Climate Anxiety: Sharing Our Feelings and Finding Connection

Have you ever worried about your own or your kids’ future on an overheating planet? Has inaction from leaders on the climate crisis ever filled you with anger? Do you find solace in nature? 

Climate disruption can generate many different emotions. The trick is how to use (or ignore) those emotions to get to work on contributing to solutions. This was our topic for our presentation to the Sierra Club River Prairie Group in October.

Executive Director Cathy Clarkin, and youth leader Jimena Argueta shared their climate feelings and strategies for understanding and dealing with them. Talking through The Climate Mental Health Network’s Climate Emotions Wheel, audience members had the chance to share their own perspectives and concerns. Participants left understanding that hope and action go hand-in-hand.

Sierra Club Writeup About the Event

Our actions may sometimes seem small and insignificant, but they do make a difference because every fraction of a degree of warming avoided means less human suffering and less environmental destruction. As Katharine Hayoe, author and climate scientist, often reminds us, climate action can be as simple as bringing climate change up in conversation. This helps create a cultural and political shift that can generate meaningful change. When we connect climate action to the people, places, and things that we care about, it can bring more people in and help us stay motivated, rather than surrendering to worry or despair. 

Cathy, Jimena, & parents at Sierra Club presentation

While we love science at Accelerate Climate Solutions, we understand that when it come to climate change, we have to also engage with the heart in order to spur action. We are happy to come to your organization or classroom to talk about how to connect our head, heart, and hands to make a difference. Speaker request form.