-- Glenn Albrecht
Climate Change and the People's Health by
Climate change and social inequity are both sprawling, insidious forces that threaten populations around the world. It's time we start talking about them together. Climate Change and the People's Health offers a brave and ambitious new framework for understanding how our planet's two greatest existential threats comingle, complement, and amplify one another -- and what can be done to mitigate future harm. In doing so it posits three new modes of thinking: � That climate change interacts with the social determinants of health and exacerbates existing health inequities � The idea of a "consumptagenic system" -- a network of policies, processes, governance and modes of understanding that fuel unhealthy, and environmentally destructive production and consumption � The steps necessary to move from denial and inertia toward effective mobilization, including economic, social, and policy interventions With insights from physical science, social science, and humanities, this short book examines how climate change and social inequity are indelibly linked, and considering them together can bring about effective change in social equity, health, and the environment.
Earth Emotions by
As climate change and development pressures overwhelm the environment, our emotional relationships with Earth are also in crisis. Pessimism and distress are overwhelming people the world over. In this maelstrom of emotion, solastalgia, the homesickness you have when you are still at home, has become, writes Glenn A. Albrecht, one of the defining emotions of the twenty-first century. Earth Emotions examines our positive and negative Earth emotions. It explains the author's concept of solastalgia and other well-known eco-emotions such as biophilia and topophilia. Albrecht introduces us to the many new words needed to describe the full range of our emotional responses to the emergent state of the world. We need this creation of a hopeful vocabulary of positive emotions, argues Albrecht, so that we can extract ourselves out of environmental desolation and reignite our millennia-old biophilia--love of life--for our home planet. To do so, he proposes a dramatic change from the current human-dominated Anthropocene era to one that will be founded, materially, ethically, politically, and spiritually on the revolution in thinking being delivered by contemporary symbiotic science. Albrecht names this period the Symbiocene. With the current and coming generations, "Generation Symbiocene," Albrecht sees reason for optimism. The battle between the forces of destruction and the forces of creation will be won by Generation Symbiocene, and Earth Emotions presents an ethical and emotional odyssey for that victory.
Emotional Resiliency in the Era of Climate Change by
Although the environmental and physical effects of climate change have long been recognised, little attention has been given to the profound negative impact on mental health. Leslie Davenport presents comprehensive theory, strategies and resources for addressing key clinical themes specific to the psychological impact of climate change. She explores the psychological underpinnings that have contributed to the current global crisis, and offers robust therapeutic interventions for dealing with anxiety, stress, depression, trauma and other clinical mental health conditions resulting from environmental damage and disaster. She emphasizes the importance of developing resilience and shows how to utilise the many benefits of guided imagery and mindful presence techniques, and carry out interventions that draw on expert research into ecopsychology, wisdom traditions, earth-based indigenous practices and positive psychology. The strategies in this book will cultivate transformative, person-centred ways of being, resulting in regenerative lifestyles that benefit both the individual and the planet.
Facing Climate Change by
Facing Climate Change explains why people refuse to accept evidence of a warming planet and shows how to move past partisanship to reach a consensus for action. A climate scientist and licensed Jungian analyst, Jeffrey T. Kiehl examines the psychological phenomena that twist our relationship to the natural world and their role in shaping the cultural beliefs that distance us further from nature. He also accounts for the emotions triggered by the lived experience of climate change and the feelings of fear and loss they inspire, which lead us to deny the reality of our warming planet. But it is not too late. By evaluating our way of being, Kiehl unleashes a potential human emotional understanding that can reform our behavior and help protect the Earth. Kiehl dives deep into the human brain's psychological structures and human spirituality's imaginative power, mining promising resources for creating a healthier connection to the environment--and one another. Facing Climate Change is as concerned with repairing our social and political fractures as it is with reestablishing our ties to the world, teaching us to push past partisanship and unite around the shared attributes that are key to our survival. Kiehl encourages policy makers and activists to appeal to our interdependence as a global society, extracting politics from the process and making decisions about our climate future that are substantial and sustaining.
Mourning Nature by
We are facing unprecedented environmental challenges, including global climate change, large-scale industrial development, rapidly increasing species extinction, ocean acidification, and deforestation - challenges that require new vocabularies and new ways to express grief and sorrow over the disappearance, degradation, and loss of nature. Seeking to redress the silence around ecologically based anxiety in academic and public domains, and to extend the concepts of sadness, anger, and loss, Mourning Nature creates a lexicon for the recognition and expression of emotions related to environmental degradation. Exploring the ways in which grief is experienced in numerous contexts, this groundbreaking collection draws on classical, philosophical, artistic, and poetic elements to explain environmental melancholia. Understanding that it is not just how we mourn but what we mourn that defines us, the authors introduce new perspectives on conservation, sustainability, and our relationships with nature. An ecological elegy for a time of climatic and environmental upheaval, Mourning Nature challenges readers to turn devastating events into an opportunity for positive change. Contributors include Glenn Albrecht (Murdoch University, retired); Jessica Marion Barr (Trent University); Sebastian Braun (University of North Dakota); Ashlee Cunsolo (Labrador Institute of Memorial University); Amanda Di Battista (York University); Franklin Ginn (University of Edinburgh); Bernie Krause (soundscape ecologist, author, and independent scholar); Lisa Kretz (University of Evansville); Karen Landman (University of Guelph); Patrick Lane (Poet); Andrew Mark (independent scholar); Nancy Menning (Ithaca College); John Charles Ryan (University of New England); Catriona Sandilands (York University); and Helen Whale (independent scholar).
Radical Joy for Hard Times by
Trebbe Johnson gives clear ideas and suggestions for accepting places that have been wounded by human interaction, from clearcutting and frakking to extreme weather and urban sprawl. Ever had that sick feeling when you see a clearcut forest or mountain top destroyed for mining? Do you grieve for the woods or the fields you played in as a child? Often, we respond simply by abandoning these places, as if they no longer count. Or else we work so feverishly to restore them to a state somewhere between what we remember and what we long for that we fail to pay attention to how they look--and how they affect us--right now. Trebbe Johnson, after years of leading workshops, retreats, and rites of passage programs internationally, such as a retreat in an old-growth clear-cut forest, a ceremony at Ground Zero after September 11, and a walk in weapons testing grounds at Eglin Air Force Base, suggests using art and ritual to make peace with the place as it is now. She founded an organization of the same name that has an annual Global Earth Exchange Day, where communities come together in a local place that has been wounded by toxicity, greed, or simply modern progress, to make art out of the trash and found objects there. The experience encourages acceptance for the place as it has become--"ugly" and yet beautiful in its own way. In a well-crafted narrative that includes interviews with cutting-edge thinkers and doers from around the world, she reminds us that spending time in these places, finding beauty there, discovering what they can tell us about ourselves, and making simple creative gifts for them, we can discover new sources of meaning, community, creativity, and even joy.
