Facing It

The age of climate crisis is upon us, and grief and anxiety are on the rise. This podcast explores the emotional burden of climate change, and why despair leaves so many people unable to respond to our existential threat. Overcoming that paralysis is the first step in moving to action, and yet official climate strategies rarely address the emotional toll of climate grief and eco anxiety. Meanwhile, frontline communities — particularly people of color, indigenous communities, and other historically-marginalized groups — are experiencing the heaviest mental health impacts of climate disruption and displacement. This series introduces ways to move from despair to action by addressing the psychological roots of our unprecedented ecological loss.

Written and narrated by Jennifer Atkinson

Music by Roberto David Rusconi

Produced by Intrasonus UK

Listen on your preferred app (or on this site below):

Episode 1: Facing Down Climate Grief 

The age of climate crisis is upon us, and grief and anxiety are on the rise. Our pilot episode introduces the emotional burden of climate change, and why despair leaves so many people unable to respond to this existential threat. Overcoming that paralysis is the first step in moving to action, and yet official climate strategies rarely address this emotional toll. Meanwhile, frontline communities — particularly people of color, indigenous communities, and other historically-marginalized groups — are experiencing the heaviest mental health impacts of climate disruption and displacement.

"To be numb to the world is another form of suicide."

 -Terry Tempest Williams

Episode 2: Why Climate Emotions Matter

Is reason or emotion more important in driving climate action? Will solutions to mass extinction come from the head or the heart? Or are these binaries themselves part of the problem? While some climate activists argue that we should focus on facts instead of feelings, others know that our intense emotional response to climate chaos is far from irrational. Moreover, feelings like anger, hope, anxiety, and fear profoundly shape our perceptions of the world, and can motivate us to act or shut down and retreat. To better understand how those mental and emotional states relate to environmental crisis and public perceptions of risk, this episode explores why emotions matter in the climate battle.

"It is not half so important to know as to feel."

- Rachel Carson

Episode 3: Eco-Grief: Our Greatest Ally?

If you suffer from climate grief, you know what it's like to feel hopeless, alone, or bewildered by society's business-as-usual response to our existential threat. Wanting those feelings to go away is normal, but grief can lead to awareness and compassion in ways that actually advance political action and climate solutions. Paradoxically, grief can also provide a kind of strength and clarity when conventional hopes are shaken. As climate activist Tim DeChristopher once said, “In happy times the weight of despair is oppressive, but in stormy times that weight is an anchor that can get you through.” This episode explores the value of grief as a way to overcome collective denial as we move into an uncertain climate future. While most environmentalists are urging us to focus on hope, Dr. Jennifer Atkinson points out that grief and hope aren't mutually exclusive, and for many, grief may even be our best ally in an age of climate crisis

Episode 4: Coping with Climate Despair in Four Steps

With the urgency of our climate crisis increasing by the day, many scientists and climate leaders are calling for global action on the scale of World-War II mobilization: a swift and comprehensive overhaul of our existing consumer economy and the energy systems driving us off a cliff. And yet as the planetary fires close in, many people remain paralyzed by fear, hopelessness or cynicism.

Luckily, there are steps we can all take to overcome despair and start contributing to solutions. This episode outlines 4 basic strategies to beat the climate blues and become an agent of change. 

Episode 5: Is Hope Overrated?

Many consider hope to be essential to maintaining social movements where change is slow, setbacks are frequent, and the odds aren't good. As Rebecca Solnit once wrote, "To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.” But when it comes to the existential threats of climate change and mass extinction, what if hope is part of the problem? What if it obscures the enormity of our crisis, or makes us complacent, allowing the public to defer responsibility onto other people or the future?

When you look at the scale of our climate emergency and the inadequacy of society's response, hope can feel like a throwaway term, a cheap neon sign we dutifully switch on at the end of climate rallies. But those reservations about hope are not the whole story. Research shows that environmental discourse has long fueled public hopelessness by perpetuating apocalyptic narratives and the sense that it's already "too late" to act. That hopelessness becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as those who believe we're already doomed -- or that solutions don't exist -- chose *not* to act, thus ensuring the very outcome they imagined. Episode 5 explores the complicated role of hope in the fight for a livable planet, and the different forms it takes in environmental debates: hope as complacency or "cruel optimism" (an ideology to keep the public in line) as well as more subversive versions like active hope, intrinsic hope, and critical hope.

Episode 6: Embracing Uncertainty

Eco-anxiety and climate grief are sometimes framed as “disorders,” but in fact these feelings typically arise from an accurate perception of our ecological crisis. It may be more appropriate to identify eco-anxiety as a “moral emotion” -- a sign of compassion, attachment to life, and desire for justice. And so paradoxically, we can take some encouragement from the global increase in eco-anxiety and climate grief, since our very existential discomfort affirms a desire to live in a more just and sustainable world.

Because the fight for climate solutions is filled with such contradictions, this episode explores some ways we are strengthened by challenging easy assumptions about climate distress. Our future remains unwritten, and by embracing the unknown we are better able to reframe our thinking in empowering ways. So-called “negative” feelings that arise in response to ecological disruption (grief, anxiety, anger) can be seen as signs of emotional health, while “undesirable” states like uncertainty are potential doorways to transformation. Climate anxiety might even be seen as a kind of superpower -- a signal that alerts us when something's wrong and needs to be addressed, especially while others are sleepwalking through the crisis. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "the salvation of the world lies in the hands of the maladjusted." The time has come for the maladjusted to rise.

*This episode includes extended excerpts from Rebecca Solnit and Clarissa Pinkola Estés.