Climate Change And Happiness podcast

#Fitness #Society #Relationship #Podcasting Education #Self-Improvement #Mental Health #Panu Pihkala #Thomas Doherty

49:16

It’s the grand finale of Season One of Tickets to Travel Podcast, and we end with Fan Travel Stories ! For Episode 52, we head to Las Vegas with Greenwich, CT mom and former TV personality Dorothy Cascerceri-Simone—known to many as Dorothy on TV. Dorothy shares how a group of moms pulled off a 48-hour escape to catch the Backstreet Boys opening night at The Sphere, balancing family life with fandom and finding a little magic of their own. From the nostalgia of Avalon ’99 and boy-band crushes, to VIP dinners at Encore, cabanas by the pool, and unforgettable Sphere visuals, Dorothy’s story proves that every ticket is a ticket to travel. Along the way, she reflects on her years as a celebrity journalist, the evolution of Las Vegas, and how fan travel can be both glamorous and soul-restoring. Follow Dorothy at www.dorothyontv.com and subscribe to her podcast That Greenwich Life for more stories of culture, lifestyle, and community. And don’t forget to follow and subscribe to Tickets to Travel Podcast for more Fan Travel Stories and more behind-the-scenes journeys in sports, music, and entertainment. We'll have more in Season Two of Tickets to Travel Podcast! www.tttpod.com Follow on all the socials: @Tix2Travelpod…

Climate Change and Happiness

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We give language to what you feel about the climate crisis—and also what you might want to feel, feelings you can grow and cultivate. This supports your resilience and your mental health and wellbeing. We invite other experts to join us in our conversations, and we hope you can join us too.

97 episodes

Climate Change and Happiness

updated il y a environ 4 jours

maison des série•Feed

97 episodes

#Fitness #Society #Relationship #Podcasting Education #Self-Improvement #Mental Health #Panu Pihkala #Thomas Doherty

Tous les épisodes

Climate Change and Happiness

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Season 4, Episode 28: Remembering Joanna Macy 33:14

il y a environ 4 jours33:14

33:14

imaged credit | Ted Johnsson Thomas and Panu reflected on the profound impact of Joanna Macy on their understanding of environmental emotions and activism. Thomas highlighted Macy's role in transforming environmental engagement from an intellectual pursuit to a visceral, emotional experience. He shared a personal story of meeting Macy and read an excerpt from his new book describing one of her workshops he attended as a graduate student. Panu reflected on his experience of Macy's legacy, noting her influence on modern conceptions of eco-anxiety and empowerment, and her integration of Buddhism, ecology, spirituality and systems thinking. The discussion also highlighted some of the challenges adapting Macy’s methods for broader audiences and pitfalls of idealizing Macy’s “The Work that Reconnects” and its cultural background and assumptions. The episode concluded by encouraging listeners to engage with Joanna Macy’s transformative teachings for themselves. Links Trip Gabriel (2025, July 23) “Joanna Macy, Who Found a Way to Transcend ‘Eco-Anxiety,’ Dies at 96” New York Times Rebecca Solnit (2025, July 21) In Honor of Joanna Macy, 1929-2025 Transcript [on vacation]…

Climate Change and Happiness

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Season 4, Episode 27: On Raising Anti-Doomers with Ariella Cook-Shonkoff 30:46

il y a environ 19 jours30:46

30:46

image credit | Annie Spratt In this enlightening episode, Thomas and Panu sat down with Ariella Cook-Shonkoff, a licensed therapist and author of Raising Anti-Doomers: How to Bring Up Resilient Kids Through Climate Change in Tumultuous Times (2025). Ariella shared her journey from motherhood amidst California wildfires to writing a book that empowers parents to foster resilience in their children. Panu Thomas each reflected on their own parenting, and enjoyed hearing of events on Ariella’s “eco-timeline” like her childhood outdoor experiences in Connecticut and her opportunity to meet one of her idols, Jane Goodall. Join us and learn more about Ariella’s positive approach to parenting in the climate era. Links Ariella Cook-Shonkoff Selected Writings 2025 Raising Anti-Doomers How to Bring Up Resilient Kids Through Climate Change and Tumultuous Times Salon 2023 Grieving together, and also apart: A Jewish American wrestles with identity, belonging and trauma Grist 2021 Here’s how to talk with your kids about climate anxiety Glamour 2019 I’m Not a ‘Natural Mother’—And That’s Okay Transcript Transcript edited for clarity and brevity. If you appreciate the Climate Change and Happiness podcast, be sure to preorder Thomas Doherty’s new book, Surviving Climate Anxiety: A Guide to Coping, Healing, and Thriving available at an online bookseller near you. [music: “CC&H theme music”] Introduction voice : Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala. Thomas Doherty : Hello, I'm Thomas Doherty. Panu Pihkala : And I am Panu Pihkala. Doherty : And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. This is our podcast, a show for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about issues like climate change, changes in the planet, changes in the weather, and changes in our lives and in our families. That’s our territory to talk about and Panu and I get to meet a lot of people in the world and collaborate with people. And today, we have a person that we both know and I'm really proud to introduce a special guest. Ariella Cook-Shonkoff : Hello, my name is Ariella Cook-Shonkoff, everyone. I'm a licensed therapist, both an art therapist and an eco-therapist based in Berkeley, California. And most recently, I have a book coming out called Raising Anti-Doomers: How to Bring Up Resilient Kids Through Climate Change in Tumultuous Times. Doherty : We're really glad to talk to Ariella. She’s someone we've both interacted with. Ariella has been in an eco and climate conscious therapy group that I did some time back. It’s a personal pleasure for me to see colleagues writing books and putting themselves out. I was able to look through Ariella's book and we'll talk about that. But it's nice to see that this work is getting various treatments in people's lives and people are moving forward on this and in therapy. So, a lot of good things are in the pipeline here. Panu, do you want to get us started? Pihkala : Warm welcome, Ariella, also on my behalf. Lovely to have this chance to discuss with you and I really love the wide range of content in your book. Before digging deeper into that, we'd like to ask you something about your journey to becoming a person who wrote this kind of book. Would you like to share something, how has it been with you and the modern human world? Cook-Shonkoff : Absolutely. Well, I guess this journey began for me back in 2018 when I came into motherhood and around the time that wildfires were intensifying in Northern California. I had just had my second daughter and I was returning to work after maternity leave. There were nearby wildfires, and the air was thick with smoke. It was this kind of combination of going back to work and sitting in an office with clients where no one was really talking about what was going on outside and also the vulnerability I felt inside leaving my child under these circumstances. There’s a sense of safety, even though, where I lived, we were fortunate, and we didn't have direct impacts. You feel like, am I safe to leave my child? Can I really separate from them? And isn't it strange that no one's talking about the elephant in the room right now? So, that brought me on a journey into writing about it and I'd already been freelance writing for some time about motherhood mostly, but I started to really focus more on climate and parenthood. It's eventually led into this book project and the book that's finally coming out this year. Pihkala : Thanks for sharing that and there's a lot that I can also personally resonate with. My kids are just a couple of years older than yours. Also in Finland, what Lindsay Galway has called ‘climate of silence’ was quite heavy and also silence around the emotional dimensions of those issues. Can I still ask you if you look back to your own childhood and youth, what role did the modern human world play for you, or did it have a role back then? Cook-Shonkoff : I love this question, Panu, thanks for asking it. Yeah, it had a starring role in my childhood, actually. I grew up in a small town in Connecticut that felt pretty rural, and I spent a lot of free time in the woods behind my house, with the kids in the neighborhood, by the creek, I was out. And it was a value of my family, so my parents took us on hikes. That was pretty common for us. I was just outside a lot, in the modern human world. I loved animals at an early age. Actually, funny enough that you asked this question because in writing the book, I realized how this is reintegrating my life in adulthood in a way. I even went through a period of activism in my teenage years to do with animals and environment. So, it's really been a common thread. Doherty : What kind of activism were you involved in when you were younger? Cook-Shonkoff : Well, I was the only member of my family to become vegetarian at age 14 when I learned a bit more about factory farming. I started writing then for junior and senior year op-eds in my local paper, just a couple. But I then went on to become one of the presidents of the environmental club, and we did various things, such as picking up trash around town and eventually going to marches—well, maybe was more in college, now that I think about it. But yeah, we held Earth Day events in high school. We were active. This is really cool. I don't know if this is in my book, but Jane Goodall, her organization, Roots and Shoots, was this youth environmental program that opened in my town, Ridgefield, Connecticut. I was interviewed on the panel with her and got the privilege of meeting her in this interview and it was really cool. So yeah, there was a lot. Doherty : That's great. We’ve done this eco-timeline kind of idea where you can trace your life. So, writing this book really does fit onto your timeline. Cook-Shonkoff : Absolutely, yeah. As I went deeper into this work, I realized how it harkened back to my early years. And just my emotional experience throughout this, even listening to Greta Thunberg's words, it conjured up in me some part of my younger self that felt like her in a different way because it was a different time but felt indignant. Like, what are grown-ups doing? Why don't they care more? That’s a really good point about that eco-timeline. I love that tool, Thomas. So, thank you for introducing that to me. Doherty : Yeah. Okay, so here's a standard question you'll probably get a lot going forward. But with Raising Anti-Doomers , I love the title because it really puts out a message. It puts out a call-to-action kind of thing of all the ways of thinking about this topic. How did it coalesce into this idea of raising anti-doomers? I know that's a big question, but what comes up for you about that? Cook-Shonkoff : It's interesting because you don't know about what it's like to write a book until you get there. And I will say that as I got to the end of my book, in what's probably now the last chapter, I was talking about how we can do this and what's this positive frame for how to raise kids in this way. It's almost ‘Teflon-like,’ to be strong and resilient and to be able to withstand the bumps and the turbulence and all the uncertainties that exist in the world right now. I'd love to take credit for selecting it for my title, but I can't because it was plucked by my editor who had that foresight. And I actually love the title. I wasn't sure at the beginning. It's a strong title, and I think it's great in the end. The scope of the book is broader than climate, which I also appreciated heading in that direction. It wasn't my original intent, but that's how it developed. Pihkala : Of all the rich contents in the book, if we would start by helping the listeners to get some overviews or what would you say are some of the fundamental principles or messages in the book? Cook-Shonkoff : I'll mention that there's some graphics in the book, some illustrations, that I had a lot of fun conceptualizing, but I think really helped the reader go through the book. One being the parent identity spiral. So, it's like suddenly you're a parent and kind of what happens along the way. I'm not going to go through all the steps, but what happens along the way to become an engaged parent, focused on social issues, including climate. Like, how do you kind of stay engaged. I think that's an important one. I think that the main takeaways, if I were really to boil them down to three simple messages would be that number one, it starts with you. It starts with the parent and being willing to go into the darker emotional places and really grapple with their feelings, not to avoid or make excuses, but really to go there and be able to kind of find ways to regulate themselves so that they're able to co-regulate their kids. So, I think that's number one, it starts with you. And number two, I would say is to do something and make it sustainable and not be so perfectionist about it or well, is this really enough or I've got to do all of this for it to be worth it. It's so easy to talk yourself out of any action, but it could be so small. I'm sure we could all come up with some examples, but something around the household. Maybe it's just not getting food out from restaurants in the takeout packages because it's the single-use plastic and reducing that, or maybe it's on a grander scale or writing a letter or going to protest, but it could be really small. I think that's important to recognize. The third point is really to keep coming back to the source of what replenishes you, what builds resilience. I have a lot of self-care exercises in the book. There's that self-care acronym, which is kind of a riot, but that was for my own personal development of it. I came up with this and was like, oh my gosh, maybe this is something I should throw into the book, because it's kind of fun. But whatever it is, spiritual, creative, physical, that really grounds you and brings you back to yourself so that you can reset when you get off the rails, which can happen. Doherty : Yeah, did you create the ideas for the book with your own children first or did some of these ideas just come out of your family life? I know with the book that I worked on, the heart of it was really my training that I did with the public and different slides and different images that were resonant. And then of course you have to explain it all in the book. But did it start with things that you had figured out with your kids? Cook-Shonkoff : I'd say it was a smattering here and a smattering there because I work with kids in my practice so there's some from there, some from family life, some that literally evolved alongside the book or came out of the pandemic because that was a time I was reorienting and doing things differently. Doherty : Yeah, I've been looking through your book and now I'm more attentive to the figures because you've talked about them, but maybe we could talk about this one and literally unpack it. The pellet, the climate emotions pellet—when I saw that, I thought, that’s a really kid friendly image. Let me not say more, let me have you say what the climate pellet is because I think listeners may appreciate it. Cook-Shonkoff : Oh my gosh, it's such a funny one. If you remember dissecting owl pellets in school, which we certainly do in the States, I don't know about where you are, Panu. Doherty : So, owl poop basically. Cook-Shonkoff : It's the regurgitated pellet. An owl eats different animals whole, like these tiny moles or whatever they are. But they have all the bones in the fur, and everything goes down into the stomach and eventually they regurgitate these pellets that have the bones and the fur. Anyway, I did take inspiration from childhood in different ways, and this is after I came up with the concept of the climate emotions pellet, but my child literally brought home an owl pellet and dissected it for homework on the kitchen table. So, this really does happen. But the idea being that there's a lot of different feelings that we're experiencing to do with climate change or many of us are experiencing and it's a mess. It's like a hot mess that's complex and we don't know what's what. And so, I like the idea of imagining these tweezers, like a tool in the science lab, and you're plucking out emotions and trying to distill, okay I'm looking at the illustration now. Okay, this grief that I'm experiencing or what about the awe that I sometimes feel when I'm out in nature. There are all these different feelings like the anxiety that I feel about the state of the world. And so, trying to distill those emotions, it’s like that emotional granularity idea. Then, once you can identify them and know what they are, there's some relief in that. I think it can be really overwhelming to have an unidentified mass in you. And then it's the idea of metabolizing emotions too, right? Doherty : Oh yeah, for sure. What do you think, Panu, this idea of regurgitating? That must have some resonance in all the different research you've been doing lately. Pihkala : Yeah of course. The Climate Emotions Wheel in which I cooperated with the Climate Mental Health Network is of course one very practical tool for observing various emotions and being able to name them even roughly. Emotional granularity is a growing thing discussed in climate emotion research. I think that's great to provide resources for people to do that. In the book, you're also looking at major questions about life and the world that people are asking, of course, for children and young people, that's part of human development. But being a parent, well, first of all, becoming a parent is quite a cosmic event to borrow a wording from Bayo Akomolafe, this very interesting thinker who has also written on the ecological crisis and becoming a father and many things. And then also realizing that kids will have to face existential challenges which can evoke existential questions and emotions in parents also. Perhaps that might be the next topic. Would you like to say something about these developmental challenges and big existential questions? Cook-Shonkoff : Yeah, that's a big one. You're holding, as a parent, some of these existential realities of where we're at and for yourself, first and foremost. But then, when you have a child or children more innocent, kind of vulnerable lives. I think it can invoke more fear, but it also can really motivate you in a certain way. I really wanted to speak to parents. I had been speaking with somebody, Jill Kubit, who's the founder of Our Kids Climate. And she said, we're uniquely motivated as parents to do something about this. There's a unique motivation. Many people without kids are very motivated but there's that sense that you have of your heart and your desire for your worry about your own child. Are they going to be okay? What's going to happen 30 years from now or 40 years from now? What's the world going to be like? How do I raise them in a way where I can prepare them as best I can for the challenges that are unknown. I think that there's a real delicate space there and an opening and also an opportunity because I think ultimately parents want to engage and want to do right by their kids. They want to take care of them. Pihkala : Thank you for sharing that. I think that's very wise. There's been this discussion in books related to the topic about whether these sorts of calls to be an honorable parent or grandparent work and if so, what style is needed. For example, George Marshall, the climate communicator, discussing these ads which are playing with the Second World War framings like what did you do in the war, daddy or grandfather and then applying that to the climate crisis. Well, I'm not very fond of the war metaphor here, but Marshall, for example, is quite critical of this kind of messaging because it operates so heavily with a guilt and shame possibility. And for some parents, it can cause a desire to distance themselves if they can. So, I would personally agree with what you say about the inner desire to provide a more sustainable world for the offspring. But then in situations where communication happens, it seems that people need a lot of safety so that they can go there. Perhaps guilt or the threat of guilt and shame may do it for someone, but I'd go more for the safety dimension. But anyway, I wanted to say that aloud and hear what you think of it, Ariella. Cook-Shonkoff : Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. There was a period where environmentalists had some shame and blame, like is that going to get more people involved in the environmental movement, at least in the US? And that didn't work very well. I don't think that's the wisest path. I think that tapping into parents’ or families’ values or motivations is the way in. It’s a more hopeful and positive approach rather than saying, come on, you got to do it or we're all going to die or we're all going to suffer. That’s going to shut people down, right? I mean, you can speak to this too. Doherty : Yeah. Your book doesn't make that mistake. It doesn't sound preachy or guilt-laden at all, which is really nice. I really like images like the pellet because it's very kid friendly and I like it's a catharsis to spit out a pellet and it’s not intellectual, it’s very visceral. Like we do have to spit out these emotions and really look at them. So, I think that that really works well. The nice thing about your book is that it gets back to the body all the time and stress and physiology. You’ve done a great service. Then, this idea of a parenting club seems to be a way to not be isolated. Would that be the idea? What would be an example of a parenting club? Cook-Shonkoff : Well, I'm speaking really broadly about anyone who's a parent or a caregiver, who's taking care of kids is part of this network of parents, this parent club. It's massive. I said in the intro, and I heard this from someone else. It was passed on to me when I was pregnant with my first child. Like, what's the parent club? I always remembered that, and I feel so connected to other parents in many ways and I continue to feel that way. I think there's so much potential in this social network. There's so much potential and I know we all have our different skills that we can bring to the table. I think on community levels, I've been interested in exploring that. I won't get started about all my local endeavors, but coming together and caring about something and saying, what are we going to do about this? And hey, what skills do we have? And what do we bring to the table? And then not only that, by having the parent club level, but then having an intergenerational level where we can involve our kids. Last weekend, I was out in my park across my street with other parents and kids in my community. We were making signs, art, and stuff about democracy. We had art making music on and we're going to see what we do with the posters. We might use them in a rally or hang them on our garage door. There’s much that can be done. I do think that if we can get a groundswell of parents who are super motivated saying, I want this for my child, I want this for future generations, I want to leave a lasting contribution, generativity, right? That whole idea of making the world a better place or leaving something behind, like a legacy. If we can get all that together, then wow, I think it could be a tremendous boost to the climate movement and social movements in general, whatever the causes. Pihkala : Yeah, that's very wisely put. One thing I really appreciate in your book is that you're not just recommending action as important as that is, but you're also recommending parents to model engagement with emotions and model rest and self-care. And after all, self-care has a strong history in the work of Black feminists, who argued that it's a very political emotion because it's providing resources for those opposing injustice. Would you like to say something more about this sort of encouragement to build resources and practices for rest and self-care? Cook-Shonkoff : Yeah, I think it goes back to this point I was making earlier about coming back to the source. As motivated as parents are, we are to do something but if we burn too hot, we're going to burn out. And so, it's essential to temper that with self-care, whatever you do. I don't love that term; I think it's really overused. But it does say what it is. So, can you find ways to ground yourself, to reset yourself periodically. I think on a regular basis and it’s best if you can schedule that in and really know like, I'm going to do this on Monday or this on this day and have several practices a day if you can. It can be really short. It can be a five-minute meditation. It can be a walk around the block. It can be listening to music. Anything that brings you joy or spending time with somebody that you care about. Be critical to take that time and ideally, find ways in whatever way you can. I know that not everyone can access it for different reasons. There's barriers, unfortunately, in our society and inequities, but do whatever is possible, because that reset will mean everything in the long term and being able to do this work for the long haul. Doherty : Yeah, it’s great. This has been really great because it's helped me to really get clear on the book and it’s anti-doomer so it's not just climate. Like you say in your subtitle, resilient children in tumultuous times. It really is the best strategy, which is not to focus on one threat, but to focus more on, like I say, your life is the news and start with your family, your life and make that a good place and then let it ripple out into the world. Your book does have, I think you talk about it, this internal locus of control where you're bringing it back into the family and into the body. So that's really great. Well, congratulations. We've got to wrap up here today. What's your next adventure for the book or your next challenge that you're getting ready for? Cook-Shonkoff : Oh my goodness. It's like I'm just coming out of this adventure so I'm not even sure I could tell you what it is, but I think I'm curious to see what emerges. Doherty : Well, you’ll have, I guess what they call in the US, a soapbox. You'll have an opportunity to talk about this stuff and there will be a window where you can bring attention to this through interviews and stuff. So good luck with all that. Cook-Shonkoff : Thank you so much. Pihkala : Yes, it’s easy to agree on that and warm thanks for the rich conversation and all the wisdom here. Dear listeners of the podcast, if you want to connect with some earlier episodes which deal with similar kinds of themes, there's one with Jade Sasser, for example, and one with Britt Wray. There will always be so much more to talk about, and we didn't go into the art-based methods stuff that we know, Ariella, you are very fond of but something for the future. Doherty : Well, anyway, Raising Anti-Doomers by Ariella Cook-Shonkoff. And I know it's available out there already for pre-order and it's coming out sometime in August or something like that. So, we'll make sure we time our episode for your book launch, and we'll put links and things like that in the episode notes. Ariella, good luck, and Panu, have a good evening, and listeners, be well. [music: “CC&H theme music”] Hi this is Thomas Doherty. If you appreciate the conversations that Panu and I have on the Climate Change and Happiness podcast, be sure to preorder my new book, Surviving Climate Anxiety: A Guide to Coping, Healing, and Thriving. I’ve gathered insights and strategies I’ve learned through my career in an engaging and accessible format for the public. Whether you’re new to the experience of climate distress or a seasoned environmental veteran, you’ll find something useful you can take with you for now and for the long haul. You’ll find Surviving Climate Anxiety at all the major online booksellers and in stores this fall.…

Climate Change and Happiness

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Season 4, Episode 26: Coming Back to Climate News after a Vacation 30:46

il y a 5 weeks30:46

30:46

image credit | Mick Haupt Season 4, Episode 26: Coming Back to Climate News after a Vacation Thomas advocates a news and technology break for people to enjoy their summer or holiday time; to reconnect with nature and their family; and replenish their own thoughts and dreams. But what to do when you come home? In this episode of "Climate Change and Happiness," Thomas and Panu Pihkala explore their own intricate balance between staying informed about global climate events and maintaining personal well-being. As they discuss the impacts of climate change—such as the recent deadly floods in Texas, and heatwave in Helsinki—they emphasize the importance of personal rituals and mindfulness in navigating the overwhelming news cycle. Join them as they delve into strategies for maintaining awareness without succumbing to despair, and discover how personal experiences and connections can serve as a grounding force in turbulent times. Links Panu’s Rituals Finnish summer cottages or mökki Summer cottage video game Simple text news Transcript (on vacation)…

Climate Change and Happiness

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Season 4, Episode 25: “Queer Brown Vegan” with Isaias Hernandez 33:26

il y a 7 weeks33:26

33:26

image credit | Jennifer Marquez Thomas and Panu were joined by environmentalist Isaias Hernandez, creator of Queer Brown Vegan. Together, they explored the profound impact of identity on environmentalism, discussing how personal backgrounds, cultural heritage, and lived experiences shape one's approach to climate issues. Isaias shared his journey from growing up in Los Angeles as a first-generation immigrant to becoming a voice in the climate movement. The conversation delved into the intersectionality of race, identity, and environmental advocacy, and revealed the challenges and micro-aggressions faced by diverse students of climate science. A key take away was the importance of finding and claiming your unique place and style, not just taking in science and research but making it your own and sharing it in your own voice . Tune in to discover how embracing your identity can empower you to engage more deeply with environmental challenges. Links Isaias Hernandez Queer Brown Vegan on Instagram Teaching Climate Together Web Series Isaias and Panu Discussion Climate Mental Health Network Grief Resources Animation: The Dance: Living with Eco-anxiety Transcript Transcript edited for clarity and brevity. [music: “CC&H theme music”] Introduction voice : Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala. Doherty : Well, hello. I'm Thomas Doherty. Pihkala : And I’m Panu Pihkala. Doherty : And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. This is our podcast, a show for people around the world who are thinking, and feeling, and acting deeply about climate change and environmental issues, as well as their connections with nature and the planet. Of course, that includes connections to our bodies, ourselves, our families, and our communities. And so, we're starting with this provocative question: What does it mean to be happy in the modern world and what does it mean to be happy in an era of climate change and then we go from there. And today we are really excited to have a guest with us. Isaias Hernandez : Hi everyone. My name is Isaias Hernandez and I'm an environmentalist and the creator of Queer Brown Vegan, an educational media climate platform. Doherty : Yeah, and you might have heard of Isaias if you're at all thinking about eco and climate issues, but Panu and I are familiar with his work and he's coming in from LA. So, we're just going to have a conversation today, personal and professional, much as we do. Panu, do you want to get us started? Pihkala : Warmly welcome, Isaias, also on my behalf and lovely to see you again. We've had the pleasure of cooperating collaboratively with the progress of eco-anxiety and climate emotions and that's been wonderful. We often start this podcast by asking something about the guests' journey towards the place and identity where they are now. Would you like to share something about how you became who you are now, especially in relation to environmental issues? Hernandez : Yeah, my passion for environmentalism is quite unique. Growing up in Los Angeles, as a first-generation immigrant kid, my parents were actually farmers from Mexico. So, for them, they actually had much more rich ecological relationships with the land than myself, I would say. And, when people ask me when did you realize you were an environmentalist, I actually didn't really identify with that word. I grew up watching Nat Geo and Discovery Channel, seeing biologists, conservationists, and all these amazing scientists around the world traveling and talking about their work. But I always told myself, I don't think it's possible for me to really do that because my situation is different and they're the true experts. They've studied the field, and they got the degrees. So, I think that got my curiosity of having parents who always wanted me to get a good education, they said we don't care what you do, and we just want you to follow what you truly want. So, I had the privilege of saying that my parents didn't care where I went for college, they just cared that I got a degree and that I actually chose to study what I want and that I end up getting a job. I think it was in college when I was learning environmental science that I actually started to get more passionate about the subject and realize this is really what I truly want to do, and this is actually what I love. But one thing I felt the disconnect in academia is, how does this really relate to my lived experiences, but also the experiences of my other colleagues in these classes. We don't really relate to that, and I think that when you're graduating college, you have this illusion of I got my four-year degree and I'm going to work at one of the biggest green environmental NGOs (non-governmental organizations), and I'm going to become this famous scientist. And that really wasn't the case for me. I actually worked in a research lab in academia, and I absolutely did not enjoy my time doing it. I studied lizards and evolution and ecology, then I did food system work a year later for my senior thesis. I think after graduating college, I realized that social media was a way for me to actually delve into telling my own stories without feeling like I needed to be a scientist or a policymaker. I'm just an individual talking about these issues. And I think it was really unique to me that during that time there were barely any environmental creators online, but also people with lived experiences and the academic degrees that I had that were really getting to that. So, I would say I didn’t really fall into the role of an environmentalist until I was maybe 23, when I started to realize, I do think I'm an environmentalist. During college, I kept thinking, I’m still learning about how to be an environmental scientist, so I don't really know what that actually means or if I have to go to a master's program for that. Panu : Yeah, thanks for sharing that. That's fascinating and a great example of how different backgrounds can still give resources for people to be intimately engaging with these issues. We have a video in your “Teaching Climate Together” series where we discuss climate emotions and the process model of eco-anxiety. There you tell a bit about the emotional dimension of this journey and also in relation to your college experiences. Listeners, I warmly recommend that video. Would you like to share just a bit about that since our podcast is so heavily geared towards the emotional dimension? Hernandez : Yeah, absolutely. The “Teaching Climate Together” web series is a media project and initiative under the flagship of Queer Brown Vegan, where it was actually inspired back in my early days of social media when I would do infographics in 2019 of deconstructing climate words. So, it would be like, what is eco anxiety, what is climate grief, what is climate doomerism, and after a while of doing that for the first few years of my early career, I had a lot of followers asking if I could create videos on this. I said, I'm not an expert and didn't coin these words. I'm not a mental health researcher. Why would I put myself in these spaces when I don't have that background? And my team was actually very interested and kept saying, why don't you just interview the experts that already exist in these spaces and create an interview or like a web series show about it? People would watch it. And so that was actually the thing that got us to do “Teaching Climate Together.” In our specific episode, which is the fifth episode, we were looking at the emotional dimensions of climate change in response to generations of people. And it really quite shocked me that there's very limited, and I think Panu, you can agree to this, but when you Google online for any videos around climate anxiety or emotions, there's barely any videos. There's a lot of recorded digital webinars and panels, of course, which are absolutely needed. But when you look at the personal relationships of saying to myself, I'm going to use myself as the client, Panu is like the therapist in a way, but also the research and the expert, how do we add a personal story to it? And it was really quite shocking how many people were messaging me after that episode and saying they really resonated with the fact that you got someone who was in the older field of the industry that's an expert, but you got a young person who understands some of these words and these experiences and you wove them in together to make sure that whoever's watching this video, whether you're someone younger or older, can relate to either Panu or they can relate to me. Those are exactly the type of conversations a lot of young people today are having. It's like we feel embarrassed to talk to older people about these types of relationships or issues that we're having, or we sometimes feel almost neglected by the systems that it's almost like the adults are saying, you need to figure it out. When, in reality, it's not the truth. Adults are telling us that we actually want to talk about this because we are also experiencing eco-anxiety. And I think that really shifted the relationship of how young people see older people. Yes, I have eco-anxiety, but you also have eco-anxiety. And that does not make us less than or less human. It actually makes us more connected to the issues that we're trying to address. Doherty : Yeah, excellent. Yeah, so many themes that are coming up that we can explore today. Just to follow up on the last point, it is a stereotype that younger people are more concerned or more aware than elders. When you look at the research from Yale Climate Program, there's a fairly equal percentage of people who are alarmed or concerned about climate in the population, whether they’re young or old. Likewise, there's a pretty equal percentage of dismissive people among young and elders as well. So, it's a stereotype that doesn't serve us because I've known many elders who have devoted their whole lives and careers to environmental work, and they have been doing this for ages and they feel incredibly deeply about these issues. Bringing the two ends of the spectrum together is super powerful. But because of technology and our social structures, we tend to be divided by social media and the way our culture is. That’s a larger story we can't get into, but I think one of the themes today is finding your place. It sounds like, similar to a lot of people, you had to struggle to find where do I fit in. And you were either lucky enough or capable enough to find a niche for yourself and then it goes from there. Once you start, there's a synergy. I had a question—Queer Brown Vegan, I would call it your brand or your platform, is obviously provocative. It seems maybe less provocative now than it did a few years ago, but could you say a bit about that because it seemed like that was almost like a manifesto or something that you were putting yourself out there. Hernandez : Yeah, it's funny because traditionally, as a scientist myself, that comes from academia. I tried to claim Isaias Hernandez on Instagram, but it's already taken. So, I kind of struggled already to establish my public figure name. But I think the Queer Brown Vegan name actually came back in 2019 because during the time I remember in higher education, I was told never to talk about my identity and that race didn't matter. But then there were a lot of microaggressions that I would experience not just from my professors, but from my lab mentors or my lab grad students would say certain things to me that I just felt so visually uncomfortable. And I think this is something that’s a shared experience with a lot of people, whether you're a marginalized person in academia. There's certain things that were said to me that just never sat right with me. Like I had a professor once call me Mario, even though he knows I'm Isaias and the other guy who’s Latino that's on the other side of the classroom is named Mario. And it was just like those examples of dehumanization in academia. Yes, it shouldn't matter that someone misnamed you or said the wrong thing and said sorry, but it does matter because there's this ultimate sense of respect that needs to be given to students too, just as we give professors their accolades and their respective titles. But I think Queer Brown Vegan really came out of the fact that I just wanted to be very visibly like yes, I'm part of the LGBTQ community because in science people would be like, is he gay or what is he? People would always want to ask, and I just felt like what does it matter, I'm a scientist and that's really what I came here for, not for you to discuss what my identity is. And then second was the brown just being like yeah, I'm a proud Mexican person and I navigate the world. And I think the vegan part was actually funny. It's just that I had gone vegan just recently after I graduated college and then when I was coming out with the brand name, I was just like queer brown green or queer brown earth and I just said, you know what, Queer Brown Vegan just weaves in together, but it's very dynamic in your face. And I think at the time, it represented a lot of my early 20s and mid 20s. Not to say it doesn't represent me now, but I think it's always really interesting because people look at me and ask, well, what are you and then, they look into my work and they're like, you do climate education, that's very interesting. And they learn about my background, and they learn about the science that I have and everything. And they're like, okay. So, I think for me, like young people today, we're just very experimental on how we want to present ourselves to the world, but we're also not too serious because we recognize that social media is just a form of art for us too. Panu : Yeah, that's fascinating. Warm thanks for sharing that and doing that. It reminds me of this book, which is nowadays quite widely read in environmental humanities, Nicole Seymour's Bad Environmentalism , which sort of challenges some of the standard tropes and frameworks of communication in the environmental sphere. It has tended to be too wide and sometimes too serious so, a certain queer playfulness, if we call it that, is very welcome for environmental communication. Also, it reminds me of the connection between education, communication, and advocacy. And that's a sort of language challenge because we don't usually use the word education for adult audiences, even though there is the subfield of adult education, but people tend to think of children and young people. But if we are trying to positively influence someone that's technically education, but for adult populations, it's perhaps voiced as communication or advocacy. But for my part, I see the work that you are doing as a sort of resonance of education, communication, and advocacy. If you want to speak to that, please do. But I also wanted to ask about this brown dimension and Latino environmentalism and your social media, which by the way listeners is very popular, there’s over 120,000 followers on Instagram, for example. So, I've gotten a window into Latino environmentalism which has been very educational for me. I wanted to ask you about your experiences of this broad and diverse field of Latino environmentalism. Hernandez : Yeah, I think one of the reasons for being able to just lean in more to my identity is recognizing that Latinos are one of the most marginalized groups affected by climate change. And I think the issue with Latino communities today is that we're very vulnerable and susceptible to misinformation and disinformation. So, when I was looking in the environmental media sphere, even in the climate media sphere today, there's barely any Latinos that have bigger platforms. I could count maybe less than six or seven of us of Latino climate Americans that are representative in the U.S. And it was really saddening because I get a lot of messages from young Latinos or Latinas telling me that it's really hard for them to see themselves in these fields at times because as we know, environmental majors are not historically diverse if you look at any college from different universities across the United States. A lot of them ask me, how did you survive knowing the fact that there's no one that really looked like you or the professors were not representative of who you were? And I think it's a testament of when I talk about these Latin issues, I try not to just give them the science and data and say, this is what you should be listening to but also to relate it back to the culture. One of those events that I recently produced here in Los Angeles Climate Week was called Climate Chisme to really bring together how we talk about gossip in our communities, but through a climate lens and get people informed. And this isn't about a climate panel and learning about why Latinos should care about climate change, but to talk about how gossip and storytelling has been used to protect our communities from floods and wildfires and to make sure that our neighbors have each other's backs and to create these types of systems of care. And I think that it was really resonant with so many people who attended the event because they had never seen it before. But two, I think that it's a testament of where we're at right now. We need all different directions to reach out to our communities and my direction is through community building and cultural storytelling. Not to say that the science and data isn't needed, because it's always needed. However, the science and data are what communicates to me, but it doesn't communicate to my mom who may not have that science degree or background and she's just trying to get through her daily life. So, we have to have these different strategies to be there. But also, for me, it's a really huge thank you because if I would have seen someone online who looked like me when I was young, I don't think I would have had so many doubts in academia every day thinking I don't think I'm good enough to be here compared to a lot of my other colleagues who came from very prestigious backgrounds and just knew what they always wanted to do like go to law school or to grad school. I had to figure out everything like how to do these things because I didn’t really have any mentorship or people who look like me. Doherty : Yeah, this is great. And listeners, I know there are people out there that are identifying, and you don't have to be a Latina or Chicano to identify because Panu and I both dealt with this too. We've talked about this a lot on our podcast. People are trying to study these interdisciplinary issues, these intersectional issues and it's difficult to find a pathway through the disciplines and stuff like that. So, this intersectionality is really key because the difficulties in academia are intersectional, not just because of our culture, but also because there's no good department and the academic system to deal with these issues. We've been talking about this on the podcast recently with people, even established scientists, who were trying to study when they were younger. So, there's an age of intersectionality because young people come in with these new ideas and they can't find a space in the academic system. The psychology department says we don't study the environment, go to environmental studies and environmental studies are trying to be biological scientists and really hardcore experimental people who say they don’t do that emotional stuff, that’s for psychiatry, especially with anxiety or depression, you have to go to the psychiatry department for that or the social work department and they say, we’re too busy dealing with major mental illness or we're dealing with the houseless population and the fentanyl addiction so we don't have time for you. So, you just do this runaround—and if you're queer and brown, it's even worse. Hernandez : Yeah, definitely. I think for many people, they identify with me, even if they're not the same race or identity as me. A lot of my followers always say they're very scattered from different generations, but I will say that a lot of moms always show up for me and they tell me they are teaching their kids about climate anxiety and climate education. I would say mothers have played such a huge role in being huge advocates of my work. I think there's definitely a lot of gratefulness for older generations showing up in that way. Panu : Yeah, that's great to hear. Moms and grandmothers are some of the foundations of human communities after all. Some organizations have happened in the climate sphere. In Finland, we have Ilmastovanhemmat for example, climate grandparents organizing for climate action. But of course, their role is much larger and wider than just organized NGOs. Looking back, Isaias, to your active years, there are already many, but what comes to your mind as some of the very memorable moments on your journey, perhaps now in relation to the emotional and existential dimension of these issues? Hernandez : Yeah, I think some of my most memorable moments are just when it comes to the planet and my relationship to mental health, I remember being a sophomore in college. I think I was 19 at the time and I think we talked about it briefly in the episode where we first learned the term eco-anxiety. I told you this, I laughed. The first reaction was laughing at it. I said, are you kidding me, people actually deal with this? And I laughed but then I talked to my friend who was next to me, and she was really scared, and she was telling me, I've been dealing with this for years, Isaiah. And we actually talked about it, and I think that was really a pivotal moment for me to recognize how many differences people have in terms of not their lived experiences, but how we can easily disregard different types of mental health issues. My mental health issue was actually the fear of not having enough money. So, I worked multiple jobs. My fear was I don't want to get kicked out of my housing and I need to pay my bills. I had more financial anxiety. For her, it was a different situation where the finances weren't really an issue for her. Her studying in this field and learning more about the depressing news that we were learning as young environmental scientists was a reality for her. And I think for me, I didn't really prioritize climate change and mental health for me because at the time, I had to deal with my own financial anxiety first. So, when I learned that it actually helped me become more empathetic towards people and understanding that we all have different situations in life. And yes, some others have different forms of privilege, like me, do I have privilege being a male? I think to me, it helped me contextualize how we show up better for people, even if we don't understand each other and don't come from the same worlds. I think that's really helped me build the platform I have today. My platform is really focused on educating rather than interrogating individuals. I think in my early years, my writing was very aggressive. I remember some of my followers telling me that we love that we learn, but sometimes you sound mad. And now, over the years, I think I've really come more into who I am in my late twenties. And people say, I love that you're very slow in your writing and you don't judge me, and I feel like I can ask you anything and you're not going to tell me anything bad. I think those are the moments and I think with the web series, especially with our climate change mental health episode, it opened up really huge opportunities, not just for myself, but for young people to start talking about these subjects of matter in their own classrooms, which I thought was really fascinating. I remember a follower sent me a message saying, my professor is screening your episode and now a hundred of us saw it. And I was like, that's embarrassing, well not embarrassing, but it's like in those moments I didn't know that people were watching it. So, I do think that's a really pivotal time. We're headed for not just a cultural information era, but a connection era where we're trying to bid for connection and truly accept that connection for each other. Doherty : Hmm, that's great. I'm glad you brought this up because we have a little bit of time left. We don't like to unpack two big issues at the end, but there's this phenomenon of dealing with shame, either feeling shamed or shaming other people and the microaggressions and all this sort of stuff. I'm thinking about an experience I had where there was an organization in Portland called Vive, which was a Hispanic environmental group here. I was doing a workshop with them a few years ago, and I led people in this environmental identity timeline exercise, which I do with people where they plot out their life and all their experiences in nature. It was a totally mixed group. Isaias, you would have fit well in there because half of the people were Hispanic, Chicana, of Mexican heritage, some were first generation, second generation, but with very discreet environmental experiences. And then the other half were all white environmental folks, who were more upper middle class, and then comparing people's eco timelines such as what people took for granted in terms of privilege about camping, being in the outdoors versus just basically needs and dealing with access issues and racism and stuff like that. There was a lot of shaming on the white people's side. They felt almost embarrassed that they were so lucky to have such a nice life. So, that just comes with the territory, but it seems like you're able to handle that like and it sounds like you're more sensitive to even your own passions about how you come across to people. Isn't shaming a short-term strategy that just shuts things down in the long run? Hernandez : Yeah, I think it disempowers any movement building and I do think that there's certain types of people that are able to ground themselves in those conversations. As I've gotten older and have worked with so many people internationally and also domestically here in the US that come from different economic brackets, I think there's a lot of things that I had to do inward for my own healing of why am I acting this way or why am I trying to put it this way? And I think that's where humility in this generation and especially my generation, it’s not that it's hard to be built, because we've become such a secular society with these technological tools and not saying that social media has destroyed our mental health, but we've entered the very comparison culture and I think it's very hard for young people. It's like they're inheriting both the world that's not as stable as they were told that it was going to be, but at the same time, the people that are trying to really understand the realities. Like even with my own best friends, who come from way different economic brackets from me, when we actually learned about our lives personally, they didn't understand how much I've had to go through to get to where I'm at but also how much they went through in their personal lives to do what they're doing. It’s not to say that my story is more superior than theirs or theirs is less than, but it's more to understand we can still love each other no matter what. And I think it's really hard to go back to those human roots at times because I think our political differences and our economic differences can try to separate us. But I have mentors who are older who have really guided me with rough conversations, and I think that's the importance of intergenerational friendships. I have friends from different age groups that have really changed the way I think and I'm very glad that I did that versus trying to just hang out only with young mid 20-year-olds or late 20s. My friends are from the ages of 20 to 60. Pihkala : Yeah, great to hear and I think there's deep wisdom there. And I've been quite struck over the years by eco-psychologist Bill Plotkin's model of ecological centric human development, which is most extensively developed in his book Nature and the Human Soul. And there comes the idea that we also need elders, but basically people from all kinds of ages and there's developmental tasks and strengths associated with various ages. So, I’m very much resonating with this intergenerational cooperation and learning that compassion and humility. You've spoken about your environmental identity in your work. For example, we have a common love and interest in picking up mushrooms or foraging. We are coming close to the end of the episodes, even though there would be a lot more to talk about, but that's something I wanted to bring up. Would you like to speak a bit about that relationship to the land that you have and is partly shaped also by your family heritage. Hernandez : Yeah, I think growing up, I was not really an outdoor workout kid. I was always the slower hiker, the walker in the family. My family is very athletic, but I ended up being the non-athletic one. I picked up foraging because I saw it as a way for ecological reverence. I think as a kid, I always looked at things on the ground. And I think there was this moment when I was in New Jersey living in the forest. It’s a perfect area to forage throughout the seasons or winters since there’s sometimes mushrooms there. I just picked it up and I remember just learning through how to forage different colors of mushrooms and berries in the summer season. I'm not good with plants but my mycelium is more my thing. It was really cool because when I was doing it and taking pictures, I showed my dad and my dad was like, it’s funny you said that because your own grandma actually used to forage for mushrooms in the forests of Mexico and she really loved doing that by herself and it's so weird that you picked it up. I said I didn't know that, and you don't really talk about our grandma because my grandma passed away from my dad's side at a very young age, so it was really hard for him to speak about it. I think that's one way I kind of honor my environmental identity and could reconnect with my roots even if it's not the area my grandma lived in. I think there's a way to honor your ancestors through that. And also, just teaching people about foraging. I think it's my favorite thing to do. My family thinks I'm weird for doing it sometimes, but I think it's funny because they want to just get to the top of the mountain, and I want to take my time to get there. Doherty : Lovely. Yeah, there's so many intersections and physical ability is another unspoken intersection, not so much even just basic. I mean obviously there's different abilities, whether someone is able to walk or is in a wheelchair or things like that. But even just your preference about whether you're ‘outdoorsy’ or athletic or not is a huge unspoken stereotype in the environmental world. And a lot of people feel left out. I can't be that person because I'm not climbing a mountain or something like that. So, we've got to wrap it up. But this was a great episode. So, listeners, under the surface, we all have our origin stories, and we have our ancestors and our strengths and weaknesses and our little microshames that we have to share. So, Isaias, it's really a pleasure to have you. As always, we could do more and maybe we can do some more again in the future, but I want to wish you really well in your work and we'll be linking to a bunch of stuff in our show notes too. Listeners, we’ll have a bunch of links to various things you can follow-up that we talked about today. Panu, thank you very much for your time as well. Pihkala : Warm thanks Isaias and as always Thomas, it's been a great pleasure to take part in this conversation. Hernandez : Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Doherty : We'll be in touch with everyone. Everyone, be well and take care. [music: “CC&H theme music”] The Climate Change and Happiness Podcast is a self-funded volunteer effort. Please support us so we can keep bringing you messages of coping and thriving. See the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com .…

Climate Change and Happiness

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Season 4, Episode 24: On Grief and Mourning for Animals with Panu Pihkala 32:08

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image credit | Tina Kuper Season 4, Episode 24: On Grief and Mourning for Animals with Panu Pihkala Thomas learned about Panu’s recent research with Elisa Aaltola on animal ethical mourning and how this relates to feelings people have about pets and companion animals, farmed animals and wild creatures. Like many of our emotions about nature and environmental issues, natural feelings for kindred species are often ignored, suppressed or disenfranchised (not recognized and given standing) in human-centric society and economics. Ways to enfranchise grief for animals includes being honest and bearing witness, creating art and rituals, and sponsoring community activities. Being open about your moral commitments for fellow animals, and your love, care and empathy, can bring a sense of relief, honor, rest, peace and grace. This can free up your energy and commitment to change society's practices about our fellow creatures. Links A Tribute to the The Passenger Pigeon – Memorial in Wisconsin’s Wyalusing State Park Art Exhibition: Kindred Spirits: Honoring Animals in Death Amanda Stronza: Animal Memorials How to cope with the death of your pet Pihkala, Panu, and Elisa Aaltola. 2025. ‘ Animal Ethical Mourning: Types of Loss and Grief in Relation to Non-Human Animals ’. Frontiers in Veterinary Science 12 (April):1526302 Pihkala, Panu. 2024. "Ecological Sorrow: Types of Grief and Loss in Ecological Grief" Sustainability 16, no. 2: 849. Transcript Transcript edited for clarity and brevity. [music: “CC&H theme music”] Introduction voice : Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala. Doherty : Well hello, I'm Thomas Doherty. Pihkala : And I am Panu Pihkala. Doherty : And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. This is our podcast, a show for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about climate change and other environmental issues and different tumultuous times that we're all living through. This is a podcast where we have asked this provocative question of what it means to be happy in the modern world or what would it mean for us to be happy in the modern world. Often to do that, we must go through barriers to happiness, and we have to deal with things that are not happy so we can figure out how to make sense of them or how to make peace with them. And that's kind of where we're at today. Panu, as you all know, if you've been listening, is always studying different interesting things about emotions in the world. And one of the areas that Panu has been working on is grief and loss regarding animals and other animals outside of the human animal. So that's what we're talking about today. So, I'm going to be interviewing Panu about this research. So, let's jump into it. Panu, you’ve been doing some research and we'll put information in the show notes about feelings of loss and mourning and ways to be ethically mourning loss and grief related to non-human animals. So, what kind of things have you been discovering there? Pihkala : Yes, and dear listeners, if you think of your life history, almost all of us have at least some relationship with other animals. For many people, there's been some kind of pet or companion animal in places and families where we have lived. Some people have been raising animals for various purposes and there may be emotional connections in many ways or various hobbies or practices. Some animal species in the Western World or industrialized world are often in positions where there's strong emotional connections between humans and them. Dogs and cats are prominent, but there's a lot of other companion animals and pets. The bond between horses and people who ride or take care of horses can be very strong. So, that's one dimension here and for many people, losing a close animal has been an important lesson in loss and grief because the lifespan of many animals is shorter than the human lifespan. So, depending on where you live and what kind of privileges one has, it may be that the death of a dog or cat is one of the first death experiences in close family relations. And in grief research, the focus has been on humans who are dying or suffering, but for many decades it has already been recognized that losing pets or companion animals evokes strong emotions in people, which shouldn't come as a surprise. This topic has actually been a contradictory and difficult one in many societies because there may be assumptions that deeper grief should be related to human loss, for example. So, there's been people who understand you when you talk about loss and grief after losing an animal close to you. And then there may be people who really can't resonate with that and that often leads to what is called ‘disenfranchised grief’ in research which is grief that is not given a public voice or validation. How about you, Thomas, when you think of your life history, does this resonate? Doherty : Well, I think this research is really helpful. I'm thinking about it and this whole idea of disenfranchise means it's not recognized. We don't talk about it and so we don't have language for it. But it's helpful for me to see what you've been studying because you talk about grief that we feel about pets and animals that are close to us, like cats and dogs and household pets, but then also wildlife. You link it to grief about wild animals which could be whales or extinct animals, wild condors, orangutans, or any kind of animal and the grief we feel when they're threatened with extinction, or their habitats are gone. So, that's a big thing that people feel. And then there’s this more contentious area of farmed animal grief because most of the animals on the planet right now, pound for pound, are livestock and farm animals. It is one way humans have transformed the planet. We have so many thousands of chickens and cows and all this stuff around the world. And that's just a really touchy topic on a number of levels ethically. So, it's really courageous to do this. I can touch on it on a number of levels, my own concerns about wild animals that I value and love. I've had pets, I've had a dog for many years that I had as a young adult that I had to put down when he was old and had illnesses and that was very sad. I have an ancient cat, Lakshmi, who's going to be 21 this year and she's just an old person in our home that's been here since she was a kitten. So, we're preparing for her end of life. So, that's a really personal level. And in my family, my two sisters are both very strong animal rights advocates, so we have interesting discussions about veganism and various things. My sister, Sherry, was a zookeeper and worked in zoos for a number of years and she also worked at a place called the Center for Great Apes in Florida which was a refuge for chimpanzees and orangutans that had been used in movies or kept as pets. It was essentially like a rehabilitation old folks home hospice for these large wild animals. And I think people don't even realize that these kinds of places exist for elephants and orangutans. There's a whole subculture of people that are working for animals. So anyway, I think it's huge. When you talk to people or do the research, what are some of the surprising things that you notice? Pihkala : Yes, thanks for reflecting on all that. I also met Lakshmi when visiting Portland this spring. She's old, but still going. And in my family childhood, we also had a cat so that's a personal resonance. And as you said, there's three case examples in this article. There's actually two research articles coming out, and one is already out there. It's called “Animal Ethical Mourning: Types of Loss and Grief in Relation to Non-Human Animals.” So, there's a lot in the title and it’s written together with Elisa Aaltola. Elisa is a philosopher and animal rights activist and a very empathetic person who is well known in Finland for her public work around animal rights. So, she's both a researcher and a public figure. And the three case examples have some similarities, but also differences in dynamics. And this pet and companion animal loss is luckily becoming more enfranchised if that's a word in English. So, there's more voice and recognition for that in many places, but not everywhere. Sometimes I think that the depth of those losses is still not recognized. So, how strong the emotional bond and connection may be and sometimes it's a double loss in the sense that the animal companion has before helped the human companion in facing different stresses and hardships. So, when losing an animal, one is also losing a source of support. And that may happen of course when we lose close persons, but that's something to be recognized. This wildlife grief ties with what is called ‘ecological grief’ or ‘environmental grief’ and what we have been discussing often in this podcast. Climate change related sadness and grief which is often called climate grief is also closely connected with that. In research, literature, and art-based work around ecological grief, many different animals are featured and discussed. There's some very profound artwork which at the same time tries to work against disenfranchised grief in relation to wildlife grief. And it may sometimes be challenging to think of ways to do that mourning in community. But people have been trying to find creative ways like memorials or some kind of rituals or performances. And I've been part of that work in Finland. Like this annual theme day of Remembrance Day for Lost Species on November 30th. So, there's a small but growing international movement for having an annual team day for remembering other species and those which are extinct. There's some memorials people have set up. I think one of the most famous is the memorial for passenger pigeon in the United States and that sort of thing. The third case example of farmed animal grief may be very challenging for people who feel it because of the social contradictions. We all know that there's differences in opinion about meat eating and vegetarianism, for example. And still, people are living in the same cities and visiting the same grocery stores. And one of the things I realized when doing this research with Elisa and engaging with the literature and people's experiences was learning more about how challenging it may be for people who feel this kind of grief because then they have to try to find ways to process that in communities where there's disagreement over these issues. Doherty : Yeah, let’s hold that thought on the disagreement. I'm just thinking about the art piece there. When I was working on my book, I did a little research on art and nature. There's a whole movement of people that do art regarding animals. And there's an artist, Amanda Stronza, who makes these alters to animals. People do that around roadkill animals, animals that are killed on the side of the road. I think the writer, Barry Lopez, had written a famous essay about that years ago. So disenfranchised means unrecognized, not given any rights. When we're driving down the highway, and we see a deer or a raccoon or a bird or a coyote killed on the side of the road, we just pass it by. There’s a social denial about that being an issue. Like someone's going to come and pick up that animal and take it away, but we're not supposed to mourn for it. We're not supposed to be sad for these animals. At least that's what society will tell us. But, of course, we do feel sad, and children feel sad and it's poignant that children have to learn that you're not supposed to notice this, you're supposed to just drive by. Whereas if it was a dog or a cat, then that's different. We have different rules. I've seen whole traffic stop because a dog was in the road because people don't want to hurt the dog. It's just fascinating how we have a hierarchy of different rights for things like that and obviously, if someone was actively torturing an animal that wouldn't be okay, but if it's hit by a truck, it's okay. So anyway, it's confusing so this gets into all that kind of stuff. Pihkala : Yeah, totally. Thanks for voicing that, Thomas. For children and young people, it can be very confusing. Then, thinking of why the bad treatment of certain species is widely accepted in society, for example. This hierarchy of species affects mourning practices in places where people professionally work with animals. So, one quote from a study of two professionals was by a bird caring person who was feeling bad because in Judaism, charismatic big mammals may be publicly mourned and there may be poignant practices of enabling people who visit the zoo to participate in that memorialization. But then when birds die, the attitude may be that they don't live long anyway and there's going to be new birds and that sort of thing. So, this hierarchy can exist in these places where there is caring about animals. Doherty : Yeah, and then of course, it's political. So, it's touchy. You talk about animal grief and how it can be contested, right? Meaning that people don't agree on the ethics of it. And of course, most of the animal factory farming is kept secret or suppressed from the public because if people saw what was happening in these places, they would viscerally become nauseated and then they wouldn't want the animals. We talk about ecological wake up calls around climate change or other things, but people have wake up calls around eating animals when they learn about some of the practices. It’s just complicated because there are many people that try to ethically raise animals and try to ethically do this, but once you get into this large-scale factory commodification corporations, we lose touch with the humanity of it. Pihkala : Yeah, and there's lots of developments in society and the economy which have been pushing farmers to go into more large-scale animal raising and production. So, it hasn't been easy for people who would have wanted to do that on a more personal level and small-scale level. That may be economically very difficult. Luckily, there's people who try to do that. There's a book called Environmental and Animal Abuse Denial: Averting Our Gaze by Tomaž Grušovnik from eastern Europe and a couple of others edited that one. That's an interesting book where these mechanisms of trying to keep a distance or trying to keep them hidden are used, as you say Thomas, both in relation to climate matters and to animal factory farming, for example. So, on one hand it's a very human thing to try not to look too intensively at suffering, but of course it's not very ethical and that's where the title of our article comes from, “Animal Ethical Mourning”. It's moral commitment to animals and then the grief which results from this moral commitment. I hope dear listeners that this doesn't get too heavy for you, but it's deeply entwined with love, care, and empathy. That's of course seen in children, the sort of ability to empathize with animals and, as you say Thomas, the conflicted feelings which come if they observe that the adult world doesn't bury all the animals on the roadside, for example. But overall, there’s this whole phenomenon of sadness and grief because of what happens to non-human animals. It's tied with love and care. So, on one hand it's very heavy, but it also testifies to very important and power-giving relationalities in our lives. Doherty : Yeah, power-giving is a great term. It's an underlying hurt because we care and underlying this is love and care. The only reason we feel discomfort is because we have some value there. Unnecessary suffering is probably one of the core underlying values here. I think people really understand intellectually that we all die, animals die, there's going to be death. I don't see people mourning as much when they watch say a wildlife film where some cheetahs are chasing down a wildebeest in the savanna and they catch the wildebeest and eat it. There's an understanding of the cycle of life and that they're predators and prey. It seems to be somehow part of the natural order, but when we take it out of that and put it into this needless suffering, I think most everyone can agree that, unless you’re pathological, people don't like unnecessary suffering nor do they like waste or things that are wasteful. So, I think we can all agree on these kinds of things. Listeners, you're hearing us talk about this and you're going to have all of your connections, whether it's your pet or concerns about animals in the wild or concerns about animals and factory farms. You might have your own farm or grow your own animals or chickens for eggs and all these kinds of things. Hunting of course is a whole special lifestyle. I know a lot of people that are very ethical regarding hunting. They're not interested in unnecessary suffering of animals or wasting animals. I think it's possible for hunters to both enjoy the thrill of the hunt, but also feel grief for the loss of the animal. I think that's what we would have in the native cultures, some combination of ritual reciprocal relations, right? Like nature and humans, we give and take. We're missing so much of that in the modern world, that kind of ceremonial connection. So, it's a deep thing. We touched on this a bit, but let’s move toward this for the end of the talk. What do we do with this grief, like how do we enfranchise it, how do we give it power in examples that you've seen? Pihkala : That's a very important question and one can take a look at what we know about grief and bereavement, about human loss and death and what kind of things and practices support a healthy grieving process, if we call it that. So, there's many possible things ranging from something one can do on one's own, for example freely writing or journaling about feelings of sadness and grief. That's something which can be done even while there might be social disenfranchised grief. Doing some kind of rituals for commemoration helps both with emotions and also has an ethical dimension, the task of bearing witness, which we have discussed in an earlier episode. “Environmental Commemoration” would be one frame here by Mihaela Mihai and Mathias Thaler, for example. Those rituals can also be done on your own or with a small, trusted group of people or at some times and places it may be possible to do that in public. There’s interesting new sorts of practices and rituals emerging. For example, with wildlife grief, there’s this annual Remembrance Day for Lost Species on November 30th. So that's an annual theme day. I think it started from Britain, from Brighton if I'm not mistaken, and then it's spread into various corners of the world, and I've been facilitating that kind of work with small groups of people in Helsinki. We usually do that annual ritual in the animal cemetery in the central park of Helsinki, which is really a forest. So, it's mostly companion animals there, but there's a memorial stone for animals who have suffered in medicine and animal testing, for example. So, these kinds of stable memorials are one option. And I know that in the States, there's a memorial for the passenger pigeon which has been there for decades already, so that's part of the public dimension. Then of course, coping with grief is a very wide topic and there's lots of good literature on that. Personally, I've been learning much from William Worden and his tasks of mourning approach and also from Robert Neimeyer and sort of meaning reconstruction framework. It explains how we need to work through changes in meanings in life when something major happens. We've discussed this in one episode way back and in this article, there's discussion about the various types of loss and grief and there's also a separate episode in our podcast about that. And in spring 2025, the Climate Mental Health Network presented a new set of resources on ecological and climate grief based on these types of loss and grief. So, we'll put a link to that in the show notes. So, these interconnections between animal ethical mourning and ecological and climate grief are quite profound. But how about you, Thomas? With your long experience of counselling people and in psychology, what are some of the things that come up to you in relation to coping with sadness and grief? Doherty : Yeah, I'm just thinking out loud here. I wasn't aware of the passenger pigeon memorial, but I see that it's in Wisconsin. I think with a lot of these things, we think we're alone and we think we're the only one. Then, when we scratch the surface, we realize other people think about this. So, there’s this paradox that you can't stay isolated and once you start talking about it, you find kindred spirits. I think that's one of the big universal takeaways. This animal stuff is universal. I can't imagine anyone not having some opinions on it if we just create a safe space to talk about it. It’s just so primal to our existence. So, I do think sometimes people either underestimate the resources around them or they overestimate the barriers. But it does take that initial courage to share something. I know if you go to any Audubon Society or bird society or any kind of animal rescue or animal adoption, there are so many people that devote their lives to caring for animals. People do dog walking, pet sitting, and veterinarians is another area. Either people work as veterinarians or broadly in the veterinary field and they’re all highly attuned to animals. Of course, horse people work with horses and they’re very strong, intelligent, special animals and there's rituals and things. So, there's more here and it's just these weird, disenfranchised areas are like a double reality. They exist all around us, but we kind of have to ignore them unless you get into it a little bit. So, I would encourage people to push into it a little bit. I was trying to find the words for it, because I feel like it’s still very difficult and heavy. But, once you do some of this work like looking at all these models and all the different kinds of grief, it's like a divide and conquer kind of thing. I can divvy up all of my grief feelings into smaller, palatable or more understandable pieces, versus this massive grief that you can't understand. It just feels overwhelming. So yeah, that's what comes up. Pihkala : Yeah, warm thanks for sharing that, Thomas and I strongly agree on trying to move forward from this sense of isolation, because as you say, there's many people who feel these things and with my work around types of loss and grief, I hope that people will take their time with it. It's a lot at first glance to think of all these concepts, but hopefully that might lead to developing a vocabulary which may help at discerning what kind of actions and practices might help in the case of certain kinds of losses. In these practical encounters with the topic and with other people, often I've had to experience beforehand that it's heavy and facilitate that. Because of my earlier life history, I've been facilitating a lot of funerals, for example, so I have certain sets of skills for that. But then afterwards, it's usually a very relieved atmosphere. So, there's a surprisingly powerful sense of relief and perhaps even something like honor after collectively doing this. So, I would encourage you listeners, whatever the types of loss and grief you feel in relation to other animals are, to experiment with engaging with those even though it may feel difficult at first. And I don't want to say that it's a guaranteed relief always, but there's that possibility that it may actually be strangely relieving. Doherty : Yeah, well it's cathartic, right? It's not uncommon for people to have strong emotions or to cry or to emote so it does get the weight off of us. There might be a place of finding some peace or some grace with this kind of thing. It's all existential at the end of the day because we're all ultimately dealing with the limited life and death and our inevitability of our death, just how do we do it in an ethical way. So yeah, this is a difficult topic. It's a big, tough topic, but that's why we have to be courageous enough to bring it up here. And you cannot go toward happiness in the world without being able to feel all these other feelings. Otherwise, your happiness feels artificial, right? So, thanks for doing this, Panu. I'm going to share this with some of my family who might appreciate this. We'll put links in the show notes to these academic papers for folks that are working in the academic world but also just some of the images and simple things that you've shared for the public because I think it's a great public service. Well thanks Panu, let's wrap it up and listeners, I hope you took something important from this and it'll allow you to go easier in your life as you deal with these issues. Pihkala : Thanks Thomas for another deep discussion and what you say might be a motto for the podcast. It's all existential at the end of the day. Take care people. Doherty : Yeah, for sure. All right, take care. Bye. [music: “CC&H theme music”] The Climate Change and Happiness Podcast is a self-funded volunteer effort. Please support us so we can keep bringing you messages of coping and thriving. See the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.…

Climate Change and Happiness

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Season 4, Episode 23: On Transformational Resilience with Bob Doppelt 34:09

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image credit | Robin Canfield Thomas and Panu met with long-time environmental and mental health advocate Bob Doppelt. Bob talked about his personal story beginning with landscape and river system conservation and moving into sustainability and leadership education. Bob also spoke of his recent activities working with the International Transformational Resilience Coalition on ways that communities can connect and adapt in the face of climate disruptions. Bob's latest work focuses on the idea of “community is medicine.” As happens when like-minded people come together, Thomas and Bob found that they had a number of mutual connections in the Oregon white water rafting community. Join us for an inspiring conversation. Links Bob Doppelt Transformational Resilience (book) The International Transformational Resilience Coalition David Pollack: What is Transformational Resilience and how does it apply to the mental health and public health responses to the impacts of climate change? Campaign for Trauma Informed Policy and Practice Transcript Transcript edited for clarity and brevity. [music: “CC&H theme music”] Introduction voice : Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala. Thomas Doherty : Well hello, I’m Thomas Doherty. Panu Pihkala : And I am Panu Pihkala. Doherty : And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. This is our podcast, a show for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about climate change and other environmental issues. And you know what they say when you pick on one thing in the universe, it's hitched to everything else. So, climate environmental issues include your family, politics, economics, your life, your spirituality. So, all this stuff. And we really enjoy having conversations with people around the world. And I'm really honored to have a guest today. A person that I've actually never met but we have a lot of shared contacts in the past as often happens. So, I'd like you to meet our guest. Doppelt : Hello, I’m Bob Doppelt. I coordinate the International Transformational Resilience Coalition. I'm happy to be here today. Doherty : Yeah, and we were just chatting before we started. Now, I used to work as a river guide and an outdoor guide in Oregon. And I knew Bob had been a river guide too and it turns out we know some of the same people and some of my mentors he had worked with. It's a small world in sustainability and climate sometimes, and we cross paths. So that's already a nice connection we're having. And I'm really interested in actually hearing about Bob's current work and all the things he's doing. Panu, do you want to get us started? Pihkala : Warmly welcome, Bob, also on my behalf. Pleasure to meet you. We have been presenting in some of the same lecture series, but we haven't actually talked with each other, so this is a pleasure. I started working on eco-anxiety and eco-emotions around 2008 or 2009, and then in a more concentrated manner after 2015. And during that period, I was very happy when I found your book from 2016 called Transformational Resilience. Terms such as eco-anxiety existed. They were not as popular as they were later on, but I was really surprised how wide-ranging that book was already, including both individual methods for calming down your nervous system when there's too much stress and lots of things around community and social relations and resources. So, I was very grateful for that, and it's actually had some influence in Finland also, but before going into details, and listeners, we will open up the concept of transformational resilience, it would be very nice to hear something about your personal journey. How did you become so invested in these matters related to environmental issues and human psychology and community resilience? Doppelt : Well, thank you both and nice to meet you both. Even though it's not in person yet. But I've sort of, like many of us in life, go in a fishtail kind of experience through life. I've been a river guide all my life, including in high school, and had always had a strong connection to the outdoors. But in doing that, one of the things I did when I was very young, I was hired at age 21, after college, to run an outdoor treatment program for 30 kids. Here are 30 kids, now take them around the country and do rock climbing, backpacking, river running, and don't kill anybody. That was sort of the message I got from the director, but we did it, and it went well. So, it was early on that I had an experience of having to work with people who were in stressful situations and in the outdoors. And it was a very interesting learning experience. So, I ended up going to grad school both in counseling psychology and in environmental science. My first actual professional experience, I worked as a counselor with troubled youth and their families. And after a number of years there, I realized that I didn't have enough understanding of what many of these kids were going through to really help them. I was trained in Adlerian counseling and Dreikurs family therapy and this didn't help many of the kids that I was dealing with, and we can get into that later. I got burned out because of that, so I went back into the environmental field. Then ended up, after many years, running the Climate Leadership Initiative at the University of Oregon, which was one of the very first social science based ethical assistance research programs in the US. So, we ran around helping organizations, state governments, country governments and others develop their first climate action plans. We went to southeast Florida and helped organize the Southeast Florida Climate Resiliency Compact which brought together the largest metro area in Florida, Miami-Dade and Broward counties to prepare for sea level rise, storm surges, and other impacts. Then, Superstorm Sandy came along which you might remember. I guess 12 years ago. We saw mental health impacts in the northeast of the US such as New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, but it skirted along the coast of Florida, and we saw the same impacts here. The other people in the climate field didn’t see that or if they did, they didn’t care much because it wasn’t their background. But because of my background in mental health, I saw those impacts and I knew they were going to get way worse because the climate emergency was going to get way worse. That led me to form the ITRC, the International Transformation of Resilience Coalition, to try to combine these two fields now 11 years ago. Doherty : Yeah, this is great. Either for young people or for people that are new in some sort of climate or sustainability, it's important to realize this is not new at all. People have been in some form of environmental sustainability for 50 years, in the modern sense of the term and certainly climate. Now someone who grew up in Oregon, I talk in the book I'm working on about the emergence of the modern environmental movement. Much of it took place on the West Coast and in places like Oregon and Eugene. So, this idea of having a climate resilience plan isn’t new. It was like 30 years ago that people were talking about this. It wasn't just yesterday. So, it's really great to talk with you. It gives a sense of the breadth and distance and depth of this kind of program. A lot of people were surprised by Sandy, but you were already involved and could see it coming. All these experiences like Sandy, Lahaina, the LA fires, and Ashley. These are all tipping point wakeup call experiences. I think Sandy's unique, and we could talk maybe more about that because it mobilized the New York intelligentsia, the New York therapists. The people that wouldn't necessarily be the Oregonian river guide types. It brought them into the mix of this so that's really a sad way to do it, but it is what's been happening. It's probably what's the case. Each disaster kind of folding in a new subculture of people into this work. Would you say that's a fair statement? Doppelt : Yeah, I think as is often the case with humans is that it's only a crisis that gets us to think differently, change our minds, etc. And this issue is so overwhelming to most people, they can't get their heads around it. So, we deal with the next crisis by trying to respond to it, and then we move on. We don't think about what's actually happening over the long term and what's needed because we're going to have more and more disasters. And just as importantly with the climate crisis, we call it the climate ecosystem biodiversity crisis, because it's way more than an atmospheric crisis. We're degrading ecological systems and we're exterminating biodiversity worldwide that feeds back to increased temperatures and dysregulates the atmospheric climate system even more, which of course then feeds back and has more ecological and biological impact. So, it’s a real interactive process. Even the most destructive impacts go far beyond disasters, these extreme weather events. And that's what people haven't quite wrapped their heads around. It’s activating cascading disruptions to the ecological, social, and economic systems people rely on for food, water, shelter, jobs, health, income. And we often can't connect it with the climate ecosystem biodiversity crisis. But even now, rising food prices in the US, that people are so mad about, are not all caused by, but a significant part is droughts that are impacting food, reducing the ability of farmers to produce food, etc. So, it's creating all sorts of stresses. And then on top of that, or connected to that, are these acute disasters that come in and harm and destroy people. And that is really what we really need to prepare for. That's what my organization is trying to help people prepare for and communities prepare for. Otherwise, we just sit around and try to react to the next disaster and help people through mental health first aid afterwards. And that's important, but that's not the solution at all. Pihkala : Yeah, that's a real systemic approach to these issues. Could you share with the listeners what are some of the practical methods in that kind of work? Doppelt : Yeah, good question. So as people think about it, when there is a disaster, what normally happens? People come together who don't know each other, might not even like each other, and they help each other out. They provide food and shelter or practical assistance. They go rescue somebody from a situation and they set up food shelters for people to come and get food when their home's ruined or something. That's called the community cohesion phase of a disaster or the honeymoon phase. So, we help people realize and think about if they’ve been assisted by that or participated in that in some way and if they could see that kind of mutual aid network becoming long-term and permanent. That's really what we're focused on. We are focused on helping communities and neighborhoods form what we call Transformational Resilience Coordinating Networks, TRNCs. They are these mutual aid networks. The difference is the mutual aid networks usually get established and then disappear a month, two months, whenever after disaster ends. People go back and put their own lives back together and they leave. The climate ecosystem biodiversity crisis is going to get far worse, actually in rapid order, and it's going to continue for decades. We need to establish the social infrastructure in communities that can support that community cohesion phase over the long term. That's what the Transformation Resilience Coordinating Networks are and as part of that, they need to help people learn different kinds of resilience skills and engage in different kinds of resilience activities. I can dive into that in a second. But that's really what we're trying to do. And I'll just also say that we've been working on this for quite a while. We have TRCNs, they call themselves something different, in many parts of the U.S and Canada and other places. The UN High-Level Climate Champion Race to Resilience Initiative found out about our work over a year ago and invited us to become a partner. So, we're now working internationally on this through the UN Race to Resilience Initiative and finding that different countries, different nations, different communities struggle with different issues than we do in western communities and higher income areas. Doherty : Yeah, this is great. It's like Paradise Built in Hell from Rebecca Solnit. In a crisis is opportunity in the sense that we can really build back better, and we can actually harness all the positive honeymoon phase human connections that come about in disasters because they do have this leveling effect temporarily. You didn't say it, but I think being proactive about this helps us to get ahead of disaster capitalism and some of the breakdowns. I don't know that you get into that directly, but I see you as standing in the way of that negative stuff happening. Doppelt : Yeah, we do actually get into a bit. We don't label that. I will say that Rebecca's work didn't talk about what happens after the community cohesion phase. And that's really what's important. Then you go into what we call the disillusionment phase because people have to go back and put their own lives back together so that cohesion and that community support no longer exists. And that can last for months or years and that's the disillusionment phase. That's when most of the mental health and psychosocial problems emerge. That's why we need to establish this social infrastructure over the long term, because we don't want that disillusionment phase. We want that support to be there. And what we also find is that one of the things driving much of this is the social isolation and loneliness that people feel in western and higher income nations that is very toxic today and is getting worse with social media and other kinds of things. This brings people together and creates the social connections, the social cohesion and social efficacy needed to address these common problems. And it has to happen, or it has to start in the communities. And what we find is when communities come together or neighborhoods come together to do this, it takes a while, and you normally wouldn't like each other or they have different political views, but they create the political power to push for change at a higher level. And that's really key. But we don't talk about that being the goal, initially. First, help each other out so that people will help you and you can help others. And when you help others out, you often find new meaning and purpose in your life, you feel good about what you do, you have meaning, and that's what helps prevent mental health problems or heal them when they emerge. Pihkala : Yeah, that is impressive and so important. And at some point, in our conversation, I do want to go into this topic of meaning and purpose, which I also think is highly, highly essential. And listeners, you may be familiar with the resilience concept and some of the criticism against it. I think it's a valid concept, but some of the main criticism is that if only people return to a previous state of affairs, that will not be enough. And this transformational resilience that Bob is talking about by name goes beyond that. So, it points to growth in these processes. I hear that when you talk about these issues, but do you want to say something more about this transformation aspect? Doppelt : Yeah, that's a very good point, thank you. When we first started the ITRC, now 11 years ago, we had a team of about 12 people who came together to try to form it. And we had about 30 to 40 emails flying back and forth between people trying to come up with the name. Because what we were really talking about is a post-traumatic growth, in used psychology terms, or adversity-based growth. We thought that was too wonky for the general public, so we called it transformational resilience. But, after many emails trying to come up with a nice name, what this really means is that what's happening with the climate emergency is that our way of life and how people live and what they do is being challenged. Our economic model is being challenged. We're seeing the push back on that now in the U.S. In other words, what the climate emergency does to many people is it shatters their core views, their deeply held assumptions and beliefs about the way the world operates and their role in it. That's a classic definition of trauma. That's what trauma is about and that's only going to get worse as the climate emergency worsens and we'll have greater push back against it then. Oh no, it's not really happening or whatever. But what transformational resilience means to us and what we teach and what we help communities engage in is how to use adversities to not just bounce back to where you were. For many people, it wasn't a very good place in the first place. Why do you want to bounce back to that? And especially the way we live, our high consumption rates, our high fossil fuel rates, etc., are all not helpful to bounce back to. So how do we use the adversities to find new sources of meaning, purpose, and hope in life that actually increase our sense of well-being and the well-being of others well beyond what it was before. Because it wasn't all that healthy before for many people, and certainly not for the natural environment. So that's what we mean by transformation resilience. How do we use this experience that is just going to continue and grow worse to actually catalyze really fundamental individual, collective, economic and other kinds of changes. Doherty : Yeah, this is all really great. And we're going to put some links in the show notes to the networks that Bob is talking about because I think people might want to get involved. And this is a global initiative that Bob's involved in. It's systemic and that's what's challenging about the terms because like I say in this project I'm working on, when you're thinking big, you're not thinking big enough, right? We always have to keep realizing there's another level and another level and not get too concrete. Systemically, if you help in one small area of your life or in someone's life, then it filters into other areas. And if we draw down carbon in one part of the atmosphere, it helps the whole atmosphere. So, underneath all this, I think there's a systemic insight that that is one of the foundational and juicy parts of this. Bob, how did you get involved in systems thinking? Because that seems to have animated all of your stuff going back. Do you have a story about that or how that came into your life? Doppelt : That's an interesting question. I don't remember. It was many years ago. I think it was because I was in the environmental field, and you learn systems thinking even if it's not called that. Then I just started going to some workshops and found out how to describe it more graphically or specifically. But, let me just say one other thing in terms of terms. We work with different groups in many different continents, and you have to use different terms, different phrases that resonate and make sense to the culture and demographics of the age groups that you're working with. And we often find that we don't know what we're doing initially. And we have to share different phrases and ask people to share with us how they see these issues. That's how we learn the way that makes the most sense. You have to resonate with what is already there. Scientific facts and figures mean nothing to most people. It's their mental models. It's their assumptions of how the way the world works and how they work. That's what they see the world through. You have to try to understand that as much as possible. Doherty : It reminds me of SustyVibes. We spoke with Jennifer Uchendu in Nigeria and their term of sustainable vibration, SustyVibes , which if they're not already familiar with your work, there'd be a good contact. That's helpful for all of us to realize. We have to be a cosmopolitan like you. We have to be able to speak different languages, go into different communities and kind of when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Pihkala : Yeah, exactly so and regardless of various terms and various styles of life, there is still the lived experience of being alive in this strange time of global warming and biodiversity loss and all the other things. And I strongly resonate with this task of trying to listen and understand and connect with other people's experiences and then try to find ways towards increased transformational resilience or transilience which is a word that some scholars suggested a couple of years ago. Adversarial growth or post-traumatic growth has also been one of my interests and I've done an analysis of the traditional categorization of that and then comparing that to people's experiences amidst environmental issues and environmental emotions. So, I've benefited from your work Bob on that project also, but I do want to talk about the very practical resilience skills which you mentioned. So, could you share some of those practical skills and methods that the coalition uses? Doppelt : Yeah again, thank you for that question. The most important skill is really a process, and that is to build social connections across geographic lines, economic lines, racial lines in the community. And when you do that and we help different community groups learn how to do that, we also help encourage them to help people learn what we call presencing skills, which are self-regulation and co-regulation skills. Skills to calm your body, mind, and emotions and skills to help others do the same that you interact with, that's co-regulation. And once people have calmed their nervous system, we don't usually talk about it that much in those terms, then they practice what we call purposing skills. So presencing and purposing. And purposing is how do you find new meaning, purpose, and hope in these adversities. What can you do? And most of the time, that involves rising above your own interest and trying to help others and help the natural environment. But the starting point often, not always, when we're working with community groups is to build those social connections. So there's programs that do that by holding potlucks for neighbors and having people just get together and get to meet them. The San Francisco neighborhood empowers program, which now they defunded it, which was too bad, was very successful. They would shut off entire streets in urban San Francisco and bring tables out and put tables in the middle and have potlucks. People on high rises would come down and share that. And then after they did that a couple of times, then they'd form a resilience network, a coordinating network, a steering committee of neighbors that wanted to do it. And they'd develop a resilience plan for the community, and they'd share it with everybody. It was a very, very successful program. There's many other examples of ways in which communities and neighborhoods can build those social connections. And as doing that, then you add these presencing and purposing skills. If you have a meeting, say let's just take a brief, what we call a resilience pause, but each group can call it something different. Let's just take a moment to calm ourselves. And there's a wide variety of age and culturally appropriate presencing skills that you can use. Sometimes it's breath-based, sometimes it's feeling the sensations in your body, sometimes it's just telling jokes and laughing often. Lots of different ways. You connect the different skills together and you help people understand that you have to stay calm and learn how to find meaning in life given all these other adversities that are going on. That's what purposing is. And I can get into purposing skills too if you want to know about that. Doherty : That's pretty practical, Panu. Did that answer your question? Pihkala : Yeah, that's exactly the level of detail and practicality I was hoping for. And if you want to say a bit about the purposing skills, I think that would also be fascinating. Doppelt : Yeah, listeners, just think about what gives their life purpose. What do they find meaning in? And many times, most often for most people, it is the connections they have with other people, the relationships. But sometimes it's art, or it's helping animals, or helping other people in the community. It's hard to know. And there's other things. Each person's different. For some people, it's spirituality or religious beliefs. We just ask people to think about what helps them find meaning and you ask people how you find that and how can you connect that source of meaning with what's going on now in this disaster. Or how can you find new sources of meaning. What we often point out and we mostly ask questions is do you find that you learned new skills, that you had more skills than you thought you had or strength that you thought you had when you did that kind of work. They say, I didn't realize I could speak up for myself or whatever. And that's what transformation resilience is really about. It's about helping people understand that they can use adversities as catalysts to learn, grow, and increase their sense of well-being, mostly by just becoming aware of skills and capacities they already have that they haven't been using and then applying that to what's going on in their community and their family life. Doherty : Yeah, this is great. Listeners, we had an episode recently with my friend Greg Hill, who's much like Bob in doing neat work for a while. We talked about eco-friends where we have these people that we know, and we follow, and they inspire us. So, I got a lot of flavor of this from hearing Bob because even though we haven't actually chatted about this, we tracked very similar thinking over the years. So, it really is validating for me personally to hear your approach because it's similar to how I think about things. I love the presencing and purposing language. That's a key. It's more important than we realize, the language that's flexible enough for people to grab on to. That's not super academic. I'm glad we're talking after I'm writing my book because then I would have to go add a bunch of stuff in. But I do list Bob's program in my resource list. The power of art, the power of spirituality, relationships. What do they say, don't have a meeting, have a party, don't have a meeting, have a potluck. It makes it much more universal and much more human no matter whether you're in Oregon or Africa or Finland. Pihkala : Indeed so, and we'll put some links to previous podcast episodes. There's one where we discuss various types of meaning in life for example, which is closely related to what Bob was just talking about. We are reaching our usual half an hour length, but I'd like to ask you Bob if you want to share something about what kinds of presencing and proposing skills are important for you personally in this very troubled time? Is it still the river-oriented stuff that has been dear to you for so long? Would you like to share a couple of those that are personally very meaningful? Doppelt : Yeah, we don't live in a city, we live out in the country because I need nature around us. My wife is the same way. My wife was a veterinary technician for 29 years. So, connection with animals is very much there. But we have a group of friends that we still go rafting with when my arm doesn't hurt me too bad. That's the problem with getting older, that stuff can hurt. But also, for many years, I've practiced meditation and mindfulness. I'm a mindfulness-based stress reduction instructor and I teach part-time at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California. So, I practice those. But most importantly is just finding ways to laugh. We've got a group of friends, we just had dinner again and about once a week we have dinner with a group of and we laugh. We become 12-year-olds and laugh at the silliest things even in the midst of what's going on with the U.S. now and the presidency and we find ways to laugh about it. And I keep doing this work. My wife keeps asking, when am I really going to retire. Well, this is what gives me purpose and meaning. Let me say one other thing just so we can get it on. If you're interested in forming your own Transformation Resilience Coordinating Network in your neighborhood or community, you can go to our website and use an application to fill out and then we invite you to become part of a community of practice that meets every other week. And there's people from all over the world that join and sometimes we're teaching skills, sometimes we're just having conversations to problem solve with the different groups and communities. We also provide an ongoing educational program about this where they can just sit through a series for a five-week period. They don't have to attend all; they can just get the slides sent to them afterwards. So, there's lots of ways to get involved. You don’t even have to join us. Just think about how you form a mutual aid network in your neighborhood and community. Get your friends together, talk about it, and get a vision together. What are you trying to achieve, what would be different than this happening now, and see if you can get that established because this is what we’re going to need all over the world as the climate emergency worsens. So, I encourage everyone to try to find a way that they can get involved. Doherty : Yeah, thanks for adding that call to action because that's perfect. We'll put that link on the website. If you're listening to this and this is inspiring to you, go check it out, Transformational Resilience. You could find it pretty easily. And again, it's nice that this is flexible. You can move it in the direction that's good for your community. Well, Bob, I just want to thank you. It's a long time coming to get you on the podcast. I'm so glad that we did. Now we can connect some more and maybe get on the river sometime in the future. We'll say goodbye, listeners. Panu, are you going to get some rest? What's happening at your end there? Pihkala : Well, what's happening is that the sun has already set in Finland, so time to get some rest and perhaps laugh a bit before that. Thanks, Bob, for all the practical and systemic wisdom you've shared. It's been a great pleasure. Doppelt : Thank you both for having me and good luck to both of you and all of your listeners. Doherty : Alright, thanks everyone and everyone be well. [music: “CC&H theme music”] The Climate Change and Happiness Podcast is a self-funded volunteer effort. Please support us so we can keep bringing you messages of coping and thriving. See the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.…

Climate Change and Happiness

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Season 4, Episode 22: Climate Therapy in Italy with Camilla Gamba and Lucia Tecuta 36:20

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image credit | Alex Vasey Season 4, Episode 22: Climate Therapy in Italy with Camilla Gamba and Lucia Tecuta Thomas and Panu engaged with therapists and researchers Camilla Gamba and Lucia Tecuta, who shared their cosmopolitan journeys into climate psychology and eco-therapy. Lucia and Camilla described their bicultural backgrounds in Italy and the US and challenges and opportunities in translating concepts like environmental identity and stewardship into the rich Italian cultural and historic context. Join us for an inspiring discussion of activism and “il dolce far niente.” Links Camilla Gamba Lucia Tecuta Academic Climate Reality Project: How the Climate Crisis is Impacting Italy Club Alpina Italiano Via di Francesco Pilgrimage Route Mika Waltari (1956) The Etruscan See Season 4, Episode 21: Climate Psychology in Italy with Matteo Innocenti Transcript Transcript edited for clarity and brevity. [music: “CC&H theme music”] Introduction voice : Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala. Thomas Doherty : Well hello, I’m Thomas Doherty. Panu Pihkala : And I am Panu Pihkala. Doherty : And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. This is our podcast, the show for people around the world who are thinking and feeling deeply about climate change and environmental issues and their relationship with nature and the earth and of course politics and life. And that's all fair game for our conversations. And we love to talk to people around the world because of course Panu and I are far apart. And today, we are very happy to have two special guests coming in from a country that I love, Italy. Gamba : So, I'm Camilla Gamba. I'm a therapist in private practice in Milan, Italy. Tecuta : And I'm Lucia Tecuta. I'm a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist and a researcher at the University of Bologna, calling in from Bologna, Italy. Doherty : I know Lucia and Camilla through my eco training group, and I've actually been colleagues with them. We have not met in person, but we've been colleagues now for a while. So, it's been really exciting to track their innovative work in Italy around climate psychology and eco-therapy. And I know they've met Panu and Panu has spoken with them. So, this is a nice reunion for us. Panu, you want to get us started? Pihkala : Warm welcome also on my behalf, lovely to see you again. It also brings warm memories from last December and our meetings in Northern Italy. I know that you both have been listening to the podcast too, so you know that we have this habit of asking something about people's journeys that lead them to who they are so that's one for you also. It would be lovely to hear something like that. Gamba : Sure, Lucia, do you want to go first? Tecuta : So, I guess it's a little bit convoluted, but I would start off by saying a bit about how I grew up between Rome, which is where I was born, and then around the age of six I moved from, this big metropolitan city to the East Coast, to the States. I lived a little in Maryland, a little in New Jersey, so I moved from a more urban context to a more, I guess, privileged area. And I had the privilege of growing up with a backyard in Maryland. So, I feel like that's where I really started to appreciate nature and develop that nature connection that was missing for me while I was a kid, living in a big city. I think part of why I do the work that I do right now, sort of coming full circle from my early experiences, is and actually I heard someone talk about this book in their childhood on another podcast about how they came across this book called 100 Ways Kids Can Save the Planet . I was drawn to it as a kid and that's really where I started to become more aware of what was happening. It was the 90s and Al Gore was vice president and there was a lot of talk about the ozone layer, and I remember being a little bit anxious about that. Now that I look back as a researcher that looks at eco-anxiety, I recognized my feelings as a kid as a form of eco-anxiety that I was feeling at the time. And then that ecological awareness went dormant a little bit through middle school and high school. Then, I moved back to Rome when I was a teenager and came into contact with pretty politicized youth. That's where I became more aware of the economic and social systems that we live in and social injustice. It all came together for me in the last couple of years through my awareness of climate change. I had some events that really shook me, to use a colloquial term. Most of that is the really intense heat waves that are coming through Italy in the summer. Part of that is also the really bad hailstorms that came through Bologna. This was all right before COVID. I would call it an eco-awakening. After those events, it sorts of all came together and I realized how it's all connected. And that brought back that ecological awareness that was lost throughout the years. And I think also becoming a mother had a big impact on me, just everything sort of you know multiply times a hundred. Just being scared not only for myself and my family origin but also now my son and his future and future generations and what they're going up against. And then, I guess coincidentally, if you believe in coincidences or synchronicities, I guess another term we could use. I had the chance to sort of brainstorm on psychological constructs to study in relationship to sustainability and eating behaviors. And I was looking at the literature and I actually found your paper, Panu, on climate anxiety and eco-anxiety. And that just rang like a thousand bells in my brain. And I realized, this is what I was feeling first of all. So, it was really validating and really important for me to put those pieces together. And then I was able to give that as an idea that we could look at this, in relation to eating sustainably, but also eating disorder risk. We don't really know how these things sort of move together. And so that's how I feel like everything sort of came full circle starting from like my early childhood experience and the teenage years and being really politicized and coming into contact with anarchists and communists and socialists and all of that. And then the climate eco-awakening bit. And so, I feel like I've finally started to find my place in what I think I should be doing. That’s also thanks to your course, Thomas, that really helped me. It's a big, big puzzle piece to all of this. And then meeting like-minded colleagues who also became friends like Camilla. That's another big piece of this. Doherty : Yeah, eco friends, as we say. Tecuta : Eco friends, yeah, to take a turn from your past podcast. So yeah, that's my journey in all of this. Gamba : Yeah, so my journey is not too different from Lucia. I was born in Milan. My dad's Italian. I lived here until I was eight. Back then, now still to some degree, but back then there was a lot of cement and a lot of air pollution. And then, we moved to California where my mom is originally from. It was a much healthier style there I'd say, where we were growing up in Davis, California. I moved back to Italy when I was 18 and kind of like Lucia was saying, in my time in school in California, I had a lot of awareness of ecology, ecological crisis, and starting to be aware of climate change. So, to some degree, I feel like I've always had climate anxiety without knowing what it was. And then, I like the term used Lucia, the idea that it was dormant for a while. And then in 2021, it was in the middle of the California wildfires and COVID. And I went back visiting from Italy and had what I can call now an eco-awakening. Back then, it just felt like something really disturbing was happening. And so, I did what you do, which is you Google your symptoms and somehow came across the term eco-anxiety and came across your website Thomas or maybe some of the videos you had on YouTube and I found it really interesting. I signed up for the course and, like Lucia was saying, a lot of the puzzle pieces started coming together and then something interesting happened, again the synchronicity, Lucia and I are in this WhatsApp group of English-speaking therapists in Italy. It's an informal group. Then, I think one day Lucia posted something about research on climate anxiety. And I just jumped in there and said, hey you also know about this very niche thing in Italy, because at the time, it felt like I knew very few people who were talking about this. And then we just kind of rolled with it. We took the course with Thomas; we started translating a few things that we thought would be useful. We translated the Climate Psychology Alliance handbook into Italian as well as the climate emotion wheel, we thought that was a really cool tool. So, that's kind of how we got started. And Thomas definitely also gave us the courage to say, just get in there and do the work, even if you don't feel like you know it all. You don't have to know it all to start doing this work, so here we are. Pihkala : Thanks for sharing all that. That's very interesting and wonderful to hear. There are similarities in people's journeys and then all kinds of nuances and differences. So that's always very interesting to hear. And we'd love to talk a bit more about the actual work you are doing around climate psychology and environmental psychology in Italy. But perhaps we could start by asking you something about the Italian relationships to the modern human world and perhaps especially if that has an impact on how people see issues related to climate change and environmental change. I know this is a very big question and there's a lot of variation inside each country, but it would be interesting to hear some of your observations on that. Gamba : Sure. I think one of the first things to say is that Italy is a very varied country, meaning each region has its own very specific history, its own language, now they call them dialects, and its own culture. So, I think it depends on where you go and also thinking about the specific history in relation to the land, how the land has been used over time, who's been occupying and using the land and who hasn't is very different from region to region. A lot of Italy is very densely populated and a lot of the territory, if it's not urban, it's most likely agriculture. So maybe that's one piece around the relationship to nature. And then we have the Alps and the mountains, which are maybe one of the few places that people can go to and do go to if they want to feel that they can get away and commune with nature. We're sharing with Lucia, thinking about how we can represent Italians' relationship to nature? It's a tricky one because it's been very built up. The coasts, for example, cater to a certain type of tourism. I feel like there's very little nature left there. There's a lot of cement, a lot of places that cater to tourists who maybe want to go and listen to music and dance and be on the beach with their aperitivo. The same is happening more and more to the mountains, ski resorts. So, there is some tension around that. Tecuta : Yeah, there's been a lot of, I guess what you could call illegal construction or development in a lot of natural areas. For example, a lot of the coast is privatized with what I guess is called beach clubs. So, I guess the relationship with nature, I don't want to use words that are too strong, is not particularly respectful in that sense. A lot of destruction. Gamba : It feels like nature's been sacrificed to cater to economic wants. Tecuta : Right, economic growth and tourism, like Camilla was saying, that's definitely a big, big issue. So, it's very difficult. I imagine for whoever's involved in conservation efforts and things like that. And Italy went through quite a dramatic economic boom, I guess in the 60s. I think after World War II, there's definitely a lot of poverty and hardship, a lot of migration from the South to the North, from Southern agricultural areas to the Northern cities that promised more work opportunities. So, it's dramatically changed probably in the last 70, 80 years or so. And I feel like in the Italian collective unconscious, this idea of an association between being in the city, and probably this is common in a lot of cultures and countries, but moving to the city or living in a city is associated with having made it somehow, right? Having left, sort of poor conditions and hardships. So, it's hard to find outside of specific environments, for example mountain areas, an appreciation and a respect for nature. Gamba : Yeah, it's also really hard to find in Italy. Coming from California where we have big wilderness spaces, it's really hard in Italy to find large, intact, healthy ecosystems. In Italian, we don't even have a word for wilderness, which I always thought was really interesting. But having said this about certain types of tourism, there are a few trends that I think are interesting. One is hiking and people really wanting to enjoy the mountains for what they are. In Italy we have the CAI, it's the Club Alpino Italiano. It's a really large non-profit organization which is in charge of what the US Forest Service does. So, they make sure that the trails are kept nicely and they do a lot of trainings and things like that. They have a fantastic rescue service, which I recently had the opportunity to test. I broke my ankle hiking, and I got a really good rescue operation taking place. So, shout out to the CAI volunteers or all volunteers. And then another interesting trend is what we call here agriturismo. So, tourism that goes to agricultural places is one of the ways to reconnect with nature. They might be going to farmhouses or places where they're enjoying both the place and the environment, but also the food. Because of course, food is a big part of the culture here. Tecuta : Yeah, there is definitely a movement for slow food, organic farming. And it's interesting, there's also a very niche trend of younger people. Most of them sort of migrate from the south to the northern cities to go to university or whatever, but then being frustrated and sort of disillusioned by the economic crises and the recessions and not finding jobs easily. Some of them are actually moving back south, back to more natural settings and even opening up their own small farms and going back to those kinds of roots. So that's another interesting trend, sort of trying to take care also of whatever nature is left. And then there's also another interesting movement now that I think about which is confiscated lands from the mafia. There are several associations that take those lands and of course they try to clean them up or try to give them back to the people and turn them into something socially useful. And you can even buy some products in some supermarkets that use whatever grains or raw materials to make pasta, coffee, or whatever it is. And so, when you buy that product, you're buying something that's from the confiscated mafia lands. And you're giving money to these really great initiatives. So, there's little niche movements here and there that kind of give you hope that some good is happening. Pihkala : Yeah, that's very interesting and for many listeners depending on where you come from. It's fascinating to think about these geographical and ecological factors. In Europe, we have places like the Netherlands, where there's even more management of nature, more than the human world. Then in Italy, there's more than in Finland, partly because there's been more population and older human history, so there's been more time to spread. I have to mention a very interesting historical novel by Mika Waltari, the greatest historical novel writer of Finland in 20th century, which is about the time of the Etruscans and that transition time where there were still animistic beliefs in Italy among the old tribes, but slowly the Roman Empire was building up and the changes were happening. Anyway, that's slightly an anecdote. But Lucia, you went in the direction of counter movements. And I would guess that if there's a strong utilitarian hegemonic attitude, there might also be more ecological counter movements. And I met some interesting young people, shout to Lorenzo also here. So, would you like to say a bit about those? Tecuta : Sure, I think Camilla's more familiar with the work that Lorenzo does, if you wanted to talk about that. Gamba : Yeah, I'm trying to think of what Lorenzo's doing, but also the network. I think that's also really interesting. I think the counter movement also involves a lot of just people pooling resources together in a very informal way. And so maybe some people like Lorenzo are bringing in a lot of eco-somatic work. There are different people doing different pieces, the psyche and the local lands and the community and the body. They’re putting all these different pieces together. That’s kind of what's coming to mind, maybe like this web that different people are weaving. And yes, Lorenzo is part of the web and Lucia and everybody doing a little piece and creating altogether in this counter movement. Nobody has the manual of how to do it. And I think we're all just trying something different and doing it together and seeing what works. There is definitely a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of interest. Maybe we don't know exactly where we're all going with this, but it's kind of fun to watch it evolve and emerge. I don't know, Lucia, if you have a similar view of all this. Tecuta : Yeah, I mean there's growing interest and curiosity in people that work in more mainstream settings. Like we've been contacted by journalists recently to talk about climate psychology and nature connection. We're trying to propose workshops and collaborate with them. For example, there’s the Earth Festival that's coming up in Turin in November that we're thinking of offering a workshop at and yeah, it's definitely a work in process. Gamba : Yeah, it's sort of a new thing to be a psychologist and to be talking about nature more than the human world and climate change. I think one of the things we've been finding is the more we are getting to know people, the more people are getting to know about the work, then we're starting to get interest. And so, then it's about planning and writing project proposals and getting funding. Lucia and I are just about to finish recording an eight-hour climate anxiety eco-psychology course that's going to be available for therapists as part of their continuing education credit. So, there are lots of things emerging. Doherty : Yeah, this is really wonderful. This is what we hoped to do today. We also talked to Matteo Innocenti recently and we'll have an episode. He's a psychiatrist in Italy that you both know. And of course, he's working on disasters and the flooding. That's another whole theme we could get into, which we don't have to get into details. I think the general theme that I'm hearing over all of this episode, and listeners, you can think about this, is just the idea of translation as a theme. Like we're translating these ideas. Both Lucia and Camilla have this international cosmopolitan life where they know American culture and Italian culture. So, they're translating and there's a really fruitful translation. Well, obviously many people in America idolize Italy and the land and the connection with family and the whole culture. And of course, there's this idea of rewilding and being in nature and wilderness and these kinds of values for the US. So, there's this cross theme, which is beautiful. There are so many more connections, we can't forget Pope Francis and his work as being one of the most potentially one of the most influential environmentalists of our era and I know the Catholic Church is also huge and diverse as well, but still we have these voices. We’ve got the pilgrimage tracks in Italy and the religious culture and its working land and nature. It’s just that depth of modern human history that literally you can excavate ruins. So, it is beautiful. So, I feel like you both are so well positioned because the pressures of climate change are going to make people more aware of their connections with nature. Years and years ago, Theodore Roszak was talking about eco-psychology, and he wanted people's connection with nature to be a celebration and something they love, not just a way called a grim duty to say the planet. So, I feel like there's this synergy between, I don't know what the word in Italian is, like joie de vivre or life philosophy, which is very nature based and the pressures of climate change and how to preserve. I think preservation of some of these treasured ways is also going to have to be a thing. Even with the Olympics and potential for snow in the Alps. So, you're just really well positioned to do whatever you can. You know, just do your part and then help new people. Gamba : Yeah, the theme of translation is here, but another image that comes to mind is pollinators. You know, taking something good from here and bringing it over there and then making your eco-friends along the way. And so having that be a fun journey. Tecuta : Yeah, definitely. And trying to also mesh different values. Because if we're talking about, I can't generalize to all Italians, the sort of long history of seeing nature as something tied to hardship and to work and trying to bring in seeing nature as something that is inherently valuable can be difficult to do sometimes, but really, really important. Especially in the context of everything that's happening, Olympics included. And not forget that or get carried away with just destroying what you need to destroy to make room for new stuff. That's definitely a theme for me. Pihkala : What are some of the things, Lucia and Camilla, that you are passionate about when you think about the next couple of years and your sort of vocation on this planet? Gamba : I think the whole theme of climate change is really important and I've been trying to get up to speed with being knowledgeable about what's happening and that's really important, but I do feel so much more joy when it comes to fostering nature connection and being in nature. I’m starting to do walk and talk therapy and trying to shift the setting of my work to more natural spaces. And what's really fun about this, going back to the eco-friends, is we've got a group of therapists who are wanting to do that together. So, the peer supervision thing to have that spread in Italy and to maybe get our professional boards on board with this to help us out with guidelines and insurance and all of that. That's something that I'm feeling really excited about. Tecuta : Yeah, I think the same here. I'm working mostly as a researcher right now, but what I'd really like to do is spend way more time and dedicate more time to, besides the trainings that we're doing for colleagues and psychotherapists, working education or higher training or whatever is working more in the community. So even doing more workshops, like the ones that we've just started doing together to use nature connection, but I kind of want to say as a leverage that you should care about climate change as well. And sort of using that as Thomas was saying, use the joy to get people on board on what's happening, which is pretty dramatic here in Italy. The changes are quite drastic already and we’re seeing a lot of it. So, I would love to find a way of putting the two together and offering something that does spark change and hopefully get bigger players on board because you need the funding to do this kind of thing. So, that's definitely the direction where I'm headed hopefully. Doherty : Yeah, this is great. As always, we could go on. We say every episode we could do another half an hour because there's so much to talk about. But listeners, I think this scratched the surface of the broad cultural trends in Italy and things that are going on. And we'll have some links to things that people might want to look at in our show notes. Camilla and Lucia, you can let us know about your training and various things. Maybe in that joy theme, and Panu and I are both really into language and this idea, what could listeners around the world take away as a word or a concept from Italian culture? You don't have to have the perfect one, but what are some things that come up about words or phrases or concepts that evoke this connection with nature, beauty, family, and the earth. Gamba : So, the first thing just popped into my head, so I won't think too hard about whether it's a good answer or not. It's the “irimedi della Nonna.” It's a big thing. So grandmother's remedies. So that's usually the first go-to thing. If you have an upset stomach or a runny nose or a headache or cramps or whatever, then you're going to go to “irimedi della Nonna,” which is bound to be nature-based. Tecuta : Yeah, that's a good one. Doherty : Yeah, that's beautiful. We'll get the proper spelling of that. Make sure we get it in there. Tecuta : I actually thought of another one which is so typically Italian, the one that everyone knows, but I don't know if it's right for this context, but the one that came to mind is “il dolce farniente,” which is like the sweetness of doing nothing. And I like it in the context of climate change and everything that's happening to our political and economic system as a way that's subversive. You don't have to consume, you don't have to produce, you could just be. I think it ties really well with enjoying nature. Because in nature, it doesn't ask anything of you, right? Which I think is something that's so great that you get from nature connection. You're not there as a consumer, as a worker, as a part of this machine like the system that we live in. Gamba : Yeah, and there is a sweetness to that, right. Il dolce, the sweet, farniente, doing nothing. Tecuta : Yeah, enjoying just being because that's so important to recharge to be able to stay in the movement for the long run if we're thinking about climate change related work. Doherty : It's perfect. In the U.S., we have this idea of rest is resistance and then the nap ministry, which is a radical claiming of an African American culture of claiming the ability to rest. So, there's a radical side to it. I think my stereotype of Italy is that you might rush a little bit in the city, but people don't rush. That's not a cool thing to do. You want to be elegant and move slowly and savor life and so I think that's a piece. I also think that joy of being in the sun or being in nature and just this the fruit of and sweetness of life is a multicultural ideal and it is something that gets threatened and taken away. So, it's something we have to protect and teach people to do and teach our children to do. Gamba : Yeah, and Italians are really good about enjoying the food and they want it to be from good ingredients. Mindful eating is partly embedded in Italian culture and just being aware of the ingredients and where they're coming from. Doherty : Yeah. So, breaking down some of these artificial barriers between wilderness and nature and being the right environmentalist and all this kind of stuff. This has been great. We're going to stay in connection because we're all working on shared projects. And I have been to Italy years ago, when I was younger, but I look forward to getting back again. Gamba : Yeah, it would be great to meet you in person. Tecuta : Yeah, let us know. Doherty : Yeah. Well, Panu, what's the rest of your evening like here? Pihkala : Thank you very much, Lucia and Camilla. It's been wonderful discussing these things with you. I really loved the words. I think I'm going to practice some blessed undoing for the evening. Tecuta : Good idea. Doherty : And where are you both going today for the rest of your evenings? Gamba : Just relaxing at home. We've been working hard, Lucia and I, so I think a good rest is resistance maybe. Tecuta : Yeah, exactly. I could rest relatively because I have an almost four-year-old coming back from school soon. So, I'll try to come up with some restful games to play with him. Doherty : All right. Well, this has been beautiful. Gamba : Thank you so much. Tecuta : Thank you for the opportunity to chat. Doherty : Listeners, I hope you enjoyed our little international cosmopolitan translating conversation today. Listeners and all of you, be well. Take care. Pihkala : Take care. [music: “CC&H theme music”] The Climate Change and Happiness Podcast is a self-funded volunteer effort. Please support us so we can keep bringing you messages of coping and thriving. See the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com .…

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Season 4, Episode 21: Climate Psychology in Italy with Matteo Innocenti 34:01

il y a 14 weeks34:01

34:01

The Climate Change and Happiness podcast is focusing on our colleagues in Italy this season. In this episode, Thomas and Panu spoke with Milan psychiatrist Matteo Innocenti to discuss the growing awareness of climate psychology in the country. Matteo described his personal journey inspired by witnessing the effects of pollution in South Asia and how the COVID-era loss of his grandfather—a key environmental role model —inspired Matteo to devote his research to nature and issues like climate anxiety.…

Climate Change and Happiness

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Season 4, Episode 20: Changing Summers and Winters: Moods, Music & Family 31:23

il y a 17 weeks31:23

31:23

image credit | asaf With the coming of spring in the northern hemisphere, Thomas and Panu looked ahead to the summer and reflected on how we can no longer take for granted (or trust) that the seasons will be as they were before. What may have been a benign and clement season may now bring unexpected and uncomfortable weather – and even extreme or dangerous conditions. This profound change affects our mood, identity, families, and life plans. They referenced their own experiences and examples from art and literature. Join us and prepare for your own new season. Links Zadie Smith: Elegy for a country’s seasons Poem by SZ Chao: “ Not all warmth consoles ” Soft Loft Summer Sadness Lana Del Ray Summer Sadness John Cox Weather For Dummies US NOAA / National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center Long Range Forecasts Australia 2025 Summer Forecast Transcript Transcript edited for clarity and brevity. [music: “CC&H theme music”] Introduction voice : Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala. Thomas Doherty : Well hello, I’m Thomas Doherty. Panu Pihkala : And I am Panu Pihkala. Doherty : Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness, this is our podcast. It’s a show for people around the world who are thinking and feeling deeply about climate change and global warming and the environment and our lives and our wellbeing and our happiness to the provocative question of what it means to be happy in the modern world. And this is one of the Thomas and Panu dialogues. We haven't had a chance to just talk amongst ourselves for a little bit and catch up on the world. We have a bit of a theme because we're looking ahead to the summer in the northern hemisphere so that's sort of our theme or coping with seasonal changes and hopefully being able to roll with all the changes in our world. So that's our theme for today. Panu, what's the latest from Finland? How are things going over there? What have you been up to? Pihkala : Thanks for asking and spring has finally arrived in Finland. Well, it's been sort of back and forth and global warming makes it more random. So, already in March there were some really nice days, but then we had a period of really cold, nasty wind from the north type of days, and we had some spring flowers covered in snow, which makes for a kind of nice aesthetic effect, the whiteness of the snow combined with the colors of the flowers, but it's not very good for the flowers themselves. But now it is warm, young people are going out on the streets of Helsinki, lots of students there. Easter is coming and on one hand, there's lots of good spring full energy around and then on the other hand, Finns are of course worried about the global, political, economic, and environmental situation as so many people are around the world. So, it's a mix of things as usual. Doherty : Hmm, so we have the seasons that we know really well, like spring, I could talk about that here. It’s high spring here where I live in Portland. The daffodils bloomed a while ago, the trilliums have already peaked, the wildflowers, at least at the low elevation, and the higher elevation wildflowers are going to be coming in the next couple of months and literally the air is perfumed by blossoms. There's a bush in my neighbor's yard that smells nice, and I could smell it when I walk outside. And so, such a gentle, nice season, the spring. But yes, well, I'll share an anecdote and then we can get into it, but I actually got a chance to see the Portland Symphony yesterday. I've been trying to educate myself on classical music and they have a nature theme this season. And so, they had Beethoven's sixth symphony, Pastoral, which is a famous symphony that people in the know would know about. They also did Vaughan Williams, The Lark Ascending, which is another famous piece, an incredibly beautiful violin piece. The Pastoral Symphony was done around 1803. Like a lot of the symphonies, it's a programmatic symphony. It's about walking in meadows, and it tells a story of being in the Austrian meadows and mountains. But it's very formulaic in the sense that there is going to be a spring and it's going to happen this way and if you go to the mountains, you're going to find all this stuff. There's a sense of eternity about it, that this is it. I think that's part of the gist of this conundrum with the seasons that they still exist, but they're not as secure as they used to be. We can't trust that they're kind of eternal like the seasons of our grandparents. We literally can’t go back to the seasons of our grandparents. So, I think that's the rub of it. Pihkala : Yeah, thanks for voicing that and I’m strongly resonating with that. In some earlier episodes of this podcast, we have touched upon the impacts of seasons on people, and I've shared that I have some symptoms of the seasonal affective disorder type, which for me the worst time is from November to February. So, I had to take some methods to cope with that. On a fundamental psychological level, I think that this continuation and alteration of seasons has been hugely important for people and a big source of safety, as you say, Thomas, and one might even speak about sort of ontological safety or security. I’m using a bit of a technical word but meaning that it's intimately tied with structures of the world. And there's some psychologists like Robert Jay Lifton, who we also have mentioned several times, who have observed the disturbing impacts of seasonal change or the randomness of it on people. And that seems to be affecting more and more people around the world. And on my desk at work is an article about various kinds of texts and eco-emotions. So, it's with literature scholars, that's one of my cooperation fronts so to speak, and it's quite interesting to observe what various writers, authors, and poets have written about this change of the seasons over the years. Doherty : Yeah, there's a lot of directions to go, but we think about mood and music and then there's family, right? Because I think we were talking earlier, we all have our plans. I mean, people in the northern hemisphere often make plans for the summer season if they're going to try to take a break or a vacation or do something with their friends or their family or go outdoors. I have a wedding. My sister-in-law, Jessica, is getting married on the solstice, June 21st, in New England in Massachusetts in the US. So, people commit to things. They commit to travel or vacations or even really treasured things they've been planning for years. In the ‘old days’ you could just plan for the season. When I taught my wilderness therapy class at Lewis and Clark, we did a week camping in the graduate program. I always did it the second or third week of August in Oregon because it's statistically the driest time of the year. So, when you would go camping in the woods, it would generally not rain, and you know it's going to be nice. But now, I wouldn't do that because by that time in the season you could really have wildfire smoke. So that's changed. So, if I was going to plan that again, you'd want to plan it earlier in the season. I'm sure there's a listener out there that has a wedding this summer because people will get married in the summer. I'm sure there's someone who's planned a wedding and they're fretting about how the weather's going to be. And that's hard, but you can't just say okay I'm planning a solstice wedding, so I know the day is going to be long and it's going to be nice. I mean, hopefully it will be, but it could be hot and there could be wildfire smoke. We don't know. Pihkala : Yeah, that's definitely the state of things now and it's impacting my inter-European travels because it may be so hot in Central Europe or Mediterranean Europe that for a Nordic person it's sort of too much. It's too much for some people who are living there and of course this theme of changing seasons is almost a matter of life or death for some people. For example, who get their living from agriculture or are living in areas where global warming is already causing very severe effects that the heat can be unbearable. So, I’m just wanting to name that. Most of our listeners probably are not living in such dire contexts, but if somebody from there is listening, I just want to say that we feel you. Doherty : Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. That's also the gist of it too. There's social justice issues and environmental justice issues. There's the book, Tales of Two Planets, about stories of climate change in a divided world that I was looking at recently and edited by John Freeman, who's a famous literary person. There are two worlds. So, we have the people that are planning their wedding and they're catering for what hors d'oeuvres and snacks they're going to have at their wedding and then there are people that are afraid that their house might burn down or that they have to move and carry everything on their backs, as refugees. There’s a variety of people that listen to this podcast so we want to lean into the positive stuff that we can appreciate and know, but also recognize there's all these other unknown lives out there as well. Pihkala : Yeah, exactly. And one of the texts I was reminded of when doing research for this article about eco-emotions and literature studies was by Zadie Smith, the famous writer who did an essay in 2014 called Elegy for a Country's Seasons. The ingress text is that it’s hard to keep apocalypse consistently in mind, especially if you want to get out of the bed in the morning. So that sort of resonates with quite a number of episodes we've been doing in this podcast. But Zadie Smith is also writing that every country has its own version of this local sadness related to changes in seasons. We'll put a link to that in the show notes and this genre of elegy. It goes close to lament, but it's related to sadness, and also related to beauty in a sort of deep way, and often to moral outrage. So, it's quite an interesting genre, I think. How would you pronounce it in English, by the way? Doherty : Elegy, yeah. We'll put a link to that. It's a really beautiful essay that uses some dark humor and also talks about how the recent immigrants to the UK see it as this climate changed place with hot weather and flooding. Whereas the old school still has the Charles Dickens white Christmas memories when the river Thames would freeze over which doesn't happen anymore. It's ironic. I got a chance to go visit London with my daughter a couple summers ago and I got to take her there for the first time. I was speaking at a conference, and it was the hottest day in history when we were there. We were at the British Museum in London, and they had to close the museum down because it was too hot, and the air conditioning wasn't working. And actually, the second day after that was the hottest day. And we were at Stonehenge, seeing this incredible Neolithic site, which I thought about my whole life, and it was also the hottest day in history there. So that's what happens. And we survived it, and it was purely just a discomfort thing for us, not a survival thing per se. But it is ironic and for my daughter, who's 17, that is normal life, and it is so strange. If you're over 20, especially if you're over 30 or 40, it really is a different world. So that's wild. Pihkala : Yeah, the sort of baseline assumptions of what the world and the weather and climate are like are different. And I think we've sometimes named in this podcast the technical term of ‘shifting baselines.’ Somebody has used ‘shifting baseline syndrome’ even to refer to what people tend to regard as a sort of normal environment and conditions, those ones which were prevailing when they were children themselves. And that means that it's difficult for members of different generations to really get a grip of how things were or are in the experienced world. So that's also a challenge for environmental education. And one of the things I'm doing right now is teaching this course on eco-emotions that I have designed and led at the University of Helsinki. It's online and I've recorded most of the lectures last year. So, it's mostly going through the students' essays and grading them. It's very interesting to read the reflections and, without revealing anyone's identity, I can say that there's some people who actually fear the summer. Exactly because they fear that it may be too hot and then if there's a lot of wildfires around, they feel global empathy and then they feel distress because of the news and knowledge about what's going on in the world and how other people and other animals suffer. So that's a thing happening in Finland also. When thinking about this, I was reminded of one of the poems in this 2020 poetry competition on the Climate Crisis and You by SZ Shao. The title is “Not All Warmth Consoles.” To fear the summer, the sweetness of fruit in decay is one line or a couple of lines from the poem. We'll put a link to that. So, some people are testifying to these kinds of emotions. Doherty : Yeah, exactly. For listeners, you can take all this in. And this also applies to people in the Southern Hemisphere. I know Australia is on track to have the warmest winter in history. And the snowfall that they do have is likely to be less. I haven't looked at New Zealand, but I assume New Zealand is going to have a similar forecast. So, people who look forward to snow and skiing and the snowpack for the climate, will also change. So, it goes both ways. But listeners can think about all the different emotional parts of this, the practical parts of it, and the poetic parts of it. And then what to do… What do you think, Panu? How do you cope with this? Do you have any things you tell yourself? You have children and try to plan the summer as well and you have your life. How do you handle it in your family? Pihkala : Yeah, well, there's plenty of dimensions to that issue and generally one way to cope is to write about it. So, I think that’s the poet who wrote “Not All Warmth Consoles.” Probably not the whole intention was related to coping, but that's part of it. Expressing some deep emotions and existential questions and thoughts. By doing that in public, it may also help others. And of course, it's a complex dynamic and it would be good for people to engage with arts that are sort of suitable for their situation. What I mean is that I think it's important that we have arts with various moods in relation to the ecological crisis. It would be good not to have just dystopian, catastrophic themed arts, or not just optimistic, how are we going to solve these issues type of arts, but a wide range of artworks. Then people can engage with various kinds of art. In my own family, the boys are now nine years and eleven years old, so they are growing up and thinking about things. The older one is a keen reader of newspapers. The Helsinki Times, Helsingin Sanomat has a kid’s newspaper which is a weekly paper. So that's been a nice one in sort of leading them into a culture of reading the news. And of course, I also try to recommend that he not read the news just before he goes to bed. It’s something that he often likes to do. By all estimations, he is not seriously distressed, but of course he is sort of worried and quite pessimistic about the planet's future. So, it's an interesting situation where I'm sort of keeping an eye and other senses open on what's actually in his body and mind and how he is feeling and coping. But so far, it seems that he's been able to hold that information but also enjoy life and function in the world at the same time. That I think goes to some of the quite deep dynamics of the matter. Doherty : Yeah, that's an important point with children. So, it could go either way with children. Some children are naturally, I was going to say naive, but they don't think about these things. They're just looking forward to the summer and they're not overly thinking about the weather. But then some kids could really get into researching or even anxiety or catastrophizing or start researching disasters and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, as a parent, getting ahead of it yourself and like with all parent climate coping things, you've got to have your own house in order in terms of your own mood and how you're thinking about it. Moving toward it versus avoiding it, I guess. Pihkala : Yeah, and I was about to ask, I know that you have been working hard in finishing the forthcoming book and I hear that the title is actually in the final form and will also be related to climate anxiety. What kind of advice about coping are you giving in the book? Would you like to share some of that? Doherty : Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, S urviving Climate Anxiety: A Guide to Coping, Healing, and Thriving is going to come out this fall. And it's already on pre-order on Amazon. The first part of the book is about coping. There's a chapter on how to think, a chapter on how to feel, a chapter on your body, essentially, how to de-stress, and then the fourth chapter is how to adapt. I have the reader go through what I call their own IPCC report or their individual problems with climate change report, which is essentially kind of what we're talking about. It's like, what does your individual climate report look like? So where do you live, and what is the typical weather there, and how is it changing, and what are the dangers for you. It is literally like making your own climate report because you have to think about the history and what do we know and then what's going to change and how much can we predict based on what we already know, which we know a lot and where are my risk factors. So, it really works for anyone in any social class or any place because for some people, it’s worrying about their vacation property somewhere that's going to fall into the ocean because they're wealthy. The other person is worrying about whether their crop or their garden or their farm or orchard or their grape vineyard will survive. So, it's really looking at weather dangers where you live in storms or wildfires or smoke. But it's amazing when you actually lay it out, logically people can do it. You know, it's not that hard. The reason it's sequenced that way is because first of all, how are you thinking about this? Let’s get on top of your thoughts. Are you catastrophizing? Are you looking at both sides? Are you looking at the positive and negative? And then, what are your feelings? How do you feel? So that's all that writing. And then your body, of course. If you're freaked out and have a stress reaction and a fight or flight response, then you're not going to do well. But once you calm your body down, then suddenly you can have this logical inner dialogue about what are my risks. And then suddenly you're coping, you're adapting. It is possible to do. It's just that everything's happening so quickly and everybody's so overwhelmed that they're having a stress response and they don't know what they're feeling, and their thoughts are jumbled. And then, it's very difficult and it leads to this doomism kind of scenario. Does that make sense? Pihkala : Yeah, it perfectly does. Thanks for sharing a bit about what's coming up there. In my work with the process model, for example, there's discussion of many linked dynamics and this reality that there's going to be different phases and stages and sometimes growth in coping skills. Then, there may be more difficult periods, but it all adds up. So, everything that we can learn in relation to how to think and feel as you say and how to cope. I would sort of offer that as a word of encouragement if there's somebody listening who feels a bit desperate about coping. So especially with the help of others, it's likely possible to grow in skills. Doherty : Yeah, for sure. In terms of coping, there's a book called Weather for Dummies , which in the US, we have this series of books ‘for dummies’ that simplify topics by John Cox. It is really good. I know Bill Gates always recommends it in his reading lists and it is helpful to read that. Then, you could look at the US Climate Prediction Center from the government. Everything is in danger in the United States because of the great crisis in our central government. But we do traditionally have really good materials for climate prediction here in the U.S. All of that has unfortunately been politicized and a lot of it is being censored. But there is information that we can find so we can plan. So, there is no reason not to have a sense of what your season is going to be. And it's fairly clear that wetter places are going to be wetter, drier places are going to be drier, fiery places are going to be more fiery, stormy places are going to be more stormy. That's the gist of it. So, I think people can get ahead of this a little bit. Then there's all the music and the art. In my climate playlist for the book, I have a song called “Summer Sadness” by this band Soft Loft. And it's simply exactly what that is about feeling sad in the summer and trying to sort out things. The singer Lana Del Rey has another song called “Summertime Sadness” as well. So, there's a whole genre of songs that flirt with this idea of being sad in the summer for various reasons. And then there is summer seasonal affective disorder, a true psychological issue. The flip side of winter seasonal affective disorder where people get really irritable, they can't sleep. So, it's more an activated kind of depression in the summer than it would be in a more lethargic winter depression. Pihkala : Yeah, when listening to you, Lana Del Rey's song started playing in my head, so that resonates. And listeners, there's a couple of episodes in the history of this podcast where we discussed these climate emotion playlists. And now, Thomas has some new playlist related to the book. So, I would recommend going back to those ones and music is also personally a major resource, both as listened to and as played. One thing we haven't revealed is that we actually got to play some music together when I was in Portland. There was the episode of us meeting in person and that was also nice, and I think something which is ancient and universal and hopefully that might happen more often again in Western industrialized societies - doing music together. Doherty : Yeah, exactly. I think the takeaway as we wrap up today is thinking ahead to your season and committing to be your best self and to have your eyes wide open to what you're getting to so you can adapt. The other term is climate adaptation. So, we have to learn to adapt and change our life to fit the changed world and part of climate adaptation is survival and it's really basic. The basic base of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We have to make sure we have food, shelter, clothing, but then there is self-actualization and living our lives and following through on our dreams. And life doesn't stop. So, it's all of that. And I think it is possible. Like anything else, the sooner we get thinking about it, the better in terms of getting ahead of things. Whether that be a vacation or a wedding or fixing your house up or your living situation or thinking about your job. I feel for people that are in really extreme situations with this, but all of us have our story. Well, let's wrap it up. This was really nice. I always get a lot out of these conversations. This is part of it, just talking about this with people especially those who care and understand. So, listeners, I hope you felt heard and witnessed out there. And yeah, keep us in mind at climatechangeandhappiness.com. Send us your thoughts or ideas. You can send a message to us on our website. And I wish everyone health, wealth, and safety here for the new season. Panu, what are you heading for the evening? Pihkala : Well, since it is a nice, warm spring evening, I'm probably going to spend some time outdoors and take a look at those spring flowers. How's the day ahead for you, Thomas? It's your morning. Doherty : Yeah, I've got to get some work done today. I've got to try to be productive today on my book project and on my psychology work and all this kind of stuff. But it is a really pleasant day as well. I also have to clean up my front porch, put my plants in better pots and do a lot of those seasonal spring things that are really pleasant. So, that's where I'm at today. Anyway, Panu, be well and listeners, be well. Everyone take care, keep in touch, and we'll talk to you next time. Bye bye. Pihkala : Take care. [music: “CC&H theme music”] The Climate Change and Happiness Podcast is a self-funded volunteer effort. Please support us so we can keep bringing you messages of coping and thriving. See the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com .…

Climate Change and Happiness

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Season 4, Episode 19: Living Sustainably: A View from Finland with Mette Hartonen and Niilo Syväoja 36:19

il y a 19 weeks36:19

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image credit | Mika Luoma What does it mean to be self-sufficient and to live sustainably? How should we balance our use of modern technology with traditional living skills? Panu and Thomas discussed these and other questions with guests Mette Hartonen and Niilo Syväoja, who shared their perspectives as young adults from Finland. The group discussed ways to translate the concept of a self-sufficiency community to different cultural contexts – similar terms and ideas can include that of an eco-village, intentional community, or off-grid community, and practices of voluntary simplicity, traditional skills, living off the land, and permaculture, etc. Join us for an inspiring discussion. Links Omavaraopisto School of Self-sufficiency European Ecovillage Network News Story: Mette, 21, lives independently and spends only 120 euros a month A Classic Self-Sufficiency Reference: John Seymour (first published in 1976) The Complete Book of Self Sufficiency Basics: 10 Important Traditional Skills 10 Off-Grid Communities You Should Consider Transcript Transcript edited for clarity and brevity. [music: “CC&H theme music”] Introduction voice : Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala. Thomas Doherty : Well hello, I’m Thomas Doherty. Panu Pihkala : And I am Panu Pihkala. Doherty : And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness, this is our podcast. This is a show for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about climate change and other environmental issues and their relationship with nature and the natural world and the earth and how they make their living, and how they move through their day. And through Panu’s connections in Finland, we're lucky to have two guests with us today. Mette : My name is Mette Hartonen, I'm 23 years old and I hope to live as sustainably as I can and teach those skills forward to others. Niilo : My name is Niilo Syväoja and I'm an actor and right now I want to act as an example and maybe a good elder for future generations. Doherty : Great. Mette and Niilo, thank you so much for joining us. And Panu, I'll let you get us started. Maybe you can share a little bit about your connections in Finland and we'll be off and running. Pihkala : Warmly welcome, Mette and Niilo. Very glad that you could make it. We've been meeting each other over the last years in various places. Niilo used to also work with youth workers and I think that's when we first met. I was advising a project which Niilo was organizing about climate change awareness for youth workers in cities and municipalities and things like that. And climate emotions were one part of that. Finland has a nice array of summer events. The sun hardly sets during summer, which gives good time for meetings. And with Mette, we've been meeting at this lovely arts and environment festival in Ärjänsaari, Ärjä Island, pretty far up to the north. That is also geographically pretty close to what is called Omavaraopisto, School of Self-Sufficiency. It has the original translation. We'll come back to some American ways of talking about similar issues like living off-grid and those kinds of things. You both have also, in Finnish media, talked about how increasing those skills of living self-sufficiently or sustainably or off-grid has brought feelings of efficacy and alleviated some eco-anxiety and distress. So, there's plenty of themes to talk about, but it would be lovely to hear a bit about your journeys towards this time and place where you are now. And if you want to talk about the ego or emotional dimensions of that journey, we would be most open for that also. So, whichever of you wants to start would be lovely to hear. Mette : Yeah, I can begin. So, for me it started in high school when I got the burnout. I had studied really high, aiming for Harvard to study. And I just realized then that I want to live completely differently. I started for the first time to think about what do I actually value in life? And I got a dream of a garden and a quiet, calm place in a forest where I could live in a simple way. And at that time, I also started for the first time to read about the environment and seeing that the food that I buy from the shop can be grown with child labor or in unethical and unenvironmentally friendly ways. So I wanted to know where my food comes from and also the energy I get. So then I felt a huge amount of eco-anxiety and also loneliness because I was living in northern Finland where I was the only vegan in the whole town and I was really longing for finding people who could share the same values and interests. So, slowly I started going towards the dream. I first went to the wilderness guide school in Lapland. It was really nice to learn the skills and also recognize plants and mushrooms and living really simply. We had long camps in the fjälls and long trips. And while I was there, I found the School of Self-Sufficiency which was located really close to my home in northern Karelia. And I got to the course there and I felt really relieved and happy to find a way to live aligned with my values and also find like-minded people for the first time in my life. That was basically the dream I had. There's a course for half a year. There are ten students and we learn how to grow food with our bodywork, so using only hand tools, growing most of our food, then making the firewood from the forest that we use for cooking and baking and also heating the houses. And then we learn different handicrafts and building ecologically with hand tools and also repairing the houses. So I really loved it and felt the relief of being able to live in a way that I knew my food was ethically produced. And it came really close. It was environmentally friendly and I could feel the meaning in my life. Yeah, do you want to continue? Pihkala : Warm thanks to Mette and before asking Niilo to tell more about his journey, let's just stop for a little while here because this is very inspiring and a great example of how dreams which may seem pretty distant at first may actually come true. It requires determination and perhaps intuition to follow them. These areas in Finland that Mette is talking about are heavily countryside areas and as she mentioned, being the only vegan in town, that still happens in that area and we can talk more about this School of Self-Sufficiency founded by Lasse Nordlund and Maria Dorff, so that's some old Finnish farms which are then used for these purposes. But Thomas, do you have anything on your mind before we give the floor to Niilo? Doherty : No, I think that was great. I would just echo Panu the idea of the dream. We talk about environmental identity here in our podcast, you know, we have a sense of our identity in relation to nature and the natural world that sometimes it's in a place of becoming. We have a seed of it in ourselves, but it hasn't been allowed to blossom because we're not in the right place. So I think we have a journey to find this sense of place and this sense of environmental identity and I think, Mette, that's a beautiful story of finding your tribe. And that's a very practical concern of people. Being a vegan, for example, and living in a family or a community where that's not common. That would be an issue that many people would understand in the United States as well. Niilo, why don't you say a little bit about your story. Niilo : Sure. So, like I said, I used to be a child actor and also as a young teenager, I was in films and TV here in Finland and I was seeing lots of interesting things in this industry. Then slowly, as a teenager, I started getting interested in activism, first human rights and then I heard this word permaculture, and this sustainable lifestyle movement and environmental movement came closer to my life. And I ended up going to this NGO working for youth, like Panu said in the introduction. There, I focused on environmental education projects and slowly I started to feel that I want to go even deeper, and I want my own lifestyle that I had in the city to change to be more rooted. I heard about this place called the School of Self-Sufficiency. It's the only school right now in Finland that gives this type of study. There's several in Sweden, for example, and in other places around the world, but I think in Finland, we are still starting. So, I went there and it was really something that I also had been hoping for, like what you talked about with finding your path and going towards your dreams. And really, I learned a lot there. Now, I think my ambition is to go further and we’re looking for a place to live in that lifestyle ourselves and also to promote this kind of way of living for a wider audience internationally, but especially here in Finland. I think there's a lot of potential and people who want to really start changing the world by starting to live themselves in a more healthy and holistic way, more connected to nature and themselves even. This is a short intro. Pihkala : Whereabouts are you two living at the moment, just for the listeners? Mette : We are right now in Sotkamo, where I am from, and so that's in northern Finland also. And we have been looking for a place and I have for a while worked as a journalist in the local magazine and written about environmental topics here. Pihkala : Might that region then be a place for that kind of place you are describing where that lifestyle could be practiced and promoted? Mette : Hopefully. Depends just where we find the place and where also people are around and yeah, we are pretty open for all of Finland Doherty : Yeah, this is great. We were talking earlier before we started recording how, at least here in the US, people are really focused on some really pressing disaster issues. As we're recording now here in early February of 2025, we've had some major disaster issues in the United States with the fires in Los Angeles. And there's different political upheavals and different reactionary political movements happening. It's easy to lose our focus and our connection with nature and the natural world and some of the basic things. So, it's nice to come back and put our feet back on the ground and I think, at least for Panu and I, perhaps some of the work that we're doing. So just to bring the listeners in, we have listeners in many countries and there's different terms and we can translate what Niilo and Mette are talking about into different ways. Niilo talked about permaculture, the idea of planting and setting up your living situation in rhythm with the cycles of nature. That is not a new idea. It's a universal idea that's talked about in many languages. Here in the US, we might have people that talk about being back to the land or living off the land or living off the grid or living a life of voluntary simplicity or using traditional living skills, either indigenous living skills, hunting gather skills or traditional handmade agriculture skills. We have intentional communities and ecovillages. So, this is a universal impulse, I think, and if we look at history, each generation and each time rediscovers this perennial idea for their own time. And we have our special unique time where we're living off the land and also talking on the internet across the globe in real time. So, it's just fascinating. I’m personally curious about this. We talk about managing news and technology and being on screens. How do you both balance and think about your use of technology, modern technologies like this communication we're doing with some of the traditional skills? How does that play out for you? Is that a struggle or do you feel like you find a way or are you still trying to figure it out? Mette : Yeah, it's a good question. I have been exploring it. When I was first living in the School of Self-Sufficiency, I was probably one year without any smartphone or any connection to the internet except maybe once a month answering some email. So, I only had this old phone. And I really liked it. Then the shock was when I heard half a year later that Finland had joined NATO. So, I was in a bubble there. It was working for a while. If the world was in perfect condition, the surroundings of the place where I'm living would support the way I'm living. It would be possible, and I would love it. I use very little of the devices, I only have that old phone and then I use some random laptop for checking email and doing something else if that's needed. I think we also need a system change besides my own personal life choices. So that's why I want to also use the technology. Some old devices that are being used and thinking really carefully about the way I'm using them. So yeah, for me the shock was when I saw the closest forest near the place I was living was being locked down in two and a half years when I was living there. I realized that we need to do something so that our culture is promoting the more sustainable way of living. Because we were collecting a lot of berries and mushrooms from those forests, and they were really important in every sense just to go to a forest. Pihkala : You mean that the forests were cut down? Mette : Yes. Doherty : How about you, Niilo? How do you manage the benefits and the shadow sides of technology? Niilo : Yeah, I've studied this topic with myself or trying to figure out my level of addiction to smartphones, for example. And right now, I'm in this situation. It's also a very privileged situation that I'm able to use my smartphone in a way that I put the screen on black and white and I removed even the browser and I use it mostly just for a regular phone and some internet bank account things or what is needed. But I really try to keep it somewhere out of my pocket and try to detach myself from this technological device, that is a high technological device. What we learned in the School of Self-Sufficiency was mostly doing things with low technology and that it's the most sustainable way to go about as a community also. And it was really nice actually having this social bubble where not many people have that much screen time in a day. Many people didn't have smartphones and it was really, really pleasurable to just talk with people who are in the room and not on some social media. So yeah, that's maybe one part of this path that many people choose instead of being on the virtual side of life that you also enjoy the connection with nature and other people that are living beings next to you. Pihkala : Yeah, and the School of Self-Sufficiency method has sort of revived interests into early 20th century farming methods and machinery, for example, because those machines don't require a lot of electricity. They are quite durable, and the community element is much present. It used to be in the Finnish countryside that for some things you had to do, you had to invite others. There usually wasn't enough labor in the farmhouse, unless you were really privileged and living in a manor, but that was a different thing, sort of a community aspect and helping each other out. So, in a way, this is a return to some of those dynamics. This could lead into discussions about back to land movements and also about decrease of purity. So, for example, should one cut him or herself off completely from modern technology and life. But, for most of the Finnish Omavarais self-sufficiency folks I've met, they haven't gone for that completely. As I hear you say that there's some aim to be as little dependent on that as possible, but also then living practically or pragmatically in the contemporary world where sometimes, contemporary healthcare is quite good to have and so on. I think also for the topic of eco-emotions, this idea of not aiming for moral purity is very important because otherwise people may get up into endless loops of guilt or trying to strive for perfection and we have talked about this with Thomas in several episodes in the history of the podcast, but Thomas what's on your mind when listening to this? Doherty : Oh, I'm enjoying the conversation. Yeah, many, many thoughts. I'm working on a book on coping with eco-anxiety and I've been thinking about a lot of these things and reading. I mean, what's old is new. If we had a time machine and we could go back to the 1840s in the US, we could bring Henry David Thoreau, who was talking about self-sufficiency at Walden Pond and growing his own food and building his own cabin and looking at society. And at that time, he was making fun of the telegraph because they had this newfangled telegraph machine that could tell you what was happening in Europe and people were scrambling to know what was going on in Europe. And he thought that was kind of silly. He says, why do you need the news? Why don't you focus on what was never old? So, it's like this idea we talk about how the news is outside your door. The news is your life. Your life is the news is what I tell clients when they're doing a news fast. Just open your door and walk outside. That's the news. That's the important news. The natural world and your family and people that are truly making change in the world aren't sitting watching the news. They're doing their life, you know? There's something very empowering and yeah, trying to be radical about it in the sense of standing up for your values, but not being so grim that you're judgmental on people and cultish about it is always a challenge. I'll just say, we've spoken to people in Nigeria, Jennifer Uchendu, and we've talked to folks doing different, similar voluntary simplicity lifestyles here in the US. So, listeners I think all of us have a strand in this and when we talk about it, it opens it up for us a little bit, this possibility. Pihkala : Thanks Thomas for that and that leads me to a question I wanted to ask you, Niilo and Mette, which is how did your close ones react to this path that you have chosen? I bet that there have probably been different reactions by different people close to you and perhaps changes over time. But I would be interested in hearing about some of that social dimension. I hear that you have got a lot of new meaningful relationships via the process, but how about it all? Mette : Well, my parents have always been really open. They just wanted me to be happy. So, I think that's a huge privilege and we have thought that maybe that's also a key thing that we have been able to make those radical choices or choices that seem radical in this society. Well, my grandpa, he wanted me to go to university. He still tells me to, but I can just understand him. Maybe some of my old friends found it difficult if they had no environmental interest at all. So then I feel a bit more distant towards them, but the closest ones have even been inspired. My grandma said that she would come to the school if she was even a bit younger because that's the childhood she has also lived, growing up in the countryside and growing food and living simply. Niilo : Yeah, like Mette said, we have been privileged to have parents that have supported all kinds of things that we've been aiming in life and taking this maybe not so traditional path has been possible because of that. It's very important, I think this is connected also to talking about this social media and these global, virtual communities that we have right now. Being connected to old friends and people who think differently or live different types of lifestyles. I think it's really important when you make your own life choices that you also keep people around you that also think differently and then you can learn and they can learn also. So, the point in the school also is not to create a bubble for any community that I would like to stay in, that you would just try to find very cultishly like-minded people, but really to have this kind of wide range of thoughts and ideas also about environmental topics or anything that you can think of in life. So, I'm also happy that I have friends who do very different things in life. I just called a friend of mine who is an airline pilot a few days ago and we have very interesting conversations about energy and society and all these kinds of topics. I think that's something that's very important that I feel grateful for also, thanks for reminding me about it. Doherty : Yeah, I think there's a possibility to be what I call a ‘climate cosmopolitan’ where you understand different subcultures and there are many people around the world who care about nature and the natural world and issues like climate change and they approach things differently. And I think the ideal is where you could be comfortable going to spend some time at the School of Self-Sufficiency and then maybe go find some scientists that are working on some interesting research and maybe go find some social activists that are working in the inner city and realize we're all part of a larger, diverse community but we all believe some of the basic things and being able to kind of speak many languages I guess you could say is one way to think about it. Pihkala : Yeah, thanks for sharing that and very good to hear about it. Niilo, you mentioned you have this history of acting and also via our conversations, I know something about your creative efforts for both of you. But I'd like to ask you what role do you think that creativity and art play in your life and work? Handicrafts were mentioned, so I'm talking about creativity here in a wide sense. But would you like to share something about that? Mette : Yeah, well, I think it's really important to be able to express myself in all ways. I think also in the School of Self-Sufficiency, I was able to think about more sustainable ways in doing that. Painting with coal or dancing and singing and what are immaterial things and also finding new ways in doing the work we have because the work is done with our bodies, so it is possible to, with good planning, use creativity and also create beautiful things to our surroundings. And I also see gardening as an art. It takes immersion skills to be able to grow forward. It can be so beautiful by creating a beautiful garden that's also giving us food that we actually need for living. So my path for looking for creativity is a big way on that also. Niilo : Yeah, I can continue because gardening is really artistic work. Especially now I just realized that in acting, for example, the timing is the most important thing. And when you think about gardening, it's also very important to know what to do and at what time. You start sensing things around you, like on a theater stage or in a film scene, you also sense things like other actors and objects and what's going on. In nature and in gardening you also have to see that okay is it raining today, or do I need to water today, or these kinds of things and you can take it into very fine levels that the founders of the school, Lasse and Maria, have done. So, it was very interesting to see their artistic process and just watch them doing things. Whether it's building a log house or just breathing and resting or doing whatever, it's a holistic art of being. When you try to live more sustainably, there's no breaks in between you. The whole lifestyle is an artwork, if you would like to see it that way Pihkala : That's profound and for the English speakers to know, in Finnish language there's a concept called käsityötäide, literally meaning handwork art or handicraft art. And I hear you testify also to that, but to many other things. Doherty : Yeah, things made by hand. Again, that's popular here where I live in Portland, Oregon. There's a lot of local artisans and craftspeople and what they call farm to table eating in restaurants where there's more direct connections between the city and the rural areas and the farming areas. So yeah, I do think that’s a universal human impulse. Every time there's an industrial revolution of some sort, there's a counter movement to bring back some of the things that we've lost. Sometimes to idealize old ways, but there's that practical thing, like you say, literally being with our bodies and our hands and our senses, we're kind of you rediscovering what it means to be human. From an evolutionary standpoint, our bodies are the same. Human bodies are the same as they were 200,000 years ago, exactly. It's the same, but our world around us has changed so much, but then oddly we have the ability to recreate almost every kind of human settlement if we want to. It's pretty fascinating. Pihkala : Yeah, also fascinating has been this conversation which we soon have to start wrapping up to stay in our usual roughly 30-minute limit. There's been a lot of things closely related to coping with difficult eco-emotions here, either implicit or explicit, having a connection to others and to the modern human world, so-called nature, feeling the joy or pride or contentment when you are participating in growing something or seeing it grow or repairing something and doing something. And that dimension of emotions about the modern human world is perhaps not so often talked about, but I think it's hugely important these feelings of contentment and joy and even healthy pride sometimes. It's inspiring what you share with us, Niilo and Mette, and for the listeners, we don't want to give a picture that it's always easy to start these kinds of things. We haven't discussed the challenges and hardships very much and it hasn't always been easy for the Finnish School of Self-Sufficiency either. Let's not go into that in detail now. We don't have time for that, but through determination and collaboration, people have persevered. We'll put links in the show notes. There's an English introduction to that school also and some of the things that Niilo and Mette want to share. Any thoughts that you would like to briefly share before we start wrapping up, Niilo and Mette? Mette : Yeah, I want to share the inspiration for learning. It was really a surprise to me that I could learn to grow food and most of my food and make firewood with an axe. And so, that's what I want to share. You can learn and there are people who are doing it. You can find them and then you can give yourself mercy in the learning that it takes time and you can listen to your pace and the possibilities and chances you have in life at each moment. Niilo : Well said and yeah, what Panu was also pointing to is that there's a need for healing and regeneration in this time and this very meaningful lifestyle that you can find that has this holistic way of approaching things and also honestly about, for example, the energy descent that is happening right now. We are not basing our current society on any wisdom that is actually based on any truths. It's a bubble that is going to burst. That's maybe a harsh fact and a deep topic in itself to talk about the peak oil and all that kind of stuff. But if you look into that, maybe we can put the Nate Hagens link in the description or something like that to go deeply into this topic. This time is a changing event in human history. We are really at a point where energy is not going to be cheap in the future anymore. So, we need to change our way of how we see energy and how we work and how we build our life completely in a new way. So healing and regeneration are a very integral part of this change. I hope that everyone has this ability to share this caring and loving attitude to your own self and also others around you. Thank you. Doherty : Well, that's also well said Niilo. And yes, the personal and the planetary are connected. So this is all good. This is such a great conversation. It brings me back to many positive things that I've done in my time that are similar to what you've been describing. So, listeners, I hope that this inspires you to follow these trends in your own life, wherever you happen to live, because this is a universal impulse at any place in the world. Listeners, thank you for your time. Panu, Niilo, Mette, I hope to meet you all sometime, possibly in person on the land. But as it was, it was really great to share this time with you all. Take care. Mette : Thank you. Niilo : Thank you both. And also, thanks Panu for inviting us and being a very strong person in the Finnish scene of climate emotions. It's also been very useful on my path. Pihkala : Thank you, Niilo. And thank you both for joining us. [music: “CC&H theme music”] The Climate Change and Happiness Podcast is a self-funded volunteer effort. Please support us so we can keep bringing you messages of coping and thriving. See the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com .…

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Season 4, Episode 18: Climate Psyched: A View from Sweden with Frida Hylander 34:50

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image credit | Mara Ket Thomas and Panu spoke with accomplished Swedish climate psychologist Frida Hylander. Frida shared her journey into climate psychology, the founding of Klimatpsychologerna, and the initiatives in Sweden to support individuals and communities dealing with climate anxiety. It was validating to see the parallels between climate and emotions initiatives in the US, Sweden and Finland and notably many of the barriers are the same, such as the challenge of being a student trying to find a program that combines the study of psychology, mental health therapy and climate issues. Links Frida Hylander : @fridahylander.bsky.social Climate Psyched Substack: Climate Psyched Swedish podcast Två Klimatpsykologer Möter (Two Climate Psychologists Meet) Transcript Transcript edited for clarity and brevity. [music: “CC&H theme music”] Introduction voice : Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala. Thomas Doherty : Well hello, I’m Thomas Doherty. Panu Pihkala : And I am Panu Pihkala. Doherty : Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness, this is our podcast. It’s a show for people around the world who are thinking and feeling deeply about climate change and other kinds of environmental issues and all the different things that are connected with that. We like to say, we're all climate, all the time, all emotions, all the time. So, this is a time to be present with how we're feeling. We look at this in a lot of different ways and sometimes get serious and intellectual about the research and the background and also how this plays out in our personal lives and in our families. This is an international podcast, Panu’s in Finland and I'm in the United States and we do have listeners in 35 countries around the world. So, we do try to keep it international here and today we are keeping it international and we're lucky to have a guest with us. Frida Hylander : Yes, hello. It’s lovely to be here. My name is Frida Hylander. I'm located in southern Sweden, Malmö. Yeah, very happy to be here. Doherty : And, Frida, I'll have to make sure that I do this pronunciation as well as I can. That's a beautiful name. Panu, I know you both know each other and have had some familiarity with your work there. You want to get us started? Pihkala : Warm welcome, Frida, also on my behalf. It’s lovely to meet you here. Finland and Sweden are neighbouring countries with a lot of common history. Luckily, the cooperation extends also to climate psychology and its various dimensions. So, we've met with Frida in that regard and Frida has been very active in the Swedish climate psychology scene. There's a very nice network of climate psychologists, Klimatpsychologerna, and we are going to talk about that more today, but there's also a newsletter in English called Climate Psyched that you have been writing and several of the fruits of your work are available also in English. Before we go into that in more detail, it would be lovely to hear a bit about your journey towards being so active with climate psychology. So, has that interest in the natural world been with you for a long time or how did it go? Hylander : Yeah, so I'm a licensed psychologist and it's a specialist psychologist in psychological treatment and psychotherapy. But, as I was studying to become a psychologist, I also started studying human ecology, which is sort of an interdisciplinary field that investigates human's interactions with the ecosystems. And as I was studying that, I was really emotionally hit by the magnitude of the climate crisis. I think that's when I first sort of understood, both intellectually and emotionally, like how bad things were. This was back in 2008, 2009. Things were, in one way, looking better than they are now. Anyway, I was studying human ecology and I was really, really struck by climate anxiety even though I didn't have a word for that back then. I sort of struggled with that. But it also got me to really think that this is what I want to do for work. And I was really frustrated with my psychology studies because they were so individualized. We talked so much about what's going on internally and with people's thoughts and emotions and everything and different psychiatric diagnoses and stuff like that. But we talked very little about the surrounding world and what the future holds. I was very frustrated with my human ecology studies because we talked so much about the ecosystems and political ecology and inequalities and environmental injustices and so on, but we didn't talk about how people behave, how do groups, what makes different groups change, and how our society is formed and so on. So, I think that my path to becoming a climate psychologist or a psychologist working with climate psychology came very much from that frustration. So after I was finished with all of the practicalities to become a licensed psychologist, I started to find my way into working with this, but there's nowhere you can apply in Sweden to get a job as a climate psychologist. So, it's been sort of interesting trying to create that path, which I've done on my own, but very much more together with my colleagues in The Climate Psychologists, Klimatpsychologerna, which is a network that I co-founded back in 2018. Yeah, so I'm here due to anxiety and frustration, I guess. Pihkala : That's a lovely testimony to the positive roots of negative emotions to use binary expressions. Thanks a lot for sharing that and that frustration with the individualistic tendencies in psychology. It’s something we have heard from many pioneering climate psychology folks in this podcast, including Ro Randall and Renée Lertzmann and others. Thomas, what's on your mind when listening to this Nordic story? Doherty : Well, I'm really appreciating it, Frida. I was going to ask you about your background and if you found it difficult to study and so you answered that question. I can very much identify with that story and it's a very common story. I've just been trying to write about this actually for this manuscript that I'm working on. One way to think about it, these are transdisciplinary issues. They're issues that fall in between the academic subjects that we study and the scientific disciplines. And I literally have the experience where, students who are listening or academics will understand this, you go to the department and you say to the psychology department, professor, I'm a student and I want to study climate change and why people are concerned about these disasters. And they say, that's a really neat and really important thing but we don't work on the environment here. I want you to go down the hall to the environmental studies department and that's where they can help you look at this. Then, when you walk down the hall to the environmental studies department and you say, I want to study this, they say oh that's really interesting, but we don't do psychology and therapy here. Therapists are in this department, so they send you to the therapy department and it's a runaround and students are left in the middle. Tragically, some are even told not to take on this topic, it's too difficult, and you won't be able to get your degree so just do something safe now to get your degree. Then, you could work on this later, but then later sometimes never comes. So, it's a real issue. Hylander : It is, yeah. And I think that's something that we very much notice here and as say the psychology education or psychology programs in Sweden, they still very much don't offer any training in these to prepare future psychologists to take on these issues. So that's something that we've been working on. I'm chairing a national organization for psychologists called Psychologists for Sustainable Development, which is part of our union and our professional national association. Part of the work we've been trying to do there is to contact the different psychology programs to see what they're offering and why they're not offering more on the climate and environmental issues, but also trying to explore what students feel like they need. And are students even aware that these are topics and issues that are important and that they will encounter in their future professional lives. But I would say it's not coming so much from the universities as it's perhaps coming from us or other engaged psychologists, unfortunately. And it's a slow process of trying to get stuff in. There are a few courses here and there in the psychology programs, but not very much. Pihkala : And that's roughly the situation also in Finland. The only longer university course on eco-emotions has been run by me as an interdisciplinary research course. So, it's one of these in-between things. And in Sweden, there's been the strong presence of Greta Thunberg and the children's and youth climate movement. That really started getting stronger in autumn 2018. That's when I also first met Greta at the Helsinki climate demonstration where we were both speaking. Well, she's done a lot more of that speaking since then, but would you like to share something to the international audience about how you see those years in Sweden? I know that that's very intimately connected with any climate psychology work in Sweden. Hylander : Yeah, 2018 was the year that we founded Klimatpsychologerna, or the Climate Psychologists, which we did in March, so in springtime. We were trying to figure out what we should do and what's needed. What's the work that needs to be done or that we can offer. Then came a very, very hot summer in Sweden. And we had quite a lot of forest fires that were quite scary. There was something about that summer that I think made people up here more emotionally aware of the climate crisis because it all came close. Then, that was when Greta Thunberg started her school strike which, at first, she was doing everyday leading up to the Swedish election. Then, we had the Swedish national election and I think the Green Party did a terrible election. But I think they were still part of the government. I keep forgetting, but I think they were still part of the government with the social democrats back then. But anyways, I think something happened on sort of the national level. I think the very hot summer was part of that. The forest fires and then obviously Greta's school strike and the formation of the Fridays for Future movement. So, I think also for us, we noticed that all the sudden, the media also became aware that this is actually an issue that affects people on a more psychological and existential and emotional level. So, we got very busy straight away and I think that was very much due to the forest fires and Greta. Pihkala : And probably also the IPCC report which came out that autumn. Hylander : Yeah, I'm not sure though. Pihkala : Oh okay, well at least in Finland that was a big thing in addition to the hot, hot summer and children getting activated. Hylander : Yeah, I think that's true. If the IPCC report had come and none of the other stuff would have happened, I think it would have just probably been another report. But I think it was so highlighted by the other stuff that was going on. I think one thing that also happened in Sweden then was that people became aware that activism is also a way to take action, to do your part for the climate. So, I think it's also in one way helped to shift the conversation a little bit from the very individualized discourse that had been before into a slightly more taking collective action discourse. Doherty : Yeah, this is helpful. I think this is a universal story in many ways that different countries in different regions have their collective waking up moments here. I got a chance to meet Nathan Grossman, some time ago, the filmmaker that worked with Greta and did some of the film about her life and her trip to the US and to the UN. I want to turn this to some of the more inspiring parts of the work too because we've been talking about the difficulty of the work and the trenches in academia and kudos to you Frida for being a self-starter and for forging a path. Panu and I know how that is as well. But it does start small, and you never know what's going to happen. When Nathan started filming Greta, she was just a young girl sitting outside the parliament and had no idea that it would turn into an international media event. Before you started asking these questions in your studies, we talk about environmental identity here and our sense of our relationship with nature in the natural world, and that's a deeper thing than our academic studies. It starts in our early life and our family and where we grew up and our home place. When you look back, what do you think are some of the origins of your connections with nature and your sense of yourself as a person on the planet like this Hylander : Yeah, it's funny. I've never really had a strong like nature identity or nature relatedness. I come from the west coast of Sweden, and I grew up in a sailing family. So, I think the sea and sailing has always been the closest sort of relationship I've had with nature, but I've never really been going out into the forest. I know some people have it very strong… I think I have that now much more, but that wasn't really how I came into this. I think my interests have been more urban, I guess, than nature related. But I've always been very, very interested in society and I really found the human ecology studies so immensely interesting. Also, to study about the political sides of how we use nature, but also how different groups across the globe use nature in different ways and how the Global North utilized resources from the Global South and then sort of sent back piles of shit. I think for me, that was more my way into this. But I think now, I have a much, much stronger and closer relationship with nature and maybe that also is something that perhaps comes with age, like my growing interest in growing plants and soil and everything. I also think it comes with this work and on a deeper level, realizing how immensely interdependent on nature we are and how we truly are nature, you know. Pihkala : Yeah, thanks for sharing that. And speaking of Sweden's international contributions, those old Ingmar Bergman films often include sailing images. Listeners, if you want to take a look, you can try to search for those and those also really go to the existential level, both joy and sorrow and those kinds of things. We can put some links to the show notes. There's quite interesting research about Swedish environmental activists. I don't want to go into detailed academic discussions here, but for example, about how they relate to the Swedish version of climate anxiety concept, klimatongest, because that became heavily politicized. It seems to me that it became more politicized than in Finland. In Finland, there was a notable shift after the autumn 2018 and the next winter. Before that, for example, for me it was much easier to talk with countryside people about climate distress because there wasn't this politicization yet. Then things got more complicated anyway, but there's interesting things to be read and also on these global dimensions. There's one article, for example, where there's interviews and observations of climate activists in Sweden and in South America, and how the emotions which come up also have differences because of these cultural layers and global solidarity issues and so on. So, we are all interconnected. It might be very useful for the listeners to hear a bit more about what you have been doing with the climate psychology network. What have been some of your major aims and major methods? Hylander : Yeah, so we do quite a lot of different things in Klimatpsychologerna and there's five of us now in our little network and we're all licensed psychologists, but we have some different niches. So, some of us are from more of the clinical side to the more organizational side and so myself and another one of my colleagues, we work clinically. So, we do take on clients and that's something that I've worked with in general as a psychologist. Over the years, I have had hundreds and hundreds of therapies with clients. In recent years, they're almost only focused on people with climate-related distress. And we usually say that that's not the first thing to do when you're distressed about the climate, to go and see a psychologist. But sometimes the distress becomes so unmanageable that it might be helpful to also have some therapy for that. We also do a lot of lecturing about climate psychology and behavioral change, especially focusing on large-scale behavior change. In recent years, we've also got more requests to lecture about climate anxiety and climate emotions and workshops about that as well. That can be for schools, institutions, sometimes we lecture at different universities, but also for large companies, so commercial companies. So that's very wide. We also work on different projects. Sometimes we're just like consultants, consulted in and we offer our expertise on climate psychology and behavioral change. And sometimes, we run our own projects. For example, last year we finished a three-year long project which was aimed at supporting young people with difficult climate emotions. In that project, we developed a lot of different methods and materials and did a lot of workshops out in schools with students but also with teachers to help teachers become more sort of well-equipped to support their students. And then we also try to educate about climate psychology. In Swedish we have a good word called folkbildare. I'm not sure, do you have that in Finland, Panu? It's not just like educate, but it's more like we want the people to become more educated. Pihkala : Yeah, sometimes I think education researchers use the German concept of bildung to describe that. In Finnish it's sivistys also. Hylander : Yeah, so maybe that's the best. Sivistys, yeah. So, we do that, and we also write texts. I have a monthly or bi-monthly now international newsletter called Climate Psyched. I also write columns for Sweden's largest environmental page Supermiljöbloggen and sometimes we write texts in different papers and stuff like that. We wrote one book back in 2019 and now we're in the process of writing a new book which will come out next year that will be in English. It’s with the working title Harnessing Collective Behavior, Climate Psychology, and Resilience, I think. So, we do quite a lot of different stuff. I also have a podcast with one of my colleagues which is in Swedish called, Två Klimatpsykologer Möter, where two climate psychologists meet with different guests. Doherty : That's wonderful. Yeah, there's so many parallels. It's really nice to hear. It's very similar to the US. I have colleagues that are working with organizations and with businesses and with local governments and listeners, we're talking about some specialized terms here because in academia, certain psychologists work in organizations and businesses, some work with individuals, some do therapy. There tends to be people that specialize in all of these areas and they're all important. So, it is quite amazing how similar it sounds to what I've experienced in the United States. So, that on the one hand is very reassuring that we know we're on the right path. Hylander : Yeah, hopefully. I think also, at least for us, there's been no path. So, it's very much been us trying to forge a path and with that, I guess that also comes with trying different things and working in different ways. And I think that also sort of works well with our analysis of the climate crisis, that there's no one thing that we need to do. There’s a multitude of things that we need to do, and we all need to use the competence that we have in various ways and try and reach different you know groups and companies and individuals in various ways. Doherty : Yeah, finding your place on the planet, digging in and taking action from there and trusting in the process. It's very hard right now. I know in the United States, we have a lot of very regressive politics happening that are really trying to censor. It's really quite strange because everyone knows the reality, but there’s still a lot of people working to try to erase, symbolically at least, the reality of climate change and various things and to address other social movements. So, in the face of that it's important to reach out across the world and realize that we're people are not alone. You know the takeaway from our episode and from all these episodes are listeners, whoever you are and wherever you are listening from, you're not alone. I mean we’re in every country. As you know, Frida, and probably talked about, 80 percent or more of people all around the world in every nation recognize climate change as an issue and want to make action a universal reality despite what governments in small places will try to do to turn back the clock. It's not possible. And so, the larger reality is here, and we are building this larger, more ecological world in all these steps. So, it is something to be aware of here. Pihkala : Yeah, that's very inspiring, all the work that is going on. As so often happens in this podcast, half an hour goes very quickly and there would be many topics to dig deeper into. But Frida, I'd like to ask you about coping tips in your experience and you can approach this as a sort of combination of just a human being living in these times and as a licensed psychologist. So, what would be some of your top picks for how to cope with the world reality as it is? Hylander : Well, I do think that one of the most important things that we all need in this time of parallel ongoing crisis is good social support. We need our little collective to feel that we're not alone. I think that is essential. I just sort of strengthen that belief with each person that I talk to that the social dimension is so immensely important and to feel that you're not alone and to feel that there are other people who share your emotions and worries and frustrations and sadness and sorrows and everything. So, I think that's key as much as finding ways of taking collective action and feeling that hopefully, with that, being able to feel like a sense of agency that there are things that we can do. We're not doomed. We're not helpless in this. Right now, there’s a strong, repressive and regressive wave sort of coming over us, but we're not helpless. And we need our collective and social support to feel that we do have agency. So, I think that's important. Then also just to find or give yourself permission to have and feel whatever you're feeling. I mean, it's so reasonable to feel whatever we might be feeling right now. We usually say that emotions are also information. They carry information about what's going on in the outside world, but they also carry information about what's important to us. So, if we're feeling worried or stressed or frustrated, that's also information about what's important to us. And I think that's something to honor in one way and just to give permission to that and to give some space to that. Then, I think the last thing that I would like to add to that is also how important it is to give yourself permission to pause from the big world and the ongoing crisis. I think that very much has to do with this being a marathon. This is the rest of our lives that we'll be dealing with the climate crisis and the other ongoing crisis. We also need to sustain that and to be able to do that. I think that we, every now and then, need to give ourselves permission to pause and to zoom in on the little life, but also to remember that there's so much in this world that's worth fighting for. There's so much in this world that makes all of the hard stuff worth it. Doherty : Yeah, very well said. I know I'm personally validated to hear it's very similar to the things that I've been thinking about and writing about. And it's really nice to know that that's what you're all finding in Sweden as well. Well, Frida, thank you so much for coming. It's really nice. One of the things to be thankful for is that we have the opportunity for these dialogues around the world in real time. You and I have never met and here we are. Now we know a little bit about each other and can carry that into our days. Panu and I, being able to have these conversations twice a month, we feel connected and meet people. So, listeners, I hope you take something from this. If you're in Sweden or if you're in the United States or Finland or any other country, you're not alone in doing this work. We're Climate Change and Happiness. You can find us at climatechangeandhappiness.com. There will be some good notes about Frida's work and some of the links to her newsletter and upcoming book and all these kinds of great things. And Frida, Panu, listeners, everyone, be well and take care. Pihkala : Thanks Frida, thanks a mycket. Hylander : Thank you. Thank you for having me. [music: “CC&H theme music”] The Climate Change and Happiness Podcast is a self-funded volunteer effort. Please support us so we can keep bringing you messages of coping and thriving. See the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com .…

Climate Change and Happiness

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Season 4, Episode 17: Eco-Friends Part II: Thomas and Panu Meet in Person! 25:10

il y a 22 weeks25:10

25:10

image credit | Toa Heftiba Season 4, Episode 17: Eco-Friends Part II: Thomas and Panu Meet in Person! Here’s to in-person connections! Most people don't know that up until just a few weeks ago Thomas and Panu had never met in person. They had connected over long distance and constructed their podcast dialogue over the last few years solely through electronic means. So, it is very special to us that this episode was recorded over Thomas's living room table in Portland Oregon while Panu was visiting during his tour of the United States. So, join us as the pair discuss their podcast relationship, current events, and what Panu has been seeing and learning during his visit to Charlottesville, Virginia and across Northern California, and his hikes in the redwoods. This episode goes well with our recent theme of eco-friends, and we hope it encourages you to re-connect — in person — with someone you care about and who also shares your care for people and planet. Transcript [music: “CC&H theme music”] Introduction voice : Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala. Thomas Doherty : Well hello, I’m Thomas Doherty. Panu Pihkala : And I am Panu Pihkala. Doherty : Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness, this is our podcast. It’s a show for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about the personal side of climate change, particularly their emotional responses and how they think about these issues and how it affects them in their daily life. And we have a special episode today. I was going to say I have a special guest and that's technically true because I'm actually sitting here in person with Panu. A lot of people don't realize that we had never met in person until just two days ago. We've only known each other through a distance. Panu happens to be here in Portland and we're recording on-site in Portland, Oregon. So, we have a loose theme about connections, coping, and friendships. Panu's been traveling in the US and Panu, how are things going? How's your Panu's trip to America been going so far? Pihkala : Thanks for asking, Thomas, and a great pleasure to be here in Portland live. I also want to credit our audio person, Mark, who is sitting close to us and who usually also operates online and takes care of sound quality. Thanks for that Mark. It’s been a while since I was in the states. I try to be mindful of the environmental emissions of travel and then with Covid-19. People have been surprised to hear that we’ve been doing this podcast for more than three and a half years and we’ve never met in person. So, that’s of course the great benefits of modern technology, that it’s possible to do this. But, on the other hand, it’s great to be here and meet live. What brought me to the states was a conference at Stanford that was about applying humanities research into societal and public spheres. Its official name is a bit technical: Applied Collaboratory for Religion and Ecology Scholarship. So, there was an emphasis on people who studied the relationship between religion and environment and that’s something we’ve touched upon in previous episodes of the podcast. But while I’m here, there have also been other talks and meetings. One in Charlottesville, Virginia that was about working with eco-anxiety between academia and society and then meetings in San Francisco with people in the climate psychology field and meeting various folks here in Portland. So, it's been a very interesting road trip done in quite curious times considering the political situation in states and other places. Doherty : So, you've been to the United States before and what are some of the things that you appreciate about the US. Or what are some things that you really enjoyed on this visit that are the best parts of this country? Pihkala : People sometimes ask me that in Finland. What is it like to be in America? My longest period here was in 2011, almost half a year, when I was doing my PhD and that was mostly in Chicago but then also visiting other places. My only previous time on the West Coast was then in 2011. Since then, I’ve been to other places and there’s great wonderful people I’ve met on all of these journeys to the states. And of course, the landscapes and scenery are fabulous. It’s sometimes a challenge when you are living next to natural wonders at how much you are able to retain, an ability to appreciate how special those are. Well luckily many people do and there’s certainly lots of very special things around. Near the West Coast, during this trip, I had the pleasure of driving from Monterey to Oregon over many days. So, I saw the coastline and the mountains, and the Redwoods and those are really really special and reminded me of my early readings of folks like John Muir who loved the Redwoods. This was my first time seeing the Blue Ridge Mountains and they have some similarities with mountains in Scandinavia, there’s some ancient bedrock. But anyways, both people and the scenery. There’s lots of special things around here. Doherty : Yeah, it can be really stressful if you get into the news and think about armed conflicts around the world and intolerance and economic issues and political problems. So, it's nice to remember that for a lot of us, we still like to visit people and travel, and there's nothing like going to a new place you've never seen before like the Redwood Forest in the US. You know, defies words, you have to see it to understand it. And how nice it is to be in other places like in Virginia, in Charlottesville, right? You were at the university there with Thomas Jefferson's architecture and things like that. Pihkala : Yeah, it was a very interesting place. The University of Virginia, Charlottesville has this lawn and Jefferson designed the buildings around it and the students live right next to the lawn. So, during an ordinary evening, there's somebody playing the guitar and people doing sports. I joined a couple of guys doing frisbee. And that’s also something on one hand very ordinary but on the other hand so very important in times like this. These human connections and shared things to do and relaxation. I sometimes go distancing in the process muddle of eco-anxiety… Also, other classical things like hospitality along the road. I've certainly been benefiting a lot from that and I'm very grateful for that and luckily that human warmth we still have in the world even though the times are so tumultuous. Doherty : Yeah, warmth. So, we recently recorded an episode with Gregory Hill who's a local environmental scientist here in town and is also a really old dear friend of mine. We have this idea of eco-friends, which I talk about in my upcoming book. It’s this idea of recognizing the friends that we have that inspire us in terms of nature and in the natural world and share our beliefs, share our values, share our connections, and share our outdoor activities. So, listeners, you can think about eco-friends that you have, people that you admire, or you know or that you do things together. I think it's really hard to do environmental work or to be environmentally minded without having some eco-friends. Or put another way, and you can tell me what you think about this Panu, but if you're trying to have an environmental identity or trying to do climate change work or any kind of sustainability work and you don't have any eco-friends, people to share that with, then I think it becomes really lonely and difficult. Pihkala : Yeah, I totally agree and even though I have personally for a long time appreciated community and when I studied my university studies, I lived in a community for many years. But still, as times get harder, one really learns to appreciate community and as you said Thomas, as a theme that has come up in many episodes. For example, Laura Schmidt, the founder of Good Grief network and in her book, How to Live in a Chaotic Climate , she is summarizing community, community, community is something which is so needed. And that's something relevant in all corners of the world. It’s a very global thing even though, there's different kinds of privileges or injustices that people have to face when they try to build and upkeep those communities. Doherty : Yeah, and we had a physical gathering here yesterday, actually at my home, where we gathered Panu and we had at least two guests that we've had in the podcast in the past, Mark, our production person, and other family members and friends and other really interesting people that were doing environmental work and sustainability work and many people had not met each other in person. And standing around the bonfire, it was really a good analog of connecting and people telling their stories. There were some students there that were younger, there were people that were more experienced and established. So, I think that's just such a key thing. Pihkala : I’m very grateful to you for organizing that and having a bonfire. It’s a nice ancient element which brings people together and a similar dynamic was seen in San Francisco where people active in the Climate Psychology Alliance North America and other things like the work that reconnects networks. Folks came to talk with me and I gave a short presentation. Many said that they had never actually met each other live before. They live in the greater San Francisco Bay Area which is of course big, there’s been Covid-19, and everyone’s busy. So, I've been happy of this side effect of me being here and sort of helping gather people around that fact that some strange Finnish person is in town. Doherty : Your visit is so rare that it draws people out to come and see you. There's a theme about maintaining connections, whether you do it over a distance, like Panu and I for almost four years have collaborated, worked together, created a podcast, and I've only just now met in person just in the last couple of days. So, it's possible to collaborate with someone in another part of the world and really do meaningful work and know them quite well. And then you can also, if lucky, do it in person. So it's both. I have a question for you Panu and you might follow up but one part of travel, particularly going away from your country, is you get to come back home. So, I'm curious if you're already formulating some thoughts about what you want to bring home from your journey, you know, the hero's journey coming back to your community. So that's a question I had that leads to talking about your work. What do you have on your mind here? Pihkala : That's a good question. And when I've done travel, that has been an important part of my history, but I've done it less now during the last 10 years for many reasons and with the family, we’ve done shorter range travel and trips. In my solitary travels, I’ve kept journals and have written stuff and two of them I actually typed into electronic formats of my younger days, and it's been really fun to sometimes return to that. Doherty : Oh, that’s nice. Pihkala : And now, there’s so much happening that it’s been a return to some of that mentality which I thought would be mostly gone so it’s been lovely to return to that and sometimes admiring the beauty around you and getting immersed in that. Of course, there’s also been challenging tasks of talking about things like climate anxiety and emotion research in times like this. So, I haven't just been having a light, fun time, but there's been many things around. Now, I've kept a shortish journal with both drawings and text, so that's been a fun experiment. Doherty : So you're keeping a journal now? Pihkala : Yeah, much shorter, but then I draw some small pictures and write something. So that's been fun and something I try to bring home. That kind of energy of having been blessed with some lovely things around the journey. Another thing which I’m bringing is the encounters with American people who are stupefied by what’s happening in politics. I’ve met a lot of people who are very passionate about environmental work and climate work and now a lot of other things are getting attention and sometimes there’s pushback in some political spheres against environmental and climate work. So, resonating with that difficulty and those challenges while also being inspired by the determination of many of these people who keep on working on these matters. I see a very practical strategy of keeping together and holding that community strong so that one is able to do that in troubled times. Doherty : Yeah, that's a good theme for our talk today, keeping community strong. I want to make a note about that. Because yeah, I think the paradox with this work is, as I often tell people, it's worse than you think and it's better. So, whenever you get into any environmental or any kind of social issue, you often find it's worse than you think. There are more problems, it’s more complicated, there's more corruption, there's more suffering than you realized. But then it's better also in the sense that there are people doing things. The paradox of my work recently is that even though I'm working on tough climate issues, I do positive stuff all day, like meeting with people like you and the people that were at this gathering that I just spoke about. I had a chance to meet with Emma Marris this morning who is a very accomplished nature writer and we were chatting and so, there's a lot of gifted people doing things and that's why I always come back to be careful of getting too lost in the news because when you're immersed in the news, you get a sense that the world is really going to heck and burning up and you don't realize all the positive stuff that's going on. But yeah, maintaining community I think is more important than ever, whether it's protecting universities here in the US. We've got a lot of negative energy coming out of the government that's really so counter to the Thomas Jefferson idea of creating a university and worshiping knowledge and truth and things like that. We have people that are really actively going against truth and free thinking and democracy and free speech. Creating community is not a soft thing. Creating community is a form of strength. So keeping community strong is also a way to be strong in the face of threats to health and democracy. So, more than ever, I think we need to get together and meet with people. So listeners, you can think about that. Can you make a point to really connect with people mindfully? That you respect and support each other and not fall into fear. It’s always nice to complain and vent with people that we know and share our frustrations and be heard. So, there's nothing wrong with that to a certain extent, but if the only thing you're doing is complaining and venting or cycling around in fear, that's not healthy either. Pihkala : Yeah, I strongly resonate with that. And we have an episode coming out where we're discussing with Bob Doppelt who is one of the leaders in community resilience work amidst climate change. Both he and, for example, Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone have these exercises where people are asked to map things which affect them. Macy and Johnstone use this boat image, you know, what are some of the things that are weighing your boat down at the moment and what are some of the things that are lifting it up or carrying it forward. This can be done also explicitly in relation to social relations and community or relations with the modern human world. That’s something for you listeners, if you feel like it. It's sometimes useful to write these things down and think about how to find more balance and resources. And I guess, Thomas, that this comes pretty close to many methods that you use in your daily work. Doherty : Yeah. You know, I want to think that the idea that we've talked about in the podcast is the idea of your environmental identity and your sense of your own identity in relation to nature and the natural world and climate change. And there's like a timeline of your identity from your birth to the present and all these experiences that you have that make you who you are. Then we have a whole extending the timeline idea, right? So, from today, we have tomorrow, the next day and however long we're going to live. And then, of course, our influence extends beyond our life. We influence things that exist after us. It's really how do we want to extend our timeline? How do we want to show up for the rest of our life? There's always fear of death underlying almost all the stuff that's going on here and so how do we realize that we are here for a limited amount of time, and we need to do the best we can and realize that the things we believe in and are working on are much greater than we are and longer than we are, right? Pihkala : Yeah, there's a nice existentialist dimension emerging in you, Thomas. Doherty : Yes, it is. This came up recently about just getting comfortable talking about death as part of life. You don't have to dwell on it or make it the only thing, but if we don't name it, I feel like it's infiltrating. Certainly, people are fearful. Some people are fearful in the U .S. right now of the federal government. And it can be a fear of violence, a fear of violence of being deported, being targeted in some way. A very violent, intimidating style of political leadership has emerged in the United States and it does thrive on fear and bullying. Pihkala : Yeah, this could lead into rather deep stuff and some of this we have touched upon in some previous episodes and just to name some dynamics, there's this very interesting research called Terror Management Theory and I think that's very relevant to the times in which we are living and sometimes when people are reminded of deep and challenging things like mortality or losing power, they may react by trying to upkeep things as they have used to be even though that sometimes may be impossible and lead to unethical issues. Of course, there are many ways that one can try to run away from mortality and finitude. As you said Thomas, the time perspective really convinced me about Robert Clifton’s ideas that people are looking for signs in which they can see continuation of life even amidst mortalities and communities is definitely one of these ways for some people. It's the biological offspring in the community and in the natural world those things which one continues. So just naming that there's some links to really profound things here and that's an ancient wisdom but if you’re engaged enough with mortality, that can really help you appreciate being alive and living. So, I think it's a pathway towards more joy than sorrow actually, even though it may seem counterintuitive at first. Doherty : Yeah, because I think that the psychology around Terror Management Theory is that when you are reminded of death unconsciously, you tend to have these protective behaviors where you get really rigid about the status quo, but that's different than actually embracing your limited life and enjoying your life as it is. When you're open about it, it doesn't lead to those unhealthy things as much. This is really great. So nice to be able to talk to Panu here in my living room, live. We're keeping our connection going, so listeners I want you to really think about your connections and your community and can you find someone to connect with soon like Panu and I are doing today? It doesn't have to be someone from another country, it could be someone from down the block. Do you have any inspirations or kinds of things you're looking forward to getting back to when you get home? I know you want to see your family and your children, but what else are you looking forward to when you get back to Finland? Pihkala : Well yeah, two weeks is already a long time away from the family so I’m very happy to see them again and in the US, cherry trees are blossoming. In Finland, that will be in May so now I get the chance to experience early spring sort of a second time, but there might be some snow and ice when I get back home. Also in Finland, with colleagues and friends, we’re thinking about what kinds of social community and action would be needed in times like this. Taking it more seriously on how troubled times are and thinking if there would be more structures needed, like more gatherings and new kinds of being and doing. It's really a sort of diamond process of thinking about that series. But also, of course, I miss the sauna a lot. So, I'm really looking forward to getting back. Doherty : Back to the family, back to the sauna. Well, Panu, it's really nice chatting with you. I will look forward to seeing you next time we record. Well, some of the next times we record we’ll be back online, but it's really nice to see you in person. Pihkala : Likewise Doherty : Panu, have a good rest of your trip and listeners and everyone, be well. Pihkala : Be well. [music: “CC&H theme music”] The Climate Change and Happiness Podcast is a self-funded volunteer effort. Please support us so we can keep bringing you messages of coping and thriving. See the donate page .…

Climate Change and Happiness

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Season 4, Episode 16: On Eco-Friends with Gregory Hill 33:12

il y a 25 weeks33:12

33:12

image credit | Lauren Richmond Season 4, Episode 16: On Eco-Friends with Gregory Hill Thomas and Panu had a warm conversation with a long time friend and colleague of Thomas, environmental science and advocacy expert Gregory Hill. They explored the idea of “eco-friends”—the close personal relationships we have with friends and collaborators that support and inspire us in our environmental values and actions. Greg recounted his life from early connections with the desert lands of Arizona to his discovery of Buddhism and classic environmental literature, and his varied academic career. He described his research on the Pacific salmon and his service with First Nations peoples in Canada seeking legal sovereignty. The conversation highlighted the importance of the community we have and how our friendships contribute to the long term history and stability of our environmental identities. While friendships are certainly a form of social capital, our eco-friends are especially important to hold dear. Links Centre for First Nations Governance Roderick Nash The Rights of Nature Cairns, Johannes, and Panu Pihkala. 2024. ‘ How Western Buddhist Climate Activists Negotiate Climate Emotions ’. Frontiers in Psychology Tropical Salvage Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature Transcript Transcript edited for clarity and brevity. [music: “ CC&H theme music ”] Introduction voice: Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala. Thomas Doherty: Well hello, I’m Thomas Doherty. Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala. Doherty : And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness, this is our podcast. It’s a show for people around the globe who are thinking and feeling deeply about climate change and other environmental issues. We pose this provocative question, what does it mean to be happy in the modern world? And Panu is an emotions researcher and I'm a psychologist. Panu’s in Finland and I'm in Portland, Oregon, Panu's evening, my morning. We're really happy about a few things. I'm going to introduce a special guest here in a moment. We've also been looking at some of our podcast stats for 2024 and we have listeners in 35 countries, all around the world. We have thousands of listeners. We're not a huge podcast, obviously, it's a specialized niche but we do have thousands of listeners. And so, listeners, I want you to know you're not alone. There are people coming from all around the world. Some of the countries you might imagine like the US, Canada, and the UK, but also Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, and Indonesia. And so, we have a lot of folks that are listening. And today, we have a special guest. Gregory Hill : I think I'm going to introduce myself. I’m Gregory Hill. I'm an academic of all kinds of different subjects and hopefully still a good eco-friend. Doherty : Yeah and Greg is here in Portland and he is a long standing friend of mine. Our episode theme today is this idea of eco-friends. It's a concept I kind of coined in this book manuscript I'm working on. It's not a complicated idea. It's just the idea that we have friends in the world that inspire us and help us to develop our own environmental identity and our own environmental values and we share our work and goals with them. Sometimes we work directly with them or sometimes we just hear what they're doing. Sometimes they're in a far field career from what we're doing, but I think everyone around the world can think about eco-friends that they have. It could be personal friends or family or colleagues or distant people. I would consider Panu and I to be eco-friends. We don't meet in person, but we know each other through the distance. And some friends are longstanding life friends and some are new. But that's the concept for today just to get into. So, listeners, I want you to be thinking about eco-friends that you might have and or can cultivate or find. Greg is a very interesting eco-friend. He's done a lot of things. He's originally from Arizona in the US and he's spent time growing up around the Grand Canyon and exploring in the Grand Canyon. He exemplifies a lot of the trend of environmental action over the last, you know, few decades. When he was younger, he worked in anti-nuclear weapons advocacy. He has worked around the world… In Indonesia in the forest reclaiming tropical wood, he has been a mathematician, an environmental studies professor, a baseball player, and a chess player. Now, recently, he does research on salmon and dams in the Northwest and works with First Nations people in Canada to assert their rights and autonomy. So really interesting possibilities. And Panu, I know you have eco-friends as well. And I'm sure in Finland, that's an idea that would go over well. Panu, do you want to get us started today? Pihkala : Pleased to meet you, Greg. So, we have a quite different dynamic here between the three of us. I know that you two have indeed known each other for a long time, but Greg when you think about the roots of this vocation, you've had a strong interest and motivation to work with the natural world or the modern human world, what comes to your mind? What would you like to share about the roots and foundations and perhaps early life history in relation to that? Bill : Well, the roots are certainly my mother. My parents moved to Arizona from Iowa. And my mother really took to the Sonoran Desert that I grew up in in Southern Arizona. Over my right shoulder here, I don't know if anybody can see this, there's a backpack and it's my mother's backpack. She and I would go backpacking together. Before backpacking, we were exploring the desert together when I was in the single digits age. So, she really taught me to appreciate nature, but also while appreciating the social life, like our social relationships. And that has percolated all the way through my entire career, where I study systems, specifically social ecological systems. I could talk just about my mother the entire time. Pihkala : That's a good sign of a person and I can actually see the backpack. Too bad dear listeners that you can’t see the visuals, but it still looks in good condition with various marks. Hill : It's got a lot of badges on it, some of which were because of directions that I made my parents drive when we went to California. We would drive to California and I would make them stop at certain places like along the Pacific Crest Trail, which is a trail that goes all the way from Mexico to Canada, up the west side of the United States. I would make them get badges and some of those badges are right there. They've been there a long time. Pihkala : Oh yeah, that's wonderful. You have this strong interest in learning systems approaches now. But were there earlier phases in your engagements with the natural world or was there something that first motivated you which led to developing a more systems-like approach? How did that work for you? Hill : Well, the systems approach definitely took a lot longer to develop. My first kind of explorations, Thomas was referring to some of them, like my exploration of the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon. I was a member of a backpacking organization. I was with a friend and we were the youngest ones. We were, I think, 14 when we joined. It was a little controversial to have kids that young. We couldn't drive, for instance, but we got rides with people all the way up to the Grand Canyon. And I had some really incredible experiences up there as a youngster, both social and ecological. I would help people because there were some older people on these trips and going down into the Grand Canyon can be pretty rugged. One woman who is my friend's mother came with us and she was really struggling and I carried her backpack as well as my backpack out of the Grand Canyon. Combining that social engagement with nature is old for me. And I didn't think of it in a systems kind of way then, but it certainly came naturally to me later. Pihkala : Hmm. Yeah and it also links with this theme that Thomas spoke about eco-friends who are friends who share environmental values or identity with you, or friends who share at least some parts of our journeys in relation to the modern human world. And there's often mentoring figures. We earlier, during an episode, talked with Louise Chawla who has done research on various things that affect people's relationship with the natural world. Usually when they are young, it's quite common to have at least some close person, perhaps a grandparent if not parents or an uncle or aunt or local Boy Scout leader or Girl Scout leader who becomes quite formational in leading us into a deeper engagement with what surrounds us. So in my mind that theme of mentoring and, broadly speaking, educating also links with this topic of eco-friendship. But what about you two? You said that you are eco-friends so how does that manifest in practice? What does it mean to be an eco-friend? Doherty : Yeah, I can share a little bit about it. Like a lot of friends, we have slightly different stories about our pasts and how we met, just like siblings will have different memories. But I'm just thinking about Greg in the Grand Canyon. For listeners who haven't been to the Grand Canyon, it's very deep. I've met people that grew up near the Alps, for example, or near other mountains and they from a young age learn to climb up the mountains and perhaps help guide other people up the mountains. But in the Grand Canyon, it's easy to get to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. You essentially just keep walking and rolling down to the bottom. But getting out is like climbing a mountain. So, I think that what Greg is saying, carrying that pack out is like carrying someone's pack up the Matterhorn or something like that. Hill : Well that same group that I went to the Grand Canyon with, we also climbed a lot of mountains. So that's one thing that, for instance, is the same between me living here in Portland, Oregon and Arizona. It’s a very different climate from Arizona, but the same mountains. Not the same mountain range, but the same structure of the mountains. And so I feel at home, even though it's raining all the time here. And it's not raining in Arizona, let me tell you. Doherty : Yeah, that's the system's perspective. We can see similarities around the world in different ecosystems. But how Greg and I met or at least my recollection of it… this would be coming on 25 or 23 years ago, I think. We actually met at a Zen meditation retreat at a place called the Great Vow Zen center here in Western Oregon which is a traditional American Zen monastery. And we actually met at a unique event. It was a deep ecology retreat at the Zen Center. And one of the speakers there was Michael Soulé, who was a conservation biologist, who’s one of the founders of conservation biology. It was this fruitful mashup of conservation and environmental consciousness and Buddhism, in this case, Zen Buddhism. And I think, Greg, that is one of the strong strands in your life that, if not introduced you to systems thinking, at least it kind of exemplifies systems thinking. Hill : Indeed, yes. Zen Buddhism is something that I first encountered when I was 16. And I was a fan of the Beat Generation. And I somehow managed to get permission from my mother to drive all the way from Tucson to San Francisco. I didn't drive, but I had a friend who could drive and had a car. We actually drove nonstop from Tucson, Arizona to San Francisco. Now, not just any place in San Francisco, but to the City Lights Bookstore. Do either of you know the City Lights Bookstore? Doherty : I do, yeah. Hill : It was kind of a home base for the Beat Generation and all those books. So, I went there. One of the people I read when I was reading about the Beat Generation was this guy, Gary Snyder, who was a poet. I really admired his poetry and he was also a Zen guy. And so, through reading his work when I was young, I learned about the San Francisco Zen Center when it was just starting up. So, I broke off from my little group of three people when we were visiting there and walked across downtown to the San Francisco Zen Center. I poked my head in, somebody greeted me, and I felt welcomed. For instance, I'm going back for a month-long retreat in three months. So, I've been with the San Francisco Zen Center for a long time. My favorite part of the San Francisco Zen Center is their farm, which is called Green Gulch Farm. And it's also a retreat center. It's one of those beautiful places that combines, I'm going to say it again, social and ecological engagement and how they're connected with each other. So that's the system between social and ecological. Pihkala : Yeah, that's lovely and interesting to hear. I have a background in studying religion and environment, and Buddhism also comes from there. There's a book which might also interest some listeners by Roderick Nash, an environmental historian, called Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics which is quite interesting and also devotes several pages on Gary Snyder and the strong interest on Zen Buddhism in North America among environmentally minded people, but it's also related to present day activities. One of my dissertation students, who is also a young colleague, is a practicing Buddhist in Finland, but he's been doing extended interviews of Western engaged Buddhists in climate action. So that paper came out about a month ago and it's quite interesting to hear what the Buddhists have been able to give to the climate movement. There's some special features… so, that’s just some of my thoughts reflecting on what you said and I also see the connection between Buddhism and the systems approach between the social and ecological. Doherty : Yeah, and I would just like to add, one of our favorite themes here is environmental identity and our sense of self in relation to nature and the natural world. And I often say that art and literature is part of our environmental identity. And you know, Greg's example is great. I know this is not unique to Greg or to Panu or to me. Many people are obviously influenced by Buddhism around the world, but also the Beat Generation and the poets and writers there and that lifestyle or that vision that they evoked in the US in the 1950s and 60s. And we don't necessarily think of it as an environmental identity at the time when we're younger. We’re just finding the world and absorbing everything. But, it does become part of our environmental ethos and leads us to value things and then take action, right? So, I think it's a fair statement, Greg, to say you've been an activist at times in your life, based on your social ecological values. Hill : Oh yeah, and I have to share one thing that combines these. So, 60th anniversaries are a big deal in Japan. It's a time when you become an elder, and in Japan, that's a good thing. On the 60th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, my Zen community gathered together and went to Japan with the whole group for two weeks. I went for five weeks. So, I traveled on my own for quite a while. We had all sorts of engagements with anti-nuclear weapons work, the social engagement around Buddhism and particular Buddhist teachers, Dogen, I think of in particular. Then, traveling around Japan, on my own, was an incredible lesson in social engagement with others when we don't share a language. This may seem like a silly example, but I was traveling around on the trains and I went all the way south. There are trains everywhere and they really run on time. And the tickets tell you how to get to the next station in Japanese. I couldn't read Japanese at all. I could speak a little bit, but I couldn't read it at all. So, I would just get off the train, I would hold up my ticket in front of me and inevitably, a Japanese person would see my ticket, grab me by the hand, and walk me to the place I had to go. Even if it was just two minutes away. I was doing all this traveling like climbing mountains and that kind of kindness was really connecting all those things about socialization and how they're connected to the environment. It was very powerful to me. And I brought it back to Portland, Oregon. I had a meeting with a minister, not a minister that we have in the United States, but a minister of peace that’s a cabinet level position in Japan. A friend of mine who is bilingual, in Japanese and English, and incredibly tall, he’s 6' 11, arranged the meeting. He went to that minister with me and I made my case while he translated. At the end, this minister revealed that he had really good English and he said to me, “we have to do this.” And so, I brought all these artifacts from the bombings to Oregon to exhibit and I brought four Japanese men to herd around. That was really fun. The exhibit was on for two months. So, the Zen thing is also all mixed in with social and environmental stuff for me. It's a trifecta. Doherty : Yeah, so you can see why I like Greg. He's just no lack of interesting stories and he really is a world citizen and it's inspiring. Where should we go in our conversation? Greg, in terms of our environmental identity and our eco-timeline, it continues our whole life and we're always extending that timeline and what is the Japanese name for the 60th birthday? If there's any Japanese listeners out there, you can remind us of the special name for that and you wear a special hat for your 60th birthday. Hill : Oh and you came to my 60th birthday party. Doherty : Yeah, I did. Greg had a great gathering… talk about eco-friends. That was an incredible gathering of eco-friends. Hill : Everyone around that table were eco-friends. Doherty : It’s one of those things that when I have an old friend and they meet another of my old friends, it's often fairly quick that everyone connects. So, we don't even realize that we have a larger friend connection than we know because all of our eco-friends have eco-friends. And we're often all on the same page. At your party, you played a game and had truth or dare stories about your past, which I remember was fun which we won't go into now. But going forward, what are some ways that you're extending your timeline? I know that's a huge question, obviously, but what comes up for you? Maybe the First Nations work that you're doing in Canada or the salmon work? Hill : Well, I've very recently been liberated. A lot of people call it retirement. For me, I don't have to grade papers anymore. And I am completely in charge of my daily routine, which took me a while to understand. I didn't retire very long ago, just a year ago, so I'm still learning how to do things, but I'm using this freedom I have now to do a lot of things that I wasn't able to do when I was pinned down by other people's schedules. For instance, one thing is I’m helping with a lot of partners to arrange, you mentioned the work I did with indigenous people in Canada. The main person there was this man named Satsan. And he, for instance, changed the constitution of the country through a legal process that took many years. That was all before I met him. It’s one thing to have the right to self-determination, which he got the legal part down where First Nations had the inherent right to self-governance. Before that, they weren’t even close to any right like that, so he won that right. But exerting that right is another thing. And that's where I worked with him and the system stuff came in really well. Because Satsan, when he was sent to residential school and taken away from his family, somehow got a book that was about systems thinking, with all the diagrams. So, he and I really connected on that level. We became really close partners and dear friends throughout many years. And now I'm trying to arrange a trip for him to the United States. Now the rule with him, since he's kind of famous now, is that he only does things that have national visibility, that make the news across Canada. I'm trying to do one that's based in the United States that still has that impact across Canada so I'm working on that. That's just one of the things I'm working on these days. Doherty : Wow, that's great. So, you're really leveraging a lot now to make change that's going to affect history and people for generations to come. Hill : Satsan’s the history maker. I'm the assistant to the history maker. Doherty : Panu, what's coming up for you as you're listening and observing this eco-friend banter that we're having? Pihkala : Well, it's fascinating how many things, Greg, you have been in touch with. I hear a strong commitment to justice issues. Some people nowadays use framing like climate justice or injustice and of course, environmental justice and I think that's an integral part of having a socio-ecological view on things or systems. Environmental organizations and institutions are luckily picking that up if they haven't done it before and for example, in Finland, the climate change expert panel, which is a national thing, did work many years ago on social acceptability and justice dimensions of climate issues so that's one part of trying to advance things on a practical level. Doherty : What's the most exciting part of this for you Greg as you have this freedom moving on from your teaching? We won't get into that, but you of course influenced a lot of students and people over the years. What's the equivalent of climbing the mountain or some challenge or task that you look forward to doing coming up? Hill : I've had a really long and deep connection to Indonesia and to Southeast Asia, in general. A lot of it has been through a dear friend of mine who now lives in Portland. His name's Tim O'Brien. We have been back and forth between the United States and Indonesia for a long time. Part of that is connected to the environment, social stuff, and ethics. One outcome of that, which has only fairly recently found its full realization, is a forest-based carbon offset project. I've been told it’s the largest forest-based carbon offset project in the world. It's in Kalimantan and it's the work of two Indonesians, Rezal Kusumaatmadja and Dharsono Hartono. But Tim and I were definitely part of the team and that has only recently seen its full realization as a carbon offset project with all of the numbers. It was protecting a peat forest, which is probably the densest carbon offset per acre in the world. There was a peat forest that was in danger of being destroyed for its wood value and we managed to protect that. It’s really happening and I was excited about it. One of the people who was involved with that was in Portland recently and we had a good conversation about it and he's following up in Indonesia with solar stuff in Java. My whole time there was really exciting and I want to go back and Tim and I have, of course, plans to go back. Doherty : Yeah, this is great, this web of friendship. I think it's a good place to wrap up our conversation today. Of course, we could go on and on, but it's that web and you keep following the web and it leads to more and more things and realizing that saving a forest these days isn't just about the forest, it's about the entire global ecosystem. That's one of the new insights of climate consciousness. It's not just the beauty of a particular place, although that's obviously important too. The integrity of an individual place has ramifications for the whole global system, and it comes back to the human and ecological systems as you were saying, Greg, we have to work together and then we have to have that big picture thought. This has been great. I really have been looking forward to having you on the podcast, Greg. It's a nice record of our relationship and sharing it with Panu and maybe Panu, we can have you bring an eco-friend next year as well. That would be nice. So, let's wrap it up. Listeners, I hope you got something out of this and your homework if you like is to think about and connect with your eco-friends and recognize that you are eco-friends and just name that because I think people will appreciate that. Otherwise, listeners, take care. And Greg and Panu, I'll let you have the last word. Hill : I'm down with this eco-friends. Can we make it social eco-friends? Doherty : Sure, I'll see you around the campfire soon. And Panu, where are you headed today? Pihkala : Yeah, it's been a pleasure getting to know a bit about you, Greg. It's just a glimpse through the clouds to a large terrain. There's evidently lots of feeling grateful for that in the dark Finnish evening. It's the darkest time of the year, but this is soon about to change, so there's going to be more light. Doherty : Yes. Anyway, listeners and everyone, find us at climatechangeandhappiness.com and I appreciate our listeners all around the world and everyone be well. [music: “ CC&H theme music ”]…

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Season 4, Episode 15: Climate Arts and Social Dreaming with Kamila Kuc and Julian Manley 34:22

il y a 27 weeks34:22

34:22

image credit | Mario Purisic Season 4, Episode 15: Climate Arts and Social Dreaming with Kamila Kuc and Julian Manley Thomas and Panu connected with Julian Manley and Kamila Kuc who joined in from Scotland and London to explore the intersections of climate change, emotions and the arts. Kamila and Julian described their recent collaboration using the practice of social dreaming, a group process to discuss and find larger meaning, emotional reality, and direction from personal dreams. Hosting social dreaming gatherings is a powerful way to foster community dialogue about eco and climate emotions and support artistic practices such as poetry and film making. They had a rich dialogue about art, action, and ways to envision nature as an active participant in our collective dreams. Links Kamila Kuc Films Julian Manley Manley 2018 Social Dreaming, Associative Thinking and Intensities of Affect Social Dreaming Workshop: Cadence 2025 – Reimagining Climate Futures: Creative Practices for Social Change Transcript Transcript edited for clarity and brevity. [music: “CC&H theme music”] Introduction voice : Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness (CC&H), an international podcast that explores the personal side of climate change. Your feelings, what the crisis means to you, and how to cope and thrive. And now, your hosts, Thomas Doherty and Panu Pihkala. Thomas Doherty : Well hello, I’m Thomas Doherty. Panu Pihkala : And I am Panu Pihkala. Doherty : Welcome to Climate Change and Happiness, this is our podcast. It’s a show for people around the world who are thinking and feeling deeply about climate change and other environmental issues. We talk about a lot of topics on this podcast. Our mission is to probe what it means to be happy in the modern world. We talk about our environmental values, beliefs, feelings, identity. And also, interesting endeavors and people who are working in different places on different interesting projects. We’re really glad and happy to have two very special and interesting guests today. Julian Manley is someone that we know who’s associated with this idea of social dreaming, which we’ll talk about. And he’s coming in from Scotland. And Kamila Kuc is a very interesting filmmaker who I know through various channels and who’s also now moving into studying and doing work around climate change, eco-therapy, climate therapy. So, we have both of these folks together, and there’s a number of connections with Julian and Kamila’s work to guests that we’ve had on this podcast and writing and work that Panu’s been doing. So, it’s a neat sort of personal and professional connection today. Panu, do you want to get us started? Pihkala : Warm welcome also on my behalf. I’m very pleased to have you on our podcast. We usually ask people something about their journeys towards engagement with climate change matters, whether that is via psychology or arts or social dreaming or many possibilities. But perhaps starting with Julian, would you like to tell us something about your journey? How did you become engaged with these topics? Julian Manley : I was born in England and brought up in France, my mother is French, and then I lived for a while in Spain and now I’m back in Scotland and I think that moving around from place to place opens up your mind to different cultures and different environments. I studied English at university and that brought me into contact with the Romantic poets and through the Romantic poets, I began to have a specific and special interest in the connection between the human and the natural world. And since then, I’ve just developed those thoughts and ideas. I’ve become a director of the Climate Psychology Alliance and been very interested in understanding how psychology and psychoanalytical ideas can bring you closer to a relationship with nature. And, to an understanding of how society and relationships between people can be translated into relationships between people and nature and nature and people. So that’s the kind of journey I’ve been on until now. Pihkala : Yeah, well thanks Julian for sharing that and greetings from the northern corner of Europe. I hear that you’ve been around many parts of Europe and I’ve been reading your work via books which have come through Climate Psychology Alliance and once had the privilege of meeting some Scottish Climate Psychology Alliance folks when visiting there. So, we have some connections, but how about you, Kamila? What would you like to share about your journey at this point? Kamila Kuc : Yeah, thank you for having us. It’s such a great avenue to be having those conversations. I grew up in a small town in Poland, but I spent a lot of my childhood at my grandparent’s farm. My grandparent’s house was right at the edge of the forest, which is now half of its size, unfortunately. Then at the age of 19, I traveled between New York and Paris, and ended up in London. And I nowadays spend half of my time in London trying to get out to go surfing, mainly to Cornwall. I’ve always been interested in the topic of climate change, but I come to the topic from a perspective of an artist, a person that has worked a lot with communities. So typically, my work would take me to smaller places in the world. For example, my last previous film was made in the war-torn zone in Abkhazia, a place between Russian Federation and Georgia, where I worked with local communities about issues that they’re facing largely around war memories. Then, I worked with women at a care home in Morocco, with issues of abuse and poverty. But I’ve really been thinking recently about different methods of working with communities but on a slightly larger scale. So, I was thinking about what the biggest forces in the world right now that are affecting everybody. And of course, you know, climate change is the obvious one. That sort of hyper-object of climate change. I spent some time, about a year, studying it, and my connection with Thomas, learning about Panu’s work and connection with Julian through social dreaming conversations is how I arrived here and formed this perspective. Doherty : Yeah, that’s really great. Every time we have guests, it’s always interesting to hear their backgrounds. And that’s why I love this idea of environmental identity or just this general open question of how is it that you come to this topic, because it just opens up the door to neat facets of people’s lives. Such as, where they grew up, their travels, and being multicultural or bicultural and the role of the landscape that forms us. That’s under the surface for everyone, but we just don’t think about it. You know, and another thing that’s under the surface is dreaming and our dreams. We know technically that all humans dream every night in some form through our sleep cycles and at different times and places, dreams arise to be part of culture or not. And so, I thought we’d talk about some of your individual projects and then get into these collaborations that are happening. But Julian, I know that you’ve done a lot of different kinds of work with people and you’re one of the leaders in this idea of social dreaming, which is a public outreach modality to get people to work together and think and feel differently about issues and be creative. I thought you could talk just a little bit in general terms about it so we could see how this fits into a lot of the themes that we’re talking about on the podcast. Manley : Yeah, sure. The thing about social dreaming is that it’s asking people to get together in a group and share their nighttime dreams. So, we’re talking about actual dreams that people have. We’re not talking about dreams or ambitions about the future. And the innovation in social dreaming is that you’re actually talking to people about dreams, but those dreams don’t belong to you as an individual when you’re talking about them in a group. Those dreams belong to the group as a whole. In other words, they belong to the social sphere. And that’s why we talk about the social unconscious or the associative unconscious when we talk about social dreaming. And it’s important to understand that dreaming is actually just thinking. It’s thinking when you’re asleep. So, one of things I’ve been interested in doing with social dreaming is to understand with other people that there’s nothing strange or unusual about sharing your dreams. Indigenous populations have been doing this for centuries, if not thousands of years. That’s because dreaming is just thinking while you’re asleep. And while you’re asleep, you can think about things in a different way. So, by sharing your dreams, you can share your thoughts about the world that you live in, but you can do it in a different way to when you’re sharing something in a conscious way of thinking. And when we’re conscious, we try to rationalize things and we miss out on the important emotional aspects of how we relate to people and how we relate to the environment. And I think that’s really essential in lots of complex situations in life. But particularly, since we’re focusing a little bit on the climate emergency and our relationship with nature, it’s really anxiety provoking to imagine what’s happening with the end of the planet, more or less. The apocalypse coming up, the climate emergency. That anxiety prevents us from taking action and this is what we can see in the world today. Despite the rational knowledge that climate change is caused by human intervention and by the burning of fossil fuels, we seem to find it very, very difficult to move forward. And that’s because we’re not connecting the emotional reality of what that means to the decisions we have to take. The work that we’ve been doing with social dreaming related to climate psychology has demonstrated that through thinking with social dreaming you can come to a clearer, better, more holistic, more complete understanding of the climate emergency. And if you can reach a more complete understanding of the climate emergency, then in theory, you can actually take decisions that make a difference. Doherty : Yeah, this is beautiful. I have some thoughts that I want to share, but Panu, how is this dovetailing with your understanding of climate emotions in your work and what you see happening in Finland and other places? Pihkala : Yeah, thanks Julian for introducing us to that. I work a lot with climate emotions and facilitate workshops, but not dream discussions. I know that there’s several psychotherapists in the climate psychology sphere who do that, and I’ve collaborated with some of them, like Sally Gillespie from Australia, who comes more from a Jungian perspective and dreams are very important in her work. She’s been discussing those with workshop members. The way in which some deep emotions and thoughts of ours appear in dreams is very fascinating and years ago there was this book by Michael Otis Hill called Dreaming the End of the World which was fascinating and quite heavy to read because it’s so evocative and the images can be quite powerful. I find this topic very fascinating, but how does that resonate with your work, Kamila? What’s the connection points? Kuc : Yeah, thank you. I was just thinking about how Julian and I met at some conference outside of London some years ago. And then during COVID, Julian and I held a series of social dreaming matrices with Duke University. Do you remember, Julian? We spent long days and evenings, I think once a week, doing matrices and that was really amazing because in my artistic practice, I’ve always been interested in working with dreams. But this has opened a completely different avenue because, Julian, you used that phrase beautifully with emotional reality and how, when you let that dream go, once it’s in a matrix, it kind of belongs to everybody and it’s a much more, in some ways, neutral way of discussing difficult emotions and difficult ideas. So, for me, the social dreaming has become kind of a, I don’t want to say a tool because I don’t know that that’s the right word, but it’s become a sort of vehicle for me to connect with people and all different communities. So, one of the most important components of the project that we’re currently working on, which all of you are part of, is social dreaming matrices, which hopefully Julian will be able to deliver many of them. But the idea, as Julian mentioned, is how you connect people and more importantly, how you connect people who might have very disparate ideas about the same topic. But I think that emotional reality is really important because particularly with the climate crisis, we know the facts, we know the numbers, but there is also that idea of yours, Thomas, of climate hostages. Like what Julian said, that anxiety that we have is so paralyzing that we end up with this kind of wide-mouthed apocalypse narratives and meanwhile nobody is doing anything. So, I think my response to that through my artistic practice is to create collaborations, artistic alliances, but also create groups of people where we can think through those ideas through creative practices. Doherty : Yeah, it’s fascinating. So, listeners, you can think about this. The meta message with a lot of our conversations is that solutions, ideas, and creativity are happening in real time with real people that are meeting each other at conferences and working together. Panu and I work together on this podcast and Kamila and Julian are working on things. A lot of its about active collaboration. The idea of a social dreaming group is called a matrix or matrice and a matrix is sort of a mold or an environment where things grow out of. So, this is the kind of matrice of all our work. I’m talking about listeners and everyone. We’re all working together in some form with people. One equalizing factor for humans, for better and worse, is that we all have dreams, in terms of visions and goals, but we also all have dreams. All humans dream, no matter what your political party is. I think a lot of people are closet dream lovers and don’t necessarily know how to talk about it. I remember when I worked with young people doing outdoor wilderness therapy years ago, one of my most favorite parts of these three-week long expeditions in the forest or in the desert is that every morning we would have a dream circle with the young people. And I was, as a therapist, using it very strategically to check in on the kids and see how they were doing. But you learn so much from people when they talk about their dreams, because of course we were thinking differently, and certain parts of our brain are on and certain parts of our brain are off. It was a little bit of social dreaming, in another form, because we would share our dreams together. But it was therapy so we were always focused on interpreting and putting it inside the person, as traditional Freudian dream interpretation would be. But this is different, right? With social dreaming, we are using our dreams to connect in real time. So, it’s not about some sort of mystical collected unconscious that exists in another reality. It’s literally our collective unconscious that’s manifesting right here in the day. Right Julian? That’s part of it? Manley : Yeah, that’s right. And I think the advantage of social dreaming is that it actually is not therapy. It’s very important to understand that it isn’t therapy. We’re thinking together with the thoughts that we had in our nighttime thinking. And as soon as we understand that, sharing your dreams doesn’t become something unusual, it becomes something natural. And if you ever do social dreaming, you’d be quite surprised how natural it feels. Maybe the first five minutes feel a bit odd and a bit strange because you come in with your prejudices about dreams. You kind of think, my dream is my intimate private thing so I’m not going to share it with others. But actually, five minutes into a social dreaming matrix, people just flow with their dreams. And it just demonstrates how natural the entire process is. But I also want to say something else, Thomas. And that is that it’s not just about actual dreams, it’s about dream thinking. In other words, there might be some people in a matrix who don’t often dream or who never dream. That doesn’t mean they’re excluded from sharing the dream time with people, because we’re talking about a state of reverie, a dream state. This is a little bit like daydreaming, so people can get involved in the images from other people’s dreams and they can associate to those dreams with images that float into their minds even if they don’t actually have dreams themselves. And so, nobody’s left out. It’s a very inclusive, democratic space where everybody, no matter how much or how little they dream, can become involved. So, that’s a really important aspect of dreams and I say that because I myself don’t dream very much as a matter of fact. People kind of expect that I’m a dreamer and I dream ten times a night. It’s actually not the case. I dream very little, but I never feel excluded, and I’ve never met anyone who said to me that’s terrible or that’s not for me because I just don’t dream and therefore, I wasn’t involved. That’s not the case at all because we can all daydream. And what is that? What is daydreaming? It’s creativity and that’s where the link comes into art and filmmaking. It’s creativity in the imagination producing visual images and that’s not so far removed from filmmaking. Kuc : Yeah Julian, do remember one of the matrices? Maybe you can talk a little bit about what happens post matrix. That sort of meaning making session. Do remember one of the matrices during COVID when one of the recurring symbols in everybody’s dream was an octopus? Do remember that? Because that for me was one of the most powerful matrices. Could you say a little bit more about that meaning making session that happens after the matrix? Manley : Yeah, sure. Well, there’s always one image that seems to capture people’s imagination and Kamila is referring to this particular image of the octopus that came up in a series of social dream matrices. And the point about that kind of image is that within the image, there’s all sorts of potential interpretations. And each person in the matrix can have their own interpretation of what that particular image might mean. So, there’s no conflict in the interpretation of the image because all interpretations are held within the single image. Within the image of the octopus, you can have all sorts of ideas like talking about the tentacles, the eight possibilities, the intelligence of the octopus, which tells us something about our relationship with the non-human, and so on and so forth. However, even though Kamila’s put me on the spot and asked me to interpret the image of the octopus, I also want to say that the experience of social dreaming is an embodied experience. In other words, when you’re in the matrix, you feel the affective power of the dreams and what’s happening in the matrix. It’s actually much more difficult to describe it when you’re out of the embodied experience. Nevertheless, as part of social dreaming, you have a social dreaming matrix for say about 60 minutes. And after that, you have a meaning making session because it’s important to understand that during the actual social dreaming matrix itself, we don’t interpret dreams. We don’t judge people for their dreams. There’s no sense of any conscious, explicit meaning making in the matrix itself, because all the images are allowed to float and people make their own connections in their own minds as they wish. But after the matrix, there’s a post-matrix discussion where we get out of the dream mode, and we get more into the standard mode of thinking. And we do that to give people a chance to digest and process the different dreams and feelings in the matrix. I say dreams and feelings because in the images, what you have are often deep emotions, so you need time after the matrix to process those emotions. That’s kind of ethically correct as well as important to help people understand how to make some kind of sense of what’s been going on in the matrix previously. So, the post-Matrix discussion may last about 30 minutes or 45 minutes. Doherty : Yeah, this is really great. It’s a state of mind so we’re working with and cultivating a state of mind, a state of being. I think that’s a mini rite of passage where you go into this more reverie state. Kamila, you’re an artist and you’re envisioning doing a fairly ambitious program that’s integrating Panu’s work on environmental emotion and my work on environmental identity. It’s the same with environmental identity. After a few minutes of talking about it, you can’t stop people from talking about it because everyone has an environmental identity, and they like to talk about it. Just like I think they like to talk about their dreams. And you’re a filmmaker. You’ve done interesting documentary style, artistic work and activism. What’s your vision? Now this is your dream, I guess more in the real world. But what’s your vision for some of this project for other listeners to get inspired by. Kuc : Yeah, thank you. I guess the project you’re referring to is a project I’ve been discussing with both you and Julian for quite some time now. It’s tentatively called Hyperobjects and Climate Hostages. This is a working title as we are applying for funds, but really the idea is to engage a group of diverse participants in four different locations in the world in conversations about climate crisis and try and see what conversations we can have through artistic practices within the topic of climate crisis. So currently the project is based in Seattle, Detroit, London, and Coventry. I know there have been some noises that Poland is quite interested. I’m hoping we might go to Finland at some point potentially. There are definitely opportunities there, but I guess the idea is that we’ll engage in a series of ecological identity map workshops, which is potentially where you and Panu can come in as well as conversations obviously about climate crisis, but also creative arts workshops. So, filmmaking, poetry, performance art, and social dreaming matrices. And out of that will come a feature film that’s multi-authored and has diverse perspective in it. In different parts of the world, we’re working with different people. So, in London, I’m hoping to collaborate with elderly and neurodiverse populations. In Detroit, we’re currently working with Yemeni and African American populations. And in Seattle, indigenous populations. So, we’re really trying to debunk a lot of those white man saviorism and apocalyptic narratives about a climate crisis and see what we can do and what we can learn about the climate crisis through creative practices. Thomas, you mentioned my recent training. I’m currently training at Seattle University as a social justice and multicultural counselor. I’m interested in all the social justice issues that do come up for a lot of different communities. So, I guess, there’s a couple of things that I just want to finish with that needless to say, we don’t see climate crisis as just an environmental issue. It’s a social justice issue. And it is also, as I see it, a crisis of representation. What is the image of climate crisis? How do we represent it? Here’s me as an artist interested in innovating with methods of working with different communities and different participants. How do we need to adapt? So, we have project leads in every location and are in dialogue with people from the community, so we don’t impose any frameworks on any community. So, everything is a dialogue and negotiation to really try and create a space for all those different perspectives to come out and social dreaming is obviously crucial part of it. Doherty : It’s amazing. Let me ask you a very quick question. So, this seems to be taking your work to another scale or another level. So, listeners out there who are inspired but feel like they would never have the guts to take on something like this. What helps you to do it? What have you learned practically that you think helps you to take on something like this? I know it’s a big question, but does anything come to your mind? Kuc : No, thank you for that question because I was trying to figure out how to squeeze everything in. But I think, like I said, for me, the answer to everything is really group work and its collaborations. And if I may, I would like to give a shout-out to few people and organizations that have been so responsive to the project from the very beginning. Obviously, all of you are here, which I’m very grateful for you being part of the project. But in Seattle, we’re working with Cadence Video Poetry Festival, Rana San, Chelsea Werner-Jatzke, and Seattle University, who is also one of the funders of the project. These are people originally who I’ve gotten in touch with, and they came on board quickly. In Detroit, I want to give a shout-out an amazing organization, Augusta Morrison at Sidewalk, Bulk Space, Jessica Ali, but also Mothlight Artist Collective, who will be delivering a lot of 60-millimeter workshops. Also, Julia Yezbick and Shanna Maurizi. In London, Laura Fischer and Traumascapes, an organization that is funded by Laura, who is a counselor, but they work primarily in the context of trauma, but are just starting to work with climate change related trauma. So really, it’s the openness and kindness of people because we have psychologists on board, we have artists, we have activists. The poet CA Conrad has just come on board. We also have musicians coming. At the moment, I think I have about 20 partners and something like 30 different people. So yeah, it is definitely a beast to manage, I couldn’t have done it without the openness of the collaborators. So far from everybody I approached, I haven’t had a single person who said no. There were a couple of maybes and couple of tentative yeses that we are waiting on, but nobody said no, which is to me amazing. Manley : And Kamila... Kuc : Yeah, sorry, can I just mention one more thing? I want to also give a shout-out to two more people. Katherin Hervey and Katie Sedgwick, two LA based producers who have just started On the Border, a production company in LA. They are championing a lot of work that’s done in the field of restorative justice. So, Katherin Hervey did a lot of work with prisons in America. We just have such an amazing team of people. I think this can go in so many different interesting directions. Yeah, sorry Julian. Manley : Yeah, you forgot that one of the actors is nature and the environment. And this is one of the important things that I’ve been learning in my work with social dreaming and indigenous knowledge and indigenous populations. The idea that nature can be given personhood. Nature can be a person and we can have a relationship with nature which is not a done to but done with relationship. I think this is one of the ways that dreams work to enable us to create something possible out of what apparently in our cognitive minds is impossible. So, you know, I’ve been very interested, for example, in the idea in New Zealand that the Whanganui River could have legal, personhood status. And that comes directly from the indigenous thinking of the Māori’s who say, “I am the river and the river is me.” And they don’t mean that as a bit of poetry. They mean that literally. And the only way we can reach that kind of literal truth is through our emotional and dream engagement with nature. So, nature becomes an actor. I really hope that we can introduce nature as an actor in the work as well. Kuc : Completely, I think that’s a really, really great point. I think that’s why I think collaborating with different people in these diverse communities will bring us so many different points of view. So yeah, I think just being open to that and seeing what manifests. Amazing, thank you for that, Julian. Doherty : Yeah, this is fascinating and we’re going to put some links in our show notes to some of these projects if you want to learn more or get involved. Yeah, it’s real time. All this stuff is developing in real time, in real places, in real contexts. Panu, we have to wrap up for our conversation today, but I can’t imagine that this doesn’t resonate with many things you’re seeing in your work. Do you have any thoughts to tie this up around climate emotions, coping and how this is landing for you? Pihkala : Yeah, it’s been fascinating to listen to all that you have been sharing. For contemporary people, the big challenge is to engage with all the complexities and difficulties of the state of the world. And sometimes, creative methods can be highly helpful in that. Listening to what is under the surface, which is a category also for dreams. That’s why I think that the work that you are doing is highly important and I hope that people, including you dear listeners, find ways for that creative engagement, hopefully together with trusted others. Doherty : Yeah. Well, thank you, Kamila, Julian, and Panu. We’re having this real-time international conversation from the US, Finland, the UK, Scotland, and London. Listeners out there, we’re waiting for our end of the year report, but I know in the past we’ve had listeners from at least 50 countries. This small podcast goes out around the world, so it’s our own little dreaming as well. So, listeners, be well, and Panu and Kamila and Julian, you all have a good evening. Take care. Kuc : Thank you so much. Manley : Thank you. Pihkala : Take care. [music: “CC&H theme music”]…

Climate Change and Happiness

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Season 4, Episode 14: On Connectedness to Nature and Community Resilience with Cindy Frantz 32:40

il y a 28 weeks32:40