Climate Crisis and Ecopsychology
Climate Crisis and Ecopsychology
Earth’s climate affects and is affected by human psychological climate; our psychological climate is affected by the planet’s climate.
Climate is Everything
Earth’s climate behavior is comprised of relationships among the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and biogeochemical cycles intra-acting with the behavior and activities of all lifeforms, including humans.
As whales affect climate patterns so do human behavior and practices; what we do matters for the habitability and livability of life on Earth. Humans are a part of climate processes.
And yet, humans are the only organism that chooses to disrupt climate processes and thus livability for all.
Climate in Crisis
The climate in crisis is not an existential threat – it is a real-time on the Earth rupture of daily lives and livelihood, loss of habitats and resources.
When human exceptionalism and extraction practices rupture carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, water, and sulfur cycles, we disrupt the atmospheric chemistry of greenhouse gases – the very cycles that support a habitable climate and life on Earth – a climate in crisis results.
Destructive practices based on supremacy narratives drive behavior toward the planet. These kinds of narratives foster detached, indifferent, and uninformed views that perpetuate existential anxiety, fear, despair, helplessness in the face of ecological damage, and deep grief over planetary damage and loss of home and life.
This is the psychological crisis driving the climate crisis.
Climate Crisis and Ecopsychology: An Educative Approach
While it is essential and imperative the world adhere to climate regulations, reduction in polluting greenhouse gases, and transition to renewable energies – regulations and policies do not change behavior.
Reconfiguring narratives underpinning practices transforms behavior. Thus, one needs an education in ecological processes and behavior and how they affect psychological processes and behavior.
Ecopsychological education is the most powerful tool we have available for changing human narratives and their destructive climate practices.
Humans are the climate – responsibly and irresponsibly.
What is at stake is nothing less than life and death.
