By Georgina Ramsay, Gareth Morgan and Lauren McGregor (University of Leicester), The Conversation: The framework was useful in highlighting how people experience a range of meanings and emotions in relation to the climate crisis, such as guilt, responsibility, alienation, despair, grief, powerlessness, anger, hopelessness and hopefulness. We regarded all these different responses as understandable in the context of the climate crisis and its dismissal by others in participants' lives. Some of the most useful questions related to social power - participants told us that differences in social standing impacted on their sense of being heard and included when discussing climate change, and that their experiences were shaped by negative media coverage of climate activism and societal messages that dismissed the issues they were trying to draw attention to.
Why anger, anxiety and anguish are understandable psychological reactions to the climate crisis
By Georgina Ramsay, Gareth Morgan and Lauren McGregor (University of Leicester), The Conversation: The framework was useful in highlighting how people experience a range of meanings and emotions in relation to the climate crisis, such as guilt, responsibility, alienation, despair, grief, powerlessness, anger, hopelessness and hopefulness. We regarded all these different responses as understandable in the context of the climate crisis and its dismissal by others in participants' lives. Some of the most useful questions related to social power - participants told us that differences in social standing impacted on their sense of being heard and included when discussing climate change, and that their experiences were shaped by negative media coverage of climate activism and societal messages that dismissed the issues they were trying to draw attention to.
Gareth Morgan
I'm one of CPA's youth coordinators. I'm a clinical psychologist with over 20 years' experience working in the NHS and clinical psychology training programmes. I work with the other youth coordinators and other members to nurture an intergenerational culture within CPA, and to develop our offerings for young people and the adults who support them. I am keen to support understandings of of our responses to climate breakdown in ways that support connections with power and wider contexts, including adultism and intergenerational injustice. I am a parent to two wonderful children, and I try and support local actions and community projects when I have the time (doesn't seem to be often!). I work three days a week on the Leicester Clinical Psychology training programme. Listening to music is one of my main coping strategies for my own climate feelings, and I'm looking forward to when I can tell my children to turn their music down, rather than the other way around.
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Theory and frameworks Reading List
The sources on this list relate to theory and frameworks. They are not freely accessible online - most require a library subscription, institutional access, or purchase.
Climate and ecological emotions Reading List
The sources on this list relate to climate and ecological emotions. They are not freely accessible online - most require a library subscription, institutional access, or purchase.
Descent in the Time of Climate Change
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