Climate Change and Happiness

image credit | Stefan Fluck

In this episode, Thomas and Panu focused on the emotional aspects of travel, particularly air travel, and all the competing thoughts and feelings we have about this. Our journeys to see the world and our far flung loved ones are a central part of our lives. But, in this age of climate crisis, air travel—whether through privilege or as a sacrifice and necessity–opens us up to troubling ethical issues about our own contributions to climate problems and being trapped in an earth-damaging system of inequality and destructive tourism. Panu brought his usual wise perspective on climate emotions. Thomas shared the “UR3OK” model he uses to help people make environmentally-responsible decisions (Understand, Reduce-Reuse-Resist…, Offset, and be Kind to ourselves and others in the process). 

Approaches to Flight Shame

• Piskorz (2019) European countries have created new words to describe the feeling of 'flight shame'

• Reynolds (2023) Should we feel guilty about flying? [Puts individual flights in perspective. For example, only about 2% to 4% of the global population fly internationally and 1% of the world population emits 50% of CO2 from commercial aviation.]

• Wormbs and Söderberg  (2021). Knowledge, Fear, and Conscience: Reasons to Stop Flying Because of Climate Change [Research on reasons people chose to stop flying.]

• Thomas’ “UR3OK” model

[The Climate Change and Happiness Transcript is on holiday.]

image credit | Ruslan Alekso

People have many kinds of feelings about climate and ecological crises, and many remain hidden under the surface, either because people are unsure about these or talking about them does not feel safe. In this episode, Thomas and Panu had a dialogue with Renée Lertzman, a pioneer in research and practical work about environmental feelings from a psychoanalytic perspective. Renée told of her work exposing “the myth of apathy” about climate change (people are generally not uncaring or indifferent to this issue, but lack tools to express and people who will take time to listen). Renée also explained her “Three A’s” method (helping people share their anxiety, ambivalence – mixed feelings – and their aspirations about eco and climate issues).

• Great Lakes facts

• Renée Lertzman

• The Myth of Apathy paper

• Project InsideOut

• Renée’s TED Talk: How to Turn Climate Anxiety into Action

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity.

Thomas Doherty: Please support the climate change and happiness podcast see the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

Doherty: Hello, I'm Thomas Doherty.

Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala.

Renée Lertzman: Hello, good to see you. I'm Renée Lertzman.

Doherty: And Renée is an old time colleague and friend of ours, who's yet another one of these innovators in this whole area of climate and emotions. And so we're looking forward to talking with Renée who's coming in from the Bay Area. And Panu, do you want to get us started?

Pihkala: Yes, very good to see you, Renée. Again. We have met live once in Finland. A major Finnish company invited you to give a keynote speech. And I had already been reading many of your influential writings. It's really helped me with these nuanced dynamics of environmental attitudes and emotions and behavior. You're involved in a lot of things. But perhaps we could start from the journey itself. How was it for you? Would you like to share something about how you became so interested in these complex dynamics of environmental issues?

Doherty: Yeah.

Lertzman: Oh, well, that's a good question. So basically, first off, thanks for having me. I know both of you. And love both of you. So I'm really excited about our conversation. I started this journey. I found it when I was quite young. When I was a teenager. And I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. I was exposed here and there to some information about what was going on with the environment. But it wasn't until I went to college. And I was planning to be a psychologist. And that was always very clear. Because I myself had benefited from psychotherapy when I was in high school. When I was around 15 and 16. And I knew I was going to be a psychologist. So I went to university. And while I was in training, as a psych major, I took a variety of classes. And one of them happened to be an environmental studies 101 kind of introductory course. And as I tell this story, in a variety of places, including the TED talk, I ended up giving.

That experience really derailed me. It was so unexpected. The impact it had on me psychologically, emotionally, you know, existentially. And at the time, it was the late 1980s. There wasn't really a lot of discussion about what all this means for us. And so it was a very solitary journey. I was, you know, in therapy and all of that. But no one at the time was really talking about what it means to process ecological crises, including climate change. So at the time, it wasn't specific to climate change for me. It was the whole confluence of the headline as humans have, you know, irreparably altered and damaged our beautiful, amazing planet. So that was the big takeaway from the class. And that's a lot to process. And then it was like, well, what do I do with this. You know, so, you know, that kind of started everything off for me.

Doherty: Yeah. So listeners, you know, that's the thing. Students, listeners. It is exactly what happens. And People are a little more aware today. I've I noticed teachers and students are aware. But really it is. Yes, the planet is irrevocably changed. We have 30 years or else we're doomed. The bell rings. And then we carry our books to the next class, you know. So it's this real, this kind of odd feeling we're supposed to carry this and walk around. So that leads to the whole. I mean, I think, Renée, one thing that you're known for. At that time anyway, was just realizing, hey, there's a whole school of thought about this. Like these psychoanalytic folks have thought about all this. And the idea of splitting. And all this sort of stuff. Is that kind of, can we talk about that a little bit? And how you found that helpful and led to your early research and your book and things?

Lertzman: Yeah, definitely. So I am and was and am in love with psychoanalytic clinical studies, research and perspectives. And by that I mean, work that's written by people who work with people in clinical settings, around, you know, healing, and trauma and anxiety and all of that. And so I've been immersed in that world for a long time. But for me, when I encounter that work, specifically around, how do we, as humans, process really difficult, challenging information? How do we work through guilt? You know, how do we work through shame? How do we work through conflict? You know, where we are pulled in different directions. It's been very hard for me to encounter that work, and not immediately think about our ecological and climate crisis. And connect the dots. Even if a lot of that work isn't speaking about that explicitly. And I'm talking about going back to whether it's Freud, or whether it's Melanie Klein, or whether it's Bion or whether it's, you know, a whole variety of very thoughtful, deep thinkers and practitioners. They're not necessarily writing about ecological crises or climate change. But my experience is it's a rich treasure trove of perspectives, tools and insights.

And so I've been basically, since that time in the late 80s, really connecting those dots. And seeing how we apply this in a way that isn't simple, simple. Like, you know, it's not apples to apples. It's like, well, how do we take this and make this meaningful, and useful for the human condition right now, as we enter into this, you know, Anthropocene moment. And to me, the concept of even where we are right now as a human species. And that we are actually having to come to terms with what we've done, is itself an unprecedented kind of existential situation. That I think we need all hands on deck as far as the human sciences. And, you know, cultural studies. And, you know, we need all of it. But I really feel like at the heart of it, is the psychological. And that has been missing for so many years, for reasons that I think both are confounding to me, and make total sense. Because if we take what we know about humans, and how we have this capacity to sort of disavow or kind of split off. Then yeah, we avoid talking about emotion and feeling and the messier stuff because it's hard.

But now we're at a moment where it's really clear with this conversation, your work, you know, we're in a very different place now. Yeah. So that's kind of my fundamental orientation. And then, you know, that led to my spending many years doing research, to try to deepen this perspective. And really see how I could make sense of what we think of as apathy, you know. What we, I'm using we, in quotes. Like, people working in the environmental and climate space have been in the grip of a lot of, I think, myths about and assumptions about humans that are frankly, not grounded in psychology at all. So in a way, what I'm trying to do is an intervention and say, you know what, like, we need to stop saying things like people are apathetic. We need to stop saying, oh, how do I get other people to care about these issues. That's actually completely backwards. Completely. And yet, it's really taken hold, you know, for a lot of people. Like, oh, I gotta make you care about this. Well, that's just not the case.

Pihkala: Yeah. Warm thanks for dwelling on that, Renée. In a recent interview, you also referred to the strange dissociation you noticed in the society at the same time when you heard these very worrisome facts about the ecological crisis in classrooms. And that's very deep. Dissociation, I think, is one of the reasons why the psychoanalytic and psychodynamic tradition was so important in the early 2000s, for example, in providing more understanding about the deeper dynamics. I think that any, you know, just simple coping theory is unable to explain that.

Because the discrepancies are so strong. And one of the things that I was drawn to in Thomas's early work was also an effort to integrate coping theory and defense theory, for example. So there's some influences from psychodynamic dynamics there also.

And Renée, you were part of this very influential book called Engaging with Climate Change, edited by Sally Weintrobe, which provided a lot of insights from the psychodynamic dynamic and analytic traditions. And for those listeners who may have heard very critical things about the psychoanalytic tradition, I want to mention that in her research Renée is very careful in that application. And utilizes very critical research methods there. So there's a lot in there. For your data, you did years of empirical research. And that might be a logical path to go from here. And it actually links with Thomas's personal history also and Great Lakes, also related to this “myth of apathy”. So would you like to speak a bit more about that?

Lertzman: Sure. So I ended up going on to do various graduate programs. I first focused on environmental communication. Did a master's in communication studies. And then went on to really want to just talk with people. And listen and work, you know, really conduct qualitative research in a community. And so I ended up, it's a long story, but I ended up my research was sponsored by an organization based in the Great Lakes. The Wege Foundation. And they were generous. Well, it was actually a specific individual, Jonathan Wege, who sponsored my research with the one requirement that it relate to the Great Lakes in some way. And so I ended up becoming a fellow with an organization in Madison, Wisconsin. And was connected with a community in the region.

And I ended up spending time in Green Bay, Wisconsin. And for me, at the time, that was like the equivalent of going to, you know, Sub Saharan Africa or something. Because, you know, I'm from California. I've lived in the East Coast, the West Coast, but being in the Midwest was really new and different for me. And I absolutely loved every minute of it. I embedded myself in this community in Green Bay that welcomed me in. And I spent time listening and talking with people who. I had a market research firm, who very generously, it's kind of amazing to think about it, now sent out a survey to their database of 1000s of people in the region. And I designed the survey very carefully, to show me who, from an environmentalist perspective, would appear to be not engaged and end quote, apathetic. Who would be normally written off by an environmental organization, you know, like, oh, they don't read anything about this. They don't watch anything about this. They don't talk about this with their friends and family. And I decided to hone in and do in depth interviews and conversations with a subset of those people who I would have been like, well, why would I talk to them? Because they're not engaged. So it was pretty edgy and scary for me to do that. And I designed these interviews very inspired by psychodynamic and psychoanalytic research.

And all that means is that there's a lot of listening. There's a lot of presence. I'm asking a lot of questions. And I'm not using a script. So this was a very different way of conducting social science research.

You know, I have a PhD in social science from Cardiff University. You know, it's pretty traditional. But I went and did this methodology that's referred to as psychosocial research. And I found the experience just fundamentally changed me. You know, I came out, in the middle of doing the research in Green Bay, I came up with this concept of the myth of apathy. And then I pitched a piece about that to a magazine. And wrote it quickly. It ran. And that piece led to maybe 10 speaking engagements around the world because it just struck a chord. And the argument, which you can still find online. It was published by the ecologist. It's still out there. 2008. Where I argue that, you know, it's really not that people are apathetic, there's so much else going on. But we have to listen. We have to show up differently. We have to show up with compassion, with empathy. And to really appreciate it. Like, some of these people I interviewed knew more about what's going on with the ecology of the Great Lakes. The water quality. The air quality.

Than most people. Think about that. The people I interviewed knew more about it than most people and yet, would have been written off and had been written off by the environmental community.

Doherty: So you know, Renée, I'm thinking about this growing up in Buffalo, myself. Buffalo, New York. And on the shores of the Great Lakes. Lake Erie. Lake Ontario. And just the reality, even myself growing up in the 70s, you know, with the lakes being part of the culture. My parents grew up swimming in lakes. By the time I was a child, Lake Erie was seen as, you know, poisoned and polluted. And then we have the weather that comes off the lakes with the snow and the lake effect snow. So it's a big part of people's reality. And so you are tapping into that whole thing. This is before all the really obvious polarization about climate change, too. And just people's basic thinking about this. So it's really nice to go back in time a little bit to see what this was like. And you had this whole myth of apathy.

For listeners, that means it's a myth. It's not that people don't care. As Renée was saying, they know a lot. It's just that they might either feel powerless about an issue. Or it's a taboo topic for their community. Or they don't have a way to plug in. And so for their own mental health, they package this care away. You know, they put it away, because they can't do anything about it. And I think you revealed that. And then you talked about these three A's, you know. And I think you do that even now with your work in corporations. You have people talk about what they're anxious about. And their ambivalence. Their different kinds of feelings. And then what they aspire to. Which I really think is inspiring. Do you want to talk about the three A's and how that worked out there?

Lertzman: Yeah, sure. So that was a very clear, helpful reframe of what you just offered. So thank you. That's exactly what the myth of apathy is about. Which is that we go around making assumptions and reading into people's behavior, and making interpretations. And we project a lack of care or concern. Which I find deeply problematic and inaccurate. It puts it back on us to try to tune in and understand what's actually going on. So the three A's is a shorthand that I came out of that research with. That I designed. It took a long time to get to the three A's. And I am very proud, because to be honest, what happened was, after my research, I got a position at Portland State University. And I was teaching a class on the psychology of climate change, believe it or not, in 2010. It was the first class offered on this topic. And I was experimenting. And I had my students keep a journal. And the journal was, you know, to keep track of when you see climate change in your life. You know, it could be a poster. It could be a news article. It could be a conversation. And just kind of pay attention. And so I had all these journals. I was sitting in my place in Portland, looking through these journals. And one of my students had written this little story, where she said, I just saw a book called, you know, 50, whatever it was 50 Places to See Before They Disappear.

And she said, my initial reaction was, wow, you know, like, what is this world coming to that we even have a book about places that are disappearing. And then she said, my next thought was, I better go out and see these amazing places before they're gone. And then she said, then I realized if I did that, I would be contributing to the very problem, right? I'd be part of the problem.

And so I had this almost like a flash of insight where I realized that it captures it all in one kind of simple cycle. So anxiety. I'm feeling deeply anxious about what's happening with the world. Ambivalence. I want to go out and continue my life as a person. Like I want to do these things that give me a lot of pleasure. You know, flying and traveling and whatever that might be, that we now know, you know, are problematic. But I want to. So that's the concept of ambivalence. Is where we are literally in conflict within ourselves. And then aspiration is, but I don't want to be part of the problem. I want to be part of the solution. And so I came up with the shorthand of the three A's as a way to kind of help us tune in to it's never just one thing. It's never just anxiety. It's never just overwhelming. It's really very complex. And I designed the three A's very specifically to use with my organizational clients.

So I do not work privately with people. I work with organizations. Companies. Nonprofits. Government foundations. I kind of work across any sector. But what matters is I partner with people who are in those organizations who are trying to make some change happen. And the way I use the three A's is actually more to help them and us be attuned to what's happening with the people we're wanting to engage and bring along with us. And that for a lot of people is a huge revelation.

You know, to really step into the shoes of others to think well, what might be anxiety producing about this? Where might there be ambivalence? And where is the aspiration? And that work eventually led to my creating a really cool resource that, you know, you can find online called Project Inside Out. And the project inside out the website is, you find it at projectinsideout.net. And it was started with a grant from the KR Foundation, who basically asked me to come up with sort of a fantasy project. And I thought, well, what if I take some of this work and package it up a little bit more, so that it can be used by people working on change.

Doherty: And we're gonna put the link to Project Inside Out in our show notes. Projectinsideout.net. And some of the other early writing pieces that Renée talked about the myth of apathy. Again, which is still a kind of a classic reference for, you know, students and thinkers in this area. Yeah. I'm reminded of Janet Lewis, our recent guest who talked about climate dialectics. This idea of, we have these competing ideas. And we have to find some sort of pathway through. So that's I think, Renée was illustrating the whole dialectical piece there. I totally identify with that young person. And by that I mean, I call it extinction tourism. It's like if before this world goes you know, I'm gonna. It's a FOMO. Eco FOMO which we've talked about, you know, fear of missing out. Which goes in a lot of directions. Missing out on the world. Or missing out on doing enough. So I totally identify with that. As in my 20s I felt very similar as an outdoor guide and river rafting guide. But Panu, what are you thinking about over there?

Pihkala: Yeah, I think this is very rich. And so [are] the complexities of the affective dimensions around ecological issues, which, after all, are socio-ecological issues these days. And that's one reason why I think the psychosocial research tradition is so important. There can be conflicting emotions and desires. Like the desire to see fantastic places and the sort of anticipation of guilt, if one would do so. And this book by Renée, Environmental Melancholia, features discussion of many emotional tones which are not so often discussed yet. I did some explorations of that in a Finnish book and in this English article called “Toward a Taxonomy of Climate Emotions”. And some of those tones like disappointment, feeling betrayed etc.. But also an urge to do something good. These all have links to Renée's research, also.

And reparation is one big part of Renée's book. And we actually explored that in a Finnish national survey about climate emotions (Sitra, 2019). Asking about the Finnish emotion term “hyvittämisen halu”. Which might be translated as desire to make amends. The sociologist was a bit surprised that I proposed that we add that there but they accepted it. And over 30% of the respondents did say that they have felt this. Of course, it's their self-reflection. We can't know all the dynamics. But I still think it's significant. Renée, you saw lots of this desire for reparation dynamics. Would you like to speak a bit about that? And perhaps open up the concept of reparation for the listeners?

Lertzman: Yeah, thank you. I'm so glad you introduced that concept because it's central to really all of this. For me, the guiding question is always, what are the conditions that enable and cultivate our capacity to want to make amends. To want to heal. To want to make something better. And my inspiration for this is from the Jewish teaching, that's called Tikkun Olam. Which is translated as, you know, to repair the world. And I was raised with this, you know, orientation. You know, it's just, it's very much in the Jewish tradition to want to make it better. But where I'm at is, if I really want to know, how do we foster the conditions collectively? Not, you know, on an individual level, per se. But I'm way more interested in the collective social context. So what are the conditions that help wake that up? Wake up that part of ourselves. Because I strongly believe that it's there. And it's not just my belief. It's like now, we've got a lot of research, you know.

Thankfully, we have a lot of research on whether it's, you know, whatever we want to call it. You know, whether it's the science of empathy. Or whether it's altruism. Or, you know, incredible work in the future. What it means to be a good ancestor, you know. And all of this, there's just a ton of evidence that supports that humans have this capacity deep down, but there are very specific conditions that we need. And that's where I think we should be focusing all of our attention right now. Like, literally, I think we're spending way too much time talking about pushing solutions on people, like cheerleaders. Or we're shouting. So we're either educating, cheerleading or writing, you know. RIGHT. We're not really guiding. We're not really like thinking about what we need. What do you need, that will enable you to feel safe enough to feel contained enough to feel like you can go there, and really want to make things better. And instead, we tend to focus on the symptoms. Which is, oh, overwhelm, you know. Paralysis and despair, you know. I think all have this sort of, it's there.

But really, we know a lot about those conditions for repair. And that has to do with, you know, the things I think we all know. The three of us are familiar with which, you know, people need to feel like they matter. They need to feel like their actions are going to have some sort of impact. We need to feel like we have agency. We need to feel like we can have a full life, frankly, you know. To be involved with climate doesn't mean we're giving up. We're not throwing our life away in terms of a quality of life, you know. And so it's finding that balance of what these factors are. And acknowledging that they're going to be unique for each person. There's not a formula. But, you know, what I would invite people listening to reflect on is, what are the conditions that you need to support you in your ability to be able to make repairs in a healthy, grounded way? And to consider what are the conditions that others need? And coming from that place is a very different place, so I'm going to try to convince you why this is an important issue. And why you should take action on it. It's a very different energy. It's a different orientation entirely.

Doherty: Yeah, that's really well said. Yeah, so listeners, that's something just for us to take a breath. And to take in. We don't have to answer it today. But again, it's often just asking the right question. And so as the old poets say, you know, these are questions to be lived. To live out. So what do you need to support you to have an impact, to have a full life? What do you need? And then also that other question, What do others need? So it does kind of put us into other people's shoes. Panu and I were just recording an episode for the future on families, and couples and all of the different, you know. We have to do that in our own families. We have to put ourselves in the shoes of our parents. Or into our children. Or our brothers or sisters or our significant others. Renée, have you done any? Well, we have a few minutes left. So we can go in a few directions here. But I was going to ask you about couples and families. But maybe this dynamic also comes out in your work with or, you know, companies and organizations? I don't know, how would you want to? How would you want to go Renée, right now?

Lertzman: Well, I work only with organizations, I do not work with individuals, couples or families. So that's not my orientation. I partner with amazing clinicians, for whom that is the focus. And that's very rich, because, you know, we all have our relationships, we're navigating. You know, our friends, family, co-workers. And everyone's kind of in a different place in their journey. And I think there's not enough attention to really looking at how to navigate that skillfully. Because, you know, a lot of times people are within a family system. Or let's just say, in a team.

Let's say a team and an organization are in a very different place. You know, where someone is maybe having a hard time going there. And, and feeling very resistant. And very even hostile. And then there, you've got other people who are like, wait a minute, this feeling is really the most urgent thing in my life. And I don't know how to deal with this. This is very frustrating.

And so a lot of what I do that I have found to be extremely impactful is frankly, I work with these teams and leaders to create a culture. A team culture, organizational culture where it's okay, you know, to talk about these things. And it's okay to be in a different place. That it's not like trying to get everyone to, you know, feel the same way about something. But really celebrate the diversity of perspective. The fact that people come to this from very different places is important. We need that. We need to be able to learn and listen to, okay, like for you, this is maybe not the biggest priority. I want to learn more. That's hard for me. But I want to learn more about that, because frankly, we all need to figure out how to come together around these issues. And move into a productive way of having dialogue and interaction.

Pihkala: What Renée has shared here, has both the individual and collective dimension. So I think that's a very important joining together of these two. And in a way it leads organizational cultures and teams towards more shared vulnerability. Kind of inter-vulnerability. But then people can very quickly, also get the feeling that this actually makes them stronger. And that's one of the sorts of things that people may think of as a paradoxical thing. But that can happen if there is enough containment and leadership and companionship. And this would be a very rich topic to discuss even more. But we probably have to start wrapping things up for this episode. And it would be totally marvelous if we could have you as a guest sometime again, Renée. And one of the emotions around these issues is gratitude also. And that's part of my affective landscape. I'm very grateful for the work that different people like you two are doing around these issues.

Lertzman: Thank you. And I feel grateful as well for you all. And holding space for these conversations is really, really important. And part of the work of repair is having these interactions where we can talk about these topics. And so I'm very, very appreciative of both of you as well. And I thank you for inviting me to be with you.

Doherty: Yeah. I mean there's no way to do this work, but to do it. And so even with this podcast, we just create these spaces to talk about things. You know, and I really liked what you're talking about Renée. I mean, so all of us live in organizations. And we work in different places so the listeners can think about, you know. I mean, I feel for people because of course we do have the freedom to get into this deeply and really really be honest and transparent and share. And it's so rare. And even in the corporate world in general to share anything really personal because it's so political at different levels. But so think about creating a culture. We can talk about these things. And I think the subtext there, Renée, is, even if we don't feel the same thing, or even if we disagree right?

Lertzman: Yeah, exactly. It's so important.

Doherty: So maybe we can, maybe we can close on that note with some anecdote or some idea, Renée from you. Or advice for us. Because I think that's kind of where people maybe will stop. Because well, I don't really want to open up this thing. Or I know, my colleague is going to disagree. We know people. We know what they're going to say. And so how has it worked? Have you seen any good stories or just a takeaway about how it works? Even when people disagree, they move through that little doorway?

Lertzman: Absolutely. So it's a much bigger conversation, but what I will just say is actually simple. Which is, it's really about being present. And coming from a place of curiosity, and listening to others. So, you know, if there's one thing people can do, coming out of this, it's one, you know, practicing self awareness of your own activation triggers emotions. But doing whatever you can to practice being truly present to others. Especially when there's a different perspective. I think that's where the rubber meets the road in this work. And it's where I see a lot of people struggle.

So it's really that straightforward. It's like listening, and asking evocative questions. You know, there's a short video by the way that I helped produce with the Alliance for Climate Education. And it's nicknamed the secret to talking about climate change. But it's got a lot of wisdom in there. And really, what it's about is not talking about climate change. It's about asking questions. It's about asking people really open ended questions and then giving your presence and listening to what comes from that. That's the most powerful and impactful thing we could do right now.

Doherty: That's well said. So we'll find that and put a link to that. It's a great title there. But it is about yeah, I think human human connection ultimately. Yeah, this is really great, Renée thanks so much. People will have a doorway now into the variety of all your contributions. And so we'll spread that word around. And we're going to wrap it up. I'll get into my, well Renée and I are both I think I'm pacific time so we're getting into our days here. Our weekdays. Renée, what's your life like today?

Lertzman: Oh, gosh, well, I'm heading over to Google. Where I've been working for a few years. So yeah, I work very closely with a team over there. Love them. And that's my day. So.

Doherty: That's great. Yeah, like some of the other climate work as we've talked about therapists, they'll go into their sessions and you're going into your work.

Lertzman: Exactly. That's my version of it.

Doherty: Yeah. And I'll go into my version of that, which will also include seeing clients. And writing and various things. Panu, what's left for you this evening, Panu?

Pihkala: Well it's the end of the thinking part of the day. And moving towards spending time with the boys. And once more warm thanks Renée for finding the time to join us. I'm really looking forward to future discussions. And dear listeners you can find us at climatechangeandhappiness.com. You can also find us on Patreon. We appreciate any support. There's a lot of wisdom to be drawn from Renée's input here. So do take time with it and to take care. Thank you for listening.

Doherty: Yes, listeners, Renée, and Panu all. Take care. Thank you. 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.

How does climate change impact family relationships? In this follow-up to their recent talk about couples, Thomas and Panu discussed how expressing feelings about climate change and other environmental problems is intertwined with family dynamics in many ways. Depending on the values and communication style of your family of origin, taking a stand on climate can make you a “hero” or a “black sheep.” Fear of bringing new children into an overheated world also affects those who would be grandparents. Simplistic messages that portray young people as ecologically aware and elders as being in denial are not supported by research. Alarm, concern and caution about global warming are shared by a majority in every generation in the US. While your and my family are different, we are all more together than we think. 

image credit | Markus Spiske

In this episode we look at the question “What makes for a healthy relationship between children and nature?” and by extension for all of us. To help with this, Panu and Thomas met with Louise Chawla, one of the eminent researchers of environmental psychology and child development in relation to nature. Louise described her own youth and sense of nature being “an eternal world” and how she has listened to children around the world describe their own beliefs and increasingly “fearful imaginings.” She, Panu, and Thomas discussed how to support children, share in their curiosity, and enlist them as collaborators as we all cope with losses and strive to make our lives better.   

Louise Chawla, Some key papers:  

• (2022) Passive patient or active agent? An under-explored perspective on the benefits of time in nature for learning and wellbeing

• (2019) Childhood nature connection and constructive hope: A review of research on connecting with nature and coping with environmental loss 

• (1998) Significant Life Experiences Revisited: a review of research on sources of environmental sensitivity

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity. 

Thomas Doherty: Please support the climate change and happiness podcast see the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

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

Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. Our podcast, the show for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about climate change and other environmental issues. And this is a place where we do allow ourselves to be with our thoughts and our feelings and our emotions. And today, we have a special guest. Someone that I've been able to work with in the past that I have not met for about a decade.

Louise Chawla: Hello, I'm Louise Chawla. I'm a professor emerita at the University of Colorado in Boulder. And I'm part of the program in environmental design there. And now that I'm retired I work with their community engagement design and research center primarily. I have a workplace there. And I helped create the center. So I'm very much involved in how do you bring research and design, which means really, the entire physical world out there, including the natural world together on big environmental and social topics of our time. And I came to that from a background initially in child development. Then my master's in education. And then as I discovered, what I'm really interested about is what children learn outside the classroom, when they are out and about in their communities. Both socially, culturally, and about the natural world and their cities.

And so I did a doctorate in environmental psychology, where we focus on people's relationships with the physical world out there. And it's a discipline that's been around since the 1970s. I entered it in 1980. So that is my focus: What are our relationships with the world beyond ourselves and our immediate human societies?

Doherty: Yeah, that's great. And Louise is a pioneer in this research of children's experience of nature. And a lot of what we know in terms of healthy child development and people's environmental identities and the role of mentors comes out of Louise's work. And she's a bridge between the original environmental psychology people that were studying built places and design, and the more recent focus on mental health and identity and environmental behaviors that we have now. So it's really great to have Louise. And we'll be talking about a lot. Panu, do you want to get us started in our conversation?

Pihkala: Warmly welcome, Louise, also from my part. We have been exchanging some emails online. And I of course know your work from environmental education research. Many Finns have also been curious about studies of children's natural experiences and nature connection. This theme of having significant experiences in natural environments is just one part of that. And speaking of that, would you like to share with us some of your own earlier journey? You described some parts of your professional journey, but do you see some developments in your own childhood and youth and adolescence which led you towards this part of life and research?

Chawla: Well, absolutely. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing. I was very fortunate to have a childhood where I lived kind of between two places. One was an old suburb of New York City. Where the back border of our home was a brook. And that went up to a marsh. And then beyond the marsh was a woods. And there was an old orchard and woodlots and so forth. And so I had all of that. Which is where I spent just countless hours growing up as a child. But I also had family in New York City. So it was still a generation, where I just had to show up for dinner. And I was able to roam around initially, Greenwich Village. And then when the family moved to the edge of Chinatown, and Brooklyn Bridge. That part of lower Manhattan. So I've never really drawn a distinction between nature and cities and nature and towns. Because at their best, even our densely inhabited places, have nature in them.

Certainly when you're a child, they have child sized nature in them. And of course, New York City has great parks. It had the rivers. And so that was so important to me that when I discovered there is a field of environmental psychology when I was a master's student doing a degree in child development and education, I realized immediately that's what I want to spend my career doing. How can we create places and cultures where every child in the world has an opportunity to have those kinds of opportunities to discover the natural world and the cultural world together? And, you know, of course I'm not going to achieve that. But I think it's like our goal of living in harmony with nature, as Rachel Carson said. You know, it's the horizon we work toward. And having that horizon keeps us going. And will we perfectly achieve it, maybe not, but it still keeps us going.

Doherty: Yeah, there's so much I'm thinking for listeners who are parents who are thinking about how they might want to be the best parents they can for their children. Or for all of us we're thinking about our own childhoods, you know, I grew up in Buffalo, New York. And had a certain view of nature based on that. Panu, of course, has his view. And all the listeners all have their own places. But since you've been doing this for a while, I wonder if we can just help people to see the larger trends first. And then we can drill down to some really specific, you know, concepts and things.

But Louise, you must have seen a lot because, like you say you yourself are of an age where you were lucky to have safe access to nature. And the urban rural divide wasn't so black and white. And then, of course, over the last few decades, we've had this whole child and nature movement. And the work of Richard Louv. And this “Last Child in the Woods” kind of insight that, you know, life has changed for people in the modern world – being much more technological. And nature and the outdoors not being seen as safe. And people must be much more concerned about liability. And different views on parks. And I'm also thinking of David Sobel's work and other people. What do you see as the broad trend that brings us to the present day? Like what do you think, how would you land us now, you know, given what you've seen over the last couple of decades?

Chawla: Well, you're entirely correct, Thomas, in saying within a generation, and now moving into another second generation, there's been a transformation in terms of children's freedom to autonomously explore the world around them. The world around them has been changing, as you said. More densely built. More traffic. More crime. You know, a side of my work has been that. For 10 years, I coordinated the Growing up in Cities project for UNESCO, where we worked with children generally around 10 to 14 in low income communities around the world. And I was reviving a project that the urban planner and designer Kevin Lynch had created with UNESCO in the 1970s. So one generation later and already we could track between his work and the work we were doing. We started this in the mid 1990s. I coordinated it for 10 years.

And now we have a local version of it that I helped create with others called Growing up Boulder, since we live in Boulder, Colorado. But we could already over that generation see, you know, that cities were more crime. And not just children's perception, that's certainly what data showed as well. And, of course, more traffic, and more ethnic tensions. And of course, in part that was because certainly in the United States, we had a whole system to keep people in their place. But, you know, by the mid 1990s, there was more immigration around the world. I mean, a new wave of immigration. We are a nation of immigrants, mostly. But new waves of immigration and the tensions created within communities. So we could really see those changes happening. And yes, and then screens, you know. TVs changed from a little gray thing when I was a child to all of their enticements. And on smartphones and computers and iPods and all kinds of screens. And so that's been a dramatic change, of course, in children's lives. Really dramatic.

But on a personal note, what I need to say is that, you know, when I was a child playing up in the marsh, or in the old woodlot, or up in the woods, in the brook, I just assumed that was an eternal world. That the world of nature was eternal. And, of course, I hadn't taken any classes in ecology or evolutionary history yet. But that was just a feeling as a child. But, of course, we know it's not eternal. But when I was talking to a friend, the artist Patricia Johansson. Who works with water in the landscape. So very connected to the landscape. And she was saying the same thing, you know, out in the woods, it's just that this is an eternal place. And that was part of, I think, why it was magical, and comforting, as well. But her grandchildren don't have that perspective at all. So, on a personal note, I never expected I would be writing about and researching how to help young people cope with a very rapidly changing planet.

Doherty: Yeah.

Chawla: So that's been a personal trajectory for me.

Pihkala: Thanks for sharing all that. And that brings us to the close connections between some of my research and your research. And I've greatly enjoyed your article from a couple of years back, called Childhood Nature Connection and Constructive Hope, with a subtitle A Review of Research on Connecting with Nature and Coping with Environmental Loss. And this latter part, as you hinted at now, that's been more rare in environmental education scholarship, for complex reasons I think. And I really appreciate this wide ranging review that you did, and which highlights the point that it's all based on caring and connection. Because we hurt where we care, as Thomas has a habit of saying. So both the empathy and the feelings of loss and grief and various fear and anxiety and worry -related feelings. They are related to the same fundamental point, but would you like to say something about these interconnections and that paper?

Chawla: Yeah, well, where that paper comes from specifically is that I was part of a, actually a three year project with North American Association for Environmental Education was the Center for Children in Nature Network. A cluster of universities. To look at how connection to nature was being measured. And so I was there with Thomas Berry, who is in Sweden as a researcher. At that time, he was at the University of Minnesota. And we recognize that we have to make sure that measures for children are part of this effort. The goal was to produce a practitioners guide to assessing connection to nature, which is now freely available on the North American Association for Environmental Education website. But in the process of getting there we had all these different measures for, you know, mostly older children and adults. And as a group, we were reviewing them. We met in workshops. And to try to select the ones that would be really most accessible and useful for people in the environmental education field. And first, you know, Thomas and I noticed, there's very little here for younger children. So we made sure that early childhood measures are included in that.

But in the process, yeah, I noticed these are all positive measures. I mean, the assumption is that connecting with nature is always a happy experience. And yet, I was aware, you know, I've been since the 1990s, I've been following studies that would ask children just really open ended questions like, what do you think the world will be like in 50? years? Or what do you think it'll be like in 100 years? Or what do you think you'll be like when you're raising your own children? And most of the responses from different countries, you know, just different interview approaches, drawing approaches. They were mostly dystopian. Like really dystopian. And dystopian, especially in terms of what was going to happen to the environment. And yet, you know, the children responding to these very open-ended questions were, certainly, in my view, expressing connection with the natural world too. That's why they were so upset. That's why they had such fearful imaginings for the future. And then I had a doctoral student Susie Stryfe, who did a study of the meaning of nature in the daily lives of children in a nearby city called Commerce City. Industrial city. Huge oil and gas refinery. And loads of warehouses. Idling trucks, et cetera. Gangs. A number of Superfund sites. And yet, nature was very important to them wherever they could find it. I mean, it might be an overgrown ditch. It might be the big, weedy overgrown corner of a, you know, basketball court. But it might be the strip of trees. But it was really important to them, where they found it. Where they could find it.

And then simultaneously, she was doing all the same methods with children in a very economically upscale suburb of Denver, not far apart. They tend to think of nature as the exotic vacations we go on. To go as a family. But either way, she asked him this very open ended question, do you have any environmental concerns, and about 80% in both communities. It didn't matter which one. Had these, you know, expressed themselves in ways that hit me in the stomach. I mean, they said things like, I'm really sad because my grandson, or my great nephew is going to have to experience the end of the world. Or I'm really sad because all the animals are going to die. And, I mean, these really powerful statements to me. That was definitely part of their connection to nature. And so that's where I took these two literature reviews. Connection to nature. And all the good things it's about which it is and how it's being measured. And then this other research on children's fears and worries and sadness about what is happening to our planet. And brought them together to say, there's this, you know, difficult side of society of connecting to nature too. And, you know, given that one of the things that comes out of coping with environmental loss literature is the importance of opening in a space to feel you can freely express your emotions. In which I know has been a very important part of your work, Thomas and Panu.

I see it's a very important part of your thinking about this as well. And, yet, my friend Maria Ojala who I brought over here for a while. And, you know, in her work in Sweden she said she thinks maybe Swedish children feel they have to be cool all the time. If you're cool you can't let anybody know you're worried about anything. And children talking about, you know, if they bring up concern about what's going on with the planet. Being told, you know, we don't have time for that in the classroom. Or actually being laughed at by their peers. And you know, we have a culture which tends to put authentic emotions under wraps. And so it's just put me on my current path where I'm really thinking about what are the different opportunities we can create for young people to feel they can, you know, acknowledge and be open about this difficult side of being connected to nature. And how can we help them with that process?

Doherty: Yeah, I just want to speak to the listeners as you're listening. We've been doing this podcast for over a year, but this is one of the first times we've got into this particular area of child development. And just so listeners know, there's, there's people that have been studying this for years. People like Louise. And people like David Sobel, Peter Kahn, Carol Saunders. And, you know, so there's a whole, like, academic literature that's been recognizing this. But it is all of our task right? Every time we bring up children in nature. And any conversation, we ended up having to go through this mini rite of passage. Even in the conversation where we have to then confront, okay, we're in this world. And we have all this stuff, and climate change. And it is daunting, everything.

And, you know, as John Muir said, everything is linked together, when you pull on one thing, and the universe is hitched to everything else. So we don't have the luxury of just talking about children in a meadow with butterflies only. W9e have to realize, well, there's different social classes and different access and different places in the world. And kids are smart. They're very smart. And they see all the news. And they have their own thoughts and ideas about it. So, you know, I love the fact that Louise, you're just listening to kids. You know, it's this brave listening of research where we're just like, let's just see what's actually happening out there. But that's takeaway for parents. So if we want to bring this larger. We don't want to get stuck in this world conversation because people start spinning. And then they become disempowered. So how does this come back down to actual parenting and how we live our lives. Could you say a little bit - the idea that I think about as a parent, I find helpful coming out of a lot of this research is this idea of joint attention. The idea of an adult and a young person looking at nature together. At any age, from infancy to adult peers. And, you know, how that plays out in zoos and different natural places. And how that's helpful for our emotional development. Could you say a little bit about that, Louise? Because I know some of these things are a big part of your work.

Chawla: Yeah. So, you know, I think all of this does tie in with what you were saying earlier, Thomas, about kids being physically separated from nature now by rules about safety. And always being supervised. And there's not so much of it around. although, again, those kids in Commerce City, were able to find it wherever it was when they were free to move around outside. Um, but another piece of my research has been significant life experiences. And that started the area of research and environmental education that started in 1980 with someone named Tom Tanner. Who said, well, if our goal as environmental educators, and I hoped this would be the goal of parents as well as to, you know, produce children. People who really know and care about the natural world, then, you know, what were the formative experiences in people who were exemplars of that kind of caring? And it started with really interviewing and surveying people who were examples. Which makes sense. So staff in leading conservation organizations, environmental educators, people who would become professionals in learning about and caring about the natural world.

And so, again, my question was, what if we kind of can push that? And what if I went out there and I talked to the widest group of people I could. You know, people who were young and old. And men and women. And working class as well as professionals. And high school education. As well as PhDs. And doing very different kinds of activism, including defending their community from yet one more, you know, incinerator being put next door. And so I did that. And I did that research, I did it all around the state of Kentucky, where I lived at the time. And then I did it around Norway, when I was a Fulbright Scholar there.

And what this research shows is that what comes out the most often in terms of formative experiences is a time to kind of mess around out there in the natural world, as a child. Just, you know, free play, free exploration. But also important people. And that's what gets to the joint attention in your question, Thomas. Which meant parents, grandparents, favorite uncle. Whoever it might be, who, you know, went out in nature with you. And looked at things together. That joint attention. And it's so mundane. I mean, we do it all the time. How profound it is, I think, just escapes most people's awareness. It starts around nine months old. And there's really, if you think of any environment, there's kind of an infinite number of things in it in most places that we could pay attention to. I mean, I'm in my study now. I've got hundreds of books there. I could pay attention to any one of them. I could pay attention to the pattern in the wood on the floor. But so we have to learn to selectively pay attention. And we learned that with other people, you know, the other people around us kind of indicate what's important to notice. And when people talked about their relationships with these important people in their lives when they were children. Usually family members. Rarely teachers, but sometimes teachers. But usually family members. That's what they were doing. You know, they were noticing things in nature together. They were taking time to slow down and notice things appreciatively.

On the other hand, of course, we can be taught very early not to notice. I love the story of Bill Crane, a developmental psychologist who would watch little kids and their caretakers in public parks in New York. And he said, usually this is the scenario he would see. Something like this. A toddler sees a pigeon. It gets all excited about the pigeon. It's trotting after the pigeon. And it's caretaker grabs him and says leave that dirty bird. Or come on, you know, we have to get home. No time for this. Unfortunately he said that's what he mostly saw. So joint attention. And then as people get older it can be the fabulous teacher who takes you on field trips. It can become your best buddy who you go exploring with. It can become, you know, your outdoor camping leaders. But those processes of joint attention of showing. Of coming with us. Both getting excited about what excites us and inviting us to get excited about what excites them outdoors in nature are really fundamental. And then when we get to the other side of it noticing harm. Noticing loss. Noticing a wildfire that just burned out in your community. Very real to me living on the edge of the woods. And how do we deal with that together too? I think that those qualities of attention. And how we respond to what we see really is a fundamental mental part of the whole process of relating with the world around us.

Pihkala: Thanks a lot for that, Louise. That's very rich. And also reminds us of the episode we did with the poet Kim Stafford where we talked about Rachel Carson's Sense of wonder, for example. The great little book. And the general topic of retaining the ability to experience wonder, but also the ability to experience sorrow, or sadness. And that's one part of the creative work nowadays in environmental education. Trying to think about encounters with sadness and loss, like the death of a small animal, which is a very common experience that children experience sometimes. So how can the adults be with the child in a way, which builds up skills of encountering grief constructively. So also, for the listeners, that's one sort of practical example. And it requires also from the adults, you know, sort of resistance to the desire to move away from sometimes either difficult or boring subjects. So much comes up. Much goes back to certain quite fundamental basics in education and patience seems to be one of them. And I've really enjoyed this conversation. Our time is running out. And we have to wrap up soon. But what's on your mind, Thomas at this point?

Doherty: Yeah, as it often happens, I want to talk more and more because we've opened up such a rich thing. So we can go maybe a little bit longer today, because it's such a great topic. But it's the best of times in the worst of times here. Because in these times of fraught relationships with nature and climate change it does help us to remember what is important. And come back to the basics of what healthy parenting is. You know, we're all I think. Are you a parent, Louise, I don't know your background, yourself, do you? Are you a parent yourself?

Chawla: Yes, I have a grown daughter.

Doherty: Yeah. Yeah. So we're all parents here. And all of us have had this experience. So I think of the challenge of being a parent and well, let me rephrase that I was about to say something that kind of has a blind spot, because I was gonna say, the experience of parents today is that we have to hold all this negative stuff, and all the joy and the wonder. But as we know, and as you know, Louise, that's always been the case, depending on the neighborhood you're researching, right. So that's another big piece, as we understand globally, people have always struggled with environmental degradation and threats. And also found a sense of wonder. And that's one of the great resilience of children is they will find nature and wonder, no matter where they live, anywhere.

And all of us will find a pocket of nature and play and magic, and things like that. So as the listeners think about this, just realizing that we, you know, kids are actually quite resilient. And that's developmentally part of their lives. Like they actually can talk about death. They just reason about it in their own ways. So just opening, you know, as families, we need to all kind of open up to these things. And then listen to each other. Like one of my sayings is validate, elevate, create. So it's like validating what the person is talking about whatever it happens to be elevated. Put it on a pedestal. Let's look at this. And then let's get creative about it. How do you know about it? What should we do about it? And things like that.

Chawla: Yeah, yeah. I would just like to say that, of course, they say it's always been the best of times, and the worst of times, at least in our Western society. But, we have to face our relations with the planet now. There's not going to be any way out. And I think that yes, that calls on great creativity from parents, teachers or institutions or children. Children like creative challenges, in my experience. It really gets back to opening up a space to discuss feelings. That's going to have to be part of it. And I think that is at the center and moving from there. And parents can share their own ambivalence and their own, you know, sense of confusion. And children can understand that. They are very familiar with confusion and ambivalence. But I think a critical piece is that the things we're asked to do are actually, that are good for the planet and are good for us too. And I think one very important piece is helping families and helping children recognize that the changes we need to make in our lives, some of them can actually make our lives better. We improve the quality of our lives. And, you know, choosing lives of voluntary simplicity for the planet's part. Choosing to invest some of our time and finding projects where we can all work to care for our local worlds together. Those make our lives better. So the paths we need to take are actually good for us as well as good for the larger world.

Doherty: Yeah, co-benefits. Yeah there's all kinds of co-benefits to all these sustainability things that we talk about. Yeah. Panu, what are you thinking about as we wrap up here?

Pihkala: Well, I think that's a very important and also nice point to end this very fascinating discussion, which could go on for a long time. And think with Thomas, whether we get the chance to talk with you again sometime. That would be lovely.

Doherty: Yeah. As we close, we're gonna put some links to some of Louise's work, and her research that's available online and some of the stuff that she's doing in Boulder, Colorado. You know, reminding listeners about the episode we had recently with Susan Bodner. The psychologist in New York City, who is working on a very parallel path about people's attachment to nature. And they're using the psychological concept of attachment to natural places. And she's listening to people in New York. Just listening to what they say. And my insight. And, Louise, you can tell me what you think. I mean this is extending out of the research. But the classic takeaway of unhealthy attachment is that if a child has at least one caregiver of any kind, whether it be an aunt or a grandparent. It doesn't have to be a parent. If you have one healthy relationship that usually leads to resilience in someone's life. And so I think if we have just at least one healthy mentor. Or one healthy nature mentor, I think that will be enough to give you a healthy connection with nature. I don't know if those two things are exactly similar.

Chawla: I think they totally get together, Thomas. Because all the things we were talking about in terms of going out and noticing things in the natural world and encouraging a sense of kinship. And bonding with it. And taking action to care for it. Those all are done in the spirit of companionship. Respect for the child's interests and feelings. Acknowledgement of the adults interests and feelings. And they're being in that kind of positive, very interactive relationship that's respectful of both sides. And respectful of the natural world. And that is at the very center of what you're talking about in terms of secure attachment theory.

Doherty: Great. Well, that's a good takeaway. We'll wrap it up for today. But, Louise, I know you're busy with, you know, even though you say you're retired, it sounds like you're actually quite active. And doing a lot of neat stuff. So I really am impressed. And I've learned so much from you. I wouldn't be doing the work I'm doing without the work that you have done in the past. I think Panu can say the same. So I really appreciate having time to chat with you. And that you're still in the game here just as much or more than ever. So thank you very much. And you both have - Louise you have a good you have a good rest of the day. And Panu, you have a really good evening. 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|Stavrialena Gontzou

In the first of a series of conversations on families and relationships, Thomas and Panu focused on the dynamics of couples relationships in an era of climate crisis. They discussed “eco-couples issues” ranging from small disagreements about daily acts to deal-breaker choices like whether to have children. Panu suggested that these were not simply “lifestyle choices” but rather “life-constituting choices.” Thomas shared his way of combining couples therapy techniques with his expertise about people’s environmental identity and values. As Thomas noted:

“... when we're debating with our significant other about some ecological behavior or political stance, we're really arguing about how we're showing love to ourselves and to the planet… So my love for nature is conflicting with your love for nature in some way. And then it starts to conflict with my love for you and your love for me…” 

Listen to learn tools to maintain a secure connection with your partner while also working through the healthy tensions brought on by being two people trying to live ethically in an often unsustainable world. 

• Kasha Patel Feb 14, 2023 Washington Post: Is your partner worried about climate change? You might be surprised.

• Alison Kaplan March 31, 2023 NY Times: When Climate Change Melts Your Relationship: Everything was going great until I told him to dump his kerosene lamp for an LED.

• A new short film Reckless by Pella Kågerman captures a young couple fumbling with first relationships amidst a dystopian future world.

• Erica Berry (2021) Why We Need More Climate Change Love Stories. Outside Magazine 

  • “Fiction, in other words, can help us visualize how to better love during a crisis. And when that fiction unfolds in speculative futures, it’s the love stories that make our bodies feel like we are there and, in the process, motivate us to fight for a better world back home.”

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity. 

Thomas Doherty: Please support the climate change and happiness podcast see the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

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

Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness, our podcast. This is a podcast for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about climate change and other environmental issues. And this is a place to be with our personal side. The personal side of these issues for us, our emotional responses. And Panu and I support each other as we talk about our own lives, and things that we're doing. And so these podcast episodes are a little window into our conversations. 

And we've been talking about family, couples, relationships. Our own lives. Our own families. Our own couples relationships. And there's been a lot in the news lately about “eco couples issues.” You know, couples having debates and conflicts about their sustainability behaviors. And it gets into all kinds of issues about how we live and our lifestyle and whether we have children or not. So we're going to talk about this. We have a plan to talk about couples issues, and then also at some point about family dynamics. So all of you listening here are in some sort of family dynamic in your life. And many of you are also in couples. So I hope you find this helpful. And we're coming at this from a therapeutic perspective. And a real [life] perspective. And a philosophical perspective. So Panu, you know, what's top of mind for you, as we jump into this idea of, you know, if we want to call this eco couples conversation? What's top of mind for you?

Pihkala: Yes, in places like Finland, we already have some physical impacts of climate change. And some people are more impacted by this, like the Sámi people in northern Finland. And some fishers, for example, in south Finland, and so on. But where we really already see climate change impacts is in human relations and social dynamics. And increasingly so. Over the years, I've been concerned about how to respond to the impacts of climate change on our human relationships. And I sometimes lead workshops, or discussion groups. Mostly I do research and advisory reports and talks and that sort of thing. 

But in the groups, I've heard from young people that there are often some disputes between them and some of their older relatives in relation to environmental politics and climate politics. And this clearly is a factor which affects their well being. They are sad about the disputes in their relationships. But of course, they don't want either to give up their climate values, so to speak. And generally, it seems that in our communities and societies, we would need much more social talk about how to deal with these issues, which come to our living rooms and kitchen tables. But I know, Thomas, that you meet people in person, much more than I do. And I've got the impression that there's lots of different kinds of impacts of climate change on human relationships. So what's on top of your mind when thinking about this issue?

Doherty: Yeah, thanks, Panu. I think today, we can focus on the couples. The one to one relationship with our significant other. And then also realize that that takes place in the context of our family as well. You know, for young people, they're doing double duty. They're teens, adolescent teenagers, young adults, and early 20s. They're finding their own way in the world. Their own environmental identity might be different from their family of origin and the values and the behaviors. So in the best of times, we get along well with our family. And our family shares similar values. And we, in fact, are supported and loved by our family. And we all deal with these things together. 

But then sometimes our knowledge and what we see in the world, diverts us from our typical family style practically in terms of the decisions we make about food we eat, and where we live, and politics. And all this sort of stuff. And we know we live in a polarized time. So, because of that our significant relationship is really important for us. We need to be with someone that shares our values. That we can be safe and secure with. And puts a lot of pressure on our personal relationships. Whether we're in a teen relationship. A young relationship. Whether we're in a just easy romantic relationship. Or whether we're committing to each other or getting married or thinking about long term or children. That's a lot of pressure. And the short story is that people don't have the tools. They don't have a lot of tools and concepts to talk about this. So they assume they know about their partner, but they have misunderstandings. And so there's been great stories in the media recently. Kasha Patel had a story in the Washington Post on Valentine's Day. You know, about partners worrying about climate change. [See show notes.]  And Alison Kaplan had a story in the New York Times about a couple. The modern love column is about a couple disputing over the kerosene lamp that the male of this couple had on his sailboat. And whether they should have an LED lamp. [See show notes.]  And it's a small thing, but it stood for all kinds of other stuff. So I think that's one territory that couples relationship dynamics.

Pihkala: Yeah, I definitely think so. And couples are, of course, people of various ages, as you say, Thomas. And some pretty fundamental decisions are made by couples, between 20 and 40 years, roughly speaking. For example, where to live and how to live and what will be the professions. And will they try to have children or adopt children? And in all of these areas of life, climate change is starting to have an effect. And people can have different takes on what would be the desired form of life. So also discussing with Finnish family therapists and social workers, who meet families and couples, they say that couples do sometimes end up in even strong disputes because of differences in climate values and desires.

Doherty: Yeah. So, you know, the tools that we've talked about in the podcast, you know, the idea that I have an environmental identity. A sense of my identity in relation to nature and the natural world. And it's built by my life experiences and where I grew up, and, you know, my family of origin. And where we lived. And my education. And where we traveled and our social class and our experiences. And some families have really ecological values. Other families have more utilitarian values about using nature. Some families are conservative. Some families are progressive. And so  I find when you give couples of any age. It could be teenagers. It could be any age. If you give couples some tools to talk about each member of the couple, it doesn't matter. It could be gay or straight. Or different cultural backgrounds, different diverse couples. If you give them some tools, like even just okay, there's three kinds of eco values basically, for people. Your personal concerns about yourself. Concerns about other people. So altruistic values. And then ecological values. Concerns about the natural world and the web of life, right? Those are three different kinds of values. And like, for any given issue, you're talking about, what's the dominant value for you in relation to that issue? 

Like in Allison Kaplan's essay in the New York Times about the couple arguing about the kerosene lamp, the young woman is really coming at it from an ecological and altruistic value about other people. And the guy is saying, well, I like this. We like this lamp. It's very, you know, it's very helpful for us. It's nostalgic. And so coming at it from more egocentric. And the woman realizes, yes, I like the lamp too. It's really pretty. It reminds us of the old days, when we're in the sailboat. And we love this. But you know, how do they sort out the different values because, of course, kerosene is a dirty fuel. And it would be better to transition to an LED lamp. But once you give them some tools, then they don't personalize it. Because otherwise it's like you're either with me or you're against me. You don't support me. I mean, this is an insight from couples therapy. And this is good for all of us to hear and remind ourselves.  But whenever couples are talking, it's like watching a movie with subtitles. And the subtitles underneath whatever their conversation is along the lines of, do you love me? Do you care about me? Can I trust you? Do I feel safe with you? Every couple's communication has that as a subtext. And we forget that. And we argue about, you know, whether kerosene is better than some other fuel. And we intellectualize the whole thing. And we miss the core of our connection. So, anyway, so once you start giving people some insights to that, it goes a lot better.

Pihkala: Yeah. Thanks for sharing all that. And I really liked the subtitles idea. Subtexts. Speaking in codes. There might be different metaphors used here. And one part of our condition as a kind of “climate hostage,” as you have said, Thomas, is that we have to try to negotiate between individual responsibility and the need for structural reform. And this is something we discussed at an earlier episode of this podcast about ecological guilt, for example. But it has surfaced in many episodes. And it's tricky. In many ways, there's different public discourses and social norms about it. 

And also, in this very interesting story about the kerosene lamp, that dimension was also present. The male character was more like saying that, you know, we have to put things in perspective. And it can't be that we have to get rid of this lamp. There's so much bigger things going on. And actually also, the man had quite strong ecological values in the end, when there was discussion about what he was doing for a profession and during free time, and so on. So these psychological and psychosocial dynamics about individual responsibility and dynamics of ecological guilt, I think that's something which might be also very helpful for people, if they get more tools about how to think about those dynamics. And how to communicate about them. Otherwise, it can easily become that people start blaming others for not reacting the same way to this dilemma as one does, himself or herself.

Doherty: Yeah. I mean, it's a good point because often, it's kind of common sense. But we tend to connect and partner with people that have similar values to us. So part of it is reminding the couple that, oh, you actually share all these values. And you're mostly on the same team. But, again, we have different priorities at different moments. And there's many different kinds of environmental values. And we may agree on our experiential values about wanting to be in nature and go camping or go sailing. We might agree on animal rights and different political things. But we might disagree, disagree on a technological point about what strategy we think is better. 

You know, the stereotype is the male oriented person in the group is more technological and more logical and wants to focus on science. And the female oriented person is more emotional and relational. And that holds up in relationships across different genders and sexual orientations. But it isn't always like that. And that's a microcosm of the larger environmental debate in our society. Because environmentalists debate all the time about, you know, like, should Germany stop its nuclear reactors, or not. It's in the middle of stopping its nuclear reactors. A lot of people think that's the worst thing to do right now. We need nuclear power in terms of the transition. But, you know, people are super passionate on both sides of that issue. And so, there's no right answer there. It's a real pragmatic question. But that in a microcosm happens in our relationship, whether we're deciding whether we want to recycle plastic bags or use kerosene in the lantern when we're on our sailing trip.

Pihkala: Exactly. Exactly and these basic emotion communication and value communication skills of saying sometimes things out loud, of course, can be helpful. Saying like, I really appreciate that you care for the environment. And I know that we have differing opinions about this particular issue at hand. But I want to say to you that I'm not, you know, blaming you for being totally wrong here. I just want to discuss this thing, which is important for me. Now, this is very, very roughly speaking out loud but you know, making these things audible. And not just presuming that the other knows what you are thinking.

Doherty: Exactly. This is kind of basic couples health, right? You know, people can't read your mind. So you do need to let them know what you're thinking and feeling and you need to compliment them. And it's much easier to get someone to change or align with you if you compliment them first. and focus on the positive. Just in any kind of, you know, social program. Even in your relationship with your significant other. What I find is some of the couples therapy ideas that are already out there are just perfectly useful to apply in an eco context. 

One of the things I do when I work with couples is have this kind of protocol when they're trying to make plans for the future. Like maybe on your anniversary, you might want to plan your next year of life together. And so actually like a client made this up and when I help them with it, and I've used it since. But, you know, it starts with celebration. What's working well? What are we happy about in our relationship? Visioning is the next step. Where do we see going in the future? Like what would be happening in the future. And then commitment is like, okay, what part of our visions can we actually commit to. Like, you have a vision, you want to do this thing. I have a vision. Can we commit to some piece? We can't do everything we want to do, but can I commit to some of your vision, or my vision. Like whether we're going to travel or make a life decision. And then contract. You write it down. You have to write it down. Because if you don't write it down, people will remember things differently. And that will lead to conflicts later. And that works really well with couples in all kinds of contexts. Start with the positive. It gets people feeling good, their vision is quite creative. The commitment is more practical. It's like, well, you want to travel around the world in a sailboat. I don't know if I can commit to that in my life right now. So what can we do, you know, that we can commit to. And then we have to write it down. So six months later, we don't remember it differently. Where I said, I thought sailing might be nice, sometime in the future. And you heard me say, we are going to go sailing next summer, you know. So, you know, so anyway, the writing down but you don't start with the writing down. Because that's too limited. The writing down just comes as kind of a record. But very much applies to what we want to do in our lives, you know.

Pihkala: Yeah, that's great. And reminds me of many things I was part of when I was younger. Including some counseling sometimes with couples. I'm not a professional counselor. And some of these communication skills courses for couples we went to when we were young with my wife. And we've been married over 20 years. So that's a long time since now. But it reminds me of the peer group impact, which is of course, a very universal phenomenon. But perhaps that would be something also in demand for climate and ecological matters. Having more of these peer group realizations that “hey, we are not actually the only couple who are finding it difficult to make decisions about whether we should have a second car or no car at all. And what are we gonna do with traveling by plane when one of us is much more sensitive about climate emotions or flying than the other is?” So perhaps peer group information might be helpful.

Doherty: I think it totally is. And, you know, listeners can think about that. Talking to their larger partner groups. But you do need some tools and you need some rules of engagement. Because otherwise, the polarized energy comes into the room. And our own insecurity comes up. A couple of things you had mentioned earlier in our conversations I wanted to get to Panu. I mean, recognizing that, you know, some of these behaviors like turning off lights and recycling and physical things, they're defenses. They're psychological defenses. We do these things to help manage our anxiety so they really are important for us to do. And when we're prevented from doing those we don't feel good. And then when our partner doesn't honor those, we don't feel good. You know, if we're sharing a space with someone. 

But there is an emotional piece to this. And I like this idea that lifestyle choices isn't the right word. It's too small. But I think you said these are life-constituting choices. Like these are choices that build our life. You know, help us to embody our meaning and our sense of ourselves. So these things are I don't know that I like that word life-constituting versus lifestyle. Because lifestyle just sounds like consumeristic product stuff. But life constitutes more than no, I'm building a healthy life for myself.

Pihkala: Yeah. Thanks for observing Thomas. That came to my mind several times when there was some writing about couples. And especially the reproduction issue. If that is described as a lifestyle choice. I don't think that it does any justice to the magnitude of those issues and decisions. So there are also other issues, which can be seen as life-constituting. But that's definitely one. And something we discussed in this podcast, with Jade Sasser at an earlier episode. And I would recommend listeners to return to that or find that if that's new for you. And, of course, there's huge loads on that question, both for the couple, but also for their extended families and their social surroundings. So still, we human beings have this tribe orientation quite deep down I think. And the decisions of whether or not to try to have kids, evoke quite strong emotions and also unconscious processes, I think.

Doherty: Yeah, yeah. So the decision about whether to have a baby is the ultimate life-constituting decision, right? Because we're actually creating a whole new life that's going to want to, you know, constitute itself as we go here. And yeah, that's a huge one. Yeah, we recommend listeners go back to our episode with Britt Wray. And then with Jade Sasser because we got into having child decisions quite deeply. And it really is a decision. It's not only just a yes or no, but it's also a why. And how, and if we did it, what would it look like. And so it's a multifaceted decision. So yeah, we have all of these behaviors. 

One of the things that's also helpful even with little behaviors, small ones, is that I, you know, they're ceremonial behaviors. So this is a thing that I've talked about with people. And they find it helpful. So if I go to Starbucks and get a coffee, or a latte, and then I have this disposable cup, you know, when I do that, I always have a rule of trying to use the cup, again, sometime. I like to reuse things. And not just use them once and throw them away. And that's just a little ceremony that I have. I mean, it doesn't necessarily change the world, for me to reuse that cup, or wash up plastic bags and reuse them. Or just any of these, these things that we do, you know, might not change the world. But it's important for me. It's a ritual. It's a ceremony. It stands for my values. And I like to, you know, give myself permission to do that. Even if other people aren't doing it. So, it's helpful for couples to realize that their partner might have a ceremony. A thing that they do. That isn't necessarily as important to us, but I'll do the ceremony with them. Because it's a way for us to be connected together. It doesn't hurt to reuse things. It's not a big thing to do that. And then if we can be flexible, and realize we are hostages in this situation, and we can't control. So sometimes we can't do the ceremony that we want. We can't live the life that we want. I mean, that's the dilemma of all of us. 

70% of the population of the planet cannot live the life they want. Based on what we know people want. And what the government's and what people in power are allowing us to do. We cannot live the life that we want. And that is just an existential dilemma of the modern world. Because certain people are stopping us from doing that there's a lot of oppression in the world. But anyway, realizing that, you know, having some shared rituals that help us to constitute our values and realizing that partner A might focus on this part of sustainability. And Partner B might focus on this. And then we become a team. So you use your strengths. And I use mine. You know, if we want to travel on a vacation. And you can figure out the sustainability and the carbon footprint. And I'll figure out some of the personal interactions in our health. You know, for our diet. For lifestyle choices. Where we live. We can divide and conquer. And kind of work as a team with our different values and strengths. That's a better place to go than clashing and fighting.

Pihkala: Yeah, exactly. Appreciating the other so that he or she feels supported. And there's a joint project. And rituals are a very interesting topic. And it would be lovely to do an episode on that topic on its own. And there's certainly many kinds of ceremonialistic and ritualistic behavior in our everyday lives. And also in our environmental behavior. Recycling, for example, is a very common thing that people talk about in relation to their environmental behavior. And as you say, Thomas, it can be important for people as also an anxiety management tool. And I agree with what you say. And of course, then when one looks at the big picture, sometimes we have to be careful about only using recycling as a sort of single action bias. Or a tokenistic thing to do, so that we disregard other more impactful choices in our lives. 

So that's what happens in Finland, at least sometimes. Also, people try to go behind the fact that, you know, “I'm recycling so well, but please don't criticize any other aspects of my life” in relation to the environmental impact. So just as a side note, this theme of recycling. But the very fact that it's an embodied thing to do, I think, has a lot to do with its significance. And many things related to environmental impacts are pretty abstract. So I think there's a clear impact. So I think there's a clear need for these embodied things. And I guess one could draw a link to couples here also. That there's a need for embodiment of things. You know, flowers, rings, and cups of coffee. And these things which every person who is in a relationship knows that they can be much more important than what their actual size is.

Doherty: Yeah we're getting at the classic couples therapy material here with the whole love languages, right? That's the whole piece here. Anybody who's done couples counseling may have come across that whole concept of the love languages. Whether I do, you know, words were positive words of affirmation to my partner or acts of service or quality time or touch and  sexuality, gifts and tokens. And, you know, cards. And to be in a couple, you need to be able to understand and speak your partner's love language. And how they show and receive love. And then that overlaps with our eco language, right? Our environmental identity. That's why I keep telling the therapists  I'm training, you know, eco couples counseling is a big area. Really a lot of people need help in this area. So a lot we're gonna put some there's a lot of nice writing. 

Erica Berry is another one of our guests that we spoke with regarding her book Wolfish and about her ideas about women and nature. And she's written very eloquently about relationships. And again, some of these news stories that came out around the Valentine's Day, Earth Day news cycle. We'll get at this. I saw just the other day I really nice short film, through the New Yorker short film program. Pella Kågerman, I'm not pronouncing her name right, is a Swedish filmmaker. A short film about a very young adolescent relationship. [See show notes.]  A couple that are trying to work through a breakup in the context of a dystopian, you know, climate change future world. And it spoke to the challenges of, you know, the teenagers and the young young people out there. That is just hey, these are the first relationships I've ever had in my life. And I'm still trying to figure out how to be in a relationship with another person. Which is hard. And we get our hearts broken. And we don't know how to communicate. And we get with the wrong partners that hurt us. And things like that. And then we're also concerned about this, whether we're going to be live and a decade kind of thing. And so that film helped to capture I think a little bit of that too. Us as old people, you know, older people, we've been through a lot of this already. But we forget what it's like just to have our first relationships with people. There's a whole, you know, sequence of this for our listeners that are listening in.

Pihkala: Yeah, thanks for the tip. Pella Kågerman's film is new for me even though she comes from the neighboring country of Sweden. And there's a great history of Swedish cinema from Ingmar Bergman to other directors. And some great stuff of human relations and couples relations depicted in those films. And now it also extends to ecological conditions and dystopias or utopias. And one of Erica Berry's great writings deals with how we also need climate fiction love stories. [See show notes.] So this brings us to the basic fuel of couples' love, this kind of basic theme that we have ended many episodes on. And we need some things to live for. And amidst all the things that are going on in the world, we do have the possibility for love in our relationships. And if we can believe in the possibility of love also in various possible futures, that will be highly motivating. That's one of Erica's great points in that essay and brings us to some fundamentals about couples.

Doherty: Yeah. So that's a good note to end on. You know, so when we're debating with our significant other about some ecological behavior or political stance, we're really arguing about how we're showing love to ourselves and to the planet. So we're really arguing about our love for nature. And my love for nature is coming out differently than yours. If we can stay with that it is super helpful. So my love for nature is conflicting with your love for nature in some way. And then it starts to conflict with my love for you and your love for me, as well. So all we need is love as they say. But yes. It's what's most important at the end of the day. And if we can keep that we're going to be much better off. So listeners, I know some of you find this helpful because we're human. And so we'd love to hear from you. Couples and things that are helpful for you. Please send us a message you can find us at climatechangeandhappiness.com. And you can send us messages and ideas. Find our Patreon there and support us. Thank you very much. Good luck with your relationships. Panu, have a good evening.

Pihkala: Take care everyone. Thanks again for the discussion. 

Doherty: 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| Elizaveta Dushechkina

Panu and Thomas spoke with Erica Berry, author of the recent memoir and natural history Wolfish. Join us as Erica eloquently discusses the relationships between womens’ fears and empowerment and the stories we tell about nature and predators, wild and human. Meta-themes included how we can face our fears and rewire our instincts about global threats like climate change and how we can see other species as beings in their own right, not just as symbols or repositories for our fears and dreams. 

• Erica Berry

• Wolfish excerpts: 

  • What Our Fear of Wolves Tells Us About Ourselves

  • ‘A night for growing up’: how a terrifying college ‘prank’ taught me about fear

• Erica Berry (March 21, 2023). Climate Grief Was Clouding My Time Outside. So I Turned to Ecotherapy. [Describing walking therapy sessions with Thomas Doherty.]  Outside Magazine Online. 

• Erica Berry (September 2020). Here in fire-stricken Oregon, an old way of life is gone. The Guardian. 

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity. 

Thomas Doherty: Please support the climate change and happiness podcast see the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

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

Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. Our podcast. The show for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about climate change and environmental issues. We talk about our feelings. We talk about our emotions. We talk about our private lives, our relationships, our families. And today, we're very excited to have a guest with us.

Erica Berry: My name is Erica Berry. And I'm a writer and teacher based in my hometown of Portland, Oregon. My first book Wolfish: Wolf self and the Stories We Tell About Fear was recently released in the US and the UK.

Doherty: Yes. And I'm very lucky to share a hometown with Erica. And I've got a chance to meet Erica, and have some really nice conversations, and some walking with her in the forest. (Which recently turned into a story that Erica did for Outside Magazine.) So really glad to have her here. And a lot of neat themes. Erica's writing is - I highly recommend it. And she writes about relationships and gender. And being a woman in the wilderness. And about wolves and all kinds of things that are close to our hearts. And Panu, of course, coming from Finland has a lot of connections with wolves and the wilderness and from the Northern European context. So Panu, do you want to get us started with this conversation today?

Pihkala: Warmly welcome, Erica also, on my behalf, delighted to meet you. And as Thomas hinted, wolves are a hot topic in Finland also. And we have a very limited number of them. And no other predator encounters as much hatred as the wolves do in Finland. And I'm taking part in some research projects where we try to understand this better also from a more humanistic and critical theory viewpoint. And feminist perspectives have been part of them. But before going into that, would you like to share something, Erica about your journey towards this subject matter all together? You know, emotions and our relations with the more than human world?

Berry: Thank you. I think that now I realized that I became sort of interested in wolves, both real and symbolic around the same time. And I think it came from this sort of larger coming of age question of how do - what are the stories we tell about the things that scare us? And how do we live with that uncertainty? And I suppose I was always an anxious child, in a sense. But also one very full of curiosity and wonder. And I think, you know, a young wolf is born, afraid. And I recently was talking to a biologist who said, if a wolf hears something under a tree, they might be afraid, but they'll go investigate it. And I think, you know, I was very lucky to have that sort of childhood where I was, like, pushing out and wandering around in the forest. And my grandparents, both live rurally. And so I spent a lot of time in those spaces. And cared for them sort of deeply. And felt, personally, kind of my own sense of calm or peace that I found there was what was at threat, as sort of wildfires would come or these other sorts of environmental things that then brought me anxiety. 

And so, you know, I think this question, when I started thinking about the presence of the wolf, both in our landscape and in our psyches, it felt like a more personal one where I was trying to reconcile a sort of hyper vigilance that had come over me. And I feel like that was both environmental. Quite anxious about climate change. And felt very swamped with a sort of grief about that. And at the same time, in day to day, human interactions, I had had some experiences as a woman that had made me pretty unsure how to move my body through the world. And that sense of uncertainty. I didn't know the limits of it, either in my body or sort of externally. And so became so many of the stories about the wolf, and the sort of idioms about the wolf we've inherited. This idea of the wolf at the door. Or throughout different countries, there's different stories that parents would tell their children that are basically about ‘here's what the wolf has to tell us about how to stay alive.’ How to survive. And I became interested in those stories because I felt so afraid for my life and the people around me. Somewhat irrationally, in a sort of hyper vigilant sense. And, yeah, so I guess anxiety and wonder were sort of two doors that led me to this.

Doherty: “Anxiety and wonder. Two doors.” That's great. Yeah, so many things we could talk about today. Before our conversation formally started, we were brainstorming about all the different directions we can go. And wolves have such a deep, you know, mythical history particularly in northern European, Anglo and Celtic and Finnish cultures and things like that. One of the things that came up with us, Erica, was just and I think you speak of this really eloquently, kind of knowing, I don't know, treading the difference, or knowing the difference between our own personal feelings and these global things. And, you know, that's one of the things I think comes up at ecotherapy. Kind of like the “Capital I” issues. Like the big things we're working on. And the lowercase I [personal] issues, you know. You seem to have insights about that, do you. Would you say a little bit more about that? Like, it's almost like a chicken and egg thing? What came first: my own temperamental anxiety or climate anxiety? Have you thought about that a little bit?

Berry: Yeah, I mean, I think, at some point when this sort of modern conception of what to do, if you're afraid, is to grow out of your fears. That was what I thought. That was, I felt like what the self help books were telling me. But I was more interested in how we grow into those fears. And the idea that we inherit, and are sort of sold these narratives often benefiting someone or an institution or something in power. And often also, there's a cost of carrying those narratives. And so I began to sort of question, you know, thinking of my brain as this vessel that had been filled with things without my sort of wanting to. Growing up you just inherit sort of imbibing these narratives and picking each of them up and sort of questioning them. 

And I think, for example, with the wolf, I was thinking, like, when did this idea of the wolf, and this sort of violent man. This metaphor. There's a conflation there. And when did that start. And I sort of was looking linguistically. And you have ancient Norse, Sanskrit, Russian and Iranian. There are words for wolf that are also the words for robber or evil doer. And so you'd have these sorts of legacies, even in the very language that goes back so far. And I became interested then. And, you know, from my personal interaction, I didn't feel afraid of wolves when I was hiking. But I was thinking about the relationship between if I'm a woman walking alone, you know, my grandfather's farm, there has been a cougar, that was you'll sort of sometimes you're walking, and it's the cougar prints are in your prints afterwards. You know, and I was thinking about that feeling of being in a space sort of intimately with a wild predator. 

And then my experiences, you know, I'd had an experience on the sidewalk where I'd been grabbed by a stranger, I didn't know. And that rewrote my experience of walking through these sorts of city landscapes. And I, at the same time, was very aware that I'd inherited this sort of Little Red Riding Hood story that told me I would be attacked there. And told me that to be a young woman is to potentially, you know, be prey. And I was really uncomfortable with that narrative. So I feel like at a certain time, I would sort of try to talk myself out of it on a very internal level. But ultimately realized, well, I have to like, take apart the wiring of these social narratives, that both do say, who can be predator, who can be prey. What it means to exist in those spaces. I didn't trust them. And I would say that, you know, this work is a balance of asking yourself these internal questions. When am I holding something? When am I sort of reacting to and trusting those gut instincts? But also felt like my gut instincts were sort of shaped by a world that had a lot of prejudice. And I didn't really trust my gut instincts. And I don't know, I guess that, you know, maybe this comes up in this sort of therapy world, like I felt like when it came to fear, I didn't trust what I should be afraid of. Because the stories that told me seem sort of bunk.

Doherty: Yeah. Well, I'll say one thing, and then I'll turn it over to Panu. But I do think that one thing that does happen in therapy paradoxically is that we learn not to trust our gut. Or we learn to test our gut because we think, you know, the real wisdom is always trust your gut. But if you had some negative wiring through your family, or a lot of people just have no understanding of animals and other species. It's all just abstract because they didn't grow up around wolves or coyotes or anything. And so there's a whole environmental identity piece. So some of our gut instincts are totally wrong. And we have to let them go and rewire. So.

Berry: I'm curious about how to sort of refind that instinct. You know, I feel like going back to some of these sort of archetypal or old stories, I felt like I was trying to excavate, what are my sort of gut self protective instincts that aren't going to be harmful or rooted and misapprehension? I guess that's just a larger, you know, the larger question or work is figuring out those instincts.

Pihkala: Very inspiring and fascinating. And I find this very important, also. The price of curiosity is anxiety. Would be a sort of paraphrasing of some of the work that Joanna Macy and others do at this work that reconnects things. And that was a helpful lesson for me sometimes, you know. Realizing that even though anxiety and worry and fear about what's going on in the world can be painful, it's also a sort of necessity, if you want to keep your sense of curiosity and wonder alive. So just echoing and commenting on some of the things you said quite early. There's a great book by a woman therapist, Miriam Greenspan. We've mentioned this at some very early episode called Healing Through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear, and Despair. 

And I find myself thinking a lot about that book when listening to you. And a book about the so-called negative emotions. Which are not negative in the value laden sense. And sometimes one hears phrases like, we should be fearless in the face of the climate crisis, for example. And I partly understand what you mean. But that's not the whole point. We should be courageous. And, you know, learn to feel fear, roughly the right amount at the right place. So, wisdom in fear is one of the themes that Greenspan very eloquently explores. And her book also features much of the discussion about this troubling power dynamics where women and the more than human will often end up suffering from sort of toxic forms of male aggression. So that's something I wanted to bring up. 

Berry: Yeah, that's really interesting. And I think about this question of how to do fear, both in myself. And then I'm sort of imagining I don't have children, but I was thinking about the stories I'd inherit as a child. And the children I work with or teacher, if I do have children, like what are the stories that you give them to sort of the right amount of fear to stay alive or just to thrive. But also not to make your world too small, right. And I think that does tie to wolves, right? We need to have some both wolves. But wolves need to feel some fear of humans, just like humans need to feel some fear of wolves. And like that fear can be some respect. And maybe it's not fear of attack, but like where reverence and awe tip into fear. And, you know, I think that's true, too. Socially, I was very resistant to relating to the Little Red Riding Hood narrative growing up as a teenager. Like, I really did not want to be this idea of the victim. And I think only later, when I'd sort of had some of these encounters did I realize that I needed to have some fear, actually. I tried to live completely fearlessly. 

And I'd sort of grown up in this very sort of empowered girl power era of the late 90s. And actually, I needed to, like, rewire some of that. And I do think there's a crossover. I mean, I think that the threat that an animal and human poses are totally different. And wolves. You know, I need to say that, like, I don't think. There's a great quote by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson. 

Yeah, it says something like the cruelty that a predator does, it's not cruelty what a predator does to a prey animal, right? It's instinct. And that's why metaphors about wolves will fall flat, right? At the same time, there is something about learning to walk among other bodies, that you don't know what they will do. And you can't anticipate. That is true. We're just animals. And, you know, we're an animal among animals. 

And I feel like part of my work into fear has just been thinking about the fear responses on an animal level. And I talked to a biologist who said, you know, fear is not an emotion in my lab, it's a set of responses. Sort of like these dominoes that affect our behavior. And a plant will be a different plant after it experiences chronic stress and an animal will and a person will. And it was sort of helpful for me to rationalize, like, oh, this is on a biological level. I've experienced something. And that's changing my body. And I can talk about that, but I guess the relationship between our sort of biological and psychological conceptions of fear.

Doherty: Yeah. I was just searching for a quote as we were talking that I gathered recently from Pema Chondron: “fear is a natural reaction of moving closer to the truth.” One of her quotes. And so all of this has a meta level of climate change. And societally we're working out. We're dosing our fear so that. We don't even really have to get into that too much, but that's a backdrop for a lot of our talk today is climate change.

Berry: Well and I think realizing that fear. I at some point realized, like, being afraid is being in love with things, right? The more afraid I am, the more I don't want to lose something. I felt most sort of afraid of flying on airplanes, when I was working on this book project. And I really wanted to finish it. And for some reason, that made me like, I can't. I've never really felt afraid of flying. And I felt extra, that sense of protectiveness. And so understanding that there's sort of the opposite on the color wheel of love and fear. And same with grief. And, you know, yeah, that very much ties to climate and sort of investing in the world around you, or recognizing the environmental world is tied to that.

Pihkala: Yeah, great stuff. And also guilt, I think. So it's interesting that many of these very common climate emotions and eco emotions, have their basis in love and care actually. Or our deepest values. You know, wanting to have something very important done. Echoing what you say about finishing the book. I've had the same feeling sometimes when working for a very long time with a book or a long article. And this like errr I need to get this finished. And that ties with sort of very deep themes around what might be called death anxiety or wrestling with knowledge of mortality. And I've noticed over the years also that I don't have very high levels of death anxiety, but when you are in those kinds of situations where you would like something to happen, that's a slight increase in at least my death anxiety. It doesn't limit my everyday functioning, but it speaks I think that this dynamic is here now. That's again, one topic, I think, very closely related to wolves, as you have hinted at yourself.

Berry: When I was doing the eco therapy sessions to write about for the magazine with Thomas, he mentioned, like that idea of playing out sort of this worst case scenario. Or like, sitting with that. And I've thought about that a lot since. And sort of the word fear has roots in the Latin word for ambush. And this idea that we fear the thing that we can't anticipate. And I've thought a lot, you know, like worry becomes a form of a sort of a prayer for something to happen, right? It's a fantasy place in a way. You're living in a projection. And what can sort of be defamed by just living it through. Going there. Imagining it, as you say. Death attacks something. And then sort of sitting with that. And okay, I've played it out. And now maybe I'm sort of free of it. And yeah, I guess I've thought about that in different contexts since our walk.

Doherty: Yeah. As people are listening out there, our listeners, just a lot of things were touching on. I think, just to kind of ground us in a kind of a map of what we're talking about. I mean, some of what we're talking about is just personal, how our nervous systems work, right? So our nervous systems get used to being a certain way. And we get afraid of things. And we want to avoid them. And so what Erica was just talking about is kind of what the therapist would call exposure. You know, graduated exposure, where we kind of bring these things into our minds. And sit with them. And that allows our body to our heart rate to settle on our blood pressure to settle. And we realize oh, okay, I can be with this. So that's a kind of a therapy thing. 

And then it's all insight about ourselves. And how we grew up. Oh, this is how I operate in the world. And one of the things that I don't know if that's true for you, Erica, but this was true for me when I was younger was being counterphobic. So I like to purposely do things that are scary. And pushed myself almost just compulsively, you know. And kind of to get away from my family, in a way because my mother was quite fearful of the world. She was not an outdoors person at all. And she almost drowned when she was a teenager in the  Niagara River. You know, with her father fishing. And she would always tell us the story of how she almost drowned. In a working class Polish family. And you know, she was all huddled on the bus going home in a blanket. And that was our introduction to water and swimming. You know, so for me, it was always well, I have to jump off a cliff then. And get into the water. And then realizing that's limited too. Because we're kind of white knuckling it. We're not actually really living our lives. We're just pushing ourselves into things. 

But anyways, all great insight. And Erica, all your writings really are so insightful. But we got the mind body. We've got therapy. And then this whole environmental identity piece too. Because you grew up, you had some actual familiarity with coyotes and animals. A lot of people, it's totally abstract. So they have no. It's like two cultures. This is a bit off track, but I was watching the anniversary of the Iraq invasion, in the news. And people talking about the US going into Iraq. And just seeing images of these poor National Guard soldiers going around Baghdad. And totally being out of their element. And such a lack of any understanding of that culture. And then of course, if you don't understand something, it's very scary. And then if you have a bunch of firearms, you're going to kill it. And so many people do not understand the culture of wolves. And, you know, whereas native people would coexist. So there's a whole cultural piece about us not really understanding the ways of animals. So cougars or owls are whales they become, oddly, you know, anthropomorphized. But, you know, all the wildlife biology people in the audience are shaking their hands because these people don't understand. So there's a lot of levels, just to kind of situate us in the conversation.

Berry: Yeah. My relatives. My grandfather had a sheep farm. And I think he was also his brother who had been the head of the Sierra Club. A big organization doing a lot of environmental sort of landmark legislation in the 70s when he was the president. And so I sort of inherited this legacy of conservation. And thinking about protecting these wild spaces. And at the same time, because he was taking care of sheep, and sometimes the sheep would get attacked by the coyote. And he would bring them in and have to stitch them up. Or, you know, we'd be feeding a lamb in the bathtub. And, you know, understanding there's a story that he told that I had forgotten where essentially, I had cried wolf on his farm. And I'd said, oh, Grandpa, there's a wolf here. And I'd been quite afraid. And I don't remember this. I was probably three years old. And it was a coyote, but he trapped it. And he could hold somehow, as a, you know, he was a conservationist and a hiker. And yet also on the farm, he was this tender. And he was trapping a coyote.  I tried to ask him for more details. And he's passed away now. You know, it was sort of towards the end of his life that he was telling me this story. But he said, You were convinced it was a wolf. And you were afraid. And I thought, it's because I'd heard so many stories about the wolf being the threat. And I loved the lambs in that context. 

And, you know, that feeling that even I had “cried wolf.” As someone who was very primed to this. You know, I think we all cry wolf, sometimes when we mean to cry other things, right? Which is, there's an animal here. And it's in a trap. And it's scary. And I'm scared. And I don't know what that experience is as a toddler, right? And I don't know, I think about so many of the wolf stories that I encountered. You know, it's really hard to give language to some of these other emotions. And so we sort of make it animal as a way of trying to make it legible to ourselves. But behind that, you know, it's scarier to peel back like, what else was I seeing? At that moment, I saw an animal that was probably dying. That my grandfather was killing. And that's harder for me to confront, you know, to really think about that is almost more painful. 

Pihkala: Yeah, this is [a] profound discussion. I find myself thinking about vulnerability. There's of course much dynamics of control and power. And in these discourses about predators. And how much they can be hated. It's difficult not to see elements of so-called human dominion thinking. And it's a threat when some creature still can show some power. But another theme related to this, which you hinted at, our pre discussion is scapegoating. Which I've been thinking about a lot lately because we've had in Finland, one another media attack on Greta Thunberg. The Swedish young climate activist. And the way she is treated as a prime example of what can be called scapegoat ecology. People trying to escape a difficult, ethical question where they have some complicity in by attacking the messenger. Or then, you know, loading an enormous amount of things and emotions and whatever into one creature. 

And that happens, sadly, for Greta. But it often seems to happen for wolves also. And then it's quite clear that people are also projecting perhaps hidden parts of themselves into wolves. This is a very large topic. And I'm really looking forward to reading your book. But I still want to lift this up. And I think that one of the key elements is sorting together with others. Accepting vulnerability. Which is basically what you do when you hike. There is that element, but then if you are real about it, it's much more dangerous to go driving in a car than it is to go walking into the forest, in relation to predators, for example.

Berry: I love that. And I think, you know, it makes me think of a line Thomas from the paper that you've shared. Thomas had worked on a paper about carnivore sort of the actual risks of predation. And saying that, like, in a world, where we are living beside these creatures, we have to take some responsibility. Which is maybe supervising some young children or dogs. Or be sort of mindful when we're walking or biking. And that is implying not that we think we will be attacked, but that we understand that we're sharing the land, right? And having to act in different ways. And I think that we're sort of resistant to that idea in this very anthropomorphic way. Like I am the one in control of this space. I should be able to run or jog or do whatever I want here without this encroachment. 

And at the same time, I think, as a woman, I've been doing that for so long. Like, of course, I'm not going to run in certain places. And, you know, it's been interesting with the book out, I get emails from men who say, oh, I've never really thought about this. I hike everywhere. And I love hiking. And I've never thought about the ways that you wouldn't hike somewhere. And I'm thinking like, really? This has always been part of my experience. And so many people, you know, maybe there is a relationship there again, with how do we be mindful of our vulnerability and also the power? You know, I studied mother wolves at one point. Stories about mother wolves. And the idea that they're so fierce. And they can be the fiercest sort of, they have so much to the stakes are high, right? So much to protect. And yet also there's this vulnerability and the ferocity are intertwined in ways that we don't always culturally see, right? We see them as two separate things. But in fact, yeah, there's an intimate link there.

Doherty: Yeah. So many levels of awareness. You know, yeah men just being aware of not even being aware that they are the Alpha predator, typically. So they don't have to worry about anything. And then, even if you're not when you're a young man being killed by an animal's glorious way to die, so why not? There's no loss either way. 

But in our last part, Erica, you've hinted at this already with some of the letters you've gotten, but you know, you've been traveling the country, I guess. Sharing this really interesting book, right? Which is going to pull on city people and pull on rural people. And bring in young women, perhaps, that are building their ability to go on a solo hike. And then bringing in ranchers or environmentalists. Or even just city people who are just curious about this. So what are any interesting anecdotes or just insights you've got after doing these public talks and seeing people. I'm curious what people come up to you and say.

Berry: It was really interesting, because I just had a call with one of the ranchers who I talked to in the book. And he left me a message and he said, I'm halfway through your book. And it's very sociological. It's not just about real wolves. Which I sort of tried to explain, but  it's a tricky concept of a book to explain to people. And so I called him back later. And he said, you know, I'm thinking about how I was a wolf when I was young. And he's had a livestock producer who's lost almost more livestock than most producers in Oregon to wolves. But what was really catching him was not the sort of the biological wolf, but like his own story. And he started talking about the sort of violence that women in his family had experienced. Processing almost in a sort of therapy-like way with me, on the phone. 

And I think that is a sort of, that is a theme right now of people sharing stories of, especially women. Maybe there's this whole gray area of incidents where you don't know if you're technically at risk. I think that is one of the things that I became interested in is, you know, there are these encounters where you know, your life is in danger. But there are other encounters like this one where I had where I was grabbed on the street, where somebody else intervened. and you don't really know what it would have been like if there hadn't been that intervention. And so I didn't know how to narrate it. I didn't totally trust my fear. There were reasons why I felt bad for the man. He was inebriated, he was sort of crying as he was kind of attacking me. And, you know, I didn't have a language for that. And I think those are the moments that other people are also sort of saying, I have all these moments too, that are kind of like this. 

And, you know, early on, I'd had a sort of advisor say, well, this moment in the book, in an early draft, is sort of a normal assault. I've thought about those two words together quite a lot since then. And the ways that what becomes normal. What becomes normalized. What sorts of violence become normalized. And so yeah, it's quite interesting to hear. I was troubled by that, of course. And wanted to sort of be able to shine a light on these more quotidian moments of violence or unrest or “unsafeness” that maybe we feel or internalize and carry with us. And so, yeah, a number of people sharing those with me, which I think, you know, is a gift that it's giving them space to think it through. And also, you know, there's a sadness to understanding how many people move through the world with this sort of awareness.

Doherty: Yeah. We're coming toward the end of our time. And I think listeners are taking this in all different directions. We have a number of really juicy, you know, items to put in our show notes. Links to some excerpts from Erica's book and some of her other writings. and some stuff that Panu has. And some things that I have even about just basic research about animal tax. So there's a lot of directions to go with this. And we'll want to keep in touch. Keep in touch Erica. You kind of put yourself as this cultural therapist here, in your book readings here. Yeah, let's wrap it up, Panu, Erica. Where do we want to go as we take it away? Or what messages do you want to leave with the listeners,

Berry: I think one thing that I've just thought about, again, is this idea that fear is not necessarily a bad thing, you know. And I go back to research I did with some ecology of fear biologists who sort of study these landscapes of fear. And the sort of psychological topographies of fear. And I've really started thinking about that in human contexts. And, you know, this idea of moving through the world without fear, again. Go back to maybe what brought me into this is also what brings me out of it. Which is like the relationship between curiosity and inquiry and uncertainty. And those things, you know, as the writing I do is grounded in not knowing. And feeling somewhat provoked often. And that becomes a gateway to something generative. 

And so I think the generative impulses behind this. And, at the same time, I'm a much less fearful person after doing this work. And thinking really deeply about the stories I'd inherited about wolves, both real and symbolic. And sort of the legacy and lineage around this predator. Which is code for something else. And so much of the sort of Western culture I'd inherited. I am less afraid. And so I guess I would encourage other people who might be in a similar spot of hypervigilance. Or whatever that I really felt like I was quite steeped in, to think about that idea of sort of like unplugging the wiring. And thinking about how did your parents teach you about fear? What were the stories that you believed about what would happen to your body in the wilderness? Or who you would encounter there. And sort of that has been so generative for me. And ultimately, not a way of making my world smaller, but making it bigger.

Pihkala: Thanks for that, also. This has been a delightful conversation. And it leaves many images and words. I've been thinking and musing about how one level would be a united approach of staying with the animals as symbols in combination with them as real others. Partly unknown others, and also symbols. And I really look forward to thinking more about that when reading your book. And I think this idea of encountering our wolf side. Both light and shadow are terribly important for contemporary times. Most of all, thanks for the great conversation. 

Berry: Thank you so much for having me here. It's such a pleasure. 

Doherty: Yes. Thank you so much, Erica. I look forward to more connections. And so yes, listeners, we have another episode with Susan Bodner, where she was talking about New York City, her perspective on the outdoors, which will pair well with our conversation. And you can find us at climatechangeandhappiness.com. And please support us at our Patreon. And all of us, you all and listeners, you all have a good rest of your day. Take care. 

Doherty: 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| Eddie Kopp

What is happiness? And how to live it? These ancient questions are discussed by Thomas and Panu, especially as related to living with the climate and ecological crisis. Listen to a dialog on happiness —  as a “wild” emotion, as a result of contact with the natural world, and as a feeling we can only know in the context of the other feelings we experience. Panu and Thomas plumbed the cultural connotations of happiness as a form of luck, an experience of joy or pleasure, and a sense of honor, an outcome of a life well lived. Carpe Diem (Seize the Day!) and learn tools to develop your own potential for happiness at this time.

• Thomas and Panu referenced the concept of “carpe diem” as showcased in the classic film Dead Poets Society. (Note the phrase is more accurately translated as “plucking the day” evoking plucking and gathering ripening fruits or flowers, and enjoying a moment rooted in the sensory experience of nature.)

• To appreciate different conceptions of happiness from around the world, Thomas recommends The Atlas of Happiness by Helen Russell.  

• Panu recommends emotion coach Karla McLaren, and her books like The Language of Emotions as well as the work of psychoanalyst Joseph Dodds, such as “Dancing at the end of the world? Psychoanalysis, climate change and joy”

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity. 

Thomas Doherty: Please support the climate change and happiness podcast see the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

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

Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: And Panu and I welcome you to Climate Change and Happiness. Our podcast. This is a show for people around the globe, who are thinking and feeling deeply about the personal side of climate change and many other environmental issues. And so here we focus on our emotional responses. Issues like today, our topic of happiness, other issues like eco anxiety, and things that are plaguing people. You can learn about us at climatechangeandhappiness.com and see many early episodes where we talk about various parts of happiness, and various ways to think about being happy. And you can support us at our donation page as well. 

And so, going back to our mission, when we  created this podcast, it was a couple of things: Panu is a researcher of emotions and environmental emotions. And I'm interested in that, and I've worked in that area [as a psychologist and therapist]. So we really wanted to get into these climate and environmental emotions. And then there's this larger question of what does it mean to be happy? You know, “climate change and happiness?” How do those terms go together? What does it mean to be happy in this modern world? And so it's a question we all have to decide every morning, every day and in our lives. So we wanted to come back to our mission. And we're working on a writing project for The Happiness Encyclopedia [Elgar Encyclopedia on Happiness, Quality of Life and Subjective Well-being; ed. by Roger Fernandez-Urbano & Hilke Brockmann, forthcoming 2023.], that Panu can talk about in a moment. And part of our job is writing about eco anxiety and happiness, which is interesting and challenging. So that's where we're at today, folks. And we're going to try to keep this real to our lives, to our personal lives and your personal life as well. So, think about things in terms of your own life and your own happiness. So Panu, this is a big area. We talk about “the elephant,”  the blind men and the elephant and people touching on different parts of a big area. So where in this big elephant of happiness would you like to start?

Pihkala: Hmm, perhaps the trunk or the foot. But yes, the issue of languages is, again, interesting here. And one of our passions in this podcast has been to think about things in different languages. And the word for happiness in [the] Finnish language is onnellisuus. A short form would be onni. Which is etymologically also connected to luck. In some languages, happiness and being lucky are closely connected, and in some other languages not. We don't necessarily think of luck when we think about happiness in Finland and in Finnish, but it's a close connection. 

And it's not exactly the same, this Finnish concept of onnellisuus and the English happiness. And many listeners know there's been a very long discussion in North America about pursuing happiness. And how to define happiness and the things around that. And so there's plenty to discuss here. I think linking to the major theme of our podcast, the climate crisis and ecological crisis, is how that challenges some forms of happiness or so called happiness. And then the task of how to live a good life or meaningful life which are important parts of what people are talking about. At least some people when they are talking about happiness. So those things are gonna be on the table today. But what does happiness mean to you, Thomas? How do you see it?

Doherty: That's a great question. I was afraid you were gonna ask me that Panu? Because it's a tough one. You know, I'm just thinking about this idea of luck. And the onni in Finnish. We're kind of students of happiness words. There's a great book out there called The Atlas of Happiness by a writer named Helen Russell. And she went around the world and found different interesting words for happiness in different cultures. And I thought about luck. There's a word, Xingfu, in Chinese. A state of being happy. But it's a combination of luck and having just enough of what you need. [See Xingfu entry in the The Atlas of Happiness by Helen Russell.]

So, I think a lot of cultures have realized that happiness kind of comes and goes, And sometimes there's a luckiness factor to feeling happy. And then, of course, having just enough of what you need is another part of this right? And that's a concept that's shared around the world as well. Lagom, you know, having just enough. You know, one way I approach this, when I'm working with people in myself, I might start with the opposite. What does being not happy look like? And then sometimes that helps me a little bit. You know, what am I missing, and then it gives me a clue to what I need to be happy. And I know, I'm a parent, and this morning, my daughter, it's early morning, here from me. And my 15 year old daughter had a struggling morning to get to school.  And get to the bus and feeling overwhelmed about her schoolwork. And she was really not feeling happy. And being distraught, like teenagers will be at times. Or all of us will be at times. And then I as a parent, being the solo parent on the job, was not happy either, because I had to help her. So happiness does include, you know, feeling safe in the moment. I think if we want to keep our happiness in terms of our climate and environmental context, I think there's a peace and happiness about feeling safe or feeling secure. And if we don't have that, sometimes it's really hard to feel happy. To be in the moment enough to enjoy our moments, without this big weight of all these other things over our head. This eco anxiety and “meta-insecurity” that kind of, you know, drains our ability to be happy. So I think that's a place. So it's being in the moment and feeling secure. And that's a place I would start. 

Pihkala: Yeah, thanks. That's very profound, I think. And reminds me of this movie, The Dead Poets Society (1989), [featuring] Robin Williams, and others. And I haven't thought about that for quite some time, actually. But I remember when we were at the upper levels of comprehensive school, you know, like 13, or 14, me and many of my friends actually liked the movie a lot. We didn't watch these kinds of a bit arty, serious movies very much during then. It was more, you know, action movies, and that's that type of thing. But that movie caught our attention. And I think it succeeded in encountering this basic issue of Carpe Diem. You know, seize the moment. It's closely related to happiness that one would be able to appreciate the everyday moments of existence. And of course, that may not always be joyful, or delightful as an emotional state. But if one is connected to the sort of most meaningful things, then that's related to happiness in the sense of a good life or meaningful life. So some reflections that came to mind when listening to you. 

Doherty: Yeah, and it reminds us that art is very important in our happiness. I mean, so the listeners can think about this. I mean, one of our metaphors, again, is the blind man and the elephant. And, you know, with climate change, and all these kinds of big global issues. So people look at different parts of the issue. And they argue about it. But we, you know, don't argue about happiness. That's one takeaway. Think about different ways that people need to be happy. And if someone with you is unhappy, try to be curious about what they need. And it might not be the same thing that you need at the moment. You know, my daughter, you know, my well meaning parenting advice this morning about don't waste your time by being distraught because it actually makes you even more late for your bus. You know, that kind of logical stuff she wasn't open to at the moment. But you know, I needed a hug and needed some actual help. And also just some patience. Just let her be because, again, you know, on really more profound terms with climate change. These issues like the East Palestine train derailment in the US that we talked about in our recent recording, and that's going to come out here soon. There's a lot of thieves that will steal our happiness. trying to steal our happiness. 

So we do have to be vigilant. Feelings are wild though. Feelings of happiness will arise. Feelings of, you know, because positive things will happen. Last night before I was going to bed, my window was slightly open because I like some fresh air in the evening and I heard an owl. I thought I heard an owl. And we don't typically have owls around where I live. And then I went and sat by the window and opened the window and listened into the night. And sure enough, there was an owl, you know. And then I double checked it with my bird app on my phone that has bird calls. A merlin in this app, you know, where you can turn it on and it'll listen. And it'll tell you what the bird sound is. It's good for birders that don't know the birds. And sure enough, it confirmed it was a Barred Owl And that was a really unexpected moment of happiness for me. In the evening. Before I went to bed. Just a little connection with the natural world. And Barred Owls are probably migrating here because of the season through our urban neighborhood. So that's wild. You know, that's a wild thing. And I was meeting with a young person yesterday talking about their own climate anxiety. And we were talking about a lot of things. But after a while, she said she felt excited about some of the things we were talking about. And that was a wild feeling we agreed. Because she hadn't prepared to feel excited. So at least these positive feelings will happen if we can stay in the moment and be aware of them. That's the dilemma.

Pihkala: Yeah, I totally, totally agree. And in my Finnish work, part of that was a book about various emotions and feelings that people may experience in relation to ecology [Mieli maassa? Ympäristötunteet, 2019], and environmental issues and other things like that. And then I did a lot of thinking about various nuances of feeling good or feeling happy. And that's, I think, a very important topic. Also, I might leave it to another moment in this episode, because I still want to talk about one thing in the movie. I'm linking to one thing you said also, which is, in this old movie, Dead Poets Society, there's some young man who really would like to be an actor, but his parents definitely don't like the idea. They would like him to continue studying very hard and being able to get a job, which would pay well. And a classic situation where there's lots of dreams by the parents and the younger generation might not agree with all of them. 

But it raises up this whole issue of professions and work life and what are we striving for. And that's, of course, very closely connected to the ecological crisis also. Because some things that some people have regarded or learned to regard as signs of happiness and well being, like having a huge amount of riches. Then that's generally speaking, of course, not possible for the whole population of this planet. To put it mildly. And we know that people are different. You know, there are wealthy people who are doing great stuff, ethically speaking, and living a good and meaningful life by working towards the common good. But on average, this structure of “let's all get more material possessions”, so that's detrimental for the happiness of creatures on this planet. So I just wanted to bring that link between happiness and ecological crisis. And partly also eco anxiety or climate anxiety. 

Doherty: Yeah, you're right. I mean, there's a political aspect to this, obviously, right? I mean, what drives our happiness and what our policies are about. What people are supposed to be happy about. Potentially a huge impact on the planet and other species. And of course, social justice issues where certain people are subjugated. And so that other people can somehow be happy. And so, yeah, that gets us to the anger, you know. Anger another emotion that comes up here. Which it joins with happiness. If you are from another planet, and you came here and you dropped into us. And try to understand the culture by watching the mainstream media. You would think that happiness was sufficient if you had a new car and a new phone, some fast food and some sort of wealth management program. You know, it's very superficial. And we know that that system is driving the planet into ruin. And everyone knows that. So it's an open secret. So I think there is this, as in many areas, there's a crisis of what it means to be happy. But happiness is much more simple and much more. 

You know, we talk about these fancy words. These words that researchers use, like intrinsic versus extrinsic. You know, so intrinsic happiness is things that just mean something to us. Doesn't require possessions. It doesn't require, you know, a lot of money and super wealth. It is just intrinsic things, again, security, safety, family, friends, social support. You know, a lot of people are unhappy these days, because they feel isolated in their eco concerns. Partly why we do this podcast, so people don't feel as isolated. Because when you're lonely, that's another feeling that lives with happiness. And it kind of makes it more difficult to be happy. So yes, each listener can find their own piece that they need to work on. Some people want, you know, to be angry and to work on change to make them happy. It makes them feel good. 

Lately, the model that I've been using with helping people with emotions and my own self is, you know, it's not eliminating emotions. It's just adding other emotions to join whatever emotion that we're trying to work with. So if I'm feeling lonely, like I say, you know, if it was a party. And I had a party. And my only guest was loneliness, then that would be everything we would sort of focus on at the party. But  if curiosity shows up, you know, that emotion shows up. Then you're lonely, but then you're also curious. Or patience shows up that I also can wait and sort of hold on. Or courage shows up, you know. Or anger shows up and says, well, you shouldn't stand for this. We should do something about this, right? So lonely it is still there. But it's supported by these other emotions. And a lot of people have an insight with that. Because they think they need to, you know, eliminate a bad emotion. And it's impossible. It's natural. And it's normal. And it's healthy to feel lonely if we are isolated. But we can make lonely, less lonely as a feeling if we add other feelings to it. And anyway, that's a metaphor I've been using. So people can think about that with happiness as well. Yeah, our happiness exists, but it feels lonely. And if we can bring in some other emotions, that happiness can be stronger. Does that make sense? 

Pihkala: Yeah, yeah. That reminds me of the emotion coach, Karla McLaren’s work. And she uses the metaphor of the village. You know, in every village, there's different kinds of people. There might be quite big differences between them also, but still, they belong there. And then that's a metaphor for various emotions. And also that can be linked with various skills. You know, different persons are good at different things. And in the village of our self, or our psyche, we need all those emotions, guys and gals, so to speak. So that makes us capable of responding to various kinds of situations. 

And personally, I'm very much for the view that emotions and feelings also have intrinsic value. So it's not just the instrumental value. There is definitely that also. Sometimes you need anger to fight some injustice, for example. But then, emotions are also related to just being alive. And feeling joy or feeling sadness, that's related to their intrinsic value of being alive, also. So not just the instrumental, emotions have a lot of that intrinsic value, also.

Doherty: Yeah. And so let's do a little teaching for the listeners. So yeah, there's these terms that we use that are really useful. So instrumental value. If I'm following you, I mean, it's a useful value. Like it's instrumental. It's useful. It has a practical use to it. That's what you mean about that, right?

Pihkala: Roughly. Yeah. You know, if you have an ax, that's going to be of great instrumental value if you need to chop some firewood. 

Doherty: Yes, yeah. Yeah. 

Pihkala: But then, if you have an ax that you have inherited from your great grandfather, it may be that you never chop any wood with that, but it still has great value for you because it's a family artifact.

Doherty: Yeah. And environmental groups and environmentalists think about this because, you know, they think about the instrumental values of things. If people do care about nature and care about it, they're going to change their behavior. And so there's a piece where we harness and use emotions to help make social change. And that gets into the whole idea of advertising and marketing and social marketing. And of course, advertisers who are trying to sell consumer products also try to make this instrumental so they get people to buy things. And all this sort of stuff. So again, we can put on our philosopher hats. 

And, you know, people over the millennia have thought about, you know, feeling good in terms of hedonism and just feeling happy in the moment. Kind of more  epicurean, kind of just enjoying the beauty of life and food and drink and people and pleasure and the arts and music. And then the more I guess, “eudaimonic” would be the term, which is really a life well lived, where we feel good about our life. We feel when we look back on our life, we feel like we were our best self. We did good work. We helped other people. We lived up to our values, right? That's the other. That's that other piece of happiness, right? And listeners we all struggle with, like, are we living up to our values? Are we being our best self? And that guilt and shame that people have sometimes of not living up to their values really kind of impacts our happiness.

Pihkala: Yeah, yeah. Some people use the word existential guilt. In this sense, you know, it's related to who you are, and the fundamentals of life. And if you feel that you haven't been nearly what you feel you should have been. So that goes near this existential guilt. And in this podcast, we've often talked about how important it is not to let feelings of inadequacy rule our lives. Because these structural problems are bigger than any of us. So it's no use if we just constantly feel bad and inadequate. 

But of course, we also need the abilities of guilt and shame so that we can know this, when we are individually or collectively headed in the wrong direction. Or if we have done something which is not as good as it should have been. So it can be a very tricky balance. It's not easy. I totally echo […] . And this idea of living a good and meaningful life. So some people may not even feel it themselves. Like Mother Teresa, for example. The famous helper of poor people. Who apparently quite often felt quite miserable and anxious. But when evaluated from an ethical standpoint, she ended up living a very, very meaningful life. And in the ethical sense, a very good life. So sometimes, it may not even feel good for the person himself or herself. But it may be related to very important things that still are going on.

Doherty: Yeah. That's a really neat point too. So yeah, we talked about we have issues and we have issues. We have our big capital issues we're going to work on in the world. And we have our lowercase I issues. Our feelings. Our baggage. I mean, there's a lot we can talk about here. I mean, we know from the research that people have a sort of a happiness set point. People have a general disposition and temperament. And some people are more naturally upbeat and happier than others. Some people are more melancholic. I tend to be more melancholic myself at times. And that's just part of our personality and our style. We got to make the most of what we have. And then yes, there's this other piece of engaging with these wicked problems in the world. These problems are all a big tangle of problems. Like poverty, like environmental injustice, like climate change, like natural disasters, like the economy, capitalism, corporate propaganda. You know, all these things, this is a big tangle of things. And we can't fix this, like directly. But we can engage with it. And be doing something. I was talking to some people about this the other day. And you know, as long as we're doing something that we feel like we have some expertise in. 

I was talking to someone who works in Portland here with the transportation department. But specifically around bike lanes and moving people around. And it's a really tough job in cities because we've got the crush of traffic. And then the problem of unhoused people on the streets and the economy and climate change. But if you're doing something and you have some expertise, you can spend your day working on it. You're engaged. And ultimately it feels good even if you don't solve the problems. You know you've shown up and put a good day's work into it. So we talked about, you know, we need to increase that engagement. So the catchphrase was, increase and make peace. So increase your engagement and make peace with everything that you can't do.

Pihkala: Yeah, yeah. Inner peace. Which may be related to outer peace. And in many cultures, a sense of honor—

Doherty: Honor.  

Pihkala: —has been very closely related to views about the good life and meaningful life. And I think that's a very important aspect of our lives in the ecological crisis also. So when we know in our bodies and in our hearts, that we have at least tried to do something with the resources we have. And in the contexts in which we live, which are very different. Some people have much more options than others. So if we are able to be in that position, then we regain or have some sense of honor which is very important for us human beings, I think. 

Doherty: It's really great, Panu. Honor. I actually have never. I've never linked honor with this area. I don't think I've ever quite thought about that. I've never seen it also linked anywhere in anything I've written or I've read. So yeah, a sense of honor. That's just something just to let us sit with and do you know, I mean. I feel a sense of honor by talking with you on this podcast. And doing some of the things that I do. So that's an interesting, you know, thing to think about. People talk about, metaphorically, what would I, what would I tell my grandchildren, you know, when they asked me or when people in the future would ask me, what did you do during this time? You know, I think if we say that we took some action, we can have a sense of honor about that. That's really neat. I'm gonna think more about that.

Pihkala: Yeah, yeah. We might come back to that, in some episode. It would be very interesting. And all this is related to what can be called practical eco anxiety. You know, the eco anxiety and the engaged life. This sensitivity to the troubles in the world and the motivation to do something about that. And that's one of the points in our happiness encyclopedia article with Thomas. That eco anxiety can be linked with meaningful life and getting engaged also. And sometimes that can result in so-called positive emotions. There can be a lot of joy with others, when people are working for the common good. That happens a lot. When people start doing things, of course, there may be feelings of disappointment, also heavily. 

And it's not just happy, happy, joy, joy. But there is joy also. And lately, some psychologists and researchers have started to lift that theme up, also more. Like Joseph Dodds, for example, in a recent piece (“Dancing at the end of the world?”), where he argues that it might be very important that we also allow ourselves and others to be more often joyful. And that's another theme we have touched upon this podcast. And I think something nice to talk about as we are getting close to the end of this episode. This permission to feel joy (ilolupa as my Finnish concept). And I think that's not the same as happiness. But of course, it's profoundly connected to this ability to feel various emotions in one's life.

Doherty: Yeah, this is all really great. We try to end these episodes on a sort of an uplifting note for the listener for the rest of their day. You know, I think one side of this crisis of happiness is that it's a really creative time. People are being creative about what happiness means. And some of these old definitions are. I mean, in our lives, that's part of our change and our growth. We let go of old definitions of happiness that no longer serve us. That is superficial or immature. Or we've grown out of. And so we've got, you know, writers like Rebecca Solnit, who I like to write about, you know, visions of hope and Paradise built in hell, you know. About, you know, what actually happens when people rise above during disasters and things like that. Joseph Dodds, as you say. Glenn Albrecht has a whole lexicon of climate emotions and states that he's created kind of like a philosophical art gallery of different states and feelings and things like that. Which are inspiring to people. And so over the years, there's been people being creative and holding space for happiness in various ways. 

So yeah, so it's again, joy. Our engaged life leads to what I would say moments of joy. It doesn't lead to permanent joy, but it leads to literal genuine moments of joy. So essentially, in our emotional party, our diligence and our patience and our, you know, our fatigue and our weariness, joy shows up to the party from time to time as well. Presence. Happiness. You know, it becomes a guest if we just move forward. So I invite the listeners to think about, you know, that feelings are wild. Just be aware. We all don't like it when an unexpected guest shows up to our party that's grief or despair, or guilt or shame, or embarrassment. But we also need to be aware when special guests come in. Like joy and presence or wonder, awe. All these things as well come around. So that's what I'm thinking about Panu, as I get into my day. And start my day here on a Monday. That's a good way for me to start actually thinking about these positive feelings. How about yourself? Where are you heading for the rest of your evening?

Pihkala: It's Monday evening here. And the boys are starting to return home. So I think one activity will be a very Finnish important thing related to happiness, which is the sauna. So yeah, that's one example of people, you know, very literally, stripping away status and wealth and that sort of thing. So it's just a connection with the steam and the warmth and other people and water. 

Doherty: That sounds really nice. 

Pihkala: That's gonna be a happy moment this evening. 

Doherty: Well, good. You deserve it. You've worked a long day there and been a parent with your boys. And so enjoy. And listeners, you all take care of yourselves. And we will pick it up again next time. And you can find us at climatechangeandhappiness.com. And please support our websites so we can bring more guests and more good topics to you. Be well.

Pihkala: Take care.

Doherty: 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 | Burst

Join Panu and Thomas for a thought provoking conversation with Janet Lewis, a founding member of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance. Janet reflected on her experiences of living through disasters and what this has taught her. She explained the therapy concept of “containment”—the ability to experience and hold space for strong emotional expressions in ourselves and others—and how this applies to climate coping and resilience. We have many options for creating a sense of containment: intellectually, emotionally, within supportive relationships and through engaging and taking action. Janet observed that in this time “We are either within or between disasters” and it is important to hold open this creative space. It is the ethical responsibility of those of us not in disaster to work on climate mitigation and adaptation. Janet also spoke of finding solace in the nature of complex systems and possibility of emergence of new forms and ideas. 

• Janet Lewis, Elizabeth Haase, and Alexander Trope (2020). Climate Dialectics in Psychotherapy: Holding Open the Space Between Abyss and Advance. Psychodynamic Psychiatry 48 (3): 271–94.

• Beth Mark and Janet Lewis (2020). Group Interventions for Climate Change Distress. Psychiatric Times. 

• Janet Lewis (2021) Chapter: Global Mental Health, Planetary Health, and the Ethical Co-Benefit (request full text from author)

• Jacob Needelman (2023, March 14): Forget Utopia. Ignore Dystopia. Embrace Protopia! New York Times

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity. 

Thomas Doherty: Please support the climate change and happiness podcast see the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

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

Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala. 

Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. Our podcast. The show for people around the world around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about issues like climate change, and the environmental crisis in nature. And all these things that revolve around these big topics. And, again, we focus on the emotions and our feelings, among other things. And today, we are really excited to have a guest with us.

Janet Lewis: Hi, I'm Janet Lewis. I'm a psychiatrist in central New York State. And I'm a founding member of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance. And I do a lot of teaching about mental health effects of climate change.

Doherty: Yes. And we're so glad to have Janet with us. Janet lives in part of the country in the US near where I grew up in western New York State or central New York State. And like other guests that we've had on this podcast, Janet has been doing this work for a while and is one of the pathfinders, one of the innovators that have helped to build knowledge of climate psychology. Particularly climate therapy and climate psychiatry. So we're really glad to have a discussion. I know Panu and I have both seen Janet's work over the years. And it's really nice to meet someone. And it's really validating for us, I think, to [meet] with [a] kindred spirit. Panu, do you want to get us started?

Pihkala: Yes, warmly welcome Janet. Very pleased to meet you online. And you've been engaged with this topic for a long time. But would you like to share a bit about your background story? So how did you end up becoming a climate aware psychological professional?

Lewis: Well, I know different people come to this in different ways. I'm one of the people who sort of had an awakening in a particular moment. I think I'd been primed for it because I've known some disasters in my life. I've had my house burned down, not from anything climate change related. But I've also been in a hurricane. And I've been in some flooding situations. But I had a moment, when I was at a conference. It was the Integral Theory Conference in California. And that's a group, a movement that's spiritually oriented and nd also very intellectually open. Interested in fitting together as much as possible. In ways of thinking about life and the world. And I was at this conference. There was a lot of talk about climate change. And most of the people of the conference were in a state of a fair amount of equanimity a lot of the time. As I say, it's a sort of spiritually oriented movement. But my suitemate was talking to me in a very agitated way about climate change. And she looked me in the eye, and she said, “the bottom line, Janet, is that we may be able to adapt to two degrees, but right now we're on track for over four degrees. And that will create an earth we would not recognize.” 

And I'd heard things like that before, you know, of course. But for some reason, in that moment, the information really penetrated for me. And it was just clear for me right away, okay, this is the most important thing going on. This is what I have to work on. And I, in very short order, knew the sorts of things I was good at and set about finding like minded colleagues. That's how I kind of threw myself to the front, like many others have, of climate mental health. And that experience made me very interested in the whole phenomenon of containment. You know, because what happened for me that the information was able to penetrate? And I could think so clearly about what to do. What allowed that to happen? And I think I was in an extremely containing environment, with, as I say, it being a very open, supportive and also spiritually-oriented conference there. And this whole notion of containment, I find, really, really important in relation to climate change. And I know that this podcast is about emotions. So, intellectualization is my go to defense. So feel free to stop me and get at what the emotions are. But emotionally, there's an emotional valence to clarity that's alivening. And so that's where I was at. And I, as I say, I've been very interested in the topic of containment. It's a very specific term in the psychoanalytic literature. 

The theorists [Wilfred] Bion or bye-on, different people who pronounce it differently, talked about it in very specific terms. As what happens between a parent and an infant that helps the infant to be with an experience that's difficult to bear. So the infant will cry. And then the caretaker or parent doesn't just cry back at the infant. Instead, the caretaker takes in the communication and metabolizes it in a sense. And then voluntarily gives something new back, that's tolerable for the infant. And in that way, the infant learns how to metabolize experience in a bearable way themselves. Because they've been given this larger space of the relationship with the parent. So then, in a more general way, containment has to do with all of the things that help us to bear what's difficult to bear. That helps us to get to a larger space. From which we can have perspective and within which we can find meaning. You know, the kind of clarity that, as I say, can be so enlivening. You know, not that I'm there all the time. I mean, like anybody, I cycle through all sorts of feelings in relation to climate change. But this is an important touchstone for me, you know, ways to get to larger space.

Pihkala: Thank you. That's very interesting and profound to hear. And this topic of awakening, or having an epiphany, or conversion moment, it's actually often discussed in these terms. Which are closely related to religion and spirituality, even in environmental research. So there's interesting stuff going on there. And [I'm] very fascinated [by] what you say about containment. But how about you, Thomas? What does this spark in you?

Doherty: No, it's really helpful. And I'm glad, Janet, that you define a term for the listeners. Yeah. So I mean, what I think of containment. I think another way to think of it is holding space. Holding a space for someone, you know, so when our friend tells us a story, or someone's needing help, you know, we hold space for them. We listen. We validate. We make it clear to them that we believe them. We think their concerns are valid. So, you know, in many ways this whole podcast is its role, right? Is a containment, right? That's part of our mission in the podcast is to create a container, a space to talk about these emotions and various climate experiences that just don't typically have a container in people's lives. Because we know that people don't talk about this stuff. And it's politically charged and all this other stuff. Even therapists, of course, will really appreciate this. Particularly therapists that are psychoanalytic or psychodynamic because that's a big part of their work is this kind of understanding how our early experiences, you know, affect our modern life and all this sort of stuff. So, yes, Janet, a couple of things…

But you personally, I know from talking to you, and knowing you a little bit you personally, you know, suffered through disasters. You know, flooding that destroys your property or losing your home. And you know what it's like to be in shock and bereft in that disaster mental health space where you just need to figure out the next step. And so one of the things I find interesting is another concept that's a little bit more deeper for the listener. But this idea of dialectics, right? One of the therapeutic things is to hold different sides of an issue. And not just collapse it in a simple way. And so, one of the dialectics I think that you talk about in your chapter is that we're kind of either in a disaster or not. Like all of us, either have been in a disaster, will be in a disaster or are not in a disaster. And inside of this continuum that we're in and, you know, not collapsing that, but sort of like, what I understand from your writing is that the people who are not actively in a disaster, it's their job to do some of this climate behavior change and adaptation mitigation to hold space for the people that are literally suffering suffering through the disaster. Who don't have time for that, because they're just surviving. Right. And I don't think you would have come to that without knowing what it's like to be in a disaster. 

Lewis: I think you're right. I think you're right. Yeah. And this is, when I think of different forms of containment, thinking about our changed relationship to disaster. For me, this is cognitively contained, you know. Because I think most people have at the back of their minds, well, wait a minute,  how on earth are we going to deal with this? So, you know, these increasing disasters? What's going to happen? Well, when we accept that we're in a new relationship with disaster, now, you know, disasters, no longer an outlier event. And none of us are immune from disasters. Although many people are on the frontlines experiencing much more than other people. You know, there are communities that are suffering and are at much greater risk. Butstill, with climate change, no one is immune. And so it makes sense for us to think about, okay, what's this new relationship with disaster. 

And as you were saying, Thomas, I think we're either within or between disasters. And that's an important mindset to have. We're either within or between disasters, because that has important implications. The people who are within disasters or in the immediate aftermath of disasters, they're in no position to be working on large programs of mitigation and adaptation, right? If you're wringing muddy water out of your clothes, you're focusing on rebuilding your life. That's what you ought to be doing. So there is also going to be and will be even more, this sort of fluid exchange of roles. Where some people are in disasters or immediate aftermath of disasters, other people are between disasters. And so we know some broad strokes of what the future is going to have to look like in order to work. And one of the broad strokes is this, it's going to have to be more prosocial where the people who are between disasters are helping those who are within disasters. And the people who are between disasters are working on the larger programs of mitigation and adaptation. As I say, this is one broad stroke of what the future needs to look like to work, of course. And another broad stroke has to do with getting to carbon neutrality. 

But another thing that's so very cognitively containing for me that I talk a lot about is emergence. You know, that's this characteristic of complex systems. I'm sure many listeners probably have heard about emergence. This characteristic of complex systems where the whole system can get to new ways of operating that can work. But we can't know ahead of time what all the features of those new patterns are going to be. That's part of the character of how complex systems work. So we can know these broad strokes. I think about the patterns in the future that can work. But we can't know for sure exactly what it's gonna look like and how to get there. And that uncertainty has to be accepted.

Pihkala: Yeah, yes. Thanks for opening all that up. And systems thinking has been referred to in this podcast. We haven't gone deep in it. But of course, one of the founding figures of any work on emotions caused by global problems is Joanna Macy. Who was very keen on systems thinking. And there's that legacy around. And you're also referring to this central concept of uncertainty, which is, of course, very intimately linked with anxiety in various ways. And one of the texts of yours that I very much liked was an article about climate dialectics. So would you like to say a bit about that? And perhaps open up the concept of dialectical thinking for the listener?

Lewis: Sure, sure. Well, a characteristic of this complexity, you know, climates a complex system. And now it's completely intertwined with human technology, human systems, human psychology, and human culture. And within complex systems, there's no way to understand everything that's going on. And climate gets called the hyper object. As I'm sure some listeners have heard. Where it's so distributed through space and time, that it's impossible to completely get a grip on it. To completely feel like you understand it. Because we're also inside of it. And with that complexity, as well as with the emotional challenges of climate change being such a threat, the mind naturally kind of divides things up. You know, we can't hold on to all of it at the same time. And no one can know it all at the same time. And so we'll often get presented with things that are seemingly opposed, that are actually both true. Or are both important anyway. Like a sense of hope and a sense of hopelessness. 

I mean, it's important not to simplistically side with either one. But instead be willing to explore them both. And discover the space between them. Kind of keep enough space there to be able to reflect. And out of that reflection, new forms of hope have emerged. You know, there's a lot of talk and writing in the climate mental health literature about kinds of hope. Like realistic hope or radical hope that emerge from this grappling with important dialectics. Other important dialectics are individual agency and collective agency or nature as solace and nature as threat. And I mean, also, I think an overarching one that wasn't in that paper, but I'm seeing is even more overarching, has to do with focus on focus on the web of life, The biosphere, and focus on humanity. You know, actually, both are important. Because we're humans, and it has turned out that we're extremely influential. It is important to be able to focus on us too, as well as it is now being recognized that we have to have a focus on the entire web of life. These things are not mutually exclusive. That's what's really important with dialectical thinking is not allowing yourself to think in mutually exclusive terms. But instead, holding both things. And seeing what emerges as both are held.

Doherty: Yeah, yeah. I'm looking back at our podcast episodes. And often what we do in this podcast is we open up this kind of area. And then we hold .You know, one of our first episodes was on holding space. And then we had the episode on cynicism, you know, eco anxiety. So we open up these things. We had an episode on, you know, nature being, like you say, a solace, but also fear and dread that comes now into nature because of the change of seasons and things like that. So, it's a good reminder that we have to stay open to these things. And try to be as big as the world. You know, in the sense of holding a lot of these things. We can't hold everything but we strive for it. I guess. What should people do when they collapse and they can't hold it anymore? Then what happens?

Lewis: Well, okay. Well, first to recognize that's okay. I mean, as I said, you know, I cycle through. I think probably like most people every conceivable sort of feeling and state. And in relating to our realities and in coming more and more to terms with the extent of our realities. You know, in addition to climate change, you know, we're also dealing with what gets called a meta crisis or multi crisis or poly crisis. And, you know, I have a cognitive understanding that this is all sort of one crisis. It's about our current ways of coming up against their limitations. And it's good for us to be recognizing that. But also, it's pretty clear that we're in for a very rocky road as well as having to deal with so much suffering and tragedy. And so it's important that that be validated, you know, and accepted. We have to accept where we are in order to change. This is this sort of paradox in all psychotherapy. Also work at opening the space. You know, so, if someone finds themselves kind of collapsed, okay, what kinds of containment can be brought in? I mean, you mentioned Joanna Macy's work Panu. 

And I think one enormous contribution of hers is the sort of narrative containment that she brings in with saying, okay, we're in a huge transition. This is a great turning point. Bringing in the story that someone can identify with. That helps to open the space. Leaning on spiritual practice, you know. As I mentioned earlier, it can open the space. The relationships with other people and with nature, can open up space for us. Being involved “agentically.” Just working on things is a kind of containment too. And then there are these forms of cognitive containment, you know. Knowing that, okay, we're part of this complex system, we can't see it all. But the fact that it's so complex, actually means that no matter what direction someone is coming from, no matter what their particular heartbreaks, or talents, or spheres of influence are, there's a role. There's an important role to be played, you know. Because no one can hold this all ,we're forced to work with each other. I mean, we're actually forced to grow up in a way. Forced to accept uncertainty. Forced to work with other people. 

Doherty: Yeah, thanks. Thanks. Let me just add just for the listener, because just make sure. Just to simplify this a little bit, because I want this to come across to people. So this container we can choose different containers, depending on how we're feeling on a given day. What's useful for us? So like, for some people, I need to be able to tell a story, and someone to hear it and share my story. That's how I contain it. For some people, it's, I need to kind of make sense of it. So I need to intellectually get a mental model that helps me to make sense of this. And then there's the relationship. I need to be in a relationship with someone. I can't be isolated, right. So even just relationships of any kind form the container. And then taking some action, whatever, it's small scale, that's that agentic, right. So my action becomes a container, right? And then spiritual container, which is my larger sense of meaning and things bigger than myself, that becomes a container. 

So we have essentially several containers that we should have sort of in our tool belt of coping. And then as you say, I think, you know, different things are going to be what an individual most effectively leans on. But yeah, there are all sorts of means of containment. Ways to bear what's difficult to bear. And to have enough space. Containment also provides space, to be able to think clearly about what to do and to make choices.

Doherty: So physical containment, like breathing and relaxing our body. But what are you thinking about, Panu? I know you have a lot of interest in this area.

Pihkala: Yeah, there's a lot here. The spaciousness of uncertainty. For whoever used that phrase. But there's more space  there. And of course, the often mentioned Joanna Macy also wrote about this. And that's one possible form. Cognitive reframing. You know, trying to think about things in a new light. So, uncertainty can be very painful, but it also gives more space. But what I'm most thinking of here is the pendulum And these movements. That's closely integrated into the process model of eco anxiety and ecological grief that I've worked a lot on in the previous years. And emphasizing the importance of fluctuation and mood changes. Here, you do also Janet. and I don't think that the movement is very often regular as in the pendulum of a clock. But I like the visual metaphor that there is movement. And that's part of life. And trying to accept the movements instead of going into binary thinking. So I think that's very important for coping also.

Lewis: Yeah, that's so important. You know, we each contain multitudes. You know, we have all these different states of mind. And, I mean, it's sort of like the larger reality, that there's no way to get a completely coherent grip on how it all works. It's just too complex. That's the way it is with the mind too. And so these different states, you know, just like we have to accept that okay, different people are going to be doing different things. And I won't be able to be in touch with all of it. Well, we also have to accept that we have these different states of mind. And, you know, be willing to explore them without feeling as though no, I have to have some overarching thing that works all the time. You know, that's just not the way it is. A part of how we're moving forward is because of all the internal dialectical processes as the different states we're in at different times are kind of in relation to each other. And we figure more out.

Doherty: Yeah. Pendulum. Kind of the waves we talked about. I know in our episode we talk about riding the waves. On some days we're up in terms of inspiration, taking action, being with a group of people that we like. We're contained. Some days were really contained. And we feel good. And we got some wind in our sails. And other days, you know, we got the upside down pyramid. And everything's impinging on us. And we don't have any containers. We feel very small and insecure and inadequate. And so we ride those waves. Yeah.

Lewis: That's to be accepted too. 

Doherty: Yeah, there's a great article in just today's New York Times on this idea of a protopia. It's neither a dystopia... It's very fitting for our discussion, because it's neither a utopia where everything is all taken care of, nor is it a dystopia where everything is terrible. A protopia is a place where there's gradual, progressive change, progress, and prototypes. And it's kind of bringing out an idea that was written about over a decade ago in a technology book. But it's neat how some of these ideas come out a little early. And we don't quite see the benefit of these ideas. And then later on, it comes through. 

So a lot of this work, even the work that you've written, Janet, like the dialectic stuff. When you wrote it, people were like, oh, this is kind of interesting. You know, but now people really know exactly what you're talking about because they're living it, you know. So it's really neat. I know what I struggle with. And I think a lot of people struggle with and  one of the dialectics here is between this kind of ethical, well being that you talk about. This is pro social, and then the kind of let's build the wall. The kind of authoritarianism. This kind of really dark, harsh political movement that's happening around the world as well. I think that's a larger dialectic we're all living through now. And there's no one answer there. But we try to chart our path through that.

Lewis: Right. We have to, as you say, just chart our path through it. At the same time, there is a cognitive container in understanding that in a huge transition like this, there are regressions. There are people doubling down on things that no longer completely serve us. And it can look, you know, in addition to it being so destructive, it can look really absurd. There's a cultural psychiatrist, Charles Johnston, who has written a lot about this. So there can be this larger cognitive container for understanding. Okay, of course, this is happening, right? Of course, this is happening. We're in such a big transition, that there are going to be regressions, breakdowns. And you know, it's incredibly sad. There's suffering. There's tragedy. But it also makes sense, given the extent of the enormous transition that we're in, that's not just about carbon. I mean, it means having to rework so many systems. And as I said, coming to more pro social ways of being. So it's huge.

Doherty: Yeah. And then I'll say one more thing, and I'll leave it to Panu to wrap us up. But, you know, I think it also depends on how close we're looking at the present. Because as we zoom out, we see this larger trend of change. But when we get really close, it's much more erratic. So you know, we're decarbonizing our economy and our world while at the same time now we see they're still, you know, drilling new wells in Alaska. But it's part of this larger trend. And that's, I think, another I'm not sure if it's a dialectic or what it would be, but it's the ability to zoom out to see the larger trend. That's why I think it is intellectually helpful.

Lewis: It's helpful. Without sugarcoating the suffering and the tragedy, that's the part where, you know, we have to work at holding both aspects of the dialectic. And not collapsing into either one.

Pihkala: Sometimes it all comes together. That's another dialectical thought, for example, right? The medieval philosopher Nicholas of Cusa used the image that, you know, a circle and a straight line seem to be completely opposites. But if you zoom in long enough for the … circle, you can actually see a straight line if you go near, near enough to the circle. So that was one way to illustrate this idea that sometimes things that seem opposites to us, can actually be profoundly interlinked. That could lead us to quite complex philosophical discussions about non-duality. And let's not go there at this time. But I've greatly enjoyed talking with you.

Lewis: Another time, Panu! 

Pihkala: Exactly, exactly. So it's been a pleasure. And thanks for reminding both us and the listeners of the possible coexistence of many things in life, including both joy and sadness, you know, amidst all these conditions. 

Lewis: Yes.

Doherty: Thanks so much, Janet. I think, you know, this episode is going to be great for therapists who really know a lot of the concepts and see how you use these concepts in a climate context. And it's also just good for all of us listeners, to think about these new tools for our own life. So we're going to wrap up. I've got to go into my day. Beginning my day here, which includes more work along these lines. I know Panu, you've got the end of your evening and a full day you've already worked. So you're going to hopefully move towards some time with your family. Janet, what's the rest of your day hold for you?

Lewis: I've got a work afternoon with patients. 

Doherty: Okay, so you're going to be in the trenches with people. So I wish you well. And we'd love to chat with you again. I think we could easily go a lot longer. But this is a great start. So you both are well. And listeners you take care of yourselves.

Lewis: Bye bye. 

Pihkala: Bye bye. Take care.  

Doherty: 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 | Barış Selcen

Thomas and Panu took time to speak about trees, beings great and small with whom we share the planet, and the disenfranchised grief that we suffer when we witness the loss of trees and forests, in our own neighborhoods and across the world. Join us to listen in on the conversation, and let us know what you feel about this issue. 

• Tree loss in Melbourne Australia  “The power of lament: Reckoning with loss in an urban forest”, Phillips, Atchison & Straughan (2023)

• Robert Sommer – “Trees and Human Identity” see on p. 79 among many other useful references in Clayton & Opotow (2003) (Eds) , Identity and the Natural Environment

• Richard Powers (2023, Feb 2) “Five Years Ago, I Wrote a Fictional Disaster That Is Now Playing Out in Real Time” NY Times

• Artist Marina Abramovic on the benefits of hugging trees (video)

• Mark Bekoff: Why Trees and People Form Mutually Beneficial Relationships

• JRR Tolkien quotes about trees

• On the Finnish as Tree People, see books by Ritva Kovalainen & Sanni Seppo (e.g. Metsänhoidollisia toimenpiteitä, 2006; Pohjoistuulen metsä, 2023), https://www.ritvakovalainen.com/treepeople 

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity. 

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

Thomas Doherty: Please support the climate change and happiness podcast see the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.

Doherty: Well, hello, I am Thomas Doherty. 

Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala. 

Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. Our podcast. This is a show for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about the personal side of climate change. We focus a lot on our emotional responses to this issue. And our feelings. And all the many things that are connected to this in the world. And one of the beautiful things that's connected to our feelings about nature and the environment, and our environmental identity is another class of beings that we share the planet with trees. Trees. 

And today our episode is about trees. And we're going to go in many directions with this. But both Panu and I both know a lot about the research about trees and human health and human identity and mental health. And, of course, I'm in the Pacific Northwest, which has its own unique cultural associations with the big trees of North America. And Panu is in Finland, which, of course, has its own association with northern forests and trees. And you all have your own associations with trees of various kinds. Including trees you know personally. So that's where we're going today. And this episode will touch on many other things that we've talked about over the last year. Panu, do you want to get us started off on this really rich topic?

Pihkala: Yes, greetings from the land of tree people! Because the Finno-Ugric people, of whom the Finns are one part and [others are] Estonians and Hungarians and then several smaller tribes in the current Russian area, they are known for the importance of trees for their whole worldview and ancient religion. And in Finland, the relationship with trees is both profound and complex. Because also, it's a major national industry thing. Things one does with the trees. But then also very locally, in various places, towns and cities, there are these important trees. And sometimes also conflicts about what to do with them. And I know Thomas, that you had a sort of profound experience related to this. So would you like to share a bit about that?

Doherty: Yeah, thanks, Panu. So many incredible directions to go with this topic. Yeah, and I'm unfortunately going to start out with a sad story that really is close to home to get us going. It doesn't limit our discussion today. But it is a sad story to start. So listeners can be prepared for that. But anyway, where I live in the City of Portland in the state of Oregon in the US, you know, and my neighborhood is what's called Northeast Portland. You know, it's a residential neighborhood. But there used to be a big, you know, primeval forest here. Sometimes there are conflicts between large trees and landowners and debates about whether to save trees or not. And we lost a huge tree here in the neighborhood. And it was a long story. And I'm just going to read a paragraph that gives a summary of this. That I shared with people here last December. December 2022. And it'll just give you a sense of the complexity of this issue. So I'll just read what I wrote because it captured my thoughts and feelings on that morning, December 6 2022. You know, I wrote.

I watched a 100+ foot giant sequoia tree being cut down and removed in my neighborhood today, just a block from my house. The tree had grown up close between two residential houses and undermined one of the house's foundations, leaving it derelict. The other homeowners, a couple, waged a long battle to save the tree. They garnered international support through a petition and a GoFundMe drive. Tragically, just as they found a developer to take on the  property and guarantee keeping the tree, some unknown person drilled into the tree and poisoned it, mortally wounding the tree and sabotaging the deal. Over the past year, the tree's canopy has browned and died off. The couple was so demoralized that they moved from the state. This tree was about 100 years old and sequoias can live for thousands of years. The industrial scale removal was remarkably efficient, huge pieces of the trunk lowered down by crane and many of the limbs, even the large ones, immediately fed into a wood chipper. There was no neighborhood notice and through the day people stopped to watch and take pictures. I contacted some local news agencies as they previously covered the story, but none arrived as far as I know. It was very hard to concentrate or get any work done today. Such a real world example of disenfranchised loss and grief. I had offered my support and coping tips to the folks that tried to save the tree, and I had donated to the cause. But like others I am sure, I have the question of whether I could have done more. 

I share this as a way to bear witness and move against the isolation these events breed. And because I know many of you will understand. 

That's my story of the Sequoia. An example that came home to me personally. And just how bizarre and absurd it seemed that I do this environmental work. And I was powerless to really do anything about, you know, to do more with this tree. And then the bystanders syndrome that happens. And then just watching the tree literally from my front porch. I can see the canopy and see it browning and just worrying. And then when I noticed the big crane trucks that morning, I knew that the end had come. So anyway, I share that just to give listeners a sense of how this manifests. And I know listeners have similar stories to this. That's the whole point of our episode that we think of trees, you know, philosophically and intellectually forests.  You know, forests being the lungs of the Earth. 

But we also know individual trees and places that become part of our environmental identity. Part of our relationships. Our lifeline. So that's where this topic goes. It gets really personal. And that's normal, very normal for people for it to be personal. So what's coming up for you, Panu, as I describe this. I know you've got a lot of different ways that you might think about this as a philosopher and as a researcher, and as a Finn.

Pihkala: Yes, thanks, Thomas for sharing that. And, of course, it evokes sadness and compassion. It's got to do with emotional attachments and values. And partly, I think, with worldviews, also. And I'm a person who is very fond of trees myself. So I can resonate with some examples in personal history also. In the neighborhood, where I'm living in eastern Helsinki, there's an old manor and some of the trees nearby are from that period. So one very conspicuous one is a poplar, which is not a native tree in Finland. At least not for a long time. When there was a warmer period in climate history, then there might have been some; at least there were more oaks during that time. But anyway. 

So I also remembered today, when I saw that people are starting to do something with it. So there is a sort of shock element in it. There's lots of elements of a grief process. And there's the dynamics of whether the loss is recognized by others. And whether you have been able to prepare for it. There's this possibility for feelings of helplessness and powerlessness, which you also also described. There's the dynamics around responsibilities, and a sort of negotiation with possible guilt. Which then, again, is a common feature in all kinds of loss and grief processes. It's very human to ask: could I have done something to prevent this? Or could I have done something more? That's, again, very close to what I've been doing in my research work lately. Where I've been looking at the intersections of grief and bereavement theory with ecological emotions. So this touches on many of those things. So I can resonate with this both on a personal level and as a researcher. And I know, Thomas, that you've been thinking about these emotional attachments that people have with trees also. So would you like to say something more about how you see that one?

Doherty: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's important to, you know, to breeze through this topic. We started out with a really troubling narrative about the loss of the sequoia tree. Which is really sad.  And it could bring tears to your eyes to tell these stories. And I've heard many people share similar narratives that were really influential on their life. All around the world. I've heard these stories. We can also just come back and orientate ourselves in a positive way about this. I mean, obviously, our grief and connections with trees are not officially recognized in economics and science and in law. So when we lose these trees, our grief is not recognized officially. That's what that term disenfranchised grief means, right? So it's like, we lose it and it breeds that isolation that often happens. And then we have to band together almost in a revolutionary way to share our grief. 

But there's a famous chapter in conservation psychology by the late researcher Robert Summer, Trees and Human Identity. And he just does such a great job describing how the many, many ways that trees influence our human identity across the lifespan from being children to being elders. And, you know, understanding how our relationship with trees influences our physical health, our mental health, and our identity. And all the metaphors that come from trees. The roots of the trees. The branch of the trees. The world's tree. You know, it's woven into religion and philosophy and art. You know, evolutionary theory looks at how, you know, humans are related, you know, to trees. I mean, the human hand is shaped the way it is because it evolved to climb. And, you know, was, so when you grab a branch on a tree, and it feels really natural to hold onto, that's not an accident. That's why our hand is made that way. And when we feel good, in the trees or in a place where we can look from trees, that's woven into our psyches, and our minds and bodies in a very deep way. And so these, like, we talk about different words, like, you know, I think it's called “komorebi” in Japanese. You know, the idea of light filtering through the leaves. Dappling through the tree. So there's different words in different languages that capture trees. 

And of course, we have traditions, like forest bathing. You know, in Asian countries where people bathe in the [air and setting of the] forest. And the smells of the forest and the fields of the forest, and the idea of “forest therapy.” Which is a term that would be used in Finland. Not so much in the US. We talk about “wilderness therapy,” or “outdoor therapy.” But in other countries in Europe it would be called forest therapy. You know, and the idea of healing in the forest. So there's a ton of positive things. And I guarantee every one of us. Everyone is listening. When we look at our environmental identity timeline. And all the experiences that we've had, over our lives, regarding nature and the natural world, there are trees involved there. People know what it's like to climb trees as a child and to play in trees. And people cultivate trees in their homes. And they visit trees. They make journeys to see the Redwoods in California. And to see the old trees around the world. So there's just so much positive stuff, too.

Pihkala: Yeah, yeah. Totally resonating with that, also. And I think it's very important to give children the opportunity to climb trees, if only they are up to it in any way. And that's a classic theme in environmental education also, nowadays, because this culture around security has good sides, but also bad sides. And one of the bad sides is that some people think that children shouldn't climb trees anymore, because they may fall from them. There was one study in Britain awhile ago, where they looked at statistics and found out that many more children went to the hospital because they had fallen out of their bed than from trees. So home is a very dangerous place if you put it this way and look at the accidents. But yeah, hopefully, as many people as possible have a safe home. But you know, this statistical point. But even in research on climate emotions, people may start talking about close affinities with trees. And that sort of testifies to these interconnections between topics. And, for me, about the great, both physical and psychological and symbolic significance of trees for people. 

And I was very glad to read the article Thomas mentioned. It's a great overview of the many connections that people may have. But there is a link now, even between climate issues and this topic. And of course, if we look at the larger developments, then global warming is changing trees and forests. And for example, in Finland, we've had geographical lines, you know, the most northern places where certain tree species grow. We are very high in the north, actually. And it's just the Gulf Stream coming from the Atlantic, which gives us enough warmth that we can do much more farming than in Alaska even though we are quite close as far north. So the three species are moving more north in Finland. And that's causing ecosystem change. So there's, you know, changes and possible feelings of loss, both in relation to single trees and large scale changes in forests. And, of course, there may be positive developments, also. Having more nice trees through which to experience komorebi. That's also becoming more possible in Finland. But then lots of ecosystem changes have many threatening aspects also, like the spread of certain insects. And so on.

Doherty: Yeah. I mean, again, this is an ecological topic. As we talk about, “when you pick on one thing in the universe you find it hitched to everything else” [John Muir]. And when you pick on the leaf of one tree, one branch, you know, one twig, you find it hitched to so many things. Climate change. Tree cover in neighborhoods. It's, you know, when we talk about our environmental identity. It's intersectional, with all kinds of other forms of identity and with social justice. That's one direction here  to go. I mean, climate change is making it really warm, particularly in urban areas, particularly in poor marginalized neighborhoods. So people are much more aware now of the idea of the urban heat effect with heat waves. And how dire it can be in neighborhoods that are denuded of trees. So trees are becoming a social justice issue for neighborhoods. It's a marker of privilege to have trees even. 

And it's very, very obvious in my city.  My neighborhood is traditionally a lower income neighborhood. And so these trees like Sequoia are very rare. Whereas if you go just just a quarter of a mile south to, you know, another neighborhood that's more privileged, there's these huge, beautiful trees. Maple trees line the avenues. It's very shady. So it's an absolute mark of socio-cultural privilege and social justice trees. Obviously, a rich, long tradition of forest protectors. People trying to save and protect the trees around the world. in all areas, and all countries and all nations. Beginning with, you know, indigenous people that are still innately involved with trees in the forest. 

Here in the US, obviously, this brings us up to the recent issue in Atlanta, with the Atlanta Public training facility in the shooting of Manuel Tehran. Tortuguita, The environmental activist, and forest protector who was shot by the Georgia State Patrol. And the controversy around that. So that's a great example where climate change is turning up the volume on this. Turning up the temperature, you could say. Where that forest in Atlanta is being seen not just as a forest to protect, but also part of history. Part of the local history with racism and slavery and policing. And of course, urban heat. And, you know, traditionally black neighborhoods. And trying to protect that forest. So it falls into line with all of these other big issues. There's a logic of appropriateness now. Where it's like, it's not appropriate to do these things. People won't stand for it, you know. And so these projects that would have been pushed through in the past, people are standing against them for a number of reasons. So this gets into literature with books like The Overstory, as you know. And then I know, your favorite and mine. JRR Tolkien has interesting traditions regarding trees. Do you want to say a little bit about your Tolkien connection?

Pihkala: Yes. I'd love to come back to that a bit later. But just staying with the intersectional dimension for a while. So that really seems global, as you say, and so many things converge. Both, you know, trying to keep the rain forests also for climate and carbon reasons. And just the biodiversity dimension. Maybe there's also justice dimensions in many places as you mentioned. There's some very famous cases in Europe, also about trying very courageously to protect old growth forests [for example, in the Hambach forest in Germany]. There's very little of them left in Europe. So, for example, in Finland, if you look at the aerial pictures, you'll see a lot of green. But we don't have many old growth forests anymore. Most of them have been cut down at least once with biodiversity impacts. But there's great people protecting and trying to protect those forests. And there's many very inspiring cases of that. 

In literature, Tolkien is one of the world's most famous writers, I think, not the least because of many movies by Peter Jackson and colleagues in the 2000s. So he was a person who was very  fond of trees. And one of the great places to check this out if somebody is interested in the book Letters of JRR Tolkien. Meticulously edited by an editor [Humphrey Carpenter], and also with the help of his son [Christopher Tolkien]. And there he is, writing sometimes quite directly, how he also wanted to create fiction where, at least once, the trees could stand up for themselves. So that's one dimension in this Lord of the Rings mythology. But of course, there's a lot more than that to Tolkien's relationship with trees and various kinds of things.

Doherty: Yeah. Many people are aware of emotional connection with the Ents. The species of beings in Middle Earth that kind of resemble trees. They're like moving trees. And that word comes from an old English word for giants. So trees often have this sense of giantess. I mean, there's so many fascinating directions to go with this. One of my early books that I read years ago, Landscape and Memory by historian Simon Schama. It was an environmental history book. [It] talked about the sacred groves of northern Europe, and the Celts. And how churches, you know, were essentially groves. And even the great cathedrals, like the Gothic cathedrals of Notre Dame and Chartres cathedral were actually meant to evoke tall, overarching trees. Which I never realized. And so in terms of my environmental identity as someone from the Northern European cultures, it was really helpful for me to see that connection between trees and religion. Woven into the ancient cultures there. And even just see the environmental justice issues going far back. One of the strategies the Romans had, when they were overtaking the Celtic countries, was to cut down the sacred groves of trees. You know, to take over power from the people. 

So that same story, of course, played out in North America. You know, in terms of colonizers taking over people's places. So it's a very fraught issue because I know in the Pacific Northwest, many people, families traditionally, as you know, within Finland as well. Their families grow up working in the forestry industry. In the forest products industry. and it's a huge part of the economy in these places. and all over the Pacific Northwest every town essentially began as a logging town. Everyone. Everyone. It always goes back. The main street Burnside in Portland used to be the skid road where they would slide the logs down from the hills down to the ships, right? So it's woven into our culture here. And so it's another form of disenfranchised grief because we haven't balanced out the need for trees and the need for people's ability to have a livelihood and the loss and grief. So it's kind of a tragic situation that we're still trying to muddle through.

Pihkala: Yeah, yeah. It can be very, very tricky. And some folks in Finland like the photography artists Ritva Kovalainen and Sanni Seppo have done great things in doing books, where they have not only included photos of different forests, but also stories of people who relate to the forest in different ways. So there are nature protectors, but also different kinds of forest owners and to bring out the scope and scale of foreign relations. And that doesn't of course, remove all the tensions but that's one way forward to try to understand a bit more about the various perspectives that people have. That being said, these people have also been very important proponents of making “forest grief,” or whatever one wants to call it, as a publicly recognized thing. And I've also sometimes used my public voice for the same purpose. And even in those cases, where the democratic decision then would be to cut down the tree or the forest, even then the grief and losses should be recognized. And this is a tricky subject also, because one can easily see a possibility for misusing this, you know. Providing therapeutic services to people so that they don't stand up so much for the trees that we are going to lose. But I believe that there might be some balances found. So that's defending moral standing, could be combined with also necessarily sometimes then facing grief together.

Doherty: Yeah. We'll have several really interesting links in this podcast to different stories and films. There's so many to name these trees, Sequoia, Redwood, the Wollemia Pine in Australia. The Baobab in Madagascar. The oaks of Ireland, you know, the Doherty clan, my last name, you know, one origin of the name comes from the oak in Derry there. Thich is the name you know, oak in Celtic language there. So, if listeners have examples of these rituals, please let us know. I really do think it should just be part of our culture to have some rituals. I know native Native people, indigenous people understand this. And do have rituals that are intact for you know, for millennia, 1000s of years. 

But we need modern rituals. Because we do need to cut down trees that Sequoia that I mentioned early on, was in a tough spot. Someone could argue that it was dangerous in that position. And it could fall and injure people in a storm. Trees do fall. Ice storms and recent climate change weather patterns have changed what trees are used to experiencing. And so we are getting extreme loss of trees for various reasons because of temperature, because of invasive species, because of ice storms. So we are going to lose trees and it can be dangerous. But it's that our building codes and our urban laws don't recognize primal realities for people's connections with nature. That's the problem. So it isn't that we won't cut down trees ever. I don't think that's what trees want. We can live in connection with trees. And using trees and helping them help us to live it's just really a question of having more of a reality about this that honors our emotional life. So if people have thoughts about this, please let us know. 

We've got a nice trend coming with our episodes here. We have an episode coming up regarding wolves. We have episodes around children in nature coming up. So there's a lot of mixed nuanced feelings here. So making room for the sadness and the loss. But also the joy, exhilaration. I can remember even now as a child, the exhilaration of really climbing a tree. Really tall, really getting up there. Farther out of your comfort zone. Way up in a tall tree. Building a treehouse for my daughter which I never had as a child so of course I built her a tree house. And we spent a lot of time with that. And have had images of building another tree house very tall in a tree that I have near my house. And I haven't been able to have the time to finish it. But there's something so beautiful and primal about being in the trees. So yeah, we're almost time to wrap up here Panu, but I'm really glad we were able to finally get to this topic. It makes me feel good to be able to talk about it. You want to lead us out with any other ideas for your evening and my day here?

Pihkala: Yeah, it's been great to talk about trees. And all the importance they have. And we'll share some links to some research also about collective action on the behalf of trees. But also collectively, lamenting or mourning trees. So there's many sides to this but perhaps to bring us to close I'd like to quote John Muir who of course is a famous tree loving person. And in one of his books, he tells of climbing a very tall tree, in quite stormy, windy weather. And then sort of wavering there in the wind to get to the top of the tree. And he has this quote:

“We all travel the Milky Way together, trees and men; but it never occurred to me until this storm-day, while swinging in the wind, that trees are travelers in the ordinary sense. They make many journeys, not extensive ones, it is true; but our own little journeys, away and back again, are only little more than tree-wavings — many of them not so much.”

• from Mountains of California, 1894; by John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)

So this from John Muir in the beginning of the 20th century or the late 19th. And referring of course, to all human beings, not just men.

Doherty: Yeah, beautiful. Just reminds me of the research on people climbing the great Redwood trees. Hyperion. The great Redwood tree in California. And swaying in the branches there. So listeners can really think about this. One of the quotes that I saw in my reading was from an organizer that said, you know, we're not sure if we organize communities to plant trees or plant trees to organize communities. Right? So it's woven in together here. So think about how trees play into your lives. And let us know what this all means for you. And know that you're not alone in your feelings about trees. There are many, many, many, many, many of us around the world that really love trees. And feel nothing wrong with hugging a tree. And breathing into the tree. And really feeling with that being. And the trees are on the move as you know, as Panu says they are migrating slowly. 

Anyway, this is Climate Change and Happiness. You can find us at climatechangeandhappiness.com. See all these episodes and show notes and various things that you can't find on your podcast platform. And you can also support us at our Patreon at climatechangeandhappiness.com. And we really do need some support to keep going and making these episodes. So thank you very much and everyone be well 

Pihkala: Take care.

Doherty: 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 | Jake Ingle

Panu and Thomas spoke with Susan Bodnar, a clinical psychologist who practices in New York City and does teaching and research at Columbia University’s Teachers College. The trio discussed Susan’s earlier pathfinding papers like “Wasted and Bombed; Clinical Enactments of a changing relationship to the Earth.” And also her current studies that link the concept of psychological attachment—long studied in terms of the dynamics of close human relationships—to people’s close connections with natural places. In a stimulating dialog, Susan described important ecological insights she gained observing bears in Alaska, and the social and media phenomena of Flaco the owl living newly wild in New York City. Of her current research, Susan recounted: 

And we started with the simplest of questions. “Think of a place, what does it mean to you?” And our first pass through the study, we were amazed at the similarity of the response. People were describing relationships… And then later, when asked, “What does it remind you of?” people said, “mother, father, mentor, best friend, sibling.” Those were the words that people used. “If this place were no longer here, how would you feel?” “Devastated.” …“what else devastates you?” I mean, we know right? The loss of someone you love.

Join us for a validating discussion of emotional attachment to nature and “emotional biodiversity” that you can apply to your own life. And support us at our Patreon.  

• Susan Bodnar

• Bodnar, S. (2008) Wasted and Bombed; Clinical Enactments of a changing relationship to the Earth, Psychoanalytic Dialogues 18 484-513.

• Bodnar, S. at al. (2023). The Environment as an Object Relationship: A Two-Part Study

• Michiko Kakutani (2023, March 3). Everyone Loves Flaco the Escaped Owl. But Why, Exactly? (See also this story on ethical concerns posed by Flaco’s freedom.)

• The Human Access Project Reclaiming connections with the Willamette River

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity. 

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

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

Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala. 

Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. Our podcast, the show for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about the personal side of climate change and other environmental issues. So here, we focus on many things. But really, we try to come back to our emotions and our feelings and our personal experience and our coping. And we're really excited to have a guest with us today.

Susan Bodnar: Hi, I'm Susan Bodnar. And I am a clinical psychologist in full time, private practice here in New York City. And I also am a faculty member at Teachers College, Columbia University, where in addition to teaching a class on psychology, climate, and development, I'm also running a research project on the human relationship to ecosystems.

Doherty: Susan, it's so great to have you. Panu and I have been talking about our episode. We both are aware of you and your work. And you're one of those people that has been thinking about this topic and ahead of the game. And has published in this area around people's connections with nature and the natural world. And it's really exciting the work you've done around people's attachment to place. So we're gonna get into all that kind of stuff today. And listeners, I think you're gonna find this episode really interesting. Panu, you want to get us started?

Pihkala: Warmly welcome, Susan. Also, for my part. We’ve met a couple of times online, never live. And I've mentioned that when I started doing research on so-called eco anxiety and other difficult emotions, there wasn't much empirical source material, then in the mid 2010's. Your articles were very important for me. And also, they have a depth dimension, which hasn't been very often explored. Namely, how interconnected our inner worlds and the so-called outer world are. So we're gonna talk about that today at some point. But I'd like to start by asking you, could you share something about your own journey to become a clinical psychologist who has such a deep interest in the more than human world? That's not very typical, especially during those times when you went to training. So would you like to share something of your personal journey?

Bodnar: I was born in a very small town in Pennsylvania.  In a coal mining area. In I guess would be close to the Poconos. People know that area. And I was influenced by a grandparent generation who were very close to their immigrant identities. And they had not yet really fully adapted to the modern world. And I had a great grandmother who refused to allow electricity into her home. She thought it was evil or something. And everything was done in a wood burning stove. And my grandfather had been a farmer. And my grandmother ultimately was, I think, the first family psychologist. Because when they were no longer able to keep the farm, they went to work at the family market. Like a very small little market for this town of, you know, 1200 people. And she used to listen to people's problems in the checkout. She was the checkout person. And they always did everything outside. Family gatherings were outside. We went for picnics. My grandfather took me deer hunting, which was without a gun, to just observe nature. To observe the deer. He was proud of the land that he lived in. And that was because my father had that tradition as well. And took me camping. And all over the place, the highest peaks. And those experiences were profound, I think. 

And when I first started writing about this, it was because I had been in analytic training. I had been in private practice. I felt something was really missing. I was seeing so many people with regulatory disorders, roughly. And I kept saying, why, why, why? Why are there so many of these? And I started to really notice how few people had any kind of relationship to their environments. Physical spaces. And I thought, this is not a coincidence. And so I started to dive into it a little bit more deeply. And then I was in Alaska. In Denali National Park with Ranger Bailey. Ranger Greg Bailey, if you're out there, I will never forget you! Because he gave me an understanding of the dynamics of landscapes that was so incredible. Because he was really trying to talk to me about the human bear ecosystem interface. And just the simple knowledge that you can be safe from bears if you understand how much food is available. To me, it was wow, that's amazing. But it started to make sense that this whole ecology that everything was integrated. And when I started to see that, I could never unsee it. And I took that back to my work. And began to start to understand it.

Doherty: That's really beautiful. That was like an epiphany, it sounds like for you. An ecological epiphany there regarding the bears.

Bodnar: Well, he taught it to me. When he said, look, this is how much food there is. This is how much food a bear needs. And how they behave toward you, as a human is proportional to the availability of that food in a given area. That's what you need to start thinking about when you want to interact with bears. And I thought that was amazing. It was such a simple thing. And it explains so much of what people have been seeing with, you know, bear intrusions.  All we have to do is think about that, and you can solve the problem. But it's a thought process we don't really know how to have because this whole relationship to our physical spaces isn't something that's validated as important and meaningful in the culture we're part of.

Doherty: Yeah so it's ecological. A basic ecological intelligence and it's also like relational intelligence. So you have to understand the bear as a being. As a sentient being. And that's the other piece I think you're hinting at, right? Is the lack of the relation. You know, the person to person entity to entity relationship with the bears or the place. Right? That gets us to our attachment stuff. What do you think? Yeah, yeah. What do you think about Panu?

Pihkala: Yeah, I'm very fascinated by the examples of profound moments and dynamics in childhood and youth. We often in this podcast talk about environmental identity. Some people use the ecological identity term. And these foundational influences are, of course, very important for us. And it definitely sounds like there's many of them coming from the place and relatives and the various things you described. And then later on what you say about the profession during the time that you went to training and went to practice. So I guess that's a sort of sign of the times and dynamics that even psychological professionals tend to be so out of touch with the significance of the more than human world.

Doherty: Yeah. And brings us up to today. Susan, you were telling us about your—do you want to tell us a little more about what you're experiencing, where you practice in New York? And also some of this really exciting research on attachment.

Bodnar: So where I practice in New York City, there are lots of things to think about. Let's start with Flaco. The owl, who, in February, somebody vandalized his mesh enclosure at the zoo. He escaped and is now an international star because people are attaching to the story of this bird who had lived in captivity all 13 years of his life. He was a Eurasian eagle owl. Raised in captivity. He escapes. The zoos and other wildlife officials, he'll never survive, they say. They're trying to catch him. Desperately trying to get him back. And he eludes them every time. And then it turns out, he can hunt and he can fly. Where it came from? Where was it inside of him? I don't know, but it emerged. And now he is a free owl. And they've given up trying to capture him. And he now lives as a, you know, social media celebrity. And I'm looking at the narrative about Flaco the owl. And I'm thinking, I think that's how everybody's relating. The story they're telling about the wild inside, I think is really important to our discussion about attachment to places and to object relations. What we carry inside and how it influences us. 

And I, because of my work, and I work with people, and I listen to people all the time. I've been hearing this agitation about this disconnect from something very hard to name. But it has to do with authenticity. It has to do with nature. It has to do with real. It has to do with, you know, what feels honest. I want to write about that. But I didn't know how to write about it in a way that it could be heard by people who didn't already agree with what I said. 

So I decided to do this research project. And it's a result of the class I teach. One of the classes I teach. And, you know, my goal in life isn't research, in particular. I probably shouldn't say that, but that's not where I live. It's like, I want to do it, because I'm so passionate about these ideas. And I so much want to get them heard and witnessed and all of that. So in a kind of random way, I just started this research project. And all these students showed up to work on it. Like they heard that call that was like the environment. I want to do that. And we started with the simplest of questions. Think of a place, what does it mean to you? And our first pass through the study, we were amazed at the similarity of the response. People were describing relationships. Describe a place, what does it mean to you? They were describing a relationship. And then later, when asked, what does it remind you of, people said, mother, father, mentor, best friend, sibling. Those were the words that people used. If this place were no longer here, how would you feel? Devastated. That's in the paper. You know, this huge percentage of people use that word. Devastated. Cool, what else devastates you? I mean, we know right? The loss of someone you love. So we expanded the study, started doing more surveys. And then we added interviews. Interviewing people. 

And what's amazing to me, is as much as what we're finding out. What's being told to us in the surveys in the research, is how eager people are to do the interviews and to take the survey. We're not like a big operation. Right? But people are taking the survey. We don't have anything to offer them. We're not giving the money. Just saying take the survey and do the interview. Huge percentage of people I would say I think we have 60% of people taking the survey want to do an interview because they want to talk about it. They want the chance to talk about what this means to them.

Doherty: And when you say talk about it, you mean they want to talk about their feelings and their relationship with places and nature?

Bodnar: Absolutely. And the stories are. One person talked about the fact that they came from a family where there was just so much pain and substance abuse and domestic violence. And they had nowhere to go but outside. And the outdoors parented them. That there were lessons of living there. They were watching what was happening in the ecosystem around them. They figured out how to grow up. How to live a life. You had to share. It was one thing that she referred to. You had to make space for others. It wasn't always about you. Like little things.

Another person talked about a childhood pond where all the kids used to play and watch fish and frogs and watch the tadpoles become frogs. And it was just a yearly thing. And then one day, they showed up and all the fish were dead. And it was horrifying. It was like traumatic is the word that was used. And they didn't know what had happened. And they were told not to touch the water. The water that they had been playing in. The mud they've been squishing in. Don't touch it. And it turns out that the treatments for the golf course had gotten into the water supply. And it was poisonous. And it was dead. The pond was dead. And this person started to commit acts of sabotage against the golf course. And they still remember the pond.

Pihkala: Thanks for sharing all that. That's so important. And justifies how important places and place relations and entanglements with them are to us. And many people can still recollect things related to their childhood. And, of course, things are changing with urbanization and technology, such that there are some people who already now find it a bit difficult. But luckily, even in cities, you usually have some water spaces and some parks. That all justifies to, I think, the sort of very deep element in our humanity which is connection to the more-than-human world. And what you say about students volunteering, I think that testifies to it. And I'm thinking about this story of Flaco the owl also having a symbolic dimension of, you know, there is a certain wildness, living even in domesticated conditions. But I think this is very profoundly important work that you're doing.

Bodnar: I think, to that point, in our current version of the study, we're trying to select for urban versus rural and suburban. Trying to see how that changes the quality of how they talk about their environments. It's in progress. So I don't know how that will look. I can give you a hint, however, about something else, which is that people who are parents, feel a sense of their relationship and their connection to the environment has changed a lot. Because now they're thinking of the future. They're thinking of their children. I don't know if that's going to hold up. But the early findings are very, very robust. That becoming a parent makes a big difference.

Doherty: Yeah.

Pihkala: As a quick point for that, Thomas. Just today I was having a workshop online with a group of Finns, professionals in religion. And one of them shared that when she had her second child, she actually had to have medication for her eco anxiety. And that was a very brave thing to say, of course. This was a group which had established group dynamics. And I had tried to create a safe space. But I was still very, not totally surprised, but struck by the honesty. So just echoing that I've also heard many still anecdotal things about how parenthood really can activate or reactivate this, our eco-distress. And in some episodes back also testified to this thing. So just wanted to say that before moving on, but please, Thomas, what did you have in mind?

Doherty: Yeah, no, this is such a great conversation. I just want to cycle back to some ideas for our listeners. Because we're using some psychology terms and things just to make sure people are tracking this. Because it is really easy to understand. But, you know, Susan, you're working from this tradition in therapy. Psychoanalytic tradition which really focuses on our inner lives. And sometimes even unconscious parts of our life that we're not really aware of. And this idea of attachment, which is our primary connections with our close people in our life. Our parents. Our significant others. You know, we have this gut level attachment relationship. 

And some people are lucky enough to have a nice secure set of relationships with people in the world. And other people have more, you know, avoidant, you know, uneasy relationships. And so that's just something for listeners to realize. That's what we're talking about here. And, you know, object relations are the internal parents and the internal people that we have in our psyche that we carry with us. A lot of which, hopefully, are quite positive. But we can also have conflicts as well. Right?

Bodnar: Yeah, the important thing is that it's a relationship. It's not always positive. And there can be, I think, one person in the research who talked about this really remote cabin that their parents used to take them to in Minnesota. It was literally in the middle of nowhere. And they had no plumbing or electricity, or anything. It was just a bare bones cabin. And they used to greet those trips with a mixture of absolute excitement and terror and panic. Because every time they went there, it meant letting go of everything that was familiar. And didn't always feel good about them. You know, the wilderness is scary. 

Doherty: Yeah. 

Bodnar: When we took our kids to Humpy Creek, and there was, you know, brown bear scat everywhere. And the salmon were running upstream. It was terrifying.

Doherty: Yeah. So anyway, what we're doing is really kind of revolutionary. Because traditionally in therapy, people talk about all this attachment. And, you know, these internalized presences. Purely in an interpersonal realm in terms of our family. And so what we're talking about, and what Susan is doing is really, you know, bringing this out and saying we have the same kind of attachments. This gut level unconscious attachment with the place where we grew up. With these environments. And then that leads to we've mentioned regulatory disorders or regulations. So we regulate our emotions. Yeah. I just want to make sure the listeners because this is so rich. I want to unpack this. So because they know what we're talking about here. Because it's a takeaway. You know, so if I'm good with my attachments, and I can work those. Then I can kind of regulate my emotions. And my attachments can help me to regulate my emotions and be a healthy person. 

And so all we're doing is saying, and I think the listeners get this, I get this totally. I can tell my story of where I grew up in Buffalo, New York, and all this sort of stuff. But you know, our attachments are not just people. They're places. They're animals. They're the ground. They're the land. And climate change. And environmental issues. The issues in East Palestine, for example, with the train derailment are activating these deep connections. These deep inner attachments are bringing it up. So I just want to make sure that we have that clear for the listener.

Pihkala: Yeah, thanks, Thomas. That's very important.

Bodnar: I will tell you, when my kids were first born, they discovered the moon here in New York City. And they became obsessed. We had to see the moon every single night. It's life changing. I didn't even know where to find the moon. I took them out like snuggly in a stroller, and literally asked people on the street, do you see the moon in the sky? People were looking like what? Who is this crazy person? But it was really tapping into how children view the world. What they know is the moon. Animals. Moon. Flowers. Tadpoles. That's their world. And when you start to go inside their world with them and you actually validate it and strengthen it and give it power. It's going to change you as an adult.

Doherty: Yeah, healthy emotional experiences that parents do that promote this kind of attachment, you know, healthy attachment. So as we talk and where I'm going with this, my own work is that, you know, some people are lucky enough to have double attachment. They're securely attached in general in their life. And they also have healthy relationships to places, but we can have variations of attachments. And that's where it gets really interesting. We can be ambivalent. I know, you know, a lot of people are ambivalent about their attachments to places because of these losses and some of the things that you've talked about. And so the juicy question is how does that resonate with your attachments to other people?

Bodnar: Yeah, I mean, one of the things that has also come up in the research is a woman from Albania. Tearfully discussed the coast where she lived, as she watched it transform into a hotel after hotel after hotel after hotel with the beachfront being given over to commercial enterprises. It broke her heart. 

A gentleman who was at the time about 60 something spontaneously wasn't part of the research, became tearful, when he went to visit childhood home. And found out that the field where he used to play was now turned into sort of like a McMansion village. I've heard in the research, people describe how violated. Word they used, violated. They felt when places that had been natural, became converted into malls. Feeling that in a way, told the story of our modern world. Taking these beautiful natural places and chopping them down, to make stores so you could buy things that in the end, were sometimes an attempt to get you back to where you would have been if you've been able to just be in that natural place.

Pihkala: Yeah, that's a great quote from Susan's 2008 article “Wasted and Bombed: Clinical Enactments of a Changing Relationship to the Earth”. I warmly recommend it for many reasons. But this line from the sixty year old man: “my personality is a mall plastered over a wildlife sanctuary”. This reminds me of many things. Also, Terrence Malick’s movies, which are a complex thing. But that's one movie maker who is doing movies so that he is showing out the scenes, which are actually the inner landscapes of the characters. And then that doesn't always give you much [box office] revenue, because it may be that these movies are a bit difficult for people to be able to get [a sense of]. But just pointing out this theme of how we intuitively see the landscapes of our psyches, and what's the relationship between buildings and so-called natural things there. 

This is so juicy that I would warmly recommend that we try to find a time to do a second episode where we get deeper to these kinds of things. And there would be so much to discuss here. The sort of disappointments and devastating experiences we have touched upon in several episodes. Sherry Weber Nicholson's book was a very important early take on this. And then some later work like Glenn Albrecht's concepts of solastalgia can be related to this. But also to sort of repressed or suppressed experiences of being so shaken inside that it's difficult to get forward. But also, there is this option of building more ecological inner landscapes again together with what we do in the outer world. And perhaps in an effort to bring us towards these kinds of ecological reconstruction I'd like to ask you two, that does this resonate with you? This sort of idea of simultaneously trying to enrich the biodiversity of both the inner and the outer landscape?

Bodnar: Yes. And I will say that when we validate experience. Even an experience that's painful, you populate consciousness. You know, when a person's sadness or a person's joy or a person's questioning or a person's anything. Grief, envy, admiration. When that's allowed to exist internally, it fertilizes. It creates a kind of emotional biodiversity. If a person has emotional biodiversity, they will, this is just my idea, but I think they will start to demand it from their places.

Doherty: That's a lovely term. See that's where the creative comes in. As we were imagining earlier, before we started recording, You know, emotional biodiversity. What a lovely term to come out of this. But yeah, I think Panu, you're totally onto something. In Portland here, like many places, we, you know, we're a city that is around a river. The Willamette River. It's been why the city is here, obviously, is this river. But for many, many years, the Willamette River was really polluted. And, you know, we as a city until the 1950s, just dumped all the sewage into the river. And there used to be factories. So the city actually lived away from the river. And, you know, people grew up here, we're taught never to go in the river. There were Superfund sites and World War Two shipbuilding. And, you know, chemicals and various things like a lot of places. 

But there's been a movement in the last decade. Human Access Project. A program really because the river is cleaner now. And it has been cleaned up over the years. And the Human Access Project has sponsored over the years events where people swim and float. And they have a float in the river every year. And it's essentially taught people that the water is safe. And that you can go into the water. And they have people swimming in the river. So it is a rejuvenation, recovery or restoration. So I think it is quite possible to think on these multiple levels. 

Bodnar: I'm so glad that that's happening. And to see those kinds of projects everywhere. It's tender that we have to teach people that water is safe. But yes, let's teach people that water is safe. And that air is safe. And that the ground you walk on is full of nutrients. Like let's believe that and let's teach people that. I mean, I think you know, one of the things I'm really learning a lot about doing this special issue on eco therapy for the journal eco psychology. Really recognizing the powerful role that an ecologically integrated psychotherapy can have not just for individuals, but certainly for individuals. But for communities, for cultures. And really trying to understand I feel a need to say this all the time and try to find a way to write about this. 

This understanding has been with native and indigenous peoples of different kinds and in different ways forever. This is not actually news, but it's just news to us. And I always feel a need to acknowledge that we took a very powerful set of understandings away from many different peoples invalidating their truth. Only now to come back to it as though,  “Oh boy, look what we found out.” And I'm glad we are finding it out. And I sit as a, you know, white person, female person struggling with this. I'm no expert. But my heart is wide open. And putting down, you know, taking away one's ego. And letting oneself be a listener to history. To others. To children. To people who are coming to do our research. To my students who want to do it. Everybody needs to be in the conversation together. Even corporate America. You know, it's time to stop separating our voices. But I like to bring them together. So that we can make people know that water is safe and air is safe. And that is not only safe, but that there's information and knowledge and powerful potential for connection to self and other animals and environment all of which can help us build a better world. And sort of hold it so it doesn't implode itself, you know.

Doherty:  It's beautifully said. We definitely as we always say we could keep talking. And when we think about bringing you back with more here because this is a thread we're gonna keep following in our podcast as we go forward here.

Bodnar: But it's great to talk to both of you. It's not exactly like there's opportunities everywhere to have these conversations. Right? It's a rare chance to be able to sit down and talk about this and not feel self-conscious. And I'm so grateful that you're doing this podcast because I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling lonely with these ideas. And you're creating community. And when there's community, it's shared. And when it's shared, it's strong. So thank you.

Doherty: You're welcome. I agree. You know, the therapist creates the therapy they need for themselves, right? Yes. So thanks. Panu, what's your evening like here? Where are you heading for the rest of your day?

Pihkala: Well, you know, typical Finnish winter evening. It's dark already. But luckily, we have snow. That's yet another topic we could talk about. And I know, Susan, you've been working with snow and lack of snow also. But now we have it. And we are glad about it. And we don't worry about the lack of it. So that's one thing is trying to both have a long term perspective and to live in the moment. But thanks a lot for these very broad ranging discussions you brought to the space, Susan. And this great inclusive vision, including also the decolonial elements that you shared at the end. So this has been greatly a pleasure.

Doherty: And Susan, what's the rest of your day look like?

Bodnar: More clients. And yeah, I'm back-to-back [providing counseling to] a lot of people. And more hopefully walk therapy. Oh, I have a beautiful kid that I work with for just two seconds. Neuroatypical, very rigid about things that he does. Routinized. Doesn't like me. Doesn't want to come to see me. and I say okay, let's go outside. We work outside all the time. He wants to play football. All he wants to do is knock me over, knock me over, knock me over. And I say hey, okay, but look, there's witches. Look, those things over there. They're witches. Those are trees. I know, they're trees, but we can pretend they're witches. And all of a sudden, these are witches. And then we have a whole thing going now about being outside. He sees the outside world now. His eyes are opened. And we're now climbing bean stalks to go see giants, the clouds in the sky. And it's changing him. That's what I'm doing today. I'm working with him.

Doherty: That's really inspiring. So yes, there's therapists out there around the world that are trying to do this work. And Susan, you're a leader. And I'll do my own versions of this today as well.

Bodnar: You are the leader, excuse me.

Doherty: We try. We try. But it's really great to see these connections again, Susan us to talk and we'll talk more. And the ecopsychology journal and your work. And we'll have our show notes with some of the many things we referenced in here. We reference movies. We reference news stories. And some of the academic work that therapists will really appreciate. So you all will be well. And listeners will be well. And you can find this episode and other episodes at climatechangeandhappiness.com. And please support us so we can bring in more guests like Susan, we all enjoy. So you all be well and take care. Okay, take care. 

Bodnar: Thank you.

Doherty: 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