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<i><font size="+1"><b>April 22, 2021</b></font></i> <br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>[West no longer wet]</p>
<b>The Future of Western Water Restrictions Is Here</b><br>
The West is dry and getting drier. Federal officials said this week
that a major source of water for the Southwest could face some of
its first official water restrictions later this year if water
levels keep dropping.<br>
<br>
New projections issued by the Bureau of Reclamation predict that the
water levels in Lake Powell and Lake Mead, two manmade reservoirs
along the Colorado River, will reach historically low levels in the
coming months. The water level at Lake Mead is sitting at just 39%,
while Lake Powell is at 36%. The government predicts that Lake
Mead’s water level will fall below 1,075 feet (328 meters) by June,
the level which triggers official government water shortage
procedures for the seven states that get their water from the
Colorado River...<br>
- - <br>
But farms in central Arizona, which are first in line to cut their
water share under the drought contingency plan, could see serious
reductions as an important water delivery system in the state would
see its water supply cut by one-third by next year.<br>
<br>
“We’ll have to lay off employees,” Dan Thelander, a farmer in the
region, told CNN of the possible cuts, saying that he may have to
leave up to 40% of his land fallow. “We won’t be buying as many
seeds or fertilizer or tractors, and so we’ll just have to scale
down and operate a smaller farm. And so, yes, it’ll hurt a lot.”<br>
<br>
And it’s not just agriculture that could be affected by low water
levels. The water in Lake Mead also serves to power the Hoover Dam,
which generates enough hydropower to serve 1.3 million people each
year in Nevada, Arizona, and California. Less water in the lake,
however, could mean less electricity generated by the turbines in
the dam. While a dam manager told the AP that the government has
been making changes to the turbines to prepare for them to function
with less water, the lowering levels in the lake will probably mean
that there will be less hydropower from the dam in the future.<br>
<br>
There’s always a chance that a wetter spring or other favorable
weather could reverse course and pump water levels back up to
prevent restrictions from happening this time, but the odds aren’t
looking good for that. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration forecast for the next three months—already the start
of the dry season for the West—are likely to be even drier than
normal. Drought, meanwhile, is forecast to linger in the river basin
and could even worsen. This latest drama on the river is,
undoubtedly, a signal for its long-term future.<br>
<br>
“All the climate change projections say there will be less water in
the river,” said Seager. “Dealing with these things now is always
sort of good planning for what’s going to come. The region is going
to have to adapt to having less water available.”<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-future-of-western-water-restrictions-is-here-1846713726">https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-future-of-western-water-restrictions-is-here-1846713726</a>
<p>- -</p>
[Associated Press]<br>
<b>US West prepares for possible 1st water shortage declaration</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://apnews.com/article/arizona-colorado-lakes-water-shortages-colorado-river-09302e61c5e0ef051f50459f3dcb771f">https://apnews.com/article/arizona-colorado-lakes-water-shortages-colorado-river-09302e61c5e0ef051f50459f3dcb771f</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Ooops!]<br>
<b>Kamala Harris Lays Out Economic Priorities, Skips Climate Change</b><br>
Climate remains in the background during talks about the Biden
administration’s infrastructure plan<br>
By Adam Aton, E&E News on April 20, 2021<br>
In her first major economic address, Vice President Kamala Harris
yesterday outlined what the White House billed as a “vision of the
future.”<br>
<br>
Conspicuously absent: talk of climate change, which scientists and
economists say will define the 21st century.<br>
<br>
Harris’ speech fits a pattern of the Biden administration keeping
climate in the background of its $2 trillion infrastructure plan,
even as the White House touts its clean energy promises to an
international audience. President Biden will press other countries
in a Washington summit this week to increase their climate
ambitions. He’s expected to direct attention to his infrastructure
plan as a sign of U.S. commitment.<br>
- -<br>
School bus electrification was a focus of Harris’ as a senator and
presidential candidate. And her tour yesterday signaled the
administration’s commitment to its clean transportation proposal—one
of the largest components of Biden’s plan ($174 billion) and a
specific target of Republicans angling for a smaller bipartisan
package.<br>
<br>
Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) in a joint
appearance on Fox News Sunday floated the idea of a $800 billion
package focused on “core” infrastructure (E&E Daily, April 19).<br>
<br>
Responding to that idea, White House press secretary Jen Psaki
yesterday said the administration is listening to all proposals and
“ideally” would find bipartisan consensus.<br>
<br>
“The president’s bottom line here is that the only thing we cannot
do is fail to invest in our nation’s infrastructure, rebuild our
economy and create millions of jobs,” she said. “That’s the only
piece he does not want to see us fail to do as a country.”<br>
<br>
She later added that green jobs were “very central to the American
Jobs Plan,” as well as Biden’s upcoming climate summit.<br>
<br>
“When we talk about the climate summit and how we’re thinking about
setting these targets and how we’re going to achieve them, a big
part of that is investing in areas of our economy,” she said, “where
we can create and build out industries and create jobs where we’re
also able to meet our [climate] targets that we’ll set.”<br>
<br>
Secretary of State Antony Blinken also spoke yesterday about the
role of clean energy in U.S. competitiveness (see related story).<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/kamala-harris-lays-out-economic-priorities-skips-climate-change/">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/kamala-harris-lays-out-economic-priorities-skips-climate-change/</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[list of false solutions]<br>
<b>OPINION: Memo to the Biden administration: What not to do on
climate</b><br>
by Jacqueline Patterson | NAACP<br>
Wednesday, 21 April 2021<br>
By Jacqueline Patterson, director of the environmental and climate
justice program at the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP).<br>
<br>
Recently, I had the opportunity to advise a wealthy individual on
their personal giving. I spent a considerable amount of time
providing a written memo on how to support grassroots-led efforts to
address climate change. But when the resulting plan was made
public, I read it with horror. Evidently, in my extensive guidance
on what to do, my recommendations lacked clarity on what not to do.<br>
<br>
Now, I’ve fielded many requests to weigh in on the Biden-Harris
administration’s climate plans. In coalition with many other
organizations, I have helped craft various “100 days” documents,
spotlighting the critical need to center frontline communities,
advance intersectional solutions, and implement a just transition.<br>
<br>
However, it occurs to me that I should not make the same mistake in
failing to illuminate the traps to avoid.<br>
<br>
There is so very much at stake. Between climate change, COVID-19,
the economic crisis, and racial injustice, you could say we are in
the midst of a syndemic—an interconnected series of epidemics with
shared, systemic roots. Unless those root causes are addressed,
crises will continue to sprout like the heads of a hydra, with
marginalized group the most impacted.<br>
<br>
Climate “solutions” that ignore these interrelated challenges will
not be effective or just. Here are some of the all-too-common false
solutions, omissions, and past patterns we must avoid:<br>
<br>
<b>Carbon pricing—</b> Carbon-pricing allows polluters to pay a
nominal fee, or sell and trade the “right” to emit greenhouse gases.
Too often, this results in polluters increasing emissions in places
where it is cheapest to pollute, intensifying the lethal poisoning
of BIPOC communities.<br>
<b>Propping up polluters— </b>Strategies that support harmful
natural gas, nuclear, biomass, biofuels, and carbon capture and
sequestration are largely driven by the need to pacify powerful
constituencies. Efforts to address the climate crisis will fail if
they are counterbalanced by coddling of polluters.<br>
<b>Supporting investor-owned utilities-- </b>It’s not just the
energy sources that are problematic; we can’t continue to support a
failed utility business model that lines the pockets of investors
and CEOs while heartlessly turning off energy access to impoverished
people, often with fatal results.<br>
<b>Technofixes—</b>Too many are looking for easy answers so we can
geoengineer our way out of the climate crisis. But, as Martin Luther
King said, “All progress is precarious and the solution to one
problem brings us face to face with another problem.” Tinkering with
complex planetary systems—by, for example, using aerosols to control
the earth’s temperature—is likely to yield unforeseen and even
deadly consequences.<br>
<b>Single-issue solutions—</b>In the words of Audre Lorde, “There is
no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live
single-issue lives.” Solutions that address multiple problems at
once — for example, creating well-paid jobs while building
efficient, resilient homes — are both effective and politically
popular.<br>
<b>Ignoring grinding poverty—</b>Too many communities’ rights and
wellbeing have been historically ignored and neglected in the fight
against climate change, including Freedman’s settlements,
unincorporated areas, deep rural communities, and some urban
communities. Our definition of “disadvantaged communities” must
include and prioritize them.<br>
<b>Assuming a rising tide lifts all boats—</b>From Urban Renewal
(known as “negro removal”) to Opportunity Zones, many programs for
economic development have turned out to be ineffective or even
harmful—uprooting and destroying communities they intended to help.
Without intentionality and community driven planning processes,
climate action plans could have similar results.<br>
<b>Separating domestic and foreign policy--</b>Failure to link fair
immigration policy with outsized US responsibility for climate
change deflects responsibility for a key driver of immigration. And
failure to link the decline of coal burning in the US with a
moratorium on coal exports just shifts pollution overseas.<br>
<b>Accepting the linkage between money and politics—</b>The fossil
fuel industry and other corporate interests have a stranglehold on
our legislatures and, to some extent, our courts. But we need not
accept that. To advance and uphold true democracy, this
administration must get money out of politics once and for all.<br>
<b>Failure to address racism and anti-Indigeneity—</b>Climate change
and systemic racism are inherently linked as Black and brown
communities bear the worst impacts of environmental harm. Continuing
to ignore treaty rights and avoid meaningful reparations legislation
would be a failure to address this wrong.<br>
<b>Deploying “Weapons of Math Destruction”—</b>Too often, policies
are driven by algorithms and formulas that reinforce inequality,
such as funding community amenities from taxes that leave
marginalized communities even worse off and without critical climate
infrastructure. Even the upcoming Executive Order on Climate Related
Risks, if not anchored by equity measures, will deepen disparities.<br>
<b>Incrementalism/low ambition– </b>This is no time to make small
tweaks to a fundamentally flawed system. To change systemically
rooted problems, we need, bold, ambitious, transformational
policymaking.<br>
<br>
We must avoid the well-worn traps and failed policies outlined
above. And, as we define what it means to truly “build back better”
we can and must do so with principles, policies, and practices that
are anchored in regeneration, cooperation, and democracy.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://news.trust.org/item/20210421125634-nrp0t">https://news.trust.org/item/20210421125634-nrp0t</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[some education from the NYTimes]<br>
<b>The Science of Climate Change Explained: Facts, Evidence and
Proof</b><br>
Definitive answers to the big questions.<br>
By Julia Rosen<br>
Ms. Rosen is a journalist with a Ph.D. in geology. Her research
involved studying ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica to
understand past climate changes.<br>
Published April 20, 2021<br>
The science of climate change is more solid and widely agreed upon
than you might think. But the scope of the topic, as well as rampant
disinformation, can make it hard to separate fact from fiction.
Here, we’ve done our best to present you with not only the most
accurate scientific information, but also an explanation of how we
know it.<br>
<blockquote>How do we know climate change is really happening?<br>
How much agreement is there among scientists about climate change?<br>
Do we really only have 150 years of climate data? How is that
enough to tell us about centuries of change?<br>
How do we know climate change is caused by humans?<br>
Since greenhouse gases occur naturally, how do we know they’re
causing Earth’s temperature to rise?<br>
Why should we be worried that the planet has warmed 2°F since the
1800s?<br>
Is climate change a part of the planet’s natural warming and
cooling cycles?<br>
How do we know global warming is not because of the sun or
volcanoes?<br>
How can winters and certain places be getting colder if the planet
is warming?<br>
Wildfires and bad weather have always happened. How do we know
there’s a connection to climate change?<br>
How bad are the effects of climate change going to be?<br>
What will it cost to do something about climate change, versus
doing nothing?...<br>
</blockquote>
- -<br>
Already, studies suggest that climate change has slashed incomes in
the poorest countries by as much as 30 percent and reduced global
agricultural productivity by 21 percent since 1961. Extreme weather
events have also racked up a large bill. In 2020, in the United
States alone, climate-related disasters like hurricanes, droughts,
and wildfires caused nearly $100 billion in damages to businesses,
property and infrastructure, compared to an average of $18 billion
per year in the 1980s.<br>
<br>
Given the steep price of inaction, many economists say that
addressing climate change is a better deal. It’s like that old
saying: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In this
case, limiting warming will greatly reduce future damage and
inequality caused by climate change. It will also produce so-called
co-benefits, like saving one million lives every year by reducing
air pollution, and millions more from eating healthier,
climate-friendly diets. Some studies even find that meeting the
Paris Agreement goals could create jobs and increase global G.D.P.
And, of course, reining in climate change will spare many species
and ecosystems upon which humans depend — and which many people
believe to have their own innate value.<br>
<br>
The challenge is that we need to reduce emissions now to avoid
damages later, which requires big investments over the next few
decades. And the longer we delay, the more we will pay to meet the
Paris goals. One recent analysis found that reaching net-zero by
2050 would cost the U.S. almost twice as much if we waited until
2030 instead of acting now. But even if we miss the Paris target,
the economics still make a strong case for climate action, because
every additional degree of warming will cost us more — in dollars,
and in lives...<br>
more at -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/climate-change-global-warming-faq.html">https://www.nytimes.com/article/climate-change-global-warming-faq.html</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Social costs mean real consequences]<br>
<b>The Social Cost of Methane Is Much Higher in the U.S. Than
Current Government Estimates</b><br>
Dharna Noor - 4-20-21<br>
Climate experts and lawmakers often refer to the social cost of
carbon, which is an approximate cost of the net harm caused per ton
of carbon dioxide dumped in the atmosphere. A new study, published
in Nature on Wednesday, looks at the social cost of a different
greenhouse gas: methane. The findings show that the cost is higher
than carbon—and wildly different around the world because of rampant
economic inequality.<br>
<br>
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that is 80 times more potent
than carbon dioxide in the short term. Some 60% of methane released
into the atmosphere comes from industry, including flaring from oil
and gas extraction and animal agriculture. Scientists recently
revealed that there’s more of the toxic stuff in the atmosphere now
than at any point in recorded history. Understanding the damage it’s
doing is more vital than ever...<br>
- -<br>
Importantly, the damages caused by each extra ton of methane will
differ depending on the total amount of greenhouse gases emitted. If
the world makes an effort to draw down overall climate pollution,
each individual ton is less harmful. For instance, in a scenario
where the world enacts serious climate policies that start to
rapidly draw down greenhouse gas emissions in the next decade, the
cost of methane pollution would go down by 24% per metric ton.<br>
“If we choose mitigate climate change more aggressively, the social
cost of methane drops drastically,” said Collins. In case we needed
another reason to urgently take on the climate crisis.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-social-cost-of-methane-is-much-higher-in-the-u-s-t-1846731752">https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-social-cost-of-methane-is-much-higher-in-the-u-s-t-1846731752</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[wonderful lecture video ]<br>
<b>Robert Frank: Putting Peer Pressure to Work to Save the Planet</b><br>
Jan 30, 2020<br>
Ed Mays<br>
Psychologists have long understood that social environments
profoundly shape our behavior, sometimes for the better, often for
the worse. But social influence is a two-way street—our environments
are themselves products of our behavior. Author Robert Frank joins
us with insight from his book Under the Influence: Putting Peer
Pressure to Work, identifying ways to unlock the latent power of
social context—perhaps even on a level that could save the planet.<br>
<br>
Frank draws our attention to the threat of a changing climate,
asserting that robust measures to curb greenhouse gases could help
us curtail droughts, flooding, wildfires, and famines. He draws our
attention to new research that shows how the strongest predictor of
our willingness to support climate-friendly policies, install solar
panels, or buy an electric car is the number of people we know who
have already done so. Frank explains how altering our social context
could help us redirect trillions of dollars annually in support of
carbon-free energy sources, all without requiring painful sacrifices
from anyone. Join Frank to learn how fostering more supportive
social environments could lead individuals everywhere to make
choices that benefit everyone.<br>
<br>
Robert H. Frank is the Goldwin Smith Professor of Economics at
Cornell University, where he has taught since 1972 and where he
currently holds a joint appointment in the department of economics
and the Johnson Graduate School of Management. He has published on a
variety of subjects, including price and wage discrimination, public
utility pricing, the measurement of unemployment spell lengths, and
the distributional consequences of direct foreign investment.<br>
<br>
Thanks to Town Hall Seattle and Third Place Books<br>
Recorded 1/20/20<br>
<br>
***************************<br>
Pirate TV is a 58 minute weekly TV show that provides the book talk
and lecture content for Free Speech TV. Pirate TV challenges the
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programming unavailable on the Corporate Sponsor-Ship. These posts
are for YouTube and are usually longer than the broadcast versions.
You will notice that I don't monetize my videos. I'm irritated by
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a say over sponsorship. If you would like to pitch in to support
this work, consider a donation:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.edmaysproductions.net/piratetvsubdirectories/support.html">http://www.edmaysproductions.net/piratetvsubdirectories/support.html</a>
or PayPal: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:PirateTVSeattle@gmail.com">PirateTVSeattle@gmail.com</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULTTslNPREQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULTTslNPREQ</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[time to nationalize the oil industry]<br>
<b>Oil’s Rebound Shows the Window to Protect the Climate Is Closing</b><br>
Brian Kahn<br>
A year ago today, oil prices did something never before seen: They
dipped into negative territory, meaning suppliers were literally
paying people to take the oil off their hands.<br>
<br>
It was a shocking moment in a year full of them, as the pandemic
drove down demand for the fossil fuels that the world runs on. A
year later, oil demand is back, and the world is headed for the
second-largest surge in year-over-year carbon pollution ever seen.
It’s reflective of the stark reality that, for all that has changed
over the past year, we’re still living in a world controlled by
fossil fuel interests. But if world leaders squandered a prime
moment to intervene in reshaping our relationship with fossil fuels
last year, the chance is still there to do the right thing for the
climate and workers now.<br>
<br>
Oil sat at around $63 per barrel on Wednesday, an almost exactly
$100 difference from where it was at this time last year. Demand is
bouncing back as vaccination campaigns—at least in many wealthy
parts of the world—pick up speed and coronavirus travel restrictions
and concerns begin to relax further. In that light, it’s easy to see
last year’s nadir for the industry, when bankruptcies, losses,
exploration for new oil, and demand all tanked, as a missed
opportunity to rein in the industry. But the next best moment is
right now.<br>
<br>
The hegemony of oil and gas, not just in the U.S. but globally, is
on clear display in a new International Energy Agency report out
this week showing the world is poised for the second-largest
increase in carbon dioxide emissions ever...<br>
- -<br>
“This is shocking and very disturbing,” Faith Birol, the IEA chief,
told the Guardian. “On the one hand, governments today are saying
climate change is their priority. But on the other hand, we are
seeing the second biggest emissions rise in history. It is really
disappointing.”...<br>
- -<br>
“The single best thing that the administration could do to wind down
the existing fossil fuel infrastructure—and do it in a planned way
that really minimizes the negative impact both on communities
dependent on fossil fuel jobs and on the workers dependent on those
jobs for their livelihoods—is to nationalize the fossil fuel
industry and engage in a managed phase-out,” Paul said. “The
administration needs to put these workers at the top of their
priority list, and that means investing in communities and providing
them alternative pathways to middle-class jobs and secure
livelihoods that don’t include extracting fossil fuels from the
Earth. The worst thing that we could do right now is to leave fossil
fuel workers and their communities high and dry.”<br>
What may sound radical has been done before, with Paul noting former
President George W. Bush essentially nationalized airport security
with the creation of the Transportation Security Administration in
the wake of 9/11. In the case of the fossil fuel industry, the
government wouldn’t be stepping in to supposedly try to do something
better—in this case, the extraction of fossil fuels. Instead, it
would be ending the practice of doing something harmful for the
planet and doing so in a way that supports workers.<br>
<br>
We’re at a moment where radical change is needed, and the window to
pursue those changes is still cracked opened just a smidge. If Biden
and other world leaders fail to bound through it, this year’s hike
in carbon emissions could be an ominous preview of what’s to come.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/oil-s-rebound-shows-the-window-to-protect-the-climate-i-1846724880">https://earther.gizmodo.com/oil-s-rebound-shows-the-window-to-protect-the-climate-i-1846724880</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
[Check the ClimatePsychologyAlliance at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.climatepsychology.us/">https://www.climatepsychology.us/</a> ]<br>
<b>Climate anxiety and PTSD are on the rise. Therapists don’t always
know how to cope</b><br>
Isobel Whitcomb 4-21-21<br>
<br>
Many psychologists say they feel unequipped to handle a growing
number of patients despairing over the state of the planet. A new
contingent of mental health professionals aims to fix that<br>
<br>
Andrew Bryant, a therapist based in Tacoma, Washington, felt
helpless the first time climate change came up in his office. It was
2016, and a client was agonizing over whether to have a baby. His
partner wanted one, but the young man couldn’t stop envisioning this
hypothetical child growing up in an apocalyptic, climate-changed
world.<br>
<br>
Bryant was used to guiding people through their relationship
conflicts, anxieties about the future, and life-changing decisions.
But this felt different—personal. Bryant had long felt concerned
about climate change, but in a distant, theoretical way. The
patient’s despair faced him with an entirely new reality: that
climate change would directly impact his life and the lives of
future generations.<br>
<br>
“I had never considered the possibility,” Bryant said. In that
moment, his fear was a dense fog. All he could think about in
response to his client’s anxiety was his own young children: What
world would they inherit? Should he feel guilty for bringing them
into it?<br>
<br>
“I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know what to say,” Bryant said.
He did know that nothing in his years of training and experience had
equipped him to deal with climate change. Bryant has since spent
years studying the mental health effects of climate change. Today,
he is well equipped for these situations. But that first experience
marked the beginning of a reckoning —one he sees happening in the
field at large.<br>
<br>
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) recognizes climate change
as a growing threat to mental health, but many mental health
professionals feel unequipped to handle the growing number of people
anxious and grieving over the state of the planet.<br>
<br>
Therapists in a few subspecialties, such as eco-therapy, train
specifically to integrate environmental awareness into their work
with clients. But these therapists make up a small percentage of the
field, and the vast majority of people don’t have access to
climate-informed therapy. A 2016 study found that more than half of
therapists interviewed felt that their training had not adequately
prepared them to deal with the mental health impacts of the climate
crisis. Moreover, the same study found that although most
respondents recognized the importance of climate change in the
mental health profession at large, nearly half saw climate change as
irrelevant to their own work specifically.<br>
<br>
The reality is that climate change is impacting everyone in the
therapist’s office; it’s the background—and increasingly the
foreground—of life on Earth. But for a therapist who is themself
barely coming to terms with climate change, offering non-judgmental
counsel to a patient can be particularly challenging.<br>
<br>
“I think a lot of therapists do recognize that these issues have
clinical relevance,” said Susan Clayton, a psychologist at the
University of Wooster who researches climate anxiety, “but at this
point, hardly anybody has received any training specifically in
addressing this.”<br>
<br>
With climate-related anxiety, stress, and post-traumatic stress
disorder on the rise, a contingent of mental health professionals
are developing a new standard of mental healthcare for our
climate-changed world. Their profession faces a steep learning
curve.<br>
<br>
There’s growing recognition in the field of psychology that people
are experiencing distress over climate change. More than 40% of
Americans felt “disgusted” or “helpless” about climate change,
according to a survey published by researchers at Yale University. A
2020 poll from the APA found that more than half of respondents were
somewhat or extremely anxious about the effects of climate change on
their own mental health. Though not officially classified in the
DSM-5, the tome therapists use to classify and treat mental
illnesses, there’s a name for this state of despair that has emerged
from academic texts and media since as recently as 2007:
eco-anxiety.<br>
<br>
It’s only natural to feel anxious in the face of a melting planet
and the sixth mass extinction, both wrought by human actions. But
while humanity may be responsible for the carbon pollution warming
our planet, the reality is that just a few large corporations—and
complicit politicians—have set us on this path. As individuals, it’s
easy to feel helpless to stop the destruction of the biosphere.<br>
<br>
That was my experience. I grew up in a region of Oregon heavily
impacted by drought and wildfire. Over the past 10 years, my grief
has steadily intensified as lack of snow closed the mountain where I
learned to ski, as smoke blanketed my hometown each summer. Though I
was in therapy for five years, I didn’t speak about my yearly dread
of triple-digit temperatures, or my obsession over local snowpack
reports. I assumed that therapy couldn’t ease my sadness, because I
was there to deal with internal problems. In contrast, climate
change seemed like the ultimate external problem. If I had no
control over climate change, how could I begin to tackle my own
despair?<br>
<br>
“Eco-anxiety is a natural response to a threat. And this is a very
real threat.”<br>
Climate anxiety is awkward in this way. In some ways, it’s a
rational response, said Leslie Davenport, a therapist based in
Tacoma, Washington, and the author of the book Emotional Resiliency
in the Era of Climate Change: A Clinician’s Guide. “Eco-anxiety is a
natural response to a threat. And this is a very real threat,”
Davenport said. Yet it can also debilitate. In college, I began a
campaign to shut down fracking in Los Angeles County. Within months,
I burned out. Constantly contemplating the impact of fracking on our
atmosphere and communities was making it difficult for me to
function at a basic level.<br>
<br>
Because of this tension between eco-anxiety’s role as a rational but
potentially debilitating response, there’s no clear, standard
definition as to when eco-anxiety is unhealthy, if it ever is.
“That’s one of the questions we really need to be asking,” Clayton
said. “Anxiety is not pleasant to experience, but it’s not
necessarily a bad thing. It’s an emotional signal that we need to be
paying attention.”<br>
<br>
But a lack of clear guidelines around eco-anxiety and climate change
means that many therapists pathologize their clients’ anxiety, or
treat it as an unhealthy response. Others simply feel uncertain
about how to treat it. In response to a 2016 survey, nearly one in
five therapists described their clients’ responses as inappropriate.
Several participants said that their clients’ beliefs about climate
change were “delusional” or “exaggerated.” Another quarter gave
mixed responses.<br>
<br>
One mental health professional told me about an experience with her
own therapist, when she divulged her anguish over the increasing
severity of drought. In response, her therapist asked “OK, but what
is this really about?” The otherwise highly competent, trusted
therapist couldn’t comprehend that climate change was the sole cause
of her distress.<br>
<br>
While eco-anxiety is a natural response, it can also become
unhealthy when it becomes paralyzing, Clayton said. But that doesn’t
make it exaggerated or misplaced. When a therapist dismisses a
client’s distress as so, it can be profoundly damaging, Davenport
said. “The client becomes the problem and the source of
dysfunction,” Davenport said of this scenario. “Anytime a person is
wrongfully blamed it can be painful, but coming from a mental health
professional, an expert where a power differential is also in play,
it can be disorienting for the client, causing them to question
their own reality.” This dynamic harms the foundation of trust
between client and therapist, and can drive the anxious client into
further isolation, Davenport said.<br>
<br>
Caroline Hickman, a psychotherapist and climate psychologist at the
University of Bath, has spent years leading training sessions and
presenting lectures on climate change. But lately, the field’s
inadequacy in the face of a mounting problem has struck her as
particularly stark. Increasingly, people have reached out to her
after confusing or disappointing experiences trying to articulate
their climate anxiety to trusted therapists. “Suddenly there’s this
disconnect. And suddenly you realize you’re living in different
worlds,” Hickman said.<br>
<br>
When a therapist dismisses a client’s eco-anxiety or grief, the
response doesn’t necessarily come from a lack of empathy or concern
for the climate crisis, Hickman said. Oftentimes, the reaction
occurs because therapists themselves feel unable to cope with their
own feelings about environmental destruction—much less those of the
client. “Therapists are only human—but have a duty and
responsibility, I believe, to face this stuff and reflect on their
own vulnerability in order to help their clients,” Hickman added.<br>
<br>
For John Burton, a psychoanalyst based in New York City, there’s
rarely a day when he doesn’t think about climate change. When a
client brings up the topic—even in a passing comment about air
travel or Greta Thunberg—he immediately feels a jolt of anxiety.<br>
<br>
“It stirs up such feelings of helplessness,” he said. “That’s what
comes up for me. It shouldn’t.”<br>
<br>
When a therapist hasn’t begun to come to terms with their own
emotions around climate change, it can add to the emotional turmoil
of clients coping with overwhelming grief and anxiety, said Tree
Staunton, a climate psychotherapist in Bath, England. For example, a
therapist’s own grief, anxiety or guilt might come off as
defensiveness or withdrawal.<br>
<br>
“In therapy, we need to stay with that person’s reality and that
person’s response. And the worst thing we can do as a therapist is
bring in our own defenses,” Staunton said. “We don’t want to really
experience the distress or the anxiety, so we can’t hear the other
person’s.”<br>
<br>
Climate change is the reality we all live in now. Between 2009 and
2020, the proportion of Americans who said they had personally
experienced the effects of global warming increased from 32% to 42%,
according to the aforementioned 2020 survey from the Yale Program on
Climate Change Communication. And in some cases, these effects are
directly impacting mental health. Researchers followed more than
1,700 children who lived through four major hurricanes: Ike,
Charley, Katrina, and Andrew. Their results, published earlier this
year, found that up to half of the children went on to experience
symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. For 10% of the children,
these symptoms became chronic. In another study published in 2018,
researchers gathered data on the mental health of nearly 2 million
people between 2002 and 2012 and local climates during that time
period. Their results show that over five years, 1.8 degrees
Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) of warming was linked to a 2% increase
in all reported mental health issues.<br>
<br>
While the world has a choice when it comes to limiting climate
change, magically stopping all carbon pollution tomorrow would still
leave decades of warming baked into the system. That means,
presumably, the mental health impacts could worsen into the future.
Society will have to adapt to many changes, including how we treat
the attendant grief and anxiety of life on a less stable planet.<br>
<br>
Therapists differ in how they help clients cope with the mental
effects of climate change when they become unmanageable.
Mindfulness-based approaches can help people cope with the intense
emotions associated with climate anxiety and grief. For example,
Davenport might walk clients through a guided meditation, in which
they imagine themselves in a peaceful setting or have them tune into
the specific sensations their body experiences as they think about
climate change. Cognitive behavioral therapy, which focuses on
addressing unhealthy ways of thinking, can help clients paralyzed by
distressing thoughts about climate change. Climate-informed
therapists also encourage activism and time in nature as a way to
cope with the helplessness often associated with eco-anxiety and
grief.<br>
<br>
“The reason we’re in this mess with the climate emergency is because
we look at it as separate to ourselves.”<br>
These tools aren’t just for clients; they’re for therapists as well,
who need to bear witness to the distress people are already
experiencing over climate change. “Therapists need to be able to sit
with that feeling, whatever that feeling is with their client,”
Staunton said.<br>
<br>
Davenport, Staunton, and Hickman all lead training sessions where
other therapists can learn to develop a climate-aware practice. At a
recent training, Hickman spent the first 40 minutes of a training
session helping students “recreate their connection” with the
environment. Each went around and talked about their personal
relationship to the planet, before learning about the relationship
between climate change, grief, and loss.<br>
<br>
The goal of these sessions isn’t to become a specialist in climate
change. The goal isn’t even to develop a discrete set of skills to
use when a client expresses their anxiety about the environment,
Hickman said. The goal is to help therapists view their entire
practice through a new lens.<br>
<br>
“We look at every aspect of a person’s life through that therapeutic
climate lens,” Hickman said. “People are existing and dealing with
personal problems in the context of this global crisis now. And the
global crisis will impact on the way you deal with personal
problems.”<br>
<br>
For Hickman, that means looking at the environments clients inhabit,
at the planet as other relationships in clients’ lives, just as
therapists would examine clients’ relationships to their parents or
significant others.<br>
<br>
“The reason we’re in this mess with the climate emergency is because
we look at it as separate to ourselves,” Hickman said. She helps
clients explore anxiety and grief about climate change by exploring
their relationship to their local environment. For Hickman, her
relationship to the planet is embodied by two trees in her childhood
backyard, an oak and an ash, which she used to sit under when things
were difficult in her home.<br>
<br>
By bringing this lens to the mental health profession,
climate-informed therapists hope that it’ll encourage more people to
speak out about their emotions around climate change. Although 27%
of people say that they’re “very worried” about global warming,
according to Yale’s 2020 survey, therapists say that emotionally
significant conversations about climate change rarely come up in
therapy, but that the topic does come up in passing comments—a
finding supported by the 2016 survey on climate change and therapy.
This might simply be because people aren’t paying attention to their
emotions about climate change, or don’t think to bring the topic up,
Burton said.<br>
<br>
“We feel like it’s something we can’t do anything about,” he said.<br>
<br>
Climate anxiety and grief are what Davenport called
“disenfranchised” emotions. As a society, we don’t yet make space
for it as a valid emotional response; not in the same ways that we
would for, say, grief over the death of a family member. “It’s
prevalent, but no one’s allowed to speak up,” she said.<br>
<br>
Under a climate-informed model of therapy, therapists encourage
these people, who otherwise might remain silent, to bring their
grief and anxiety into the open. They might help clients tease out
passing comments about climate change, or even include climate
change-related questions on intake forms.<br>
<br>
It sometimes takes a crisis to provoke change. In the wake of the
9/11 attacks, the Council for Accreditation for Counseling and
Related Standards, which accredits master’s and doctoral degree
programs in counseling and its specialties, began requiring programs
to include crisis, disaster, and trauma response as core counseling
curricula.<br>
<br>
“Before 9/11, no one ever thought about the role of therapy for
disasters, ever,” Burton said. He hopes that climate change will
force a similar change sooner, rather than later.<br>
<br>
For Bryant, that first experience working with an eco-anxious client
was a reckoning. Since then, Bryant has devoted years to learning
about the psychology of climate change. He facilitates study groups
on Zoom, posts detailed guidelines for leading a climate-change
support group, and gathers articles on climate science and
psychology. Today, others consider him a leader in the field of
climate-change informed psychotherapy. He’s seen these changes
mirrored in the field at large.<br>
<br>
“I’ve seen a huge shift in discourse,” Bryant said.<br>
<br>
In England, Staunton has been advocating for more systemic changes.
Recently, her advocacy led to the addition of new training standards
in the UK’s Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy College, one of
10 subsections of the UK Council for Psychotherapy. New therapists
will be required to learn about the environmental and climate crises
and the unconscious defenses we’re all employing when we think about
this crisis. They’ll have to learn when to support those defenses in
clients—and how to help clients overcome them.<br>
<br>
In the coming years, the number of people on the frontlines of
climate change is going to grow. Widespread training promises more
widespread access to necessary mental healthcare, Staunton said.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://earther.gizmodo.com/therapists-are-reckoning-with-eco-anxiety-1846686112">https://earther.gizmodo.com/therapists-are-reckoning-with-eco-anxiety-1846686112</a><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/20/climate-emergency-anxiety-threapists">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/20/climate-emergency-anxiety-threapists</a><br>
<br>
<br>
<p>
</p>
<p> </p>
<br>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
April 22, 1970 </b></font><br>
<p>April 22, 1970: "NBC Nightly News" anchor Frank Blair, covering
the events of the first Earth Day, cites global warming as a
concern.<br>
[but NBC decided to drop that video archive]<br>
</p>
<p>So let's try Wikipedia
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day#Earth_Day_1970">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day#Earth_Day_1970</a><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
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