A climate psychologist reports that effectively communicating about the climate crisis involves avoiding gloom and doom rhetoric and focusing instead on presenting a storyline that is centered around ‘we’ not ‘me.’ People need to realize they are part of a bigger story.
People are scared says Renée Lertzman, referencing survey data from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center which reveals that some three in four people (72%) worldwide are concerned about being harmed by climate change during their lifetimes.
“We are all protagonists in this story of meeting climate crisis and engaging with climate crisis,” she says. “… it's really stretching our cognitive capacity to think and experience and see ourselves as part of a system and as embedded in the system.
”That's a really significant shift for a lot of us to make. And it's not something that just happens intellectually. And it's not something that just happens if you snap your fingers say, "Okay, you know, what, I'm going to now start thinking and feeling and behaving like I'm in a system." It doesn't really work that way. It's a process of continually reminding ourselves and each other that we are in fact joined up and part of a much bigger picture and a much bigger story.”
To communicate her theories, Lertzman has created Project Inside Out, which focuses on The Three “A’s”: Anxiety, ambivalence, aspiration.
The nonprofit Good Grief Network provides support to those who are feeling overwhelmed by the climate catastrophe and experiencing excess anxiety, worry, or instability. It’s important to acknowledge that your feelings are justified and to connect with other people.
“I actually think many people have been experiencing this silently and privately for a number of years,” said Lertzman, who consults with nonprofits and businesses. But “the conversation is no longer marginal. It really has burst through.”
The Good Grief Network incorporates a 10-step process and weekly meetings designed to assist people in becoming immersed in meaningful endeavors.
Bradley Pitts, a 43-year-old artist, says his climate-related emotions have offered him “opportunities to engage in decisions in a different way.” After attending Good Grief meetings, he and his wife have shifted personal choices toward adapting to and mitigating climate change. They purchased an old commercial farm in upstate New York, and committed to returning it to meadows and forestland.
After reckoning with climate anxiety, Pitts said, “Sitting on the sidelines is no longer an option.” www.nytimes.com/...
“We don’t see any single approach as a silver bullet” against climate anxiety and inaction, said Sarah Jornsay-Silverberg, the Good Grief Network’s executive director. Rather, the idea is to personalize what you do, taking action which portrays how your internal perspective has changed.
Action
Just three weeks ago, Stop the Money Pipeline launched our Take Action Team. Since then, the team has made nearly 300 calls to Wall Street CEOs, demanding that they stop funding fossil fuels.
Now, we want even more people to join the team so we can increase our impact. Can you sign up here to join our Stop the Money Pipeline Take Action Team?
Once you sign up to join the Take Action Team, you’ll receive one text each week, asking you to take a quick digital action. We’ll ask you to make phone calls to corporate CEOs and government decision makers, send emails to corporate board members who need to do more for climate justice, and to make our voices heard in a variety of other ways!
Each week, we will send you the call scripts, email templates, and anything else you’ll need to take action. Each action will only take you a few minutes and can be taken wherever you are. But when we all take action together, it adds up to real pressure on our targets.
The writers in Climate Brief work to keep the Daily Kos community informed and engaged with breaking news about the climate crisis around the world while providing inspiring stories of environmental heroes, opportunities for direct engagement, and perspectives on the intersection of climate activism with spirituality, politics, and the arts.
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