Psychological and Spiritual Dimensions of Climate Change. (A Shapley-Booth Lecture at the IRAS Summer Conference 2017)

1. Dr. Panu Pihkala, Star Island, 2017

2.  ”I lay awake at night worried about things like
the environment and the way the world is
changing.” – A 14-year old boy
 A young woman who is attending therapy for
her problems with drinking and hook-ups:
 “I am probably going to be one of the first
generation of women who can’t have children,
because the earth is too unhealthy to sustain a
new generation of people.”

3.  1) An introduction into interdisciplinary
perspectives on eco-anxiety
 2) Insights from the ”realist theologians” who
had also ecotheological concerns
 3) Some experiences from Finland in working
with eco-anxiety and religion & science
dialogue

4.  Various symptoms, from general restlessness
to clinical cases
 Local and global causes
 Optional terms: ”Eco-angst”, psychological
impacts of environmental problems
 A certain amount of anxiety is usually
required for action, but the problems are a)
overly strong anxiety and b) not having
means to deal with anxiety

5. Glenn Albrecht:
 Somaterratic syndromes (Body-Earth)
 Psychoterratic syndromes:
 Eco-anxiety
 Ecoparalysis
 Solastalgia
 Econostalgia

6.  Eco-anxiety is linked with various forms of
denial, such as disavowal
 Sally Weintrobe (ed.), Engaging with Climate
Change: Psychoanalytic and Interdisciplinary
Perspectives (2013)
 ”Socially constructed silence”
 Kari Marie Norgaard, Living in Denial
 Eviatar Zerubavel, Elephant in the Room

7.  Increased tendency to irritation, aggression
 Intoxication, seeking short-term satisfaction
 The appeal of authoritarian movements
 Erich Fromm
 Ernest Becker
 Fromm: ”automaton-conformity”
 Cf. CharlesTart: ”consensus trance reality”
 The need to wake up, to break the spell

8.  ”The Myth of Apathy”
 Renée Lertzman: Environmental Melancholy
(2015)
 Shierry Nicholsen: Love of Nature and the End of
theWorld (2002)
 Two sides of the story:
 1)There is a lot of pain and anguish
 2) A certain relief: people are not as ignorant as is
often thought of

9.  Interdisciplinary research about eco-anxiety
 Activities and materials which help people to
deal with the emotional dimension
 Environmental communication and
education which is framed as hope in the
midst of tragedy
 Because people already know (at least in Europe;),
overly optimistic proposals are not credible

12.  ”Environmental
Education After
Sustainability:
Hope in the Midst of
Tragedy”,
Panu Pihkala, 12.4.2017
 ATheme Number, a lot
of interesting articles
(cf. Post-ecological age)

13.  Climate change offers a possibility for people,
at last, to confront the deep problems of
current lifestyles and socio-economic
structures
 The emotional weight (eco-anxiety) means
that the potential relief is very strong

14.  Climate change challenges people to build
resilience and practice active hope (cf. the
work of Joanna Macy)
 This requires us to wrestle with existential
questions, especially mortality

15.  ”Climate change feels like death”
 Terror ManagementTheory (TMT)

16.  “While climate change is a dire problem, one
that is threatening to people’s lifestyle, health,
and survival, there is evidence that framing it
within the context of threats, a strategy known
as ‘fear appeals,’ can have the opposite of the
intended effect. One suspected reason for this is
that when asked to think about mortality
people have a set of anxiety-buffering
defenses that they subconsciously evoke ...”
(Dickinson et al. 2013, 147, emphasis mine)

17.  Robert Jay Lifton: different types of symbolic
immortality, with which people make sense
of the significance of their mortal lives
 Offspring, effects on other people
 Legacy of work efforts
 Legacy of creative works
 Religious belief
 The world of nature

18.  People feel that practically all of these types
of symbolic immortality are under threat in
the times of nuclear threat and climate
change
 Dealing with climate change requires a
message which has existential dimensions

19.  I use EE as a wide concept (cf.Already
UNESCO inTbilisi in 1977)
 The role of spiritual and existential
dimensions in EE
 Activities which are ”holistic” enough include
a strong spiritual dimension
 Cf. ”atheist spirituality”
 Art-based EE, for example participatory
drama (www.naturearteducation.org)

20.  More research needed on the role of rituals
and rituality in EE
 Cf. Earth Hour or Earth Day as (partly?) ritual
activities which help also to address eco-anxiety
 Faith communities have strong and rather
unique possibilities to deal with eco-anxiety

22.  MEMO

23.  Eco-anxiety is linked with many emotions in
its various forms
 Grief, a feeling of loss
 Guilt
 Shame
 Anger, indignation
 Fear, helplessness

24.  Can provide opportunities to truly process
environment-related guilt (”eco-guilt”)
 Repentance, reconciliation…
 Cf. Ecological restoration projects
 A long history of dealing with ambivalence
 An example: the application of the Lutheran
emphasis on simul justus et peccator, both good
and bad at the same time
 Can help people to process shame

25.  ”If environmentalism was a religion, it would
be a cruel one, always demanding more and
never offering relief or forgiveness”
 Some people become really burdened
 The ”functional similarities” between
environmentalism and religion
 who tells how to behave
 who tells what is enough
 who offers relief

26.  ”Man (sic) would like to blot himself out”
 The Flood story
 Shame because of environmental damage
 PaulTillich, 1963, ”Man and Earth”

27.  High tide: 1940-1950s (early 1960s)
 Major figures: Reinhold Niebuhr, PaulTillich
 Many other important figures, some of whom
have been mostly forgotten
 Walter Marshall Horton
 H. Richard Niebuhr
 Daniel DayWilliams
 Joseph Sittler

29.  A realistic view of evil and tragedy (the
history of theWorldWars etc.)
 An emphasis on hope
 Early examples of such ”ecotheology” where
environmental themes are related to all areas
in their theology
 ”Eco-justice”
 The downside: ecotheology is often not fully
developed

30.  Courage to Be in times of eco-anxiety
 A unique blend of psychological, existential
and environmental theology
 ”Nature, also, Mourns for a Lost Good”, 1948
 ”The Right to Hope”, 1965
 Hope and despair are linked
▪ Cf. espére, d-espére
 The true enemy is hopelessness, not despair

31.  Process theology + realist theology
 God’s Grace and Man’s Hope 1949
 Seeks to enhance ”social gospel” with
 a more realistic sense of evil and
 more emphasis on the value of the natural world
(process thought, Anglican theology of creation)

32.  1) “Christian hope is sustained by, and
expresses itself in, a reverent grateful love for
the good earth”
 2) “Christian hope is sustained by, and
expresses itself in, the never-ending struggle
for the Good Society”
 3) “Christian hope is sustained by, and
expresses itself in, faith in the kingdom of
God”

34.  There are genuine, tragic losses
 Some of the problems are caused, tragically,
by the same characteristics of humans that
have also positive sides
 Innovativess, optimism etc.
 ”Radical hope” (Jonathan Lear): hoping even
when we cannot yet know what will save us
 Hope connected with meaning, not belief in
success (contra optimism)

36.  ”Seasons of the mind” (or, seasons of the
soul)
 Accepting that sometimes we feel despair, but not
associating ourselves with only despair
 The skill of seeing two levels (cf. ”binocular
vision”)
 At the same time, there is evidence for both hope
and despair
 A big problem: news culture emphasizes the bad

37.  Rosemary Randall: InTime forTomorrow:The
Carbon Conversations Handbook
 http://www.carbonconversations.co.uk/
 Elin Kelsey
 http://elinkelseyandcompany.com/
 David Hicks: Educating for Hope inTroubled
Times: Climate Change and theTransition to a
Post-Carbon Future (2014)
 Futures Education, for example scenarios

42.  Chaired by climate scientist Markku Kulmala
and Lutheran bishopTapio Luoma
 Kulmala has for years been the world’s most
referenced geoscientist
 Luoma did his dissertation onThomasTorrance’s
views on religion and science
 A main theme: climate change
 Feedback:A source of hope for many natural
scientists

45.  Eco-anxiety
 Consciousness of the problem
 Concepts with which to grasp it
 Various emotions which may be linked with it
 Ideas of how to relieve it
 The existential dimension and mortality
 Frame: hope in the midst of tragedy
 Insights from the ”realist theologians”

46.  Dr. Panu Pihkala
panu.pihkala@helsinki.fi