Research and resources, shaped by those doing the work

The feelings and hopes of young people around the world are often neglected in policymaking and research, with consequences for both their wellbeing and the effectiveness of humanity’s response to the climate crisis. Many of them are distressed by climate change’s impacts, the inaction of political and corporate leaders, the ways other people respond to their feelings, and the lack of support they have to share their feelings or get involved in meaningful climate-related work. This paper is written by a group of twenty-three concerned young people from fifteen countries. It provides a first-hand account of our deepest feelings, how these feelings affect our daily lives, the support we want to help us cope, and our hopes for a radically more compassionate future. The results are particularly relevant to policymakers, mental health professionals, journalists, educators, and people working with young people more widely.

This chapter explores how psychotherapists can support transformational systemic change in the face of the climate crisis, through understanding the connection between inner and outer (environmental) landscapes. It explores unconscious cognitive biases as invisible drivers of climate change, and describes reactivating dormant capacities such as creativity and intuition to help grow into full human capacities to address the existential nature of the crisis.

As the impacts from anthropogenic climate change are increasing globally, peopleare experiencing dramatic shifts in weather, temperature, wildlife and vegetation patterns,and water and food quality and availability. These changes impact human health and wellbeing, and resultantly, climate change has been identified as the biggest global health threat of the 21st Century. Recently, research is beginning to indicate that changes in climate, and the subsequent disruption to the social, economic, and environmental determinants of health, may cause increased incidences and prevalence of mental health issues, emotional responses, and large-scale sociopsychological changes. Through a multi-year, community-led, exploratory case study conducted in Rigolet, Nunatsiavut, Labrador, Canada, this research qualitatively explores the impacts of climate change on mental health and well-being in an Inuit context.

Published by WWF-UK, this book argues that mainstream approaches to environmental campaigning - focused on policy change or individual behaviour change - largely ignore the role of human identity in shaping responses to environmental challenges. Crompton and Kasser argue that many current environmental campaigns inadvertently reinforce the very aspects of identity (materialism, extrinsic values, threat-driven defensiveness) that drive unsustainable behaviour in the first place, drawing on values theory - including Schwartz's circumplex model of values - and self-determination theory to make this case. The book proposes that lasting engagement with environmental challenges requires deliberately activating more helpful, intrinsic aspects of identity rather than relying on fear, guilt or narrow self-interest, and closes by identifying common ground between environmental campaigning and other social justice movements that share this identity-based analysis.

From the perspective of a psychotherapist deeply affected by the climate crisis, this chapter questions why patients rarely directly verbalise concerns about climate change in sessions. Drawing on Henry Rey's concept of dying inner objects that people wait for help to repair, and on the work of Sally Weintrobe and George Marshall, the chapter suggests that, despite overt climate silence, a process of mourning damaged inner objects can facilitate facing the greatest threat to humanity we have known.

Climate change education ‘helps people understand and address the impacts of the climate crisis, empowering them with the knowledge, values and attitudes needed to act as agents of change’