3 Ways to Build Hope + Resilience for the Climate Transition

#reorganize #adapt #flow

Photo from a Youth Workshop by MFH

After the reports released in October 2018 by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, I experienced many unsettling feelings and asked myself: how can we remain hopeful during such times? To refuse to call it a climate "crisis" is unrealistic and dangerously comfortable. We need to call it what it is so that we may act accordingly and with haste.

Greta Thunberg, 16 year old climate activist from Sweden and the inspiration behind the #fridaysforfuture #climatestrike global youth movement (more on that below!), says:

"I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act as if you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house was on fire. Because it is"

- Greta Thunberg at the World Economic Forum on January 25th, 2019

This quote gives me chills every time. The report emphasizes the importance of maintaining global temperatures from increasing more that 1.5 degrees Celsius. It states that at our current rate of temperature increase, it is likely that global warming will reach 1.5 degrees Celsius between 2030 and 2052.

It describes the trends in intensity and frequency of climate and weather extremes that have already been detected. Additionally, impacts on natural and human systems, as well as changes in land and ocean ecosystems, have already been observed. According to the report, some impacts, including the loss of some ecosystems, may be long-lasting or irreversible.

This biocultural information is crucial to my well being as a young person and the way I imagine my own and my Community's future livelihood. It is unavoidable to feel fear and anxiety about this, if you are alive.

We are irrevocably related to the Earth. We are the Earth. And we are deeply impacted psychologically by the persistent bad news of climate change and ecosystem degradation. Even if you have not registered the impacts of environmental stress or "ecological grief" on a conscious level, your body, on a subconscious survival-instinct level, has.

It is these very feelings that Greta wants us to stop denying and running away from. Climate change is happening now, in real time. It is a part of our encompassing environment as living beings and it is unavoidable. Feelings of guilt, fear, anxiety, stress, and depression are expected and already being studied across the world.

Dr. Courtney Howard is the lead author of the Lancet Countdown Report 2018, recommendations focused on the links between climate change and health, and implications for Canadian policymakers developed with the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Public Health Association.

In an Ottawa Citizen news report, Dr. Howard says that, "anxiety can relate to fear of the future and feelings of helplessness in the face of approaching calamity." This impacts all of us, but it tends to impact Indigenous Communities in northern Canada first, where the effects of climate change are visible and already impacting daily life. She says that "taking action to reduce greenhouse gases, as the UK has done with its 2007 climate change act, can reduce anxiety," (Source: Ottawa Citizen).

As we put solutions in place to reach zero emissions and a just transition into renewable energy, it is important to hold spaces to collectively feel our uncomfortable feelings about climate change. Not so that we may sit in fear and stay immobile, but so that we may take actions as Communities that reorganize our world, bringing solutions and hope for a livable future.

Hope is a critical component of resilience, mental health, and building healthier Communities which is why it is a main objective in our mission at Minds For Humxnity.

Here are 3 Ways to Build Hope + Resilience for Environmental Changes in Your Community

1. Talk About It

Photo from MFH Energy Workshop about oil, water, and renewable energy