Solastalgia: the climate word you need right now
We need to learn how to hold the duality of loving nature while also mourning its transformation.
The word, Solastalgia, coined almost a decade ago, reflects what many of us feel for the first real time experience of as we witness devastating climate-changed weather.
“Solastalgia is the distress that is produced by environmental change impacting on people while they are directly connected to their home environment.”
When the places we’ve always seen as safe—like nature—are no longer reliable sanctuaries, it brings a deep emotional toll.
Solastalgia encompasses the pain we feel from the environmental changes occurring around us, especially in places we feel connected to. It’s a type of disenfranchised grief for the place we knew, even as we continue to care for what remains.
And in naming our experience we can then better cultivate mental and emotional coping strategies that foster resilience in the face of unpredictability and uncertainty. Living and leading in this climate-changed world requires emotional resilience in response to eco-grief and the psychological impacts of these unpredictable events.
Learning how to acknowledge, process, and channel eco-grief into action to build both individual and communal resilience feels like a really important endeavor for all of us who work with others as educators, managers, leaders, and community members. If you’re not climate-aware or climate-forward, you risk invalidating yourself or emotionally bypassing those around you.
It’s essential to help people name and process eco-grief. Acknowledging that grief is an important step toward healing and toward taking meaningful action. By allowing ourselves and others the space to feel and express these emotions, we not only cultivate personal resilience, but also strengthen our collective capacity to navigate the unpredictable, climate-impacted world we now live in.
How do you navigate the tension between your love for the natural world and the grief you feel for its transformation?
What steps can you take to honor both emotions while fostering resilience in the face of climate change?
After you reflect on those, here are small ways to channel your grief and build resilience through climate action:
Use your social influence to talk more about climate action and impact. The climate communication research shows we are way more influenced by the actions of those we know than not know.
Talk to other people who care about climate change and make sure they are voting. Over 8 million environmentals did not vote in the 2020 presidential elections.
Vote and lobby for climate-informed candidates yourself. It’s very close to final voter registration dates so check your own state.
Move your money to banks with no fossil fuel investment. My business is with Beneficial State Bank. (No endorsements, just sharing it’s doable).
Find a climate conscious community near you. I hold regular Embodied Climate Action workshops at The Gardens on Spring Creek in Fort Collins, CO. Talk to me about partnerships with your community or climate-forward leadership trainings for your profession.
Shift one thing in your own behavior to be more pro-environmental. (There is no perfect climate action, just take action.) If you want to know the most impactful actions they relate to the reduction of: meat consumption, fuel required transportation, and general overconsumption of goods.