Genevieve Wright
When Steph Evans’ love for dugongs took her to the Great Barrier Reef on a research expedition last year, she had to think twice about posting photos on her Instagram feed, wary of the backlash she’d receive from fellow classmates and online trolls.
“Dugongs have sort of become a word I don’t want to hear anymore. I guess because it’s become a taboo. It’s always the thing people have paid me out about or talked about me behind my back very loudly that I can hear it.”
Steph is an example of a growing movement of young activists who have elevated public awareness of a worsening climate crisis. For a 16 year old she has an impressive list of accomplishments; convincing her local council to declare a climate emergency, travelling to Canada to participate in a global climate conference, and at the age of 10, starting her own charity, Seas of Change.
Growing up on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, Steph has always felt a strong connection to the natural environment. “Everyone has their one passion and for me it’s climate change. I’m at my happiest when something comes of it.”
Opal Reef, Port Douglas
Genevieve Wright, 2018.
Port of Newcastle - the world's largest coal port
Genevieve Wright, 2019.
However, as unseasonal fires rage in eastern Australia and the Earth’s lungs burn in the Amazon, Steph can’t help but feel anxious when last year’s IPCC report highlighted that without radical decarbonisation within the next 11 years, the planet would experience devastating impacts from a 1.5°C temperature increase.
“I’m going to be 27 by then and probably wanting to start a family, but do I want to bring kids up in that world? It really upsets me. My parents took me to the Great Barrier Reef when I was younger, but I won’t be able to take my kids there because it’s not going to be there for them.”
Steph’s fears of an uncertain future are not uncommon, with the Australian Medical Association (AMA) declaring climate change a health emergency early last month. Tony Bartone, AMA’s President, says, “climate change will cause a higher incidence of mental ill-health.”
As social feeds flood with daily updates of species extinction, melting glaciers, and the arrest of peaceful protestors in the streets of London – climate change has finally become a central feature of public discussion. One measure of this growing concern over climate change can be gauged by internet search trends, with searches for the term “climate change” now at their highest level in Australia than any other time in the previous 5 years.
Understanding eco-anxiety
“Oh climate change would be a bug. ‘Well you humans have made the world a worse place for children and other animals so now I’m doing that to you as revenge.’” – 12-year-old girl, UK
“I’m really sad, my friends are dying… My friends the fish are dying. When I go swimming, I love seeing my friends and I don’t want them to go.” – 8-year-old boy, UK
For psychotherapist Caroline Hickman, these feelings of despair and frustration are a natural response to the reality of what’s going on in the world. “Eco-anxiety at its simplest is the anxiety we feel as soon as we wake up to the environmental problems that we are all facing… You could call it ecological awareness… it’s depression, rage, despair, frustration and anger.”
A member of the Climate Psychology Alliance, Caroline’s psychotherapy work seeks to understand how children and adults process their understanding of the worsening climate crisis.
“Children have this empathetic connection with the natural world, that many adults have lost. Children are speaking with wisdom and authority and the adults are the ones who are immature in the way that they defend against it.”
Through her research in the United Kingdom and the Maldives, Caroline has found that children are implicitly aware of social injustice. “If you give one child a bigger slice of chocolate cake than the other, you’re going to hear about it. There will be a tantrum, rage and an innate understanding of unfairness.”
For children to access their own conscious thoughts and feelings about the climate crisis, Caroline asked them to imagine what animal climate change would be and what it would say.
Caroline was confronted by an even more sobering reality when she visited the Maldives last month and interviewed children experiencing the immediate impacts of climate change.
“That morning the children had seen on TV that Iceland had had a funeral for the first glacier lost to climate change and one of them said to me, ‘But who’s going to have a funeral for us? Because we’re going to be dead soon.’”
“These children are not holding back in saying how painful it is to feel so abandoned and betrayed and dismissed by the rest of the world,” Caroline says.
Last month, the United Nations Climate Summit were confronted with similar statements of frustration and despair, as Greta Thunberg’s emotional speech accused world leaders of ignoring the science behind climate change and “stealing” the futures of children around the world.
“She called us out and she asked us to care and to have empathy. She’s speaking from a place of being in contact with eco-anxiety,”Caroline says.
Why are my friends the fish dying?
Genevieve Wright, 2019.
Environmental philosopher, Glenn Albrecht, has been researching humanity’s relationship with the natural world for several decades, coining the term “solastalgia” to communicate the collective experience of loss people feel when their natural environment is transformed by urban development, resource extraction and extreme weather events.
“I’ve argued that solastalgia is a feeling that humans have had for a very long time, but it’s now appropriate to name it because it is becoming so commonly experienced because of man-made climate change.”
Based on research he and colleagues conducted on Hunter Valley communities, Albrecht found the expansion of large-scale coal mines exacerbated residents’ sense of powerlessness and chronic distress.
“A solastalgia type of environmental distress can be a precursor to more serious and diagnosable forms of mental illness such as depression, if left untreated.”
Albrecht believes that the answer to “curing” these feelings of anxiety and despair lies in the collective healing of the landscape through united action, a process he terms “solophilia”.
“Repairing a damaged landscape is a precondition for repairing a damaged psyche.”
Gutted and gauged: sins of the fathers revisited
Genevieve Wright, 2016.
solastalgia
(noun) sol.a.stal.gia
the homesickness you have when you’re still at home. A form of mental or existential distress caused by environmental change
solophilia
(noun) sol.0.phil.ia
love of working with other people to achieve a good outcome for your home environment
Protestor at School Climate Strike, The Domain
Genevieve Wright, 2019.
Managing eco-anxiety by getting active
For mother Nicole Tognetti, getting involved in climate activism was the first step in managing her fears for her two-year-old son’s future.
“I had a misconception about activism before becoming involved, I thought it was mostly ‘greenies’ and ‘hippies’, but I found that it is just everyday people – much like myself, that care about these issues enough to want to organise.”
Since having her first child, Nicole’s attitude towards climate change dramatically shifted, from being aware of it, to lying awake at four in the morning, obsessively contemplating how there would be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050 as society moved closer to its “sixth mass extinction”.
“I have always cared about the environment, but before my son was born, if I saw something on the news or in social media that I found too distressing I would scroll past or change the channel... But when my son was born, I can only equate it to putting on glasses for the first time and seeing clearly. I realised that I was the adult and that it was my responsibility to protect my son and other children as well.”
Nicole began with individual action, converting her family into a low-waste household and investing in solar energy. But despite her actions, her feelings of grief and anger did not disappear, and so Nicole turned to activism.
“I do feel like I have responsibility to be an active member of my community and joining our local Stop Adani group has given me that opportunity. I am trying to live by the mantras ‘don’t get sad, get active’ and ‘when we organise, we win’.”
Growing up with a phone for the whole of her adolescence, Steph Evans has witnessed the growing acceptance of climate activism on her social media platforms and the development of an online community.
“It’s a lot easier for kids now to get involved. We have this network of people online and you feel connected, like you belong and this gives you more courage, confidence and hope to continue.”
For Steph, having the opportunity to speak at her local council meeting which subsequently declared a climate emergency, felt like progress. “They were crying, I was very shocked, I didn’t expect that reaction at all.”
After posting the video on Instagram, she was flooded with support from fellow youth activists, many who didn’t realise speaking at local council meetings was an option.
“I think the one thing with youth is that they want to make a change but they don’t know how to make that change.”
Caroline Hickman agrees that children should be given the education and empowerment to engage in political action to relieve their anxieties around the environmental crisis.
“Education doesn’t just take place in the classroom, we need to be educating our children to take action in the world and prepare them for the world that they’re inheriting.”
She suggests that children should have a critical voice in family discussions about leading a more sustainable lifestyle.
“What children have been saying to me is that they feel abandoned and betrayed when their parents don’t take their fears seriously.”
Dealing with denial
Last month saw the largest turn out of school children across the world striking for political climate action, with an estimated 300,000 marching across Australia. The School Strike for Climate campaign has become a major social movement around the world, forcing varying responses from politicians and business leaders.
Yet, while the growth of a global youth climate movement has been encouraging, young climate activists like Steph Evans have also had to deal with attacks from online trolls and climate deniers.
“Kids, we get a lot of backlash in the media. It’s the biggest thing that plays on my mind. But the way we go about dealing with it is realising that at least they had to really think about what we said to make that comment. So, at the end of the day, we are the ones who got stuck in their head.”
With these small hands
Genevieve Wright, 2019.
Psychologist Caroline Hickman has spent much of her career investigating the thinking that allows people to deny climate change’s existence.
“What’s this deeper, shadowy side of human nature which means that we will sleep-walk into our own extinction and not do anything about it? The bigger the attack from the adults on the children, the more scared the adults are. They will attack children because the children are speaking these uncomfortable truths.”
For Steph, this tug-of-war of progress is tiring at times both physically and for her mental health. “It’s draining. I think I’ve had three big breaks from my organisation and every time I’ve come back better for it and ready to keep on fighting.”
But as social media feeds backlog with the news of Japan’s climbing death toll in the aftermath of Typhoon Hagibis and the worsening Australian drought means a growing number of towns will soon be without water, many activists are becoming disillusioned at the lack of tangible government action.
“I have to say I weep pretty much every day watching what’s going on out there in the world. But I also have to take a break from that, go back to the rest of my life, and let it be there. I don’t want to suppress it, I don’t want to deny it, but I can’t live with it at the surface of my awareness 24/7 because I just wouldn’t function, and I wouldn’t be able to take action,” Hickman admits.
Caroline Hickman explains activist burn-out.
Holding out hope
As the youth climate movement grows, Glenn Albrecht believes a new geological age will soon replace the current Anthropocene era of human dominance. He terms this new period the “Symbiocene", where humans will start living lifestyles that respect and support the natural world.
“Right now that sounds pretty radical but humans lived that way right up until 300 years ago. If we don’t do it that way, the Earth is not going to tolerate a human presence much longer.”
Creating this social movement to provide people with a degree of optimism, Glenn believes the world’s youth will be the leaders in reconstructing present society into a regenerative one.
For Steph, she is already starting the process. “Yes cry about it, yes be worried about it, but you can’t stay there. You have to come out of it and be hopeful that we can change something.”
“We are 25% of the population but we’re 100% of the future, that’s why we care and why we want to do something.”
Protestors at School Climate Strike, The Domain
Genevieve Wright, 2019.
Why aren't the grown-ups listening?
Genevieve Wright, 2019.
BIO
Genevieve Wright is a final year Communications student at the University of Technology Sydney, majoring in Journalism and Media Arts and Production.
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