The hill stretches up and up, steep enough that you slip as your boots dig into the snow. The kids at the top are readying their sledding devices – tubes, sleds, saucers. My older kid is sliding his tube back and forth, backing up and then – he’s off! The tube flies down the hill. It practically bucks him off when he hits the paved path, but he holds on tight. He slides to a halt, stuck in a snowpile.
Watching all this, I say to my husband, “I’m glad I came. I don’t know how many more times we’ll have this.”
“The snow will stick around for a while. And it’s not like they’re that old – there are still several winters left,” he responds.
“Yeah, but we don’t get snow every winter. And we’ll get less and less with climate change.”
“Hmmm, yeah.” He understands.
As you watch your kids grow up, there’s a deep sadness mixed with joy. You know that these moments are limited and that every time might be the last time you see or do an action. The seasons change and your kids do too
But the changes in our environment can tilt that ambiguity towards grief. Change in our environment is natural. But the pace at which it’s happening isn’t. These changes in the climate are on fast-forward, accelerated by human-produced greenhouse gases.
The loss is most obvious of course, in disasters. The recent fires in Los Angeles scarred the landscape, devestating natural and developed spaces alike. The people, the homes, the schools, the history – all burnt to an unrecognizable state. These places will never be the same.
But even more subtle changes can be painful. The sledding and skiing of my childhood is getting rarer and rarer, even in my birthplace in upstate New York. The summers are getting hotter, making it more difficult to go outside in the daytime. The heat cuts us off from each other as we retreat into our air conditioned buildings. Many of my beloved forests are suffering from invasive species that move further north, whether moths that eat the trees or ticks that infect people with disease. Cities struggle with sunny-day flooding, neighborhoods underwater that shouldn’t be. The natural and human-made spaces that are so beloved to us are transforming into something we can’t recognize, for the worse. Knowing that my children and future generations won’t experience the world the way that I did hurts. It just hurts.
It’s legitimate to grieve all of this. In fact, not grieving it is a form of denial. Psychologists have come up for a word for this type of grief – solastalsia. It’s a grief-based nostaglia for natural places we have lost.
So what do we do with this grief? How do we tell our children about what we had and what we no longer will, not so far in the future?
First, we can acknowledge and feel our feelings. Denying what we feel and pushing it down only delays processing it. If our children tell us that they are scared about climate change, we shouldn’t tell them, “It’s all going to be okay” or “Don’t worry about it.” If kids are old enough to hear about what’s going on in the world, they’ll know those promises are empty. They can see through our fake reassurance and will only find it more worrying. As the main character Steven says in Steven Universe when his caretakers are hiding something from him: “I know you just don’t want me to be scared but just tell me the truth!” Instead of hiding the truth, we can tell our kids that we will be together and support each other, no matter what happens.
One useful way to process those feelings is to get you and your family out in nature. It may seem counterintuitive to immerse yourself in the very thing that it feels like we’re losing. However, appreciating and showing gratitude for what we have right now – regardless of what we will have in the future – is a way to ground ourselves. Looking at the world around us in wonder can help prevent us from getting snarled in worry. Being in nature also reduces anxiety and feeling “scattered” in general.
Another way to process and to build resilience is to be in community. People with the most power want us to be separate. They want us to be isolated or fighting each other. Building relationships with the people and places around us will help us have the strength to face the challenges that are ahead. In fact, research has found that people who make meaning out of climate grief – like reflecting on others who are doing the work, building relationships in community, and enjoying the sustainability-oriented activities you participate in – have less climate anxiety than people who take individual action. Attending local government meetings, participating in mutual aid with your neighbors through Freecycle and Buy Nothing Groups, and engaging with local resources like libraries and community centers brings us together. We can then build on those connections when needed, whether that’s organizing to respond to natural disasters or ensuring a sidewalk or bike lane gets built. In fact, researchers have found that one of the keys to surviving a natural disaster is the strength of the relationshipswithin the local community.
Taking action is yet another way to grapple with climate grief. It’s both empowering and hopeful, because every fraction of a degree less of climate change counts. While grief – and anger – can kickstart our action, it can’t maintain it. Grief is natural and good, but we can’t stay in it all of the time. In fact, the Dual Process Model of grief describes how when you are grieving, there are two worlds: a place where we feel deep loss and a place where life just keeps going on. This model seems especially relevant for grief over an ongoing process, like climate change. If our action is powered by love, we can stand with feet in both worlds. We can continue to grieve while also moving towards a better world.
If you’re having trouble cultivating a vision of that better world – it seems especially hard these days – I have a favorite activity that I do with kids. I challenge them to create a sustainable city, either by drawing it or building a model with recycled materials. Kids have a lot less regard for practicality than adults, so their ideas range from a “city for rabbits” (okay, that was my kid) to a unique wastewater treatment facility. (It was amazing what that kid envisioned out of toilet paper rolls!). Even if the ideas aren’t things that can be carried out right away or at all, it’s still a way to get our imaginations in gear.
It’s easy to get mired in grief. Everything seems to be reminding us of what we have lost and what we are losing. Feel your feelings. Grieve as much as you need to. And at the same time, show up for each other and the world around you. We owe it to our kids and each other.
If you would like to take action on climate change, including at the local and state level, check out the Cultivating Climate Justice At-Home Family Toolkit and the Climate Action for Tired People Quiz and Toolkit. I co-created both of them, one with Ashia Ray at Ignition Notes for Benevolent Incendiaries and one with therapist and author Kate Schapira.