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Eco-Anxiety: A Call to Action |
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by Sarah Anne Edwards
And So It Begins...
The signs are all about. Each day there are more, and they are escalating in seriousness.
It’s hard to ignore a few signs from the past couple weeks:
• Delta Airlines is significantly cutting its number of flights this summer.
• Flights that aren’t full in time for take off will be cancelled.
• Middle-aged white-collar workers in their 40s and 50s are moving back into their parents’ homes for shelter.
• Twenty-four states are now paying $4 or higher for gasoline.
• To save money and stay in business, truckers and carriers are slowing down and carrying loads for multiple suppliers at a time. In some parts of the country, truckers are protesting and poised to strike.
• Bread, a friend complained, is over $5.00 for a standard brand loaf at the supermarket. A loaf of our spelt bread, which we eat because we are allergic to wheat, costs over $6.00 now.
• Merchants are resorting to haggling in order to sell their merchandise.
• Airlines are returning to prop planes for regional flights because they use less fuel.
• Worldwide food shortages are arising, from Africa to Central America and Afghanistan. Food riots have broken out in Haiti. Food prices are escalating not only here in the US but everywhere, even Rome and Paris.
• Water wars have begun in Colorado.
• Shell Oil took out a full-page ad in Time and Fortune magazines saying, “no combination of technologies can plug the energy gap … There will be a … global energy crisis. It will dwarf previous crises. Profound economic dislocation will result. The challenge for human civilization will be to rebuild ‘post-peak.’”
Yes, Shell Oil.
The intertwining realities of energy, climate, and economic change are unraveling life as we’ve known it right before our eyes. As such signs mount, our personal and collective anxiety is rising. Mainstream media is already noticing our discomfort and has at times somewhat cavalierly and a bit tongue-in-check dubbed it “eco-anxiety,” the newest mental health craze of the time.
While the term has been an attention-grabber, it’s actually a bit of a misnomer. Anxiety is usually used to refer to vague or irrational fears. But our eco-concerns are neither vague nor irrational, and they’re certainly no sign of mental illness. They are a sane response to a real threat.
We must not make light or discount our rising concerns. Nor should we feel embarrassed by them or try to reassure ourselves that somehow all will be fine. Eco-anxiety is not a funny, quirky worry limited to neurotic soccer moms and zealous tree huggers, as it’s been portrayed. Eco-anxiety is a call for action, alerting us to get busy.
What has been so long discussed and debated as possibilities that could happen someday is happening right now, and it’s stealing our hopes for the future, our idea of who we are and how we live, and our expectations of normalcy.
If we want to protect ourselves amid the changes swirling around us and prepare for the many more that are on their way, we need to heed the signs, be concerned, but not get stuck in fear, confusion, panic, or feelings of powerlessness. We have to use our concern to energize us into concerted action, starting right now.
But what action? What do we need to be doing? What can we do that will actually help the situation we’re in? Obviously we can’t take on the climate, energy, and economic crises single-handedly.
We know that’s way beyond the scope of what we can do personally. In the shadow of the issues looming in today’s headlines, the efforts we can make seem to pale. How are we to respond to an as-yet-undefined, but assuredly substantially changed, future? Therein lies an empowering opportunity.
We can’t eliminate the problems. We can’t continue with business as usual. But we can participate, starting now, in creating our post-peak future.
What We Can Do Personally
At the individual level, we can take steps to reduce our own energy footprint. We can scale down the size of our homes and high-maintenance lifestyles to minimize the amount of electricity, gasoline, water, and other utilities and commodities we consume. That alone will shelter us from rising energy and climate-change-related costs and economic pressures, while cutting back on our contribution to the problems.
It might involve taking lots of relatively simple steps like fixing breakfast at home instead of buying it at the coffee shop or unplugging appliances that perpetually draw electricity even when not in use. Or it might mean undertaking more sweeping changes like relocating, home-sharing, energy retro-fitting our homes, or going off-grid.
Fortunately we have a font of wisdom readily available to guide us in how best to restructure our lives and embrace enduringly sustainable ways to live: nature. Granted since most of us spend little time outdoors on a daily basis, the idea of learning directly from nature may be a rather unfamiliar process. It’s more than enjoying an outing in the park or relaxing in a natural environment, though both are great ways to de-stress on a temporary basis. Letting nature teach us how to live sustainably involves mastering its non-verbal language so we can experience and internalize its lessons and incorporate them into our lives.
There are many eco-therapy and nature-connect educational programs across the country (ecopsychology.org) that provide the mental and sensory tools to access nature’s ways of making intelligent choices and taking the needed action in our daily lives that lie beyond the limits of our current way of life that’s no longer working.
Going Beyond the Personal
Clearly what we can do personally can only go so far. The issues we’re facing are not just personal. They’re systemic. So, equally important as the action we can take personally is the action we can undertake together. We can join with concerned others to begin the process of creating small, sustainable, walkable, food-producing, local communities right within our own towns, neighborhoods and bioregions.
Many people are already doing this. In communities across the country such as Portland, OR, Bellingham, WA, and Willits, CA, groups of concerned citizens are actively working to protect and strengthen their local economies by making them more sustainable. They are assessing what’s needed to secure dependable food, housing, water, heating and cooling systems, sanitation, medical care, and security in a sustainable way.
These groups are also supporting each other in making needed changes in their personal lives, sharing ideas and enjoying the camaraderie of creating new ways of living together. They’re learning together, for example, how to grow food in our own backyards, patios, decks and rooftops, or in community gardens using natural, energy-efficient methods like permaculture. They’re teaching each other how to repair, restore, and maintain things in their homes and communities.
We can learn more about how to take local action and the progress of others by visiting and participating in organizations such as the Relocation Network (www.relocalize.net ), BALLE (the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies) (www.livingeconomies.org ), the Post Carbon Institute (www.postcarbon.org ), and Transition Towns (www.transitionculture.org ).
We may be an increasing anxious nation, but as long we commensurately turn our anxiety into personal and community action, we’ll have less to be anxious about and more to be enthusiastic about.
Sarah Anne Edwards, PhD, LCSW, is an ecopsychologist and author of the recently released book Middle-Class Lifeboat, Careers and Life Choices for Navigating a Changing Economy and Director of the Pine Mountain Institute, which offers Continuing Education programs for helping professionals working to meet psychological, spiritual, and practical needs of those adjusting to manmade environmental changes and their economic consequences.
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