Research and resources, shaped by those doing the work

This review examines climate-related activities through an evolutionary psychology lens, identifying five core ancestral psychological motivations - relating to self-interest, status, sensing, temporal discounting, and social imitation - that shape people's environmental decisions in fundamental ways. The authors argue that evolved psychological mechanisms, originally adapted to very different ancestral environments, can help explain why people often behave in ways that are misaligned with long-term environmental interests, such as discounting future or distant environmental costs, or being more motivated by reputational and status concerns than by environmental outcomes themselves. Drawing on this evolutionary framework, the paper reviews how these same mechanisms - including reputational signalling and social learning - can potentially be harnessed to promote pro-environmental behaviour, offering practical applications alongside the underlying theoretical account.

As the world grapples with the repercussions of climate change, the consequences for physical and mental health have become more salient. Climate mental health unifies multidisciplinary approaches, including climate science, psychiatry and psychology, to inform and shape public policy and action to mitigate the negative effects of climate change on mental health.The changing patterns of climate, both directly and indirectly shaping extreme weather events, are costly phenomena. A recent estimate placed the global economic toll at US $143 billion annually. Increasingly, academic research papers and governmental reports have expanded to include the implications for physical and mental health in costs of disasters.

From the Heinrich Boll Stiftung framing paper 'Racism and Climate (In)Justice: How Racism and Colonialism Shape the Climate Crisis and Climate Action' (Abimbola, Aikins, Makhesi-Wilkinson & Roberts, 2021, CC BY-NC-ND): Racism and climate change have been intertwined since their inception, and both colonial continuities and hierarchies continue to determine climate policy and action. The two crises can only be addressed in tandem - and current climate governance fails to do so. The paper shows the effects of the dominance of the Global North in UN-led processes and climate movement organizations, including the tokenization of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPoC) and the constraints they face in assuming leadership positions, while mainstream representation of BIPoC as 'victims of climate change' negates their roles as knowledge holders, innovators and leaders.

This narrative review synthesises existing research on the relationship between negative emotions related to climate change and other environmental problems, and mental wellbeing, across different regions and cultural contexts. The authors examine anxiety, worry and grief as distinct but related phenomena, arguing that these emotional responses are, in most cases, normal and potentially constructive rather than pathological, particularly where worry motivates engagement and action rather than avoidance. They review evidence on how these emotions are distributed across populations, noting particular vulnerability among young people, those with direct experience of environmental loss, and communities with close cultural or livelihood ties to land and place. The review also considers methodological challenges in measuring climate emotions, including how differently worded survey questions can shape reported findings, and calls for more place-based and culturally relevant approaches to understanding and supporting people experiencing climate distress, rather than treating these responses as uniform across contexts.

This chapter revisits professional ethics for therapists in light of the climate and ecological crisis, considering how existing ethical frameworks may need to be reconsidered or extended to address practitioners' responsibilities in a time of climate breakdown.

This doctoral thesis is a phenomenological study convening a group of leaders from UK organisations that engage the public on climate change (climate change communication) for seven meetings over eleven months, exploring the systems-psychodynamic experience of leadership in this sector. The 'ticking clock thing' of the title originates in a participant's description of the emotional experience of working in climate communication: a persistent sense of urgency and time pressure that shapes organisational dynamics, leadership behaviour and the pace of work. The thesis explores how this pressure is experienced, defended against and organisationally managed, contributing to limited existing scholarship on organisational dynamics in organisations whose task includes addressing the climate crisis.

This chapter explores the experience of people who work on climate change - scientists, communicators, campaigners and sustainability professionals - and the organisational dynamics that may affect them. It examines how the psychological impact of the climate crisis shapes organisational culture and working experience, and how climate-aware therapeutic practitioners working as organisational consultants and coaches can help climate workers make sense of their experience and navigate the challenges.