I received an email requesting information about how various practitioners help kids deal with climate anxiety. Here is how I responded.
What I am about to say is not what you’re looking for, but it is relevant to the climate change and anxiety conversation.
Obviously, the reason kids and adults are anxious about climate because we are in fact destroying our life-support systems. There is a realistic basis for anxiety.
While it may help some people to find ways to connect with their inner well-being, connect with nature, be refreshed by time with friends and lovers, or whatever, in addition I think the only appropriate response (there’s a word, ‘only’!) is to proactively aim to change the way our system works.
This cartoon tells the story:
There is more than climate change at issue here. We are destroying our life-support systems and our well-being at many levels on a planetary scale.
People suffering from cancer apparently do better if they proactively try to fight it. We should all be proactive about climate change.
We can act proactively about climate change by communicating to inspire mainstream commitment to doing everything required to stop making climate change and other environmental issues worse, and indeed transition to a life-affirming culture. Without such commitment business as usual – despite windmills and solar panels – will continue to drive us to ecological collapse.
How to act on this? Inspiring Transition is a support platform for thought leaders and citizen-educators. It has everything required for people to get started as communicators, including a special tool, Kitchen Table Conversations.
My TEDX talk is a good introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4gJvL3y4oQ&t=3s.
Greta Thunberg will have reason to hope when she sees that mainstream society is committed to turning things around.
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