climate Anxiety Counseling Booth 

• Newsletter  

• Bluesky 

• Instagram 

Support: World Central Kitchen

Transcript

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

Introduction voice: Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: Well hello, I’m Thomas Doherty.

Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. This is our podcast to show for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about climate change and other environmental issues. And if you've listened to us, you know that Panos in Finland and I'm in the U S and the West coast and we have guests. We talk about what it means to live in the modern world and ask this provocative question about what does it mean to be happy with climate change and other issues. And part of that is talking about how we feel about things, getting those emotions out, which isn't always easy. So I'm really glad to be able to talk about that today. And I'm honored to have a special guest.

Schapira: Hi, I'm Kate Shapira. I'm a writer and teacher who's become a climate listener out of my own climate anxiety in order to connect with my community. I live in Providence, Rhode Island on Narragansett land.

Doherty: Yeah, and Kate is someone I've been aware of. If you're aware of the literature at all and climate, climate psychology, she's had a great book on her climate anxiety counseling booth, we'll, which we'll talk about. Panu and I love meeting people that have been doing this work in different innovative ways. So it's really nice for us to connect and listener you can kind of join in listening on our conversation today. We're recording in the summer 2025. It's a beautiful day where I am right now, but there's a lot of troubles in the world as well, and it is a heat wave here. So, you know, we're enjoying ourselves and then we're carrying a lot of things. But that is our life. So Panu, do you want to get us started with Kate and our conversation?

Pihkala: Warmly welcome, Kate, also on my behalf. Lovely to be talking with you. I have been following your work since the late 2010s and have your book here with me in Helsinki. And dear listeners, we are also going to talk a bit about comics today, which we don't do often enough. Peanuts by Charles Schulz will be mentioned today and it will remain to be seen in what connection. But Kate, it would be lovely to start by talking a bit about your background. All of us have our own journeys towards being more aware of climate crisis and all the things that are related to it. Would you like to share with us something about your own journey and relation with the modern human world and climate change and emotions and so on?

Schapira: Absolutely. And also thank you both for having me. I'm so glad to be here. I feel like my sense of the climate crisis became acute in probably 2012, 2013. And there's sort of two simultaneous origin stories for it. The one that I tell the most often is about reading an article, an older article about oral bleaching and It was one of the first things that I had ever read that spoke about climate impact in the past tense. So not, this is going to happen if we don't do X, this could happen if we don't do Y. was like, this has already happened. And the ability of these reefs to regenerate and survive is in some cases in doubt and in other cases, we know that they cannot. And that really threw me. I cried a lot. I was at work. I was in my office waiting to speak with a student. We were in tears, went out into the hallway. My coworkers were very kind, but they didn't seem to understand why I was so upset. And I remained upset. I cried at work. I cried at dinner. I sat on the couch and cried. But you can't do that forever, Sooner or later, you're gonna need to figure out something else to do.

And for me, part of what got me unlocked from it, so my husband James Kuo is a cartoonist and illustrator, and we have a lot of these Peanuts by Charles Schultz's collections around. And so I was looking at one of those and I saw that Lucy, one of the characters, has this little booth that says, psychiatric help, five cents, the doctor is in. And that just kind of got mixed up in the duct tape ball of my mind to think what if I made a little booth and set it up in a public place in order to talk to people.

There’s some there was some precedent for that in my creative practice. I did a lot of poetry on demand when I first moved to Providence. So I'd set up with a little table and a little typewriter. Sometimes as part of like an arts festival or something at the museum, sometimes just for funsies. And people would come up and say, would you write me a poem about changing my name? Or would you write me a poem about this show that I love? Or would you write me a poem about faking my own death? Never gonna forget that one. And so I was in the habit of creating this like small collaborative spaces to have conversations with people that were a little bit out of the ordinary. And that helped me construct this little container to have some of these conversations. In downtown Providence is where I started right across from the big bus station that our city has at the entrance to a park.

That's the sort of official origin story. The less official one, which I have spoken about, but I do want to bring it forward here because it's a little it's a little heavier and some listeners may resonate with it more, is that before any of that happened I was corresponding with a poet friend who was very much in a state of grief and anger of the same degree to the one that I reached later. And I told her I couldn't talk about it. I asked her not to talk about it. which wasn't the right thing to do. But I didn't have a way to talk about it with her in a way that I could handle. And I pushed her away. When I started doing my own learning about how bad you could feel, what was going on, and then how to talk with people about it, I eventually did reach out to her again and say, “hey, I screwed this up and I'm really sorry. I wish I could have been there for you.”

Doherty: Yeah, that's beautiful. Thanks for sharing those multiple levels. Yeah, and think a lot of people could identify with both of those things. It's not easy. We've talked to people about it, know, an eco wake up or a waking up syndrome. And if you've had the syndrome and you've gone through it, then you certainly understand it. But it is kind of a paradigm shift to do this.

Yeah, there's a lot there to unpack. I think to bookmark just your, from therapy, we would say your “symptoms”, like you were crying that day. That was an intense emotional experience for you. And then I was really curious about how you did the booth. I know it's kind of like a performance art. I see it as like a performance art kind of thing. I've seen people do poetry on demand. I've always thought that would be a really challenging thing to do. It's like slam poetry or something where you have to make up something on the spot. You used your strength, like you channel your superpower. Panu, what do you think? Where are you interested in going with our conversation?

Pihkala: Warm thanks, Kate, for sharing all that, really appreciated it. There's lot of connections with various emotions and also people's journeys or trajectories. One of the tools I've been working with a lot over the last years is the so-called process model of ego anxiety and ecological grief. There are some connections to that, moving from semi-consciousness to awakenings and then the shocks included in that process. And I think all of us can resonate at least in relation to non-environmental themes with experiences of letting somebody down and perhaps not first realizing how badly we've let somebody down, but it's also very human when it comes to very difficult topics.

So just wanting to validate that also, that it's no wonder that many of us often have failed to really be there and listen. And I think that if one reaches a state of intention to later do something about it, that's very, very valuable. I'm also glad to hear that you reached out to the person later on. And would you like to share something about that later communication? How did you feel about it or how did it go?

Schapira: As I remember it it—it was pretty quick and light. She was at an event that I was doing not for the book, but for something else. And I saw her there and I spoke from the stage that I recognized this shortfall in how I'd responded to her. And she accepted that, which I appreciated.

Doherty: Did you feel some lessening of your own guilt then from that?

Schapira: Oh, no! You're asking the wrong guy. But I am glad I did it because I know, because it was the truth, which I think is important, and because it was the right thing to do.

Pihkala: Yeah, thanks for being open about that also. I'm reminded of a younger colleague and doctoral student, Anette from Finland, who is researching ego-emotions from a psychoanalytic perspective, which is not so common these days in Finland. Other schools of psychology are more prominent, but she has a great story of talking with climate issues with her aunt who first was totally unable to listen to any of that. But then she tried to channel psycho-dynamic wisdom, building a sense of safety and acceptance and speaking gently from one's own experience. And then one day in a sauna, which is a typical Finnish place for deep conversations and deep sweating, the aunt said that, “I've realized that I've been so horrified by the whole theme of climate change that I haven't been able to take in what you have been saying”. So that was really profound I think that she's been talking about this openly with her aunt, Annette (Mansikka-aho is her last name) the relationship of her own to climate matters didn't change completely but I regard it as a great psychological and psychosocial achievement that she was able to vocally say what kind of psycho dynamics were present. So that took some time but wanted to mention since the theme of fifficult conversations is much present here. Would you like to continue Kate by telling us and the listeners a bit about how has the journey with the booth has been for you? You set up a booth and what happens with people?

Schapira: I will tell you that, but I’d like to first response to something you said about difficult conversations. I'm Jewish. I come from a Jewish family. And I had a conversation last year with my cousin. have a boy cousin who's the same age, about how to talk to the relatives on his side of the family about Palestine. When he would try to bring it up, people would become very closed and very insistent on the things that they had learned and the things that they had taught that were a justification of violence, increased violence from the Israeli government and military. And we were sitting on the roof of the building where he lives and it was a hot night, it was summer. And I remember asking, you know, well, how did you come to change your mind? How did you start to know that this wasn't right, that this wasn't something that should continue?

And he talked about stuff that he'd read by Palestinian writers, starting to read some history, getting a picture of life there that he hadn't had access to as a young man growing up in an American Jewish community. And I said, well, did you used to think some of the stuff that your other family thought and thinks now? And he said, yeah. And I said, well, do you think that maybe it would work to say, hey, I used to think that too, or I used to feel that way too. And this is the thing that made me change my mind. And I think he's done some of that. I think some of it has worked and some of it hasn't. know, people are deep in, and I think that the conversation that you relate about your colleague and her aunt really shows this, people are deep in what they don't wanna know, what they don't wanna feel even more. Right? They don't want to feel that. People don't want to feel that they were wrong about the commitments that they've made or the courses of action that they've been taking. And so offering people an opportunity to watch you have been wrong and make a shift, I think is a great gift. And even if people aren't ready to accept that in the moment, it's still a a good offering to make.

Back to your question about the booth, sometimes that's a tactic that I will use. I will use that method. If somebody comes up saying something that I don't get a lot of like climate deniers, occasionally I will get some climate change trivializers. Sometimes I will also, people will come up just thinking something that isn't true, like thinking that something is more important than it is or less important than it is. And so that's a moment when I might make that invitation and use that method to say like, yeah, I used to think that too. And here's how I came to change my mind.

And an example of that, again, if you don't mind my saying, is that, I'm somebody who came to quote unquote, “environmentalism:, the way that I think a lot of upper middle class white Americans do, which is what I am. You know, I read Ranger Rick magazine, which is like a nature magazine for kids listeners my age might remember that. You know, I lived in a place where there was a lot of like plant and creature activity and my mom and I would enjoy the plant and creature activity together. We'd walk in the woods.

We still walk around the yard and check out what's going on with all of the plants and creatures every time that I go home. But I did not develop (and through the booth, I did develop and other things that I'll talk about in a moment). How humans also have a responsibility to one another in this moment. I had a pretty strong sense of like human nature relations and the responsibility that humans might have to the more than human world and the living systems that we're part of, but I really didn't have a strong corresponding sense of how other humans were also part of that system and how part of addressing the wound, right, that exists in our present moment is setting right human to human relations in conjunction with setting right human and more than human relations.

Doherty: I'm glad you talked about the background in the Ranger Rick because that's always another of our questions is the deeper background, the seeds of this kind of stuff. We have these deeply held values that we take over our lives and when that coral bleaching story broke through like it really pierced some of those values that you had developed over time. I think people are practically cursed with these deeper values. I'm sure you find similar deeper backgrounds when talking to children and elders and parents at your booth. So your background is as a writer, a poet, an educator, I assume, right? Professor maybe. When you did the booth, did you have any counseling training? Did you see it as counseling or did you see it more as just, “I'm just gonna do this creative thing.”

Schapira: Well, the counseling is obviously partly a joke. It's a reference to the peanuts cartoon. And one of the things that I realized, again, I didn't go into it thinking this, but I realized this as I continued to do it, is that Lucy isn't able to offer psychiatric help any more than I am. Lucy isn't a psychiatrist. Lucy is a child. She is wildly unequal to the situation that she is making claims about. And that is true for many of us in this in this climate moment, right? In what Grace Lee Boggs calls like “this time on the clock of the world”, many of us are feeling profoundly unequal to the situation that we're in. And so the joke of the sign ended up being kind of funnier even than I originally imagined because it was a way to say, yeah, I don't have all the answers or even like two, but I have some questions. Maybe we can ask those questions together.

 I will also say that I had had, not, I wouldn't call it counseling training, but I've had some listening training. I staffed the sexual assault hotline when I was in college. As a teacher, I'm often listening to what my students are telling me about what they're dealing with and what they would like to, trying to help them figure out what they would like to do about it. Not in a counseling way, but just in a like, I'm,

receiving the full picture of what you're dealing with kind of way. And I got a lot better about that as the years of the Booth have gone on. I think when at the beginning, I was maybe more inclined to give advice or to argue very much too early in the process. And as I think many therapists do also, although again, that's not the training that I have, I got better at first making sure that the person who's talking with me knew that I was hearing what they were saying.

Doherty: Yeah. Yeah. And I wasn't I wasn't implying that your work was less than because you're not a training as a counselor. There's a funny thing about some of this work because this is just human conversation. You know, it's just human listening. So it's kind of like emotional intelligence is another way you could have called it emotional intelligence booth about climate change or something. And then yes, we have these specialty areas, but then a lot of artists do work with the public that is therapeutic. Like it's not therapy but it's therapeutic. I'm thinking of that artist Marina Abramovic which I think you know who just sits with people and people line up just to sit and be you know share presence that's so profound and all that kind of stuff. Where do you find yourself going with your family or your personal life, your creative writing or your book or you know where where's your edges now? Let's shrink it down to whatever little micro edge that you want.

Schapira: My God, that's such a large question. One thing is when I had been doing the booth for a few months, and this is chronicled in lessons from the climate anxiety counseling booth as well, someone came up to me and said, we're having a meeting tonight about stopping this liquid natural gas facility, this liquefied natural gas facility in the Port of Providence, is toward the southern part of the city. A lot of industry is already there. It's also very close to where many people live and it's very close to the major hospital complex in Providence, including the only level one trauma center in the state. And they want to increase the amount of liquefied natural gas that's flowing through. And they want to build this facility that is in the floodplain and is going to worsen the risk for constructions that are in the floodplain. And they want to run highly explosive methane fuel through it. Do you want to come to this meeting and talk about what we're going to try to do to stop it? And so that was the beginning of the thing that I was talking about before realizing that part of this work is figuring out how to protect and sustain the lives of other humans, as well as of coral and squirrels and turtles and redwood trees, all of which I love, and learning that many of the same things that sustain those things are also helpful and necessary to the sustenance of other people. Many of the same things that threaten those living creatures also threaten the lives and sustenance of other human people.

I continue to be involved in trying to support the lives and sustenance of other human people.in the place where I live. I'm connected with a number of community efforts to do that, which I can talk about a little bit more if you're interested. So that's one thing that I'm doing. I've become very attentive to, and to some extent involved in things like comprehensive plans for housing and construction and infrastructure in the city where I live. I sometimes say that climate anxiety is a community problem with community solutions.

And what I mean by that is partly, let's speak with each other. Let's listen to each other. Let's find out what each other are dealing with and let's be responsive to that. But it also means things like rent stabilization and building affordable, energy efficient housing. It also means things like creating a path to that housing for people so that they're not going to have to sleep outside and then get swept away in the next hurricane or die of heatstroke in the next heat wave. This is a community task that we're taking on. If people are on the move because of climate effects on the place where they live, I would like there to be enough housing in the place where I live to accommodate everyone who's already here and to accommodate the people who are coming in so that they won't be feeling a scarcity that is threatening and not necessary. So there's inner work that you can do, and I encourage people to do it, that has to do with questioning your feelings of scarcity, recognizing feelings of sufficiency, recognizing feelings of sufficiency. Learning what you value and appreciate about the place where you live and want to sustain, learning what aspects of that might be malleable or you might be able to get that sustenance and satisfaction in a different way. That's all inner work and relational work. It's something that you can talk about with other people. It's something that you can invite other people into. You can have social times about it. It's also something that needs attention at structural, infrastructural levels and the structural and infrastructural work is harder to do if you haven't done the relational work.

One of the things that struck me as was starting to read your book, Thomas, is you really stress the reason to contend with and incorporate your emotional responses to climate impacts is so that you can show up as your best self with the people around you in the moment that we're in. And so I think the value of having a lot of these conversations and the importance of having a lot of these conversations is so that when we have to contend with things like housing policy or a city budget, we're doing so as our most generous and present selves.

Pihkala: Thanks for all that, Kate. think that's wonderfully put. And the book, Lessons from the Climate and Exciting Counseling Booth has a really powerful social dimension and kind of eco-social justice dimension in it. And in my view, very nice weaving together the inner and the outer and including some of the spiritual aspects also. I don't know if you would call it that yourself, but that's what I would call it. And discussing many emotions, including the role of anger and determination and emotion regulation by getting angry on purpose at times, which is a nice theme and not very much discussed yet in relation to ego emotions or polycrisis emotions or whatever we call them. But I think that the theme of being with people where they are is a sort link between what you did with the booth and what you're doing in the social networks and avoiding hierarchies and that sort of thing, but drawing from people's different skillsets and expertise. Warmly endorsing all that myself and learning. More from it and listeners, if you want, connect with earlier episodes with Bob Doppelt and Susie Moser, for example, who are participating in similar kinds of movements.

Schapira:

Yeah, I find a lot of those frameworks very useful also in thinking about how to have these conversations with people and connect and be attentive. I'm very grateful for that. Also really, really appreciative. Many of the people that I quote in my book, but I've also been really appreciating the book. I've also been really appreciating the work of Bayo Akomolafé, who writes about a kind of undoing of certainty and an undoing of human supremacy. And many other writers and thinkers, Kyle Powys Whyte of the Potawatomi Nation writes a lot about working with the urgency that many people feel in the face of climate impacts like this is happening, it's barreling down on us, it's already injured the place where I live or it's already injured people that I know I have to do something, why aren't we doing something? And the request to be more attentive to what is already being done, what has already been done.

And I'm thinking, I'm trying to make sure I paraphrase him correctly, because I really do encourage people to be attentive to this, notice when your own urgency is maybe setting you up for a mistake, to focus your effort in a place that won't be effective or that will harm someone else. The comparison I sometimes use is like, if you're running to catch a train, right? You might bump into someone and the person you bump into might be, let's say, an elderly person who's carrying a lot of bags. It's not worth it to catch the train. It's better to help that person with their bags instead of bumping into them.

Doherty: Yeah, that's great. We always say we wish we had more time. We're coming toward the end of our time. But this has been a great little, thanks, Kate. It's been a great little inward insight into your life. So many themes, but listeners I just want to kind of try to encapsulate this a little bit. There's this hero's journey image that we know about. I talk about it a bit in my book and the master of two worlds is at the end of your whatever journey you did, you have to come back to your community and do something with this knowledge.

I think Kate, the idea that you went through the counseling booth phase and now you're working on these real things in your community, I think makes perfect sense. And I think that's what's going to be the thing for listeners. There'll be times when we're learning and on our quest to figure this out. And then we're like, OK, now I need to enact something.

Kate, seems to me you threw yourself into that as an artist or poet, you risked throwing yourself into that booth, you know, like without a net, like doing a trapeze without a net. So that was like the hero's journey there. And then Lucy, I need to go back and look at peanuts cartoons because I remember Lucy being a bit ornery and she would hold the football for Charlie Brown and he would try to kick it and she'd pull it away. So, sometimes we think we're going to kick something and that we land on our butt. Anyway, this has been really great.

Listeners, we're going to put some links to Kate's work and, you know, people like Bayo Akomolafé who we need to get on our podcast. And there's all these cool thinkers out there. So we'll put some links and Kate, we'll get links from you and this episode will come out soon and we'll get it out into the world.Kate, thanks for your time coming from the East Coast and Panu from Finland. I'm going to head off and do some of my own manifesting work here. Where are you all going now for your days?

Schapira: I have to print something out for somebody and then I'm actually going to do some climate listening down in Warren, Rhode Island, which is a town in elsewhere in the state that's really menaced by sea level rise and stormwater flooding. And they're thinking about who will be able to stay in their homes and are there streets that are going to become less navigable as time goes on? The predictions are that there are going to be parts of town that are less inhabitable. And so talking with people about what neighbors can do, what the town might be demanded to do, and working with a local organization to meet regularly to plan those things together.

Pihkala: Wow, that sounds excellent and really enjoyed the conversation with you, Kate and Thomas, as always. My evening is first for an hour discussing contemplative practices and Earth awareness at an international working group and then I'm heading for the sauna with the boys. So that's my evening.

Doherty: All right, long day. Well, anyway, we're all doing our part and listeners, I know you're all doing your part too. So be well, you can find us at climatechangeathappiness.com and Kate and Panu and listeners, take care.

Schapira: Thank you both so much for having me.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

The Climate Change and Happiness Podcast is a self-funded volunteer effort. Please support us so we can keep bringing you messages of coping and thriving. See the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.

image credit | Juliane Liebermann

Season 5, Episode 1: Youth and Intergenerational Connections – With Sarah Newman and Larissa Dooley of the Climate Mental Health Network

Thomas and Panu were joined by Sarah Newman and Larissa Dooley of the Climate Mental Health Network. Sarah discussed her long-standing personal experience with eco-anxiety, and how it influenced her life choices and led her to establish the Network. Larissa, Director of Research and Programs, first learned of climate change's psychological effects during her graduate studies; the increasing frequency of wildfires in California later motivated her to devote her research to addressing the mental health impacts of climate change. The group discussed how Panu’s insights on climate emotions and grief have been influential on the Network’s programs. Thomas emphasized the importance of sharing personal journeys and highlighted the inspiring nature of stories that led to the mission-driven work many individuals undertake in response to climate threats. See the show notes for helpful resources for teachers and parents from the Climate Mental Health Network. 

Links

• Climate Mental Health Network

• CMHN Resources:

• Climate Emotions Wheel 

• Toolkit for Middle School Educators 

• Climate Change and Kids' Well Being: A New Guide for Parents and Other Caring Adults 

• Future Climate Collective 

• Future Council Documentary 

Transcript

[on vacation]

imaged credit | Ted Johnsson

Season 4, Episode 28: Remembering Joanna Macy

Thomas and Panu reflected on the profound impact of Joanna Macy on their understanding of environmental emotions and activism. Thomas highlighted Macy's role in transforming environmental engagement from an intellectual pursuit to a visceral, emotional experience. He shared a personal story of meeting Macy and read an excerpt from his new book describing one of her workshops he attended as a graduate student. Panu reflected on his experience of Macy's legacy, noting her influence on modern conceptions of eco-anxiety and empowerment, and her integration of Buddhism, ecology, spirituality and systems thinking. The discussion also highlighted some of the challenges adapting Macy’s methods for broader audiences and pitfalls of idealizing Macy’s “The Work that Reconnects” and its cultural background and  assumptions. The episode concluded by encouraging listeners to engage with Joanna Macy’s transformative teachings for themselves. 

Links

• Trip Gabriel (2025, July 23)  “Joanna Macy, Who Found a Way to Transcend ‘Eco-Anxiety,’ Dies at 96” New York Times

• Rebecca Solnit (2025, July 21) In Honor of Joanna Macy, 1929-2025

Transcript

[on vacation]

image credit | Annie Spratt

Season 4, Episode 27: On Raising Anti-Doomers with Ariella Cook-Shonkoff

In this enlightening episode, Thomas and Panu sat down with Ariella Cook-Shonkoff, a licensed therapist and author of Raising Anti-Doomers: How to Bring Up Resilient Kids Through Climate Change in Tumultuous Times (2025). Ariella shared her journey from motherhood amidst California wildfires to writing a book that empowers parents to foster resilience in their children. Panu Thomas each reflected on their own parenting, and enjoyed hearing of events on Ariella’s “eco-timeline” like her childhood outdoor experiences in Connecticut and her opportunity to meet one of her idols, Jane Goodall. Join us and learn more about Ariella’s positive approach to parenting in the climate era. 

Links

• Ariella Cook-Shonkoff

• Selected Writings

• 2025 Raising Anti-Doomers How to Bring Up Resilient Kids Through Climate Change and Tumultuous Times

• Salon 2023 Grieving together, and also apart: A Jewish American wrestles with identity, belonging and trauma

• Grist 2021 Here’s how to talk with your kids about climate anxiety

• Glamour 2019 I’m Not a ‘Natural Mother’—And That’s Okay

Transcript

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity.

If you appreciate the Climate Change and Happiness podcast, be sure to preorder Thomas Doherty’s new book, Surviving Climate Anxiety: A Guide to Coping, Healing, and Thriving available at an online bookseller near you.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

Introduction voice: Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala.

Thomas Doherty: Hello, I'm Thomas Doherty.

Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. This is our podcast, a show for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about issues like climate change, changes in the planet, changes in the weather, and changes in our lives and in our families. That’s our territory to talk about and Panu and I get to meet a lot of people in the world and collaborate with people. And today, we have a person that we both know and I'm really proud to introduce a special guest.

Ariella Cook-Shonkoff: Hello, my name is Ariella Cook-Shonkoff, everyone. I'm a licensed therapist, both an art therapist and an eco-therapist based in Berkeley, California. And most recently, I have a book coming out called Raising Anti-Doomers: How to Bring Up Resilient Kids Through Climate Change in Tumultuous Times.

Doherty: We're really glad to talk to Ariella. She’s someone we've both interacted with. Ariella has been in an eco and climate conscious therapy group that I did some time back. It’s a personal pleasure for me to see colleagues writing books and putting themselves out. I was able to look through Ariella's book and we'll talk about that. But it's nice to see that this work is getting various treatments in people's lives and people are moving forward on this and in therapy. So, a lot of good things are in the pipeline here. Panu, do you want to get us started?

Pihkala: Warm welcome, Ariella, also on my behalf. Lovely to have this chance to discuss with you and I really love the wide range of content in your book. Before digging deeper into that, we'd like to ask you something about your journey to becoming a person who wrote this kind of book. Would you like to share something, how has it been with you and the modern human world?

Cook-Shonkoff: Absolutely. Well, I guess this journey began for me back in 2018 when I came into motherhood and around the time that wildfires were intensifying in Northern California. I had just had my second daughter and I was returning to work after maternity leave. There were nearby wildfires, and the air was thick with smoke. It was this kind of combination of going back to work and sitting in an office with clients where no one was really talking about what was going on outside and also the vulnerability I felt inside leaving my child under these circumstances. There’s a sense of safety, even though, where I lived, we were fortunate, and we didn't have direct impacts. You feel like, am I safe to leave my child? Can I really separate from them? And isn't it strange that no one's talking about the elephant in the room right now? So, that brought me on a journey into writing about it and I'd already been freelance writing for some time about motherhood mostly, but I started to really focus more on climate and parenthood. It's eventually led into this book project and the book that's finally coming out this year.

Pihkala: Thanks for sharing that and there's a lot that I can also personally resonate with. My kids are just a couple of years older than yours. Also in Finland, what Lindsay Galway has called ‘climate of silence’ was quite heavy and also silence around the emotional dimensions of those issues. Can I still ask you if you look back to your own childhood and youth, what role did the modern human world play for you, or did it have a role back then?

Cook-Shonkoff: I love this question, Panu, thanks for asking it. Yeah, it had a starring role in my childhood, actually. I grew up in a small town in Connecticut that felt pretty rural, and I spent a lot of free time in the woods behind my house, with the kids in the neighborhood, by the creek, I was out. And it was a value of my family, so my parents took us on hikes. That was pretty common for us. I was just outside a lot, in the modern human world. I loved animals at an early age. Actually, funny enough that you asked this question because in writing the book, I realized how this is reintegrating my life in adulthood in a way. I even went through a period of activism in my teenage years to do with animals and environment. So, it's really been a common thread.

Doherty: What kind of activism were you involved in when you were younger?

Cook-Shonkoff: Well, I was the only member of my family to become vegetarian at age 14 when I learned a bit more about factory farming. I started writing then for junior and senior year op-eds in my local paper, just a couple. But I then went on to become one of the presidents of the environmental club, and we did various things, such as picking up trash around town and eventually going to marches—well, maybe was more in college, now that I think about it. But yeah, we held Earth Day events in high school. We were active. This is really cool. I don't know if this is in my book, but Jane Goodall, her organization, Roots and Shoots, was this youth environmental program that opened in my town, Ridgefield, Connecticut. I was interviewed on the panel with her and got the privilege of meeting her in this interview and it was really cool. So yeah, there was a lot.

Doherty: That's great. We’ve done this eco-timeline kind of idea where you can trace your life. So, writing this book really does fit onto your timeline.

Cook-Shonkoff: Absolutely, yeah. As I went deeper into this work, I realized how it harkened back to my early years. And just my emotional experience throughout this, even listening to Greta Thunberg's words, it conjured up in me some part of my younger self that felt like her in a different way because it was a different time but felt indignant. Like, what are grown-ups doing? Why don't they care more? That’s a really good point about that eco-timeline. I love that tool, Thomas. So, thank you for introducing that to me.

Doherty: Yeah. Okay, so here's a standard question you'll probably get a lot going forward. But with Raising Anti-Doomers, I love the title because it really puts out a message. It puts out a call-to-action kind of thing of all the ways of thinking about this topic. How did it coalesce into this idea of raising anti-doomers? I know that's a big question, but what comes up for you about that?

Cook-Shonkoff: It's interesting because you don't know about what it's like to write a book until you get there. And I will say that as I got to the end of my book, in what's probably now the last chapter, I was talking about how we can do this and what's this positive frame for how to raise kids in this way. It's almost ‘Teflon-like,’ to be strong and resilient and to be able to withstand the bumps and the turbulence and all the uncertainties that exist in the world right now. I'd love to take credit for selecting it for my title, but I can't because it was plucked by my editor who had that foresight. And I actually love the title. I wasn't sure at the beginning. It's a strong title, and I think it's great in the end. The scope of the book is broader than climate, which I also appreciated heading in that direction. It wasn't my original intent, but that's how it developed.

Pihkala: Of all the rich contents in the book, if we would start by helping the listeners to get some overviews or what would you say are some of the fundamental principles or messages in the book?

Cook-Shonkoff: I'll mention that there's some graphics in the book, some illustrations, that I had a lot of fun conceptualizing, but I think really helped the reader go through the book. One being the parent identity spiral. So, it's like suddenly you're a parent and kind of what happens along the way. I'm not going to go through all the steps, but what happens along the way to become an engaged parent, focused on social issues, including climate. Like, how do you kind of stay engaged. I think that's an important one.

I think that the main takeaways, if I were really to boil them down to three simple messages would be that number one, it starts with you. It starts with the parent and being willing to go into the darker emotional places and really grapple with their feelings, not to avoid or make excuses, but really to go there and be able to kind of find ways to regulate themselves so that they're able to co-regulate their kids. So, I think that's number one, it starts with you.

And number two, I would say is to do something and make it sustainable and not be so perfectionist about it or well, is this really enough or I've got to do all of this for it to be worth it. It's so easy to talk yourself out of any action, but it could be so small. I'm sure we could all come up with some examples, but something around the household. Maybe it's just not getting food out from restaurants in the takeout packages because it's the single-use plastic and reducing that, or maybe it's on a grander scale or writing a letter or going to protest, but it could be really small. I think that's important to recognize.

The third point is really to keep coming back to the source of what replenishes you, what builds resilience. I have a lot of self-care exercises in the book. There's that self-care acronym, which is kind of a riot, but that was for my own personal development of it. I came up with this and was like, oh my gosh, maybe this is something I should throw into the book, because it's kind of fun. But whatever it is, spiritual, creative, physical, that really grounds you and brings you back to yourself so that you can reset when you get off the rails, which can happen.

Doherty: Yeah, did you create the ideas for the book with your own children first or did some of these ideas just come out of your family life? I know with the book that I worked on, the heart of it was really my training that I did with the public and different slides and different images that were resonant. And then of course you have to explain it all in the book. But did it start with things that you had figured out with your kids?

Cook-Shonkoff: I'd say it was a smattering here and a smattering there because I work with kids in my practice so there's some from there, some from family life, some that literally evolved alongside the book or came out of the pandemic because that was a time I was reorienting and doing things differently.

Doherty: Yeah, I've been looking through your book and now I'm more attentive to the figures because you've talked about them, but maybe we could talk about this one and literally unpack it. The pellet, the climate emotions pellet—when I saw that, I thought, that’s a really kid friendly image. Let me not say more, let me have you say what the climate pellet is because I think listeners may appreciate it.

Cook-Shonkoff: Oh my gosh, it's such a funny one. If you remember dissecting owl pellets in school, which we certainly do in the States, I don't know about where you are, Panu.

Doherty: So, owl poop basically.

Cook-Shonkoff: It's the regurgitated pellet. An owl eats different animals whole, like these tiny moles or whatever they are. But they have all the bones in the fur, and everything goes down into the stomach and eventually they regurgitate these pellets that have the bones and the fur. Anyway, I did take inspiration from childhood in different ways, and this is after I came up with the concept of the climate emotions pellet, but my child literally brought home an owl pellet and dissected it for homework on the kitchen table. So, this really does happen. But the idea being that there's a lot of different feelings that we're experiencing to do with climate change or many of us are experiencing and it's a mess. It's like a hot mess that's complex and we don't know what's what. And so, I like the idea of imagining these tweezers, like a tool in the science lab, and you're plucking out emotions and trying to distill, okay I'm looking at the illustration now. Okay, this grief that I'm experiencing or what about the awe that I sometimes feel when I'm out in nature. There are all these different feelings like the anxiety that I feel about the state of the world. And so, trying to distill those emotions, it’s like that emotional granularity idea. Then, once you can identify them and know what they are, there's some relief in that. I think it can be really overwhelming to have an unidentified mass in you. And then it's the idea of metabolizing emotions too, right?

Doherty: Oh yeah, for sure. What do you think, Panu, this idea of regurgitating? That must have some resonance in all the different research you've been doing lately.

Pihkala: Yeah of course. The Climate Emotions Wheel in which I cooperated with the Climate Mental Health Network is of course one very practical tool for observing various emotions and being able to name them even roughly. Emotional granularity is a growing thing discussed in climate emotion research. I think that's great to provide resources for people to do that. In the book, you're also looking at major questions about life and the world that people are asking, of course, for children and young people, that's part of human development. But being a parent, well, first of all, becoming a parent is quite a cosmic event to borrow a wording from Bayo Akomolafe, this very interesting thinker who has also written on the ecological crisis and becoming a father and many things. And then also realizing that kids will have to face existential challenges which can evoke existential questions and emotions in parents also. Perhaps that might be the next topic. Would you like to say something about these developmental challenges and big existential questions?

Cook-Shonkoff: Yeah, that's a big one. You're holding, as a parent, some of these existential realities of where we're at and for yourself, first and foremost. But then, when you have a child or children more innocent, kind of vulnerable lives. I think it can invoke more fear, but it also can really motivate you in a certain way. I really wanted to speak to parents. I had been speaking with somebody, Jill Kubit, who's the founder of Our Kids Climate. And she said, we're uniquely motivated as parents to do something about this. There's a unique motivation. Many people without kids are very motivated but there's that sense that you have of your heart and your desire for your worry about your own child. Are they going to be okay? What's going to happen 30 years from now or 40 years from now? What's the world going to be like? How do I raise them in a way where I can prepare them as best I can for the challenges that are unknown. I think that there's a real delicate space there and an opening and also an opportunity because I think ultimately parents want to engage and want to do right by their kids. They want to take care of them.

Pihkala: Thank you for sharing that. I think that's very wise. There's been this discussion in books related to the topic about whether these sorts of calls to be an honorable parent or grandparent work and if so, what style is needed. For example, George Marshall, the climate communicator, discussing these ads which are playing with the Second World War framings like what did you do in the war, daddy or grandfather and then applying that to the climate crisis. Well, I'm not very fond of the war metaphor here, but Marshall, for example, is quite critical of this kind of messaging because it operates so heavily with a guilt and shame possibility. And for some parents, it can cause a desire to distance themselves if they can. So, I would personally agree with what you say about the inner desire to provide a more sustainable world for the offspring. But then in situations where communication happens, it seems that people need a lot of safety so that they can go there. Perhaps guilt or the threat of guilt and shame may do it for someone, but I'd go more for the safety dimension. But anyway, I wanted to say that aloud and hear what you think of it, Ariella.

Cook-Shonkoff: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. There was a period where environmentalists had some shame and blame, like is that going to get more people involved in the environmental movement, at least in the US? And that didn't work very well. I don't think that's the wisest path. I think that tapping into parents’ or families’ values or motivations is the way in. It’s a more hopeful and positive approach rather than saying, come on, you got to do it or we're all going to die or we're all going to suffer. That’s going to shut people down, right? I mean, you can speak to this too.

Doherty: Yeah. Your book doesn't make that mistake. It doesn't sound preachy or guilt-laden at all, which is really nice. I really like images like the pellet because it's very kid friendly and I like it's a catharsis to spit out a pellet and it’s not intellectual, it’s very visceral. Like we do have to spit out these emotions and really look at them. So, I think that that really works well. The nice thing about your book is that it gets back to the body all the time and stress and physiology. You’ve done a great service. Then, this idea of a parenting club seems to be a way to not be isolated. Would that be the idea? What would be an example of a parenting club?

Cook-Shonkoff: Well, I'm speaking really broadly about anyone who's a parent or a caregiver, who's taking care of kids is part of this network of parents, this parent club. It's massive. I said in the intro, and I heard this from someone else. It was passed on to me when I was pregnant with my first child. Like, what's the parent club? I always remembered that, and I feel so connected to other parents in many ways and I continue to feel that way. I think there's so much potential in this social network. There's so much potential and I know we all have our different skills that we can bring to the table. I think on community levels, I've been interested in exploring that. I won't get started about all my local endeavors, but coming together and caring about something and saying, what are we going to do about this? And hey, what skills do we have? And what do we bring to the table? And then not only that, by having the parent club level, but then having an intergenerational level where we can involve our kids.

Last weekend, I was out in my park across my street with other parents and kids in my community. We were making signs, art, and stuff about democracy. We had art making music on and we're going to see what we do with the posters. We might use them in a rally or hang them on our garage door. There’s much that can be done. I do think that if we can get a groundswell of parents who are super motivated saying, I want this for my child, I want this for future generations, I want to leave a lasting contribution, generativity, right? That whole idea of making the world a better place or leaving something behind, like a legacy. If we can get all that together, then wow, I think it could be a tremendous boost to the climate movement and social movements in general, whatever the causes.

Pihkala: Yeah, that's very wisely put. One thing I really appreciate in your book is that you're not just recommending action as important as that is, but you're also recommending parents to model engagement with emotions and model rest and self-care. And after all, self-care has a strong history in the work of Black feminists, who argued that it's a very political emotion because it's providing resources for those opposing injustice. Would you like to say something more about this sort of encouragement to build resources and practices for rest and self-care?

Cook-Shonkoff: Yeah, I think it goes back to this point I was making earlier about coming back to the source. As motivated as parents are, we are to do something but if we burn too hot, we're going to burn out. And so, it's essential to temper that with self-care, whatever you do. I don't love that term; I think it's really overused. But it does say what it is. So, can you find ways to ground yourself, to reset yourself periodically. I think on a regular basis and it’s best if you can schedule that in and really know like, I'm going to do this on Monday or this on this day and have several practices a day if you can. It can be really short. It can be a five-minute meditation. It can be a walk around the block. It can be listening to music. Anything that brings you joy or spending time with somebody that you care about. Be critical to take that time and ideally, find ways in whatever way you can. I know that not everyone can access it for different reasons. There's barriers, unfortunately, in our society and inequities, but do whatever is possible, because that reset will mean everything in the long term and being able to do this work for the long haul.

Doherty: Yeah, it’s great. This has been really great because it's helped me to really get clear on the book and it’s anti-doomer so it's not just climate. Like you say in your subtitle, resilient children in tumultuous times. It really is the best strategy, which is not to focus on one threat, but to focus more on, like I say, your life is the news and start with your family, your life and make that a good place and then let it ripple out into the world. Your book does have, I think you talk about it, this internal locus of control where you're bringing it back into the family and into the body. So that's really great. Well, congratulations. We've got to wrap up here today. What's your next adventure for the book or your next challenge that you're getting ready for?

Cook-Shonkoff: Oh my goodness. It's like I'm just coming out of this adventure so I'm not even sure I could tell you what it is, but I think I'm curious to see what emerges.

Doherty: Well, you’ll have, I guess what they call in the US, a soapbox. You'll have an opportunity to talk about this stuff and there will be a window where you can bring attention to this through interviews and stuff. So good luck with all that.

Cook-Shonkoff: Thank you so much.

Pihkala: Yes, it’s easy to agree on that and warm thanks for the rich conversation and all the wisdom here. Dear listeners of the podcast, if you want to connect with some earlier episodes which deal with similar kinds of themes, there's one with Jade Sasser, for example, and one with Britt Wray. There will always be so much more to talk about, and we didn't go into the art-based methods stuff that we know, Ariella, you are very fond of but something for the future.

Doherty: Well, anyway, Raising Anti-Doomers by Ariella Cook-Shonkoff. And I know it's available out there already for pre-order and it's coming out sometime in August or something like that. So, we'll make sure we time our episode for your book launch, and we'll put links and things like that in the episode notes. Ariella, good luck, and Panu, have a good evening, and listeners, be well.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

Hi this is Thomas Doherty. If you appreciate the conversations that Panu and I have on the Climate Change and Happiness podcast, be sure to preorder my new book, Surviving Climate Anxiety: A Guide to Coping, Healing, and Thriving. I’ve gathered insights and strategies I’ve learned through my career in an engaging and accessible format for the public. Whether you’re new to the experience of climate distress or a seasoned environmental veteran, you’ll find something useful you can take with you for now and for the long haul. You’ll find Surviving Climate Anxiety at all the major online booksellers and in stores this fall.

image credit | Mick Haupt

Season 4, Episode 26: Coming Back to Climate News after a Vacation

Thomas advocates a news and technology break for people to enjoy their summer or holiday time; to reconnect with nature and their family; and replenish their own thoughts and dreams. But what to do when you come home? In this episode of "Climate Change and Happiness," Thomas and Panu Pihkala explore their own intricate balance between staying informed about global climate events and maintaining personal well-being. As they discuss the impacts of climate change—such as the recent deadly floods in Texas, and heatwave in Helsinki—they emphasize the importance of personal rituals and mindfulness in navigating the overwhelming news cycle. Join them as they delve into strategies for maintaining awareness without succumbing to despair, and discover how personal experiences and connections can serve as a grounding force in turbulent times.

Links

• Panu’s Rituals 

• Finnish summer cottages or mökki

• Summer cottage video game 

• Simple text news 

Transcript

(on vacation)

image credit | Jennifer Marquez

Thomas and Panu were joined by environmentalist Isaias Hernandez, creator of Queer Brown Vegan. Together, they explored the profound impact of identity on environmentalism, discussing how personal backgrounds, cultural heritage, and lived experiences shape one's approach to climate issues. Isaias shared his journey from growing up in Los Angeles as a first-generation immigrant to becoming a voice in the climate movement. The conversation delved into the intersectionality of race, identity, and environmental advocacy, and revealed the challenges and micro-aggressions faced by diverse students of climate science. A key take away was the importance of finding and claiming your unique place and style, not just taking in science and research but making it your own and sharing it in your own voice. Tune in to discover how embracing your identity can empower you to engage more deeply with environmental challenges.

Links

• Isaias Hernandez 

• Queer Brown Vegan on Instagram

• Teaching Climate Together Web Series

• Isaias and Panu Discussion

• Climate Mental Health Network Grief Resources

• Animation: The Dance: Living with Eco-anxiety

Transcript

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

Introduction voice: Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: Well, hello. I'm Thomas Doherty.

Pihkala: And I’m Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. This is our podcast, a show for people around the world who are thinking, and feeling, and acting deeply about climate change and environmental issues, as well as their connections with nature and the planet. Of course, that includes connections to our bodies, ourselves, our families, and our communities. And so, we're starting with this provocative question: What does it mean to be happy in the modern world and what does it mean to be happy in an era of climate change and then we go from there. And today we are really excited to have a guest with us.

Isaias Hernandez: Hi everyone. My name is Isaias Hernandez and I'm an environmentalist and the creator of Queer Brown Vegan, an educational media climate platform.

Doherty: Yeah, and you might have heard of Isaias if you're at all thinking about eco and climate issues, but Panu and I are familiar with his work and he's coming in from LA. So, we're just going to have a conversation today, personal and professional, much as we do. Panu, do you want to get us started?

Pihkala: Warmly welcome, Isaias, also on my behalf and lovely to see you again. We've had the pleasure of cooperating collaboratively with the progress of eco-anxiety and climate emotions and that's been wonderful. We often start this podcast by asking something about the guests' journey towards the place and identity where they are now. Would you like to share something about how you became who you are now, especially in relation to environmental issues?

Hernandez: Yeah, my passion for environmentalism is quite unique. Growing up in Los Angeles, as a first-generation immigrant kid, my parents were actually farmers from Mexico. So, for them, they actually had much more rich ecological relationships with the land than myself, I would say. And, when people ask me when did you realize you were an environmentalist, I actually didn't really identify with that word. I grew up watching Nat Geo and Discovery Channel, seeing biologists, conservationists, and all these amazing scientists around the world traveling and talking about their work. But I always told myself, I don't think it's possible for me to really do that because my situation is different and they're the true experts. They've studied the field, and they got the degrees. So, I think that got my curiosity of having parents who always wanted me to get a good education, they said we don't care what you do, and we just want you to follow what you truly want. So, I had the privilege of saying that my parents didn't care where I went for college, they just cared that I got a degree and that I actually chose to study what I want and that I end up getting a job.

I think it was in college when I was learning environmental science that I actually started to get more passionate about the subject and realize this is really what I truly want to do, and this is actually what I love. But one thing I felt the disconnect in academia is, how does this really relate to my lived experiences, but also the experiences of my other colleagues in these classes. We don't really relate to that, and I think that when you're graduating college, you have this illusion of I got my four-year degree and I'm going to work at one of the biggest green environmental NGOs (non-governmental organizations), and I'm going to become this famous scientist. And that really wasn't the case for me. I actually worked in a research lab in academia, and I absolutely did not enjoy my time doing it. I studied lizards and evolution and ecology, then I did food system work a year later for my senior thesis. I think after graduating college, I realized that social media was a way for me to actually delve into telling my own stories without feeling like I needed to be a scientist or a policymaker. I'm just an individual talking about these issues. And I think it was really unique to me that during that time there were barely any environmental creators online, but also people with lived experiences and the academic degrees that I had that were really getting to that. So, I would say I didn’t really fall into the role of an environmentalist until I was maybe 23, when I started to realize, I do think I'm an environmentalist. During college, I kept thinking, I’m still learning about how to be an environmental scientist, so I don't really know what that actually means or if I have to go to a master's program for that.

Panu: Yeah, thanks for sharing that. That's fascinating and a great example of how different backgrounds can still give resources for people to be intimately engaging with these issues. We have a video in your “Teaching Climate Together” series where we discuss climate emotions and the process model of eco-anxiety. There you tell a bit about the emotional dimension of this journey and also in relation to your college experiences. Listeners, I warmly recommend that video. Would you like to share just a bit about that since our podcast is so heavily geared towards the emotional dimension?

Hernandez: Yeah, absolutely. The “Teaching Climate Together” web series is a media project and initiative under the flagship of Queer Brown Vegan, where it was actually inspired back in my early days of social media when I would do infographics in 2019 of deconstructing climate words. So, it would be like, what is eco anxiety, what is climate grief, what is climate doomerism, and after a while of doing that for the first few years of my early career, I had a lot of followers asking if I could create videos on this. I said, I'm not an expert and didn't coin these words. I'm not a mental health researcher. Why would I put myself in these spaces when I don't have that background? And my team was actually very interested and kept saying, why don't you just interview the experts that already exist in these spaces and create an interview or like a web series show about it? People would watch it. And so that was actually the thing that got us to do “Teaching Climate Together.”

In our specific episode, which is the fifth episode, we were looking at the emotional dimensions of climate change in response to generations of people. And it really quite shocked me that there's very limited, and I think Panu, you can agree to this, but when you Google online for any videos around climate anxiety or emotions, there's barely any videos. There's a lot of recorded digital webinars and panels, of course, which are absolutely needed. But when you look at the personal relationships of saying to myself, I'm going to use myself as the client, Panu is like the therapist in a way, but also the research and the expert, how do we add a personal story to it? And it was really quite shocking how many people were messaging me after that episode and saying they really resonated with the fact that you got someone who was in the older field of the industry that's an expert, but you got a young person who understands some of these words and these experiences and you wove them in together to make sure that whoever's watching this video, whether you're someone younger or older, can relate to either Panu or they can relate to me.

Those are exactly the type of conversations a lot of young people today are having. It's like we feel embarrassed to talk to older people about these types of relationships or issues that we're having, or we sometimes feel almost neglected by the systems that it's almost like the adults are saying, you need to figure it out. When, in reality, it's not the truth. Adults are telling us that we actually want to talk about this because we are also experiencing eco-anxiety. And I think that really shifted the relationship of how young people see older people. Yes, I have eco-anxiety, but you also have eco-anxiety. And that does not make us less than or less human. It actually makes us more connected to the issues that we're trying to address.

Doherty: Yeah, excellent. Yeah, so many themes that are coming up that we can explore today. Just to follow up on the last point, it is a stereotype that younger people are more concerned or more aware than elders. When you look at the research from Yale Climate Program, there's a fairly equal percentage of people who are alarmed or concerned about climate in the population, whether they’re young or old. Likewise, there's a pretty equal percentage of dismissive people among young and elders as well. So, it's a stereotype that doesn't serve us because I've known many elders who have devoted their whole lives and careers to environmental work, and they have been doing this for ages and they feel incredibly deeply about these issues. Bringing the two ends of the spectrum together is super powerful. But because of technology and our social structures, we tend to be divided by social media and the way our culture is. That’s a larger story we can't get into, but I think one of the themes today is finding your place. It sounds like, similar to a lot of people, you had to struggle to find where do I fit in. And you were either lucky enough or capable enough to find a niche for yourself and then it goes from there. Once you start, there's a synergy. I had a question—Queer Brown Vegan, I would call it your brand or your platform, is obviously provocative. It seems maybe less provocative now than it did a few years ago, but could you say a bit about that because it seemed like that was almost like a manifesto or something that you were putting yourself out there.

Hernandez: Yeah, it's funny because traditionally, as a scientist myself, that comes from academia. I tried to claim Isaias Hernandez on Instagram, but it's already taken. So, I kind of struggled already to establish my public figure name. But I think the Queer Brown Vegan name actually came back in 2019 because during the time I remember in higher education, I was told never to talk about my identity and that race didn't matter. But then there were a lot of microaggressions that I would experience not just from my professors, but from my lab mentors or my lab grad students would say certain things to me that I just felt so visually uncomfortable. And I think this is something that’s a shared experience with a lot of people, whether you're a marginalized person in academia. There's certain things that were said to me that just never sat right with me. Like I had a professor once call me Mario, even though he knows I'm Isaias and the other guy who’s Latino that's on the other side of the classroom is named Mario. And it was just like those examples of dehumanization in academia. Yes, it shouldn't matter that someone misnamed you or said the wrong thing and said sorry, but it does matter because there's this ultimate sense of respect that needs to be given to students too, just as we give professors their accolades and their respective titles. But I think Queer Brown Vegan really came out of the fact that I just wanted to be very visibly like yes, I'm part of the LGBTQ community because in science people would be like, is he gay or what is he? People would always want to ask, and I just felt like what does it matter, I'm a scientist and that's really what I came here for, not for you to discuss what my identity is. And then second was the brown just being like yeah, I'm a proud Mexican person and I navigate the world. And I think the vegan part was actually funny. It's just that I had gone vegan just recently after I graduated college and then when I was coming out with the brand name, I was just like queer brown green or queer brown earth and I just said, you know what, Queer Brown Vegan just weaves in together, but it's very dynamic in your face. And I think at the time, it represented a lot of my early 20s and mid 20s. Not to say it doesn't represent me now, but I think it's always really interesting because people look at me and ask, well, what are you and then, they look into my work and they're like, you do climate education, that's very interesting. And they learn about my background, and they learn about the science that I have and everything. And they're like, okay. So, I think for me, like young people today, we're just very experimental on how we want to present ourselves to the world, but we're also not too serious because we recognize that social media is just a form of art for us too.

Panu: Yeah, that's fascinating. Warm thanks for sharing that and doing that. It reminds me of this book, which is nowadays quite widely read in environmental humanities, Nicole Seymour's Bad Environmentalism, which sort of challenges some of the standard tropes and frameworks of communication in the environmental sphere. It has tended to be too wide and sometimes too serious so, a certain queer playfulness, if we call it that, is very welcome for environmental communication. Also, it reminds me of the connection between education, communication, and advocacy. And that's a sort of language challenge because we don't usually use the word education for adult audiences, even though there is the subfield of adult education, but people tend to think of children and young people. But if we are trying to positively influence someone that's technically education, but for adult populations, it's perhaps voiced as communication or advocacy. But for my part, I see the work that you are doing as a sort of resonance of education, communication, and advocacy. If you want to speak to that, please do. But I also wanted to ask about this brown dimension and Latino environmentalism and your social media, which by the way listeners is very popular, there’s over 120,000 followers on Instagram, for example. So, I've gotten a window into Latino environmentalism which has been very educational for me. I wanted to ask you about your experiences of this broad and diverse field of Latino environmentalism.

Hernandez: Yeah, I think one of the reasons for being able to just lean in more to my identity is recognizing that Latinos are one of the most marginalized groups affected by climate change. And I think the issue with Latino communities today is that we're very vulnerable and susceptible to misinformation and disinformation. So, when I was looking in the environmental media sphere, even in the climate media sphere today, there's barely any Latinos that have bigger platforms. I could count maybe less than six or seven of us of Latino climate Americans that are representative in the U.S. And it was really saddening because I get a lot of messages from young Latinos or Latinas telling me that it's really hard for them to see themselves in these fields at times because as we know, environmental majors are not historically diverse if you look at any college from different universities across the United States. A lot of them ask me, how did you survive knowing the fact that there's no one that really looked like you or the professors were not representative of who you were? And I think it's a testament of when I talk about these Latin issues, I try not to just give them the science and data and say, this is what you should be listening to but also to relate it back to the culture.

One of those events that I recently produced here in Los Angeles Climate Week was called Climate Chisme to really bring together how we talk about gossip in our communities, but through a climate lens and get people informed. And this isn't about a climate panel and learning about why Latinos should care about climate change, but to talk about how gossip and storytelling has been used to protect our communities from floods and wildfires and to make sure that our neighbors have each other's backs and to create these types of systems of care. And I think that it was really resonant with so many people who attended the event because they had never seen it before. But two, I think that it's a testament of where we're at right now. We need all different directions to reach out to our communities and my direction is through community building and cultural storytelling. Not to say that the science and data isn't needed, because it's always needed. However, the science and data are what communicates to me, but it doesn't communicate to my mom who may not have that science degree or background and she's just trying to get through her daily life. So, we have to have these different strategies to be there. But also, for me, it's a really huge thank you because if I would have seen someone online who looked like me when I was young, I don't think I would have had so many doubts in academia every day thinking I don't think I'm good enough to be here compared to a lot of my other colleagues who came from very prestigious backgrounds and just knew what they always wanted to do like go to law school or to grad school. I had to figure out everything like how to do these things because I didn’t really have any mentorship or people who look like me.

Doherty: Yeah, this is great. And listeners, I know there are people out there that are identifying, and you don't have to be a Latina or Chicano to identify because Panu and I both dealt with this too. We've talked about this a lot on our podcast. People are trying to study these interdisciplinary issues, these intersectional issues and it's difficult to find a pathway through the disciplines and stuff like that. So, this intersectionality is really key because the difficulties in academia are intersectional, not just because of our culture, but also because there's no good department and the academic system to deal with these issues. We've been talking about this on the podcast recently with people, even established scientists, who were trying to study when they were younger. So, there's an age of intersectionality because young people come in with these new ideas and they can't find a space in the academic system. The psychology department says we don't study the environment, go to environmental studies and environmental studies are trying to be biological scientists and really hardcore experimental people who say they don’t do that emotional stuff, that’s for psychiatry, especially with anxiety or depression, you have to go to the psychiatry department for that or the social work department and they say, we’re too busy dealing with major mental illness or we're dealing with the houseless population and the fentanyl addiction so we don't have time for you. So, you just do this runaround—and if you're queer and brown, it's even worse.

Hernandez: Yeah, definitely. I think for many people, they identify with me, even if they're not the same race or identity as me. A lot of my followers always say they're very scattered from different generations, but I will say that a lot of moms always show up for me and they tell me they are teaching their kids about climate anxiety and climate education. I would say mothers have played such a huge role in being huge advocates of my work. I think there's definitely a lot of gratefulness for older generations showing up in that way.

Panu: Yeah, that's great to hear. Moms and grandmothers are some of the foundations of human communities after all. Some organizations have happened in the climate sphere. In Finland, we have Ilmastovanhemmat for example, climate grandparents organizing for climate action. But of course, their role is much larger and wider than just organized NGOs. Looking back, Isaias, to your active years, there are already many, but what comes to your mind as some of the very memorable moments on your journey, perhaps now in relation to the emotional and existential dimension of these issues?

Hernandez: Yeah, I think some of my most memorable moments are just when it comes to the planet and my relationship to mental health, I remember being a sophomore in college. I think I was 19 at the time and I think we talked about it briefly in the episode where we first learned the term eco-anxiety. I told you this, I laughed. The first reaction was laughing at it. I said, are you kidding me, people actually deal with this? And I laughed but then I talked to my friend who was next to me, and she was really scared, and she was telling me, I've been dealing with this for years, Isaiah. And we actually talked about it, and I think that was really a pivotal moment for me to recognize how many differences people have in terms of not their lived experiences, but how we can easily disregard different types of mental health issues. My mental health issue was actually the fear of not having enough money. So, I worked multiple jobs. My fear was I don't want to get kicked out of my housing and I need to pay my bills. I had more financial anxiety. For her, it was a different situation where the finances weren't really an issue for her. Her studying in this field and learning more about the depressing news that we were learning as young environmental scientists was a reality for her. And I think for me, I didn't really prioritize climate change and mental health for me because at the time, I had to deal with my own financial anxiety first.

So, when I learned that it actually helped me become more empathetic towards people and understanding that we all have different situations in life. And yes, some others have different forms of privilege, like me, do I have privilege being a male? I think to me, it helped me contextualize how we show up better for people, even if we don't understand each other and don't come from the same worlds. I think that's really helped me build the platform I have today. My platform is really focused on educating rather than interrogating individuals. I think in my early years, my writing was very aggressive. I remember some of my followers telling me that we love that we learn, but sometimes you sound mad. And now, over the years, I think I've really come more into who I am in my late twenties. And people say, I love that you're very slow in your writing and you don't judge me, and I feel like I can ask you anything and you're not going to tell me anything bad. I think those are the moments and I think with the web series, especially with our climate change mental health episode, it opened up really huge opportunities, not just for myself, but for young people to start talking about these subjects of matter in their own classrooms, which I thought was really fascinating. I remember a follower sent me a message saying, my professor is screening your episode and now a hundred of us saw it. And I was like, that's embarrassing, well not embarrassing, but it's like in those moments I didn't know that people were watching it. So, I do think that's a really pivotal time. We're headed for not just a cultural information era, but a connection era where we're trying to bid for connection and truly accept that connection for each other.

Doherty: Hmm, that's great. I'm glad you brought this up because we have a little bit of time left. We don't like to unpack two big issues at the end, but there's this phenomenon of dealing with shame, either feeling shamed or shaming other people and the microaggressions and all this sort of stuff. I'm thinking about an experience I had where there was an organization in Portland called Vive, which was a Hispanic environmental group here. I was doing a workshop with them a few years ago, and I led people in this environmental identity timeline exercise, which I do with people where they plot out their life and all their experiences in nature. It was a totally mixed group. Isaias, you would have fit well in there because half of the people were Hispanic, Chicana, of Mexican heritage, some were first generation, second generation, but with very discreet environmental experiences. And then the other half were all white environmental folks, who were more upper middle class, and then comparing people's eco timelines such as what people took for granted in terms of privilege about camping, being in the outdoors versus just basically needs and dealing with access issues and racism and stuff like that. There was a lot of shaming on the white people's side. They felt almost embarrassed that they were so lucky to have such a nice life. So, that just comes with the territory, but it seems like you're able to handle that like and it sounds like you're more sensitive to even your own passions about how you come across to people. Isn't shaming a short-term strategy that just shuts things down in the long run?

Hernandez: Yeah, I think it disempowers any movement building and I do think that there's certain types of people that are able to ground themselves in those conversations. As I've gotten older and have worked with so many people internationally and also domestically here in the US that come from different economic brackets, I think there's a lot of things that I had to do inward for my own healing of why am I acting this way or why am I trying to put it this way? And I think that's where humility in this generation and especially my generation, it’s not that it's hard to be built, because we've become such a secular society with these technological tools and not saying that social media has destroyed our mental health, but we've entered the very comparison culture and I think it's very hard for young people. It's like they're inheriting both the world that's not as stable as they were told that it was going to be, but at the same time, the people that are trying to really understand the realities.

Like even with my own best friends, who come from way different economic brackets from me, when we actually learned about our lives personally, they didn't understand how much I've had to go through to get to where I'm at but also how much they went through in their personal lives to do what they're doing. It’s not to say that my story is more superior than theirs or theirs is less than, but it's more to understand we can still love each other no matter what. And I think it's really hard to go back to those human roots at times because I think our political differences and our economic differences can try to separate us. But I have mentors who are older who have really guided me with rough conversations, and I think that's the importance of intergenerational friendships. I have friends from different age groups that have really changed the way I think and I'm very glad that I did that versus trying to just hang out only with young mid 20-year-olds or late 20s. My friends are from the ages of 20 to 60.

Pihkala: Yeah, great to hear and I think there's deep wisdom there. And I've been quite struck over the years by eco-psychologist Bill Plotkin's model of ecological centric human development, which is most extensively developed in his book Nature and the Human Soul. And there comes the idea that we also need elders, but basically people from all kinds of ages and there's developmental tasks and strengths associated with various ages. So, I’m very much resonating with this intergenerational cooperation and learning that compassion and humility. You've spoken about your environmental identity in your work. For example, we have a common love and interest in picking up mushrooms or foraging. We are coming close to the end of the episodes, even though there would be a lot more to talk about, but that's something I wanted to bring up. Would you like to speak a bit about that relationship to the land that you have and is partly shaped also by your family heritage.

Hernandez: Yeah, I think growing up, I was not really an outdoor workout kid. I was always the slower hiker, the walker in the family. My family is very athletic, but I ended up being the non-athletic one. I picked up foraging because I saw it as a way for ecological reverence. I think as a kid, I always looked at things on the ground. And I think there was this moment when I was in New Jersey living in the forest. It’s a perfect area to forage throughout the seasons or winters since there’s sometimes mushrooms there. I just picked it up and I remember just learning through how to forage different colors of mushrooms and berries in the summer season. I'm not good with plants but my mycelium is more my thing. It was really cool because when I was doing it and taking pictures, I showed my dad and my dad was like, it’s funny you said that because your own grandma actually used to forage for mushrooms in the forests of Mexico and she really loved doing that by herself and it's so weird that you picked it up. I said I didn't know that, and you don't really talk about our grandma because my grandma passed away from my dad's side at a very young age, so it was really hard for him to speak about it. I think that's one way I kind of honor my environmental identity and could reconnect with my roots even if it's not the area my grandma lived in. I think there's a way to honor your ancestors through that. And also, just teaching people about foraging. I think it's my favorite thing to do. My family thinks I'm weird for doing it sometimes, but I think it's funny because they want to just get to the top of the mountain, and I want to take my time to get there.

Doherty: Lovely. Yeah, there's so many intersections and physical ability is another unspoken intersection, not so much even just basic. I mean obviously there's different abilities, whether someone is able to walk or is in a wheelchair or things like that. But even just your preference about whether you're ‘outdoorsy’ or athletic or not is a huge unspoken stereotype in the environmental world. And a lot of people feel left out. I can't be that person because I'm not climbing a mountain or something like that. So, we've got to wrap it up. But this was a great episode. So, listeners, under the surface, we all have our origin stories, and we have our ancestors and our strengths and weaknesses and our little microshames that we have to share. So, Isaias, it's really a pleasure to have you. As always, we could do more and maybe we can do some more again in the future, but I want to wish you really well in your work and we'll be linking to a bunch of stuff in our show notes too. Listeners, we’ll have a bunch of links to various things you can follow-up that we talked about today. Panu, thank you very much for your time as well.

Pihkala: Warm thanks Isaias and as always Thomas, it's been a great pleasure to take part in this conversation.

Hernandez: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Doherty: We'll be in touch with everyone. Everyone, be well and take care.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

The Climate Change and Happiness Podcast is a self-funded volunteer effort. Please support us so we can keep bringing you messages of coping and thriving. See the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.

image credit | Tina Kuper

Season 4, Episode 24: On Grief and Mourning for Animals with Panu Pihkala

Thomas learned about Panu’s recent research with Elisa Aaltola on animal ethical mourning and how this relates to feelings people have about pets and companion animals, farmed animals and wild creatures. Like many of our emotions about nature and environmental issues, natural feelings for kindred species are often ignored, suppressed or disenfranchised (not recognized and given standing) in human-centric society and economics. Ways to enfranchise grief for animals includes being honest and bearing witness, creating art and rituals, and sponsoring community activities. Being open about your moral commitments for fellow animals, and your love, care and empathy, can bring a sense of relief, honor, rest, peace and grace. This can free up your energy and commitment to change society's practices about our fellow creatures. 

Links

• A Tribute to the The Passenger Pigeon – Memorial in Wisconsin’s Wyalusing State Park

• Art Exhibition: Kindred Spirits: Honoring Animals in Death 

• Amanda Stronza: Animal Memorials 

• How to cope with the death of your pet

• Pihkala, Panu, and Elisa Aaltola. 2025. ‘Animal Ethical Mourning: Types of Loss and Grief in Relation to Non-Human Animals’. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 12 (April):1526302

• Pihkala, Panu. 2024. "Ecological Sorrow: Types of Grief and Loss in Ecological Grief" Sustainability 16, no. 2: 849. 

Transcript

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

Introduction voice: Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: Well hello, I'm Thomas Doherty.

Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. This is our podcast, a show for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about climate change and other environmental issues and different tumultuous times that we're all living through. This is a podcast where we have asked this provocative question of what it means to be happy in the modern world or what would it mean for us to be happy in the modern world. Often to do that, we must go through barriers to happiness, and we have to deal with things that are not happy so we can figure out how to make sense of them or how to make peace with them. And that's kind of where we're at today. Panu, as you all know, if you've been listening, is always studying different interesting things about emotions in the world. And one of the areas that Panu has been working on is grief and loss regarding animals and other animals outside of the human animal. So that's what we're talking about today. So, I'm going to be interviewing Panu about this research. So, let's jump into it. Panu, you’ve been doing some research and we'll put information in the show notes about feelings of loss and mourning and ways to be ethically mourning loss and grief related to non-human animals. So, what kind of things have you been discovering there?

Pihkala: Yes, and dear listeners, if you think of your life history, almost all of us have at least some relationship with other animals. For many people, there's been some kind of pet or companion animal in places and families where we have lived. Some people have been raising animals for various purposes and there may be emotional connections in many ways or various hobbies or practices. Some animal species in the Western World or industrialized world are often in positions where there's strong emotional connections between humans and them. Dogs and cats are prominent, but there's a lot of other companion animals and pets. The bond between horses and people who ride or take care of horses can be very strong. So, that's one dimension here and for many people, losing a close animal has been an important lesson in loss and grief because the lifespan of many animals is shorter than the human lifespan. So, depending on where you live and what kind of privileges one has, it may be that the death of a dog or cat is one of the first death experiences in close family relations. And in grief research, the focus has been on humans who are dying or suffering, but for many decades it has already been recognized that losing pets or companion animals evokes strong emotions in people, which shouldn't come as a surprise. This topic has actually been a contradictory and difficult one in many societies because there may be assumptions that deeper grief should be related to human loss, for example. So, there's been people who understand you when you talk about loss and grief after losing an animal close to you. And then there may be people who really can't resonate with that and that often leads to what is called ‘disenfranchised grief’ in research which is grief that is not given a public voice or validation. How about you, Thomas, when you think of your life history, does this resonate?

Doherty: Well, I think this research is really helpful. I'm thinking about it and this whole idea of disenfranchise means it's not recognized. We don't talk about it and so we don't have language for it. But it's helpful for me to see what you've been studying because you talk about grief that we feel about pets and animals that are close to us, like cats and dogs and household pets, but then also wildlife. You link it to grief about wild animals which could be whales or extinct animals, wild condors, orangutans, or any kind of animal and the grief we feel when they're threatened with extinction, or their habitats are gone. So, that's a big thing that people feel. And then there’s this more contentious area of farmed animal grief because most of the animals on the planet right now, pound for pound, are livestock and farm animals. It is one way humans have transformed the planet. We have so many thousands of chickens and cows and all this stuff around the world. And that's just a really touchy topic on a number of levels ethically. So, it's really courageous to do this.

I can touch on it on a number of levels, my own concerns about wild animals that I value and love. I've had pets, I've had a dog for many years that I had as a young adult that I had to put down when he was old and had illnesses and that was very sad. I have an ancient cat, Lakshmi, who's going to be 21 this year and she's just an old person in our home that's been here since she was a kitten. So, we're preparing for her end of life. So, that's a really personal level. And in my family, my two sisters are both very strong animal rights advocates, so we have interesting discussions about veganism and various things. My sister, Sherry, was a zookeeper and worked in zoos for a number of years and she also worked at a place called the Center for Great Apes in Florida which was a refuge for chimpanzees and orangutans that had been used in movies or kept as pets. It was essentially like a rehabilitation old folks home hospice for these large wild animals. And I think people don't even realize that these kinds of places exist for elephants and orangutans. There's a whole subculture of people that are working for animals. So anyway, I think it's huge. When you talk to people or do the research, what are some of the surprising things that you notice?

Pihkala: Yes, thanks for reflecting on all that. I also met Lakshmi when visiting Portland this spring. She's old, but still going. And in my family childhood, we also had a cat so that's a personal resonance. And as you said, there's three case examples in this article. There's actually two research articles coming out, and one is already out there. It's called “Animal Ethical Mourning: Types of Loss and Grief in Relation to Non-Human Animals.” So, there's a lot in the title and it’s written together with Elisa Aaltola. Elisa is a philosopher and animal rights activist and a very empathetic person who is well known in Finland for her public work around animal rights. So, she's both a researcher and a public figure. And the three case examples have some similarities, but also differences in dynamics. And this pet and companion animal loss is luckily becoming more enfranchised if that's a word in English. So, there's more voice and recognition for that in many places, but not everywhere. Sometimes I think that the depth of those losses is still not recognized. So, how strong the emotional bond and connection may be and sometimes it's a double loss in the sense that the animal companion has before helped the human companion in facing different stresses and hardships. So, when losing an animal, one is also losing a source of support. And that may happen of course when we lose close persons, but that's something to be recognized.

This wildlife grief ties with what is called ‘ecological grief’ or ‘environmental grief’ and what we have been discussing often in this podcast. Climate change related sadness and grief which is often called climate grief is also closely connected with that. In research, literature, and art-based work around ecological grief, many different animals are featured and discussed. There's some very profound artwork which at the same time tries to work against disenfranchised grief in relation to wildlife grief. And it may sometimes be challenging to think of ways to do that mourning in community. But people have been trying to find creative ways like memorials or some kind of rituals or performances. And I've been part of that work in Finland. Like this annual theme day of Remembrance Day for Lost Species on November 30th. So, there's a small but growing international movement for having an annual team day for remembering other species and those which are extinct. There's some memorials people have set up. I think one of the most famous is the memorial for passenger pigeon in the United States and that sort of thing. The third case example of farmed animal grief may be very challenging for people who feel it because of the social contradictions. We all know that there's differences in opinion about meat eating and vegetarianism, for example. And still, people are living in the same cities and visiting the same grocery stores. And one of the things I realized when doing this research with Elisa and engaging with the literature and people's experiences was learning more about how challenging it may be for people who feel this kind of grief because then they have to try to find ways to process that in communities where there's disagreement over these issues.

Doherty: Yeah, let’s hold that thought on the disagreement. I'm just thinking about the art piece there. When I was working on my book, I did a little research on art and nature. There's a whole movement of people that do art regarding animals. And there's an artist, Amanda Stronza, who makes these alters to animals. People do that around roadkill animals, animals that are killed on the side of the road. I think the writer, Barry Lopez, had written a famous essay about that years ago. So disenfranchised means unrecognized, not given any rights. When we're driving down the highway, and we see a deer or a raccoon or a bird or a coyote killed on the side of the road, we just pass it by. There’s a social denial about that being an issue. Like someone's going to come and pick up that animal and take it away, but we're not supposed to mourn for it. We're not supposed to be sad for these animals. At least that's what society will tell us. But, of course, we do feel sad, and children feel sad and it's poignant that children have to learn that you're not supposed to notice this, you're supposed to just drive by. Whereas if it was a dog or a cat, then that's different. We have different rules. I've seen whole traffic stop because a dog was in the road because people don't want to hurt the dog. It's just fascinating how we have a hierarchy of different rights for things like that and obviously, if someone was actively torturing an animal that wouldn't be okay, but if it's hit by a truck, it's okay. So anyway, it's confusing so this gets into all that kind of stuff.

Pihkala: Yeah, totally. Thanks for voicing that, Thomas. For children and young people, it can be very confusing. Then, thinking of why the bad treatment of certain species is widely accepted in society, for example. This hierarchy of species affects mourning practices in places where people professionally work with animals. So, one quote from a study of two professionals was by a bird caring person who was feeling bad because in Judaism, charismatic big mammals may be publicly mourned and there may be poignant practices of enabling people who visit the zoo to participate in that memorialization. But then when birds die, the attitude may be that they don't live long anyway and there's going to be new birds and that sort of thing. So, this hierarchy can exist in these places where there is caring about animals.

Doherty: Yeah, and then of course, it's political. So, it's touchy. You talk about animal grief and how it can be contested, right? Meaning that people don't agree on the ethics of it. And of course, most of the animal factory farming is kept secret or suppressed from the public because if people saw what was happening in these places, they would viscerally become nauseated and then they wouldn't want the animals. We talk about ecological wake up calls around climate change or other things, but people have wake up calls around eating animals when they learn about some of the practices. It’s just complicated because there are many people that try to ethically raise animals and try to ethically do this, but once you get into this large-scale factory commodification corporations, we lose touch with the humanity of it.

Pihkala: Yeah, and there's lots of developments in society and the economy which have been pushing farmers to go into more large-scale animal raising and production. So, it hasn't been easy for people who would have wanted to do that on a more personal level and small-scale level. That may be economically very difficult. Luckily, there's people who try to do that. There's a book called Environmental and Animal Abuse Denial: Averting Our Gaze by Tomaž Grušovnik from eastern Europe and a couple of others edited that one. That's an interesting book where these mechanisms of trying to keep a distance or trying to keep them hidden are used, as you say Thomas, both in relation to climate matters and to animal factory farming, for example. So, on one hand it's a very human thing to try not to look too intensively at suffering, but of course it's not very ethical and that's where the title of our article comes from, “Animal Ethical Mourning”. It's moral commitment to animals and then the grief which results from this moral commitment. I hope dear listeners that this doesn't get too heavy for you, but it's deeply entwined with love, care, and empathy. That's of course seen in children, the sort of ability to empathize with animals and, as you say Thomas, the conflicted feelings which come if they observe that the adult world doesn't bury all the animals on the roadside, for example. But overall, there’s this whole phenomenon of sadness and grief because of what happens to non-human animals. It's tied with love and care. So, on one hand it's very heavy, but it also testifies to very important and power-giving relationalities in our lives.

Doherty: Yeah, power-giving is a great term. It's an underlying hurt because we care and underlying this is love and care. The only reason we feel discomfort is because we have some value there. Unnecessary suffering is probably one of the core underlying values here. I think people really understand intellectually that we all die, animals die, there's going to be death. I don't see people mourning as much when they watch say a wildlife film where some cheetahs are chasing down a wildebeest in the savanna and they catch the wildebeest and eat it. There's an understanding of the cycle of life and that they're predators and prey. It seems to be somehow part of the natural order, but when we take it out of that and put it into this needless suffering, I think most everyone can agree that, unless you’re pathological, people don't like unnecessary suffering nor do they like waste or things that are wasteful. So, I think we can all agree on these kinds of things. Listeners, you're hearing us talk about this and you're going to have all of your connections, whether it's your pet or concerns about animals in the wild or concerns about animals and factory farms. You might have your own farm or grow your own animals or chickens for eggs and all these kinds of things. Hunting of course is a whole special lifestyle. I know a lot of people that are very ethical regarding hunting. They're not interested in unnecessary suffering of animals or wasting animals. I think it's possible for hunters to both enjoy the thrill of the hunt, but also feel grief for the loss of the animal. I think that's what we would have in the native cultures, some combination of ritual reciprocal relations, right? Like nature and humans, we give and take. We're missing so much of that in the modern world, that kind of ceremonial connection. So, it's a deep thing. We touched on this a bit, but let’s move toward this for the end of the talk. What do we do with this grief, like how do we enfranchise it, how do we give it power in examples that you've seen?

Pihkala: That's a very important question and one can take a look at what we know about grief and bereavement, about human loss and death and what kind of things and practices support a healthy grieving process, if we call it that. So, there's many possible things ranging from something one can do on one's own, for example freely writing or journaling about feelings of sadness and grief. That's something which can be done even while there might be social disenfranchised grief. Doing some kind of rituals for commemoration helps both with emotions and also has an ethical dimension, the task of bearing witness, which we have discussed in an earlier episode. “Environmental Commemoration” would be one frame here by Mihaela Mihai and Mathias Thaler, for example. Those rituals can also be done on your own or with a small, trusted group of people or at some times and places it may be possible to do that in public. There’s interesting new sorts of practices and rituals emerging. For example, with wildlife grief, there’s this annual Remembrance Day for Lost Species on November 30th. So that's an annual theme day. I think it started from Britain, from Brighton if I'm not mistaken, and then it's spread into various corners of the world, and I've been facilitating that kind of work with small groups of people in Helsinki. We usually do that annual ritual in the animal cemetery in the central park of Helsinki, which is really a forest. So, it's mostly companion animals there, but there's a memorial stone for animals who have suffered in medicine and animal testing, for example. So, these kinds of stable memorials are one option. And I know that in the States, there's a memorial for the passenger pigeon which has been there for decades already, so that's part of the public dimension.

Then of course, coping with grief is a very wide topic and there's lots of good literature on that. Personally, I've been learning much from William Worden and his tasks of mourning approach and also from Robert Neimeyer and sort of meaning reconstruction framework. It explains how we need to work through changes in meanings in life when something major happens. We've discussed this in one episode way back and in this article, there's discussion about the various types of loss and grief and there's also a separate episode in our podcast about that. And in spring 2025, the Climate Mental Health Network presented a new set of resources on ecological and climate grief based on these types of loss and grief. So, we'll put a link to that in the show notes. So, these interconnections between animal ethical mourning and ecological and climate grief are quite profound. But how about you, Thomas? With your long experience of counselling people and in psychology, what are some of the things that come up to you in relation to coping with sadness and grief?

Doherty: Yeah, I'm just thinking out loud here. I wasn't aware of the passenger pigeon memorial, but I see that it's in Wisconsin. I think with a lot of these things, we think we're alone and we think we're the only one. Then, when we scratch the surface, we realize other people think about this. So, there’s this paradox that you can't stay isolated and once you start talking about it, you find kindred spirits. I think that's one of the big universal takeaways. This animal stuff is universal. I can't imagine anyone not having some opinions on it if we just create a safe space to talk about it. It’s just so primal to our existence. So, I do think sometimes people either underestimate the resources around them or they overestimate the barriers. But it does take that initial courage to share something. I know if you go to any Audubon Society or bird society or any kind of animal rescue or animal adoption, there are so many people that devote their lives to caring for animals. People do dog walking, pet sitting, and veterinarians is another area. Either people work as veterinarians or broadly in the veterinary field and they’re all highly attuned to animals. Of course, horse people work with horses and they’re very strong, intelligent, special animals and there's rituals and things. So, there's more here and it's just these weird, disenfranchised areas are like a double reality. They exist all around us, but we kind of have to ignore them unless you get into it a little bit. So, I would encourage people to push into it a little bit. I was trying to find the words for it, because I feel like it’s still very difficult and heavy. But, once you do some of this work like looking at all these models and all the different kinds of grief, it's like a divide and conquer kind of thing. I can divvy up all of my grief feelings into smaller, palatable or more understandable pieces, versus this massive grief that you can't understand. It just feels overwhelming. So yeah, that's what comes up.

Pihkala: Yeah, warm thanks for sharing that, Thomas and I strongly agree on trying to move forward from this sense of isolation, because as you say, there's many people who feel these things and with my work around types of loss and grief, I hope that people will take their time with it. It's a lot at first glance to think of all these concepts, but hopefully that might lead to developing a vocabulary which may help at discerning what kind of actions and practices might help in the case of certain kinds of losses. In these practical encounters with the topic and with other people, often I've had to experience beforehand that it's heavy and facilitate that. Because of my earlier life history, I've been facilitating a lot of funerals, for example, so I have certain sets of skills for that. But then afterwards, it's usually a very relieved atmosphere. So, there's a surprisingly powerful sense of relief and perhaps even something like honor after collectively doing this. So, I would encourage you listeners, whatever the types of loss and grief you feel in relation to other animals are, to experiment with engaging with those even though it may feel difficult at first. And I don't want to say that it's a guaranteed relief always, but there's that possibility that it may actually be strangely relieving.

Doherty: Yeah, well it's cathartic, right? It's not uncommon for people to have strong emotions or to cry or to emote so it does get the weight off of us. There might be a place of finding some peace or some grace with this kind of thing. It's all existential at the end of the day because we're all ultimately dealing with the limited life and death and our inevitability of our death, just how do we do it in an ethical way. So yeah, this is a difficult topic. It's a big, tough topic, but that's why we have to be courageous enough to bring it up here. And you cannot go toward happiness in the world without being able to feel all these other feelings. Otherwise, your happiness feels artificial, right? So, thanks for doing this, Panu. I'm going to share this with some of my family who might appreciate this. We'll put links in the show notes to these academic papers for folks that are working in the academic world but also just some of the images and simple things that you've shared for the public because I think it's a great public service. Well thanks Panu, let's wrap it up and listeners, I hope you took something important from this and it'll allow you to go easier in your life as you deal with these issues.

Pihkala: Thanks Thomas for another deep discussion and what you say might be a motto for the podcast. It's all existential at the end of the day. Take care people.

Doherty: Yeah, for sure. All right, take care. Bye.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

The Climate Change and Happiness Podcast is a self-funded volunteer effort. Please support us so we can keep bringing you messages of coping and thriving. See the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.