Is it Catastrophe or Transformation? w/ Dr. Caroline Hickman

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There are few things that make people successful.

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Taking a step forward to change their lives is one successful trait, but it takes some

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time to get there.

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How do you move forward to greet the success that awaits you?

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Welcome to Next Steps Forward with host Chris Meek.

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Each week, Chris brings on another guest who has successfully taken the next steps forward.

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Now here is Chris Meek.

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Hello, I'm Chris Meek, and you've tuned to this week's episode of Next Steps Forward.

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As always, it's a pleasure to have you with us.

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Our special guest today is Caroline Hickman.

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Caroline has a background in mental health social work and community mental health projects.

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She's an integrative psychosynthesis psychotherapist in a lecture at the University of Bath researching

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children and young people's emotional responses to climate change in the United Kingdom, Brazil,

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the Maldives, Nigeria, and the United States for 10 years.

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Her work examines their eco-anxiety and distress, eco-empathy, trauma, moral injury, and the

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impact of climate anxiety on relationships.

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She is co-lead author on a 2021 quantitative global study into 10,000 children and young

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people's emotions and thoughts about climate change published in the Lancet Planetary Health.

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A practicing psychotherapist and a member of the Climate Psychology Alliance, Caroline

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Hickman has been developing a range of therapeutic approaches to ecological distress, including

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psychological assessment model for eco-anxiety.

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And she has delivered workshops in climate psychology, emotional resilience, and mental

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health internationally.

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Caroline Hickman, welcome to Next Steps Forward.

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Thanks, Chris.

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It's always so embarrassing listening to that sort of list, but you did it very well.

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Thank you for doing it fast.

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We practice over here.

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Brian, I give credit where credit is due.

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So thank you for your very important work.

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And let's dive right into it.

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You're an integrative psychosynthesis psychotherapist.

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I've been practicing that for three days and I still can't say it.

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That is a mouthful.

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It's working so far.

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What is that?

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And is your approach to psychology different from what most people expect from a psychologist?

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It's a lot different from most people, but it is a particular form of depth psychology,

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which includes looking at the unconscious.

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So that's one of the most important things.

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So if you've ever seen the Pixar film Inside Out, you'll know about the scale of the unconscious

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and how joy cannot thrive without sadness.

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So adept psychology, integrative psychosynthesis, psychotherapy, even I can't say it, talks

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about the importance of not just what is in our conscious awareness, but what's under

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the surface, what's hidden, what's out of sight.

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It also includes a kind of psycho-spiritual, soulful approach to things.

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So it doesn't limit the idea of the human being to just daily living.

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It says we have a higher purpose.

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We have things that we aspire to.

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It doesn't have to be religious, but things that inspire us, things that we get creative

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around.

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It can be about art, it can be about relationship with the natural world, all sorts of things

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that inspire us in different ways.

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It certainly doesn't want to pathologize people.

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And what I mean by that is our feelings of depression or anxiety or mental health struggles

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in life.

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The first thing we would want to look at is what does it mean to you as an individual

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rather than how can we get rid of the symptoms?

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Because if we try and get rid of the symptoms, what happens is they generally pop up again

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somewhere else in a different form.

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So we're going to want to look at what does it mean, what's under the surface, and how

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is this kind of nudging you in a different direction in life?

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It's often those turning points in life where people feel they've got an emotional, psychological

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crisis, where actually when your back is against the wall, you come out of that making

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massive changes for the better.

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So it takes that sort of approach.

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It's less negative.

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It's saying anxiety and depression is part of life.

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How can we make the most of this?

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How can we turn it into something better?

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So here comes another one for me anyway.

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You also practice analytical depth psychology psychotherapy.

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Why are integrative psychosynthesis psychotherapy and analytical depth psychology psychotherapy

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sound approaches when working with children and young people traumatized by climate change?

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Well, that's a great question.

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So if you spend any time with young children, you'll know they've got this extraordinary

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capacity for imagination.

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They can imagine things.

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One of my favorite stories is a friend of mine who came in from work not that long ago

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and she went in to see her little boy and he was talking to his toys and dinosaurs and

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dragons and his mom said, oh, can I join you?

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And he said, of course, you know, and she went to sit down and went, not there.

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There's a dragon on the chair.

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Mommy, can't you see it?

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You know, she was about to sit on this dragon, which was very real to him because he was

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in relationship with that.

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So children in children's lives, that imaginal relationship is still very much alive.

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And to that little boy, that dragon was absolutely there, even though no one else could see it.

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You know, we see this in so many different ways.

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We have imaginary friends.

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We, you know, play games with these things.

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It's a really emotionally, mentally healthy thing to do.

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It's how we learn about relationships.

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So it's a wonderful approach to working with children, actually anyone of any age that

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wants to play with difficult things and wants to use storytelling, use art, use the imaginal

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to help us think about how we feel and the way to approach things that are really hard

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to put into words.

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So when we apply that to things like climate change, it's absolutely perfect because climate

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change, we've got the science, we've got the facts, it's been in the public domain for

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decades. And yet we have these mysteries, don't we, Chris, where if we've got the facts,

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why haven't we acted?

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If we've got the knowledge, why haven't we done something?

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If we've got the solutions, why are we not using them?

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Now, of course, you can have a political, economic argument about why we've not done

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this, and those are perfectly legitimate.

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And yet you've still got a mystery.

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We've got the solutions.

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Why have we not acted on this?

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And that brings us back to that kind of mystery of humanity and human nature.

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So you can go to philosophy, but you can also go to psychology.

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You can go to spirituality, go to art, creativity.

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We are fundamentally struggling to deal with some of these big existential questions in

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life, like the climate biodiversity crisis.

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And there's no question, we are struggling.

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We don't quite know how to navigate this, primarily because humanity has never faced

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anything like this before.

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So we've got no blueprint. We've got no map.

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And any time we sort of think we know what to do, frankly, we're just kind of making it

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up a little bit, really.

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We've got some facts.

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We've got some things that will help us.

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We've also got lots of unknowns.

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You know, there's a particular politician, whose name I forget, who said, I think it

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was a US one, who said there are known unknowns and unknown unknowns.

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And, you know, frankly, help us all.

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We are trying to find our way through some really complex challenges.

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And so we have to have a little bit of humility.

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Otherwise, there'll be a lot of hubris here.

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And if we just focus on practical technological solutions, frankly, humans are incredibly

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skilled and adept at sabotage and messing up the best laid plans.

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Right. What is that famous saying?

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You know, humans make plans and the gods laugh at us.

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Right. You know, or our wives laugh at us or our pets laugh at us.

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I can't even control my little three year old dog, let alone anything else.

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Right. So when we're talking about these complex things like the climate crisis, we have to

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learn how to navigate it.

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Timothy Morton, who's an academic in the US, calls it hyperobject, which means it's too

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big to see. It's too big to understand.

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It's too big to see all in one go.

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So what that means is you can look at one part of it, like the plastic in the oceans or

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heat domes or wildfires or rising sea levels and say, OK, I'm going to worry about that.

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We'll do something about that.

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And then somebody helpfully comes along and says, yes, but what about air pollution?

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Yeah, OK, let's let's do that.

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And then somebody says, yeah, but what about this?

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And then your brain is melting, isn't it?

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So it's too big to see.

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It's too big to navigate.

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We don't have a map.

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We don't have a blueprint.

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I promise you there is some good news here, but we have to start with the difficult stuff.

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Otherwise, we don't know what we're dealing with.

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And if we don't know what we're dealing with, we're at risk of trying for simplified solutions,

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which aren't going to get us anywhere.

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So I take some comfort in saying, not in a passive way of it's all so difficult, but in a

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Yeah, we need to take this seriously.

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And we also need to give some time to learning about this so that we can fully understand it.

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And that brings us back to children and young people and First Nations people, indigenous

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populations who often have different ways of seeing and understanding the world.

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They've not lost those imaginal narrative storytelling ways of seeing the world, which

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often get knocked out of us by rational technological thinking, which we think is superior and maybe

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often is what has got us into this mess in the first place.

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I don't do short answers.

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I am so sorry.

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I will try and be succinct.

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You're fine.

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All it means is I've got a lot of content and you have to come back on the show.

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So I'm happy to do that at any time.

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So I've used this phrase a few times already.

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What is eco-anxiety and how does it differ from general anxiety?

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OK.

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And that's exactly that's a perfect example of what I was just talking about, which is let's go back to basics and really understand what we're dealing with here, because it's a huge mistake to think that eco-anxiety is just anxiety about climate change.

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We've missed the boat in calling it something better than eco-anxiety.

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It's out there in the world and everyone relates to it, understands it, claims it for their own.

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And good luck. I don't care what we call it.

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What I care about is that we understand it.

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Eco-anxiety is triggered by care and concern and anxiety about climate change and what's happening to the planet.

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Yes, but it doesn't stop there.

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That's the first bit.

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The second bit is then this dawning awareness that you're feeling anxious, but a lot of the people around you might not be.

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And so you look around me, around yourself, and you think, why aren't people running around?

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Why aren't people more scared?

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Why am I the only one?

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And then you raise it with people and they go, oh, stop worrying or go back to school or technology will save us or carbon capture will save us.

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It reassures you for an hour or a day or a week and then the anxiety comes back.

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So the other half of eco-anxiety is this dawning awareness that the very people who've got the power to do something about it are often not acting on it as quickly as we would like them to do.

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And at the same time, they are often saying, well, we are taking action without taking action as rapidly as is needed.

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And then we see the news reports and we see the wildfires and we see the flooding and we see the IPCC reports.

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And we look at just the flooding in Central Europe right now, you know, the wildfires in Canada right now and in the US.

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You think, hang on a minute, really?

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I mean, I can't tell you the number of people this week alone, and it's only Tuesday, who have said to me, I am so confused about seasons now.

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Is this autumn? Is this fall? Is this spring? Is this summer? What's happening?

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You know, and then you see a butterfly and they shouldn't be around.

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It's so confusing. It's confusing for nature and it's confusing for us.

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So, you know, everything's changing and there's subtle changes or huge changes with the floods and the wildfires.

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We don't quite know what's real and what's not real and what we can trust and what we can't trust.

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And that creates eco-anxiety. So we don't know where we stand.

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And, you know, we're little animal bodies, really.

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You know, we may have developed minds and emotions, but our bodies are like, do I hibernate?

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Do I put heating on? Do I wear a coat? What's going on?

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You know, and that's reflected in the shifts and changes in the natural world around us.

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So we're confused and that makes us insecure. That makes us anxious.

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There's one more thing to say about eco-anxiety and then I'm going to shut up.

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And that is, it is a mentally healthy response to what's going on.

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We should be feeling uncertain and disrupted and dysregulated and scared because it's scary.

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And therefore, I would worry about anyone that didn't have some eco-anxiety.

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I don't want everyone to be so overwhelmed that they can't function.

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But I would really question people that said, ah, no, it's not my problem.

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And the other thing to remind people of, which I think is really, really important,

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is you only feel eco-anxiety or distress or depression.

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That's the other thing. It's not just anxiety. It's a whole range of emotions.

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But you only feel this because you care. You care about the planet.

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You care about your children's futures, your grandchildren's futures.

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So you should be proud that you care. We should be proud that people have got eco-anxiety.

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The last thing I want to do is take it away from people.

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I definitely want to support people in finding out how to live with it

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so that they're not overwhelmed or stuck or, you know, having to push it into the unconscious

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because then it'll just come back and bite you, you know, when your back is turned.

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We don't want that. So we need to understand it.

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But we don't want to get rid of it. We don't want to pathologize it.

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We need to say, OK, you're here for good reason.

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I'm sort of half joking when I say the only cure for eco-anxiety in children and young people

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is to increase eco-anxiety in politicians or oil company executives,

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the adults with the power to do stuff. And there's some truth in that.

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It's kind of a joke, but it's not funny.

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It's, you know, the number of young people who say to me, I'd be all right with this

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if I could trust that the people around me with the power were doing what they needed to do

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to take care of our futures.

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And I think they're quite right to see it as a sense of relational hurt.

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And we sometimes forget how intelligent and bright children are or how they can be.

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And to see it through their eyes is a whole other world for us to realize

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and to come to grips with, I guess, for lack of a better word.

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Oh, gosh, absolutely. I mean, there's two things there.

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One is a good parent, a good auntie, uncle, grandparent.

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Of course, we want our children to have happy childhoods and not be frightened by things.

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So it's a natural inclination to protect them from scary stuff, of course.

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But the climate crisis is actually turning that on its head.

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Actually, good parenting means now talking with your children about this

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in ways that they can understand so they don't feel alone with it.

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We want them to have happy childhoods, but that doesn't mean we can take away the fear of what's going on.

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Anyway, they're fully informed. They're online.

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They're learning about it all by themselves.

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Better that they learn about it with us.

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You mentioned talking to your children about it.

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You recently had a conversation with one of my producers who's in his 60s,

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who was perhaps a bit perplexed about eco-anxiety among children and young people.

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He talked about his fear of heights and how that was an immediate and logical fear,

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but he hadn't yet grasped the climate-related generational fears of his son and grandson.

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Would you talk about the different generational perspectives?

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Absolutely. That was a really good conversation, wasn't it?

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It was a perfect illustration of this.

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So, you know, my generation, you know, let's say heading, you know, down the older age end of things,

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I grew up believing that the world had a, and I know not everybody gets this, security,

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but in an ideal world, let's just have an ideal world for a moment,

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we grow up believing that there is some security in our future,

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that we can work towards things being better for our future, that the planet will be okay.

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But actually for younger generations today, it's completely different.

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And we need to wrap our heads around that and deal with our guilt and our shame and our bad feelings around that.

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So this 10 year old said to me, he said, and this was a few years back,

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he said, Caroline, you don't get it. You don't get it at all.

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He said, you grew up thinking polar bears would be there forever.

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He said, I've grown up knowing they will go extinct.

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And he stopped me and he was absolutely right.

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And I had to think, you're right.

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You know, what's it like to grow up with that knowledge of extinction and anticipate it

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and wait for it and feel helpless that there's very little you can do about it.

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Now, I can feel the grief and the sadness and the guilt of not being able to prevent it.

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But I had that childhood experience of believing those creatures,

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amazing creatures would be there forever.

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That 10 year old never had that.

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So how does he process that differently to how I process it?

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There's a really another nice story.

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A mother and daughter, teenage, came to a talk I gave a few years ago.

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And they argued on the way to the talk.

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I think it was one of those arguments you have with a teenager where

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you forget what you're arguing about, but you're still arguing.

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Right.

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And we talked in the talk about this sort of thing and generational differences.

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And they emailed me the next day.

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Because one of the things I said in the talk was,

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I think my generation should apologize to children and young people.

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We should say, sorry, we've messed up.

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We've given you this.

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You're inheriting it.

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It's not a good inheritance.

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And we should say, sorry, right.

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OK, I have to keep my guilt and responsibility in perspective.

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I'm not Exxon Mobil.

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So it's this big, not that big.

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But I am still culpable.

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And I have a responsibility and a duty of care there.

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And I should just say, sorry.

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So I said this.

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And so they emailed me the next day.

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And the mom said, walking home, she said, I said, sorry to my daughter.

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And it stopped the argument, which is good.

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And her daughter said, OK, all right.

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She said, what are you going to do about it?

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Which is great.

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I love that.

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And her mom said, what do you want me to do about it?

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She said, OK.

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She said, I want you to come into school tomorrow and tell my teachers that I've

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missed the deadline for changing the title of my extended project.

305
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Deadline's gone past.

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But we were at this talk.

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And I now want to change my subject to climate change and teenagers.

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And I want you to come in the school and tell the teachers I've got to be allowed to do it.

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And her mom went, yeah, OK.

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And she did.

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And she came in and she said to the teachers, this is why.

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And the teachers went, yeah, OK.

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And so I love that story because it's a really nice illustration of how different generations

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can, by acknowledging that different responsibility, it doesn't actually cause a

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generational rift or problem.

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It can actually heal something between the different generations.

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We stand in different places.

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But we can have a shared understanding and responsibility.

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There's some interesting statistics which I've looked up, which I was guessing when

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we talked before about age differences, about anxiety and concern.

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And the highest level of concern is the under 30s, 61%, 60% under 34-year-olds.

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And then it drops in midlife, the 45- to 54-year-old group, only 44%.

323
00:22:31,560 --> 00:22:35,480
OK, it's still reasonably high, but it's much lower, isn't it?

324
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But then it starts to go up again in the over 65s to 56 and 60%.

325
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So there's a curve here where the younger generation's much more concerned.

326
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Absolutely, good reason.

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It's logical.

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It's their future.

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They're thinking about their futures, their careers, having children.

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You know, this is the world they're inheriting.

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And then maybe there's something about the older generations who have got more time,

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more space to look back, reflect, and have more distance, more process and think,

333
00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:09,480
what have we done?

334
00:23:10,040 --> 00:23:11,640
What could we have done differently?

335
00:23:13,240 --> 00:23:15,720
It doesn't all have to be about regret, does it?

336
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:18,440
Older age can also be about, well, what did I do well?

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00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:23,480
OK, all right, I'm not going to be a famous actor or a rocket scientist,

338
00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:25,720
but I did this well or that well.

339
00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:31,080
There's a whole kind of reckoning that can take place in older age.

340
00:23:31,640 --> 00:23:37,080
So that intergenerational difference doesn't have to always, I think,

341
00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:40,280
be a negative or a problem that's important.

342
00:23:40,280 --> 00:23:45,960
And that illustration with your producer was brilliant because different things

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00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:47,640
frighten different generations.

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And I know that we've got threats in the world today that we need to pay attention to.

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But the Cuban Missiles Crisis, for example, was very threatening

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00:23:59,160 --> 00:24:02,680
for younger generations way back.

347
00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:06,120
But there's a big difference.

348
00:24:06,120 --> 00:24:10,360
I really want to emphasize this difference between the anxiety about climate change

349
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and, for example, the anxiety about the Cuban Missiles Crisis,

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which is a relatable, world-threatening crisis.

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00:24:18,360 --> 00:24:22,840
But there is one significant difference that I think people need to get their heads around,

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which is when it's something like nuclear war or the Cuban Missiles Crisis.

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I'm not minimizing it, I promise.

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It's devastating.

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00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:34,760
But you can imagine, how do we sustain ourselves with hope?

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We imagine when we get over this, when we get beyond it,

357
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:43,960
when we have peace, when the war has finished, we can get back to normal.

358
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:47,560
We can have life again and hope and optimism.

359
00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:54,280
And that's what sustains us through wars, through threats, through crises.

360
00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:57,640
And people rebuild through the most awful crises.

361
00:24:58,520 --> 00:25:02,520
When it comes to the climate crisis, that rebuilding is not possible

362
00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:06,440
because we're halfway through the story of the climate crisis.

363
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:08,600
We're not at the beginning of the story.

364
00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:14,440
So we can't undo these extinction events that are happening,

365
00:25:15,080 --> 00:25:18,280
but we can change the ending of the story.

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00:25:18,280 --> 00:25:21,640
So it's not all doom and gloom, devastation.

367
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:23,640
But we have to recognize that we're halfway through

368
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:28,520
and we have to recognize that this is a worldwide planetary crisis

369
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:31,960
in ways that maybe other crises haven't always been.

370
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:35,480
You've mentioned crises a few times there.

371
00:25:36,360 --> 00:25:39,560
We tell this episode, is it catastrophe or transformation?

372
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:41,800
And that's a phrase that you use.

373
00:25:42,840 --> 00:25:44,600
What's the story behind that binary choice?

374
00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:47,900
Yeah.

375
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:53,240
So there's so many binaries when it comes to the climate crisis.

376
00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:58,280
We have the binary, which is familiar to a lot of folks,

377
00:25:58,920 --> 00:26:03,800
of doom and gloom, apocalyptic, catastrophic thinking

378
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:06,200
versus naive optimism.

379
00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:11,160
We have the kind of, it's all catastrophe or,

380
00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:14,120
oh, you know, it's all going to be amazing

381
00:26:14,680 --> 00:26:19,240
because we can use technology or go to Mars.

382
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:22,200
You can see that thinking that says,

383
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:24,520
oh, that some miracle will save us.

384
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:30,360
I think it's really important that we see what happens psychologically with this.

385
00:26:30,360 --> 00:26:32,920
So this is, I'm going to do psychology for a minute.

386
00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:40,680
When humans struggle with something where we have multiple unknowns,

387
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:43,080
what we often do is what's called splitting.

388
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:46,120
And we split into either or thinking.

389
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It's either terrible or it's amazing.

390
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:56,200
And we see those binaries play out in human nature in all our worlds,

391
00:26:56,200 --> 00:26:59,240
political worlds, dietary worlds.

392
00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:02,520
We call some foods good and some bad, right?

393
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:06,120
We call some weather good and some weather bad.

394
00:27:06,120 --> 00:27:08,040
You know, ice cream doesn't know it's bad.

395
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:10,120
Ice cream is ice cream, right?

396
00:27:10,120 --> 00:27:11,560
But we label it that way.

397
00:27:11,560 --> 00:27:13,480
Yeah, we project onto it.

398
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:15,960
We create the good-bad split.

399
00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:19,240
As soon as we create the good-bad split,

400
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:22,520
we put all sorts of things into that categorization.

401
00:27:22,520 --> 00:27:23,800
Flying is bad.

402
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:28,040
You know, not flying is good or all the other way around.

403
00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:29,400
And people go to war.

404
00:27:30,120 --> 00:27:35,560
Now, yours is a country that has had a civil war, as has the UK.

405
00:27:37,080 --> 00:27:38,840
Who wins in a civil war?

406
00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:42,120
Sure answer is no one, really, right?

407
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:44,280
You're at war with yourself.

408
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:48,920
And there's no clear winner.

409
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:52,280
When you're at war with yourself, what you're trying,

410
00:27:52,280 --> 00:27:58,440
you're splitting and you're projecting all of the bad onto some other group of people.

411
00:27:58,520 --> 00:28:03,080
And we see it in other splits in society, like racism.

412
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:06,680
You know, we say, this is good and that's bad.

413
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:11,880
You know, we divide and split and create an enemy out there

414
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:14,840
so that we can feel okay over here.

415
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:20,440
It's a way of avoiding the multiple uncertainties and existential terror

416
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:23,720
that comes with the climate, biodiversity crisis,

417
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:27,880
where we've got multiple unknowns going on all at the same time.

418
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:32,840
And we have to, there's some famous words about holding the tension,

419
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:36,680
staying with the trouble, tolerating uncertainties.

420
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:40,440
And that doesn't mean just kind of going, oh, I don't know.

421
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:43,480
You know, it doesn't mean being passive about this,

422
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:47,080
but it does mean saying, we're not sure.

423
00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:55,720
And if we try, and all sorts of positive things can come out of that uncertainty.

424
00:28:56,600 --> 00:29:02,600
So long as we do not divide the world up into catastrophe,

425
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:06,120
because if we hold that tension, moments of crisis,

426
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:10,280
give us moments of absolute transformational change.

427
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:14,040
And I don't mean just papering over the cracks.

428
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:19,080
Now, I know this is a sensitive subject here.

429
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:24,120
So I don't want anyone to think that I'm using it naively

430
00:29:24,200 --> 00:29:29,480
or in a trivial way, but it is a brilliant illustration.

431
00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:34,360
So following the 9-11 terrorist Twin Towers attacks in the US,

432
00:29:35,480 --> 00:29:39,800
massive, not just country trauma, but global trauma.

433
00:29:41,400 --> 00:29:44,680
You can't ask people if anything has come out of that

434
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:47,800
other than anything awful near the time.

435
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:51,160
But researchers went in a couple of years later

436
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:54,120
and said to people who were directly caught up,

437
00:29:54,760 --> 00:29:57,240
they said, has anything good come out of this?

438
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:02,440
We're not dismissing all the awfulness and the terror and the loss,

439
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:08,360
but, and has anything good come out of this as well?

440
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:09,880
And people said, yeah.

441
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:14,600
So this is about the transformational possibilities of trauma.

442
00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:18,760
People said, yes, I've left a job I hated

443
00:30:19,560 --> 00:30:21,400
because I realized that life is too short.

444
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:24,520
They left relationships that were not working.

445
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:29,160
They found a spiritual path or changed their career.

446
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:31,480
They got closer to their loved ones.

447
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:39,000
So out of adversity, positive traumatic growth can emerge.

448
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:41,320
And that's the transformational possibilities

449
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:44,200
that I would argue are coming out of,

450
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:47,240
potentially out of the climate crisis,

451
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:51,480
provided we take it seriously and learn from it

452
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:53,800
and not just try and push it away,

453
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:55,800
minimize it, fix it,

454
00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:59,480
or pretend that it's not going to change the whole world

455
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:02,680
because it has to change the whole world.

456
00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:06,520
And we were not doing so well, right?

457
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:09,480
This is not losing a world that is perfect.

458
00:31:10,120 --> 00:31:10,920
I'm sorry.

459
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:14,760
We had increasing mental health difficulties,

460
00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:19,240
particularly in global industrialized northern countries

461
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:21,400
like the US, Europe, the UK.

462
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:26,120
That was on the increase in young people and children.

463
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:28,600
And there are multiple reasons for this.

464
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:31,560
We can look at social media, look at mobile phone use.

465
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:34,840
We can look at insecurity, anxiety,

466
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:36,760
look at classroom sizes,

467
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:38,920
but the climate crisis is part of that.

468
00:31:38,920 --> 00:31:41,240
And that was on the increase.

469
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:43,800
So actually we had to deal with that anyway

470
00:31:43,800 --> 00:31:46,280
for the mental health of our young people.

471
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:48,840
So maybe this is going to,

472
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:51,400
I don't want to be too Pollyanna-ish and positive,

473
00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:54,760
but I want to also, you know,

474
00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:58,120
this is a kind of fierce argument here.

475
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:00,040
We talk about radical hope.

476
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:03,880
We talk about transformational hope, not naive hope.

477
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:06,360
And radical hope says,

478
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:07,880
well, we might be going off a cliff,

479
00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:09,560
but we can go down fighting

480
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:12,040
and we can fight for what's important.

481
00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:16,040
So before COVID,

482
00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:17,960
I do some work in the veteran mental health space.

483
00:32:18,920 --> 00:32:22,760
And from that work, learned to your point,

484
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:25,640
the significant rise globally in mental health.

485
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:31,400
Then the world shuts down in March of 2020, COVID hits.

486
00:32:32,440 --> 00:32:34,600
Now we're on the other side of what I've been calling the COVID,

487
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:35,640
the mental health tsunami.

488
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:38,280
Now you sprinkle on top of that,

489
00:32:39,240 --> 00:32:41,240
climate change and climate anxiety.

490
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:43,480
What are some of the emotional,

491
00:32:43,480 --> 00:32:45,320
common emotional, mental, and physical symptoms

492
00:32:45,320 --> 00:32:46,360
of eco-anxiety?

493
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:53,560
Well, we're talking about the ground shifting under your feet

494
00:32:53,560 --> 00:32:57,240
and what you were able to trust and rely on before

495
00:32:58,040 --> 00:32:59,960
is no longer as reliable,

496
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:04,200
which makes people anxious, insecure,

497
00:33:05,400 --> 00:33:08,040
and people can lose their minds.

498
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:12,600
That people can create fantasies

499
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:17,160
about what the world is like and whose fault it is,

500
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:23,400
because they're grasping for something to be safe and secure

501
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:28,120
in a very changeable period of history.

502
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:32,280
That means that people can grasp onto stuff

503
00:33:32,280 --> 00:33:37,480
that may not be wise or smart or reliable.

504
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:40,680
And that's really, really important.

505
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:45,480
I think that the argument about it being a tsunami is tricky

506
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:50,440
because it's a bit more of a trickle effect

507
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:55,000
than one big hit on this.

508
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:58,280
And it's subtle and it's creeping up on us.

509
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:00,520
And I think we, again, I'm going to,

510
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:03,000
I sound, I'm boring because I'm going to come back to,

511
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:06,840
we don't know how to deal with this.

512
00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:12,680
A young woman who I'm working with in the US said to me,

513
00:34:12,680 --> 00:34:16,600
and she, I've worked in mental health for over 40 years.

514
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:19,160
So I thought I knew quite a bit.

515
00:34:19,160 --> 00:34:21,320
And then every so often when people are talking

516
00:34:21,320 --> 00:34:24,040
about the climate crisis, I hear something new.

517
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:28,040
And I think, oh, oh, I don't know this.

518
00:34:28,040 --> 00:34:29,960
In fact, I would go so far as to say,

519
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:31,560
and I do apologise for this.

520
00:34:31,560 --> 00:34:34,280
If anybody tells you they're an expert in this stuff,

521
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:35,800
don't listen to them, run away.

522
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:38,040
Don't believe them.

523
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:41,000
And I have been working in this over 20 years.

524
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:42,680
So I'm a bit of an expert,

525
00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:45,000
but I am constantly learning about it.

526
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,480
This young woman said to me last year, she said,

527
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:50,200
I've got permission to use any of these quotes.

528
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:52,360
She said, I wish I was mad.

529
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:58,280
Now, I've never had anyone wish they were mad

530
00:34:58,280 --> 00:34:59,080
in my whole life.

531
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:02,200
She's bright, she's intelligent,

532
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:05,560
she's in a secure relationship, just got married.

533
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:11,320
Loving family, loves her cat, works in sustainability.

534
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:13,960
You'd look at this young woman and think,

535
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:15,800
your mental health's great, right?

536
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:20,120
But she's so overwhelmed with anxiety about climate change.

537
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:21,880
She said to me, I wish I was mad.

538
00:35:21,880 --> 00:35:24,840
She said, because dealing with madness would be easier

539
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:26,440
than dealing with climate anxiety.

540
00:35:28,280 --> 00:35:30,200
And I just thought, wow, you know,

541
00:35:31,080 --> 00:35:33,880
this, I need to understand what that's like.

542
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:35,720
What's it like being you?

543
00:35:36,600 --> 00:35:39,320
What's it like to be scared to open your curtains

544
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:40,280
in the morning?

545
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:42,200
Because whatever the weather is like,

546
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:45,320
that will dictate what your emotional state is like.

547
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:47,560
I need to try and understand that.

548
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:49,320
Just because I don't feel that,

549
00:35:49,320 --> 00:35:53,080
it doesn't mean that you're crazy, that you feel that.

550
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:55,400
So there are some people who are, you know,

551
00:35:55,400 --> 00:35:58,280
perhaps feeling this more strongly or more acutely

552
00:35:58,280 --> 00:35:59,480
on behalf of the rest of us.

553
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:03,000
Particularly young people's defenses psychologically

554
00:36:03,000 --> 00:36:04,040
are not fully developed.

555
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:09,640
Maybe they're more sensitive to the unfairness in the world,

556
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:11,000
the injustice in the world.

557
00:36:13,080 --> 00:36:15,960
You know, maybe they've not learned

558
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:17,240
that the world is unfair,

559
00:36:17,240 --> 00:36:19,960
and maybe some of us are a bit more immune to that.

560
00:36:20,840 --> 00:36:23,480
You know, when you work with veterans,

561
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:25,880
you're talking about people who've gone through trauma,

562
00:36:25,880 --> 00:36:27,000
gone through stress,

563
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:32,040
and they've often lost a lot of that sense of security

564
00:36:32,120 --> 00:36:34,520
in the world and trust in the world.

565
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:39,000
You know, because they go out to fight,

566
00:36:39,000 --> 00:36:41,080
trusting the message they're given,

567
00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:43,480
and often it doesn't follow through.

568
00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:46,680
And they end up traumatized themselves,

569
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:50,360
as well as seeing trauma in others,

570
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:52,600
and then they're devastated.

571
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:54,920
You know, they don't know how to deal with that.

572
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:01,240
One thing that can come out of this,

573
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:03,640
could be a capacity to imagine

574
00:37:03,640 --> 00:37:05,160
what it's like for other people.

575
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:07,640
Just because you've not gone through it,

576
00:37:07,640 --> 00:37:11,400
it doesn't mean that that person is crazy or wrong.

577
00:37:12,600 --> 00:37:15,000
Maybe they're feeling it on behalf of others.

578
00:37:15,560 --> 00:37:17,000
More and more people are having

579
00:37:18,360 --> 00:37:20,280
climate anxiety in their dreams.

580
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:23,960
So just because you can push it away during daylight hours,

581
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:27,560
it doesn't mean it's not gonna sneak into your dreams.

582
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:29,720
And often these dreams are things like

583
00:37:29,720 --> 00:37:32,040
trying to drive to be with their family

584
00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:33,960
and not being able to get to them,

585
00:37:33,960 --> 00:37:36,600
not being able to get fuel for the car,

586
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:38,040
food running out.

587
00:37:38,040 --> 00:37:41,880
So fear about social collapse, system collapse,

588
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:45,720
insecurity, anxiety about their loved ones,

589
00:37:46,600 --> 00:37:48,840
people, you know, having dreams

590
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:51,320
that they won't be able to feed their children.

591
00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:53,640
This is all about survival, isn't it?

592
00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:58,040
And we're mammals, you know, fundamentally we're humans.

593
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:03,800
And we are born not able to survive too well

594
00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:05,880
unless people look after us.

595
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:07,640
That first couple of years of our life,

596
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:08,600
we're pretty vulnerable.

597
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:12,200
You know, if you compare us to, you know,

598
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:16,840
other mammals like cats and dogs and giraffes and elephants,

599
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:18,920
they're up on their feet fairly quickly, right?

600
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:20,920
We're not, we lie there

601
00:38:20,920 --> 00:38:23,160
and we need somebody to look after us.

602
00:38:23,160 --> 00:38:25,720
So we form attachment to our loved ones

603
00:38:25,720 --> 00:38:28,600
and hope that our loved ones will pick us up

604
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:30,200
and look after us.

605
00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:32,280
That creates that attachment bond.

606
00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:35,320
That attachment bond isn't just from us to them,

607
00:38:35,320 --> 00:38:37,080
it's from them to us, you know?

608
00:38:37,880 --> 00:38:39,560
Infants can be hard work.

609
00:38:39,560 --> 00:38:41,800
So we have to love them, right?

610
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:43,320
In order to take care of them.

611
00:38:45,400 --> 00:38:49,640
That attachment to people, to planet

612
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:51,160
is being threatened at the moment

613
00:38:51,160 --> 00:38:52,680
because the earth is our home

614
00:38:53,480 --> 00:38:55,560
and our home is insecure.

615
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:59,480
Our home is making us feel unsafe

616
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:03,000
and we don't know what to do with that.

617
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:06,920
Am I making sense to you?

618
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:07,480
Complete sense.

619
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:11,720
Am I just this British woman rambling away?

620
00:39:11,720 --> 00:39:12,680
Not at all.

621
00:39:12,680 --> 00:39:13,480
Complete sense.

622
00:39:17,160 --> 00:39:20,360
I hear these different ways people struggle

623
00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:25,400
to articulate the depth of that fear.

624
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:27,320
The depth of that despair

625
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:30,920
and the heart that they feel

626
00:39:31,560 --> 00:39:33,240
that other people don't understand.

627
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:37,160
Maybe as a follow-up to that.

628
00:39:37,160 --> 00:39:37,880
Oh, sorry, please.

629
00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:39,960
No, you go on.

630
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:42,760
No, I was gonna say, how's the constant drumbeat

631
00:39:42,760 --> 00:39:45,720
of news about climate change contribute to eco-anxiety?

632
00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:50,120
Well, it's interesting, isn't it?

633
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:52,520
Because on the one hand, we need information

634
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:54,200
and we want to be informed.

635
00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:56,760
You don't want to just be looking the other way until,

636
00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:01,320
you know, because actually I'd rather be awake to it now

637
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:03,240
than wake up.

638
00:40:03,240 --> 00:40:05,320
It's the people who are not awake to it now

639
00:40:05,320 --> 00:40:07,480
who are gonna wake up in five years and go,

640
00:40:07,480 --> 00:40:08,760
why didn't you tell me?

641
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:11,640
That's gonna be a lot more shocking and traumatizing.

642
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:15,640
I'd rather people woke up now in a more gradual way

643
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:17,800
whilst there's still time to do something about it.

644
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:19,640
So we need information.

645
00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:21,240
We need knowledge.

646
00:40:21,880 --> 00:40:23,160
We need to be informed.

647
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:26,200
Well, we don't want it to be too much

648
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:27,960
so that it completely overwhelms us.

649
00:40:27,960 --> 00:40:31,000
Now, what I'm gonna do here is quote an eight-year-old

650
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:32,120
and I'm gonna use her name

651
00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:33,800
because I'm in terrible trouble if I don't.

652
00:40:34,520 --> 00:40:36,440
So Sophia, right?

653
00:40:37,720 --> 00:40:40,840
I asked her when I started my direct research

654
00:40:40,840 --> 00:40:43,000
with young children, she was eight,

655
00:40:43,640 --> 00:40:45,080
I asked a lot of them,

656
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:46,520
how do I talk to you about this

657
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:48,440
without completely terrifying you?

658
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:50,040
And I'm gonna tell you what she said

659
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:51,800
because at the end of it, you're gonna think,

660
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:55,720
I kind of wish this child was running the world, really.

661
00:40:56,840 --> 00:40:59,640
So I said, how do I talk to you about this?

662
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:03,320
And she went, well, she said,

663
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:04,520
you've got to tell me the truth.

664
00:41:05,720 --> 00:41:07,880
She said, if you don't tell children the truth,

665
00:41:07,880 --> 00:41:08,760
you're lying to us.

666
00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:12,120
She said, and if you lie to us, we can't trust you.

667
00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:15,240
And if we can't trust you, we can't tell you how we feel.

668
00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:19,240
And if we can't tell you how we feel, we're on our own.

669
00:41:19,880 --> 00:41:23,000
She said, but don't tell me the bad news all at once.

670
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:25,160
Tell me some bad news, then some good news,

671
00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:27,640
then some bad news, then some good news,

672
00:41:28,200 --> 00:41:31,000
then some bad news, then some good news.

673
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:36,520
She said, anyway, she said, I'm not a baby, right?

674
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:39,960
So we need the information,

675
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:42,760
but we need to balance up the good news with the bad news.

676
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:45,240
And we don't want to replace the bad news with the good news,

677
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:46,680
or the other way around.

678
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:47,720
Or the other way around.

679
00:41:48,680 --> 00:41:51,720
We need a both-and approach to this,

680
00:41:51,720 --> 00:41:55,560
because there is loss of life going on as we speak.

681
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:58,600
People are losing their countries, their livelihoods.

682
00:41:59,160 --> 00:42:01,560
People are losing hope all over the world.

683
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:03,240
It's a planetary crisis.

684
00:42:03,800 --> 00:42:07,560
The grief, the despair, we should be feeling this

685
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:09,000
on behalf of those,

686
00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:13,400
even if you and I are not facing that immediate physical threat,

687
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:15,720
we should be feeling it.

688
00:42:15,720 --> 00:42:17,960
That's our responsibility.

689
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:24,520
That will also prompt us to act and do something about that,

690
00:42:24,520 --> 00:42:26,200
rather than get overwhelmed and guilty

691
00:42:26,200 --> 00:42:29,240
and just hide away and bury our heads in the sand.

692
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:31,960
So we need, how do we do that?

693
00:42:31,960 --> 00:42:33,960
We need emotional intelligence here.

694
00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:37,240
And we need resilience, emotional resilience.

695
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:41,400
We need to recognize that, you know,

696
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:45,400
famous people, Michael Jordan, the basketball player,

697
00:42:45,800 --> 00:42:47,240
he's famous for saying,

698
00:42:47,240 --> 00:42:50,040
you know, I missed thousands of winning shots.

699
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:53,800
He said, the only shot people remember is the winning shot.

700
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:55,480
He said, but I wouldn't have got the winning shot

701
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:58,440
without all the thousands of missed shots, right?

702
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:02,360
Young activist asked me a few years ago,

703
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:05,000
she said, how do you develop emotional resilience?

704
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:06,840
I don't think she liked my answer,

705
00:43:06,840 --> 00:43:11,720
but I said, oh, you fail, you mess up, you get stuck,

706
00:43:11,720 --> 00:43:13,960
you fall over, you get up, you try again.

707
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:17,640
And then you fail again, and then you get up,

708
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:19,960
you try again, and then you fail.

709
00:43:20,680 --> 00:43:22,200
And you don't try and avoid the failure,

710
00:43:22,200 --> 00:43:23,960
you learn from it and you go, right,

711
00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:25,640
what do I need to do differently?

712
00:43:25,640 --> 00:43:27,480
What can we do differently?

713
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:29,000
Because that's the other crucial thing

714
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:30,600
is this is a collective problem.

715
00:43:31,240 --> 00:43:33,560
Of course, tackling the climate crisis

716
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:35,480
is an individual responsibility,

717
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:39,240
but it's national, it's international,

718
00:43:39,240 --> 00:43:42,680
it's collective, it's social, it's political,

719
00:43:42,680 --> 00:43:43,800
it's planetary.

720
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:46,280
We have to deal with it on all those levels

721
00:43:46,280 --> 00:43:47,800
all at the same time.

722
00:43:47,800 --> 00:43:51,240
Now, you don't have to be Superman or Superwoman,

723
00:43:51,880 --> 00:43:55,080
you can have a night off on the sofa eating pizza,

724
00:43:55,080 --> 00:43:58,760
but we do have to address it

725
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:00,920
on all those levels all at the same time

726
00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:03,080
and not leave individuals feeling

727
00:44:03,080 --> 00:44:05,080
that they personally have got to save the world

728
00:44:05,080 --> 00:44:06,760
all by themselves, you know?

729
00:44:07,720 --> 00:44:11,480
Yeah, we need, okay, periodically, but not all the time.

730
00:44:12,040 --> 00:44:14,440
Those small acts are as valuable

731
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:17,000
as the collective big acts.

732
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:18,680
We need both ends.

733
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:21,320
And we've often lost a sense

734
00:44:21,320 --> 00:44:23,320
of that collective responsibility

735
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:28,200
because we build walls and we get split

736
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:30,680
and we think it's them versus us.

737
00:44:31,320 --> 00:44:34,600
And frankly, that thinking is never gonna help us

738
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:38,120
resolve something that is a planetary crisis

739
00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:40,440
because nobody's gonna be okay

740
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:43,320
if everybody's not okay.

741
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:49,160
So it can push us towards that shift in thinking.

742
00:44:53,320 --> 00:44:55,560
Some people, we also have to differentiate

743
00:44:55,560 --> 00:44:59,160
between people who've got fairly mild climate anxiety,

744
00:44:59,720 --> 00:45:02,920
where, you know, recycling is gonna make you feel better.

745
00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:06,360
If you can afford it, getting an electric car,

746
00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:07,880
gonna help, yeah?

747
00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:10,520
I'm not being judgy about this.

748
00:45:11,080 --> 00:45:15,080
Anything you do or don't do, it's an individual choice.

749
00:45:15,080 --> 00:45:18,440
If you can make small incremental changes constantly,

750
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:19,960
think about your diet,

751
00:45:19,960 --> 00:45:22,760
think about the choices you make as a family,

752
00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:24,280
make small changes.

753
00:45:25,320 --> 00:45:28,520
And that's gonna reassure, help you feel better.

754
00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:30,760
But a significant number of people

755
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:33,560
have quite significant climate anxiety

756
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:37,480
where staying alive in the world can feel really scary

757
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:39,320
and they don't quite know how to do that.

758
00:45:40,200 --> 00:45:44,440
They can sometimes feel despair, isolated, suicidal.

759
00:45:44,440 --> 00:45:47,720
At its more extreme, and thankfully that's fewer people,

760
00:45:47,720 --> 00:45:49,960
but they're not crazy.

761
00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:52,440
They're just feeling it more intensely.

762
00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:56,120
So we need to not call them mad.

763
00:45:57,080 --> 00:45:59,480
They're just feeling the same stuff.

764
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:02,760
It's all on a continuum, but more intensely.

765
00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:06,040
And they need to be supported and reassured

766
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:10,360
in taking action that is reassuring

767
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:15,240
whilst lobbying and pushing for action elsewhere.

768
00:46:15,240 --> 00:46:16,680
There was another group of children,

769
00:46:16,680 --> 00:46:19,400
I love quoting children, they're just so smart.

770
00:46:19,400 --> 00:46:21,400
There was another group of children I was talking with,

771
00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:24,040
this was before COVID, and I said to them,

772
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:25,800
what do you need from education

773
00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:27,880
to help you with the climate crisis?

774
00:46:28,600 --> 00:46:29,880
What do you want schools to do?

775
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:31,960
I love their answer.

776
00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:33,480
They said, okay.

777
00:46:33,480 --> 00:46:37,560
They said, apologies to all geography teachers out there.

778
00:46:37,560 --> 00:46:40,360
They said, we don't need lessons in Oxbow Lakes.

779
00:46:40,360 --> 00:46:41,400
This is not helpful.

780
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:46,200
What is gonna prepare us for the world we're inheriting?

781
00:46:46,200 --> 00:46:48,200
They said, we need lessons in how to build boats,

782
00:46:48,200 --> 00:46:51,640
how to build houses, which crops to grow,

783
00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:57,880
how to grow healthy, drought resilient plants, right?

784
00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:00,120
Without always using chemicals.

785
00:47:01,960 --> 00:47:04,760
They also said, we want, and I love this.

786
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:07,480
They're asking for lessons in this.

787
00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:09,480
They see that as an educative process.

788
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:12,120
They see that as giving them that resilience.

789
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:14,680
They also said, we want lessons

790
00:47:14,680 --> 00:47:16,760
in how to have difficult conversations

791
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:18,760
with our parents about this

792
00:47:18,760 --> 00:47:20,280
because often our parents don't get it.

793
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:22,200
So we want you to teach us

794
00:47:22,200 --> 00:47:24,680
on how to have those conversations,

795
00:47:24,680 --> 00:47:26,360
those difficult conversations.

796
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:28,200
They also said, we want lessons

797
00:47:28,200 --> 00:47:30,920
in how to lobby politicians, right?

798
00:47:31,640 --> 00:47:32,920
I love these kids.

799
00:47:32,920 --> 00:47:36,440
They're looking at it from a personal ecological level

800
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:38,920
from things you can do in your own backyard

801
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:41,240
to things you can do in the education system,

802
00:47:41,800 --> 00:47:43,320
things you can do relationally

803
00:47:43,320 --> 00:47:45,240
and things you can do politically.

804
00:47:45,240 --> 00:47:46,600
And they're recognising that

805
00:47:46,600 --> 00:47:48,440
you're not gonna do all of this

806
00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:50,760
on the same Tuesday afternoon,

807
00:47:51,560 --> 00:47:53,720
but you can do all of them,

808
00:47:53,720 --> 00:47:56,040
just not all the same day.

809
00:47:57,240 --> 00:48:00,680
But any of those things can help.

810
00:48:01,240 --> 00:48:02,280
Significantly help.

811
00:48:03,560 --> 00:48:06,120
We have about five minutes left

812
00:48:06,120 --> 00:48:08,040
and we've been talking for almost an hour

813
00:48:08,040 --> 00:48:12,280
about doom, gloom, extinction, anxiety, stress, and guilt.

814
00:48:13,320 --> 00:48:15,240
Let's end on a high note, if that's possible.

815
00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:17,560
Take us to the end of the show

816
00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:19,480
with advice or a story that helps our audience

817
00:48:19,480 --> 00:48:21,080
feel less stressed, more resilient

818
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:22,040
and become more empowered.

819
00:48:23,720 --> 00:48:24,220
Okay.

820
00:48:25,720 --> 00:48:27,960
Can I be a bit annoying first?

821
00:48:28,920 --> 00:48:30,120
You're my guest, do whatever you like.

822
00:48:31,720 --> 00:48:34,600
My ex used to call me his difficult English woman.

823
00:48:34,600 --> 00:48:36,840
So, which I took as a compliment, you see.

824
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:40,360
So, I'm gonna give you an illustration

825
00:48:40,360 --> 00:48:43,960
of depth psychological understanding of this.

826
00:48:43,960 --> 00:48:47,880
And I'm gonna use the story of Sleeping Beauty.

827
00:48:49,240 --> 00:48:51,000
And then I'm gonna give you a few positives.

828
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:54,200
In short, story of Sleeping Beauty,

829
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:56,360
beautiful little baby,

830
00:48:56,360 --> 00:49:00,680
all the fairy godmothers turn up and give her gifts.

831
00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:03,320
You're gonna have an amazing voice, beautiful hair,

832
00:49:03,320 --> 00:49:04,680
everyone will love you.

833
00:49:04,680 --> 00:49:07,880
But they've forgotten to invite the 13th fairy godmother

834
00:49:07,880 --> 00:49:09,960
who swoops in and says,

835
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:13,160
you're gonna prick your finger and die, right?

836
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:14,360
And everyone's really upset.

837
00:49:15,720 --> 00:49:18,520
And then the next fairy godmother who's been forgotten

838
00:49:18,520 --> 00:49:20,040
comes in and goes, no, you're not gonna die,

839
00:49:20,040 --> 00:49:21,640
you're just gonna go to sleep.

840
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:24,200
Now, if you take that as a traditional narrative,

841
00:49:24,280 --> 00:49:27,400
that 13th fairy godmother is the bad one.

842
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:31,400
But you could also argue that she saved that princess

843
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:34,680
from a knife of narcissistic hell.

844
00:49:34,680 --> 00:49:36,440
Who wants to be that perfect?

845
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:38,440
Perfect hair, perfect voice,

846
00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:40,040
everyone falling in love with you.

847
00:49:40,600 --> 00:49:42,440
Oh, save me, right?

848
00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:44,520
So, we need that grit.

849
00:49:44,520 --> 00:49:46,760
We need that little shadowy stuff.

850
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:48,760
Life is not that sweet.

851
00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:51,960
We don't want it to be so doom and gloom

852
00:49:51,960 --> 00:49:54,280
and shadowy that it's unbearable.

853
00:49:55,000 --> 00:49:59,560
But equally, we don't want this living in the sunlight

854
00:49:59,560 --> 00:50:02,360
because nothing will depress you more

855
00:50:02,920 --> 00:50:05,400
than trying to live in the sunlight all the time.

856
00:50:05,960 --> 00:50:08,440
Because what do you do with your natural depression?

857
00:50:10,040 --> 00:50:12,920
Humans naturally sometimes have moods.

858
00:50:12,920 --> 00:50:15,480
We get depressed, we get angry, we get irritated.

859
00:50:15,480 --> 00:50:17,240
We don't know how to get along with people.

860
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:19,720
You know, I'm a couples therapist

861
00:50:19,720 --> 00:50:22,200
and I spend half my life trying to teach people

862
00:50:22,200 --> 00:50:24,840
to have happy, healthy arguments, right?

863
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:30,680
If you don't argue, then, you know, good luck, really.

864
00:50:30,680 --> 00:50:31,720
Tell me how you do it.

865
00:50:31,720 --> 00:50:35,720
So, that's the shadow in life.

866
00:50:35,720 --> 00:50:38,280
And the shadow is not bad.

867
00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:40,440
The shadow brings gifts,

868
00:50:40,440 --> 00:50:42,200
which are not always comfortable,

869
00:50:42,200 --> 00:50:45,000
but they give us depth, meaning, wisdom,

870
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:48,040
which will help us navigate through life.

871
00:50:48,120 --> 00:50:50,760
So, that's the depth psychology approach,

872
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:54,440
which is, don't call something doom and gloom.

873
00:50:54,440 --> 00:50:56,040
Let's look under the surface.

874
00:50:56,040 --> 00:50:58,120
Maybe there's a little bit of sneaky help here.

875
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:02,280
On top of this, I'm going to give you another final story,

876
00:51:02,280 --> 00:51:05,320
which is two parents walking down the beach one day

877
00:51:05,320 --> 00:51:07,160
with their children, and it's been a big storm.

878
00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:10,920
And lots of sea creatures thrown up on the beach.

879
00:51:10,920 --> 00:51:14,120
And some of them are dead, some of them are alive.

880
00:51:14,120 --> 00:51:15,880
And the children are throwing the life away.

881
00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:18,040
And the parents are getting irritated

882
00:51:18,040 --> 00:51:21,320
because they're taking a long time over this.

883
00:51:21,320 --> 00:51:25,400
They want to get on, finish the war, be a fisherman, you know.

884
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:27,880
And they say to the children, what's the point?

885
00:51:27,880 --> 00:51:29,560
There's hundreds of them, you can't save them.

886
00:51:29,560 --> 00:51:31,800
Just don't bother, let's get going.

887
00:51:32,680 --> 00:51:35,560
And the children just picked up one that was alive

888
00:51:35,560 --> 00:51:37,560
and threw it back in the water and said,

889
00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:41,560
I made a difference to that one, right?

890
00:51:41,640 --> 00:51:44,040
So just go out there and save that one starfish.

891
00:51:45,240 --> 00:51:47,320
It makes a difference to that one.

892
00:51:47,880 --> 00:51:49,240
We're in this together.

893
00:51:50,200 --> 00:51:53,080
If we don't take care of the trees, the creatures,

894
00:51:53,080 --> 00:51:57,960
the children, the grass, other countries, we're in a mess.

895
00:52:01,240 --> 00:52:02,440
Save that one starfish.

896
00:52:02,440 --> 00:52:04,840
I love closing on that.

897
00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:06,040
Save that one starfish.

898
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:08,280
That's going to be the end of the story.

899
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:09,880
Save that one starfish.

900
00:52:10,920 --> 00:52:12,520
That's going to be the title of our next show

901
00:52:12,520 --> 00:52:13,240
when we have you back.

902
00:52:14,760 --> 00:52:15,640
I'd love to come back.

903
00:52:16,280 --> 00:52:16,920
Brilliant.

904
00:52:16,920 --> 00:52:19,000
Carolyn Hickman, thank you so much for being with us today.

905
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:20,760
I really appreciate your time and your insights.

906
00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:21,000
Thank you.

907
00:52:21,000 --> 00:52:22,040
And I know it's late in the UK,

908
00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:23,640
so I really, really appreciate your time.

909
00:52:24,840 --> 00:52:25,560
We're good.

910
00:52:25,560 --> 00:52:25,960
Thank you.

911
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:27,560
And thank you to our audience,

912
00:52:27,560 --> 00:52:29,720
which now includes people in over 50 countries

913
00:52:29,720 --> 00:52:32,600
for joining us for another episode of Next Steps Forward.

914
00:52:32,600 --> 00:52:33,480
I'm Chris Meek.

915
00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:35,720
For more details and upcoming shows and guests,

916
00:52:35,720 --> 00:52:38,360
please follow me on Facebook at facebook.com

917
00:52:38,360 --> 00:52:40,120
forward slash ChrisMeekPublicFigure

918
00:52:40,120 --> 00:52:43,080
and on X at ChrisMeek underscore USA.

919
00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:45,800
We'll be back next Tuesday, same time, same place

920
00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:47,800
with another leader from the world of business,

921
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:50,680
politics, public policy, sports, entertainment.

922
00:52:50,680 --> 00:52:52,040
Until then, stay safe

923
00:52:52,040 --> 00:52:54,200
and keep taking your next steps forward.

924
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:02,040
Thanks for tuning in to Next Steps Forward.

925
00:53:02,040 --> 00:53:04,920
Be sure to join Chris Meek for another great show

926
00:53:04,920 --> 00:53:07,320
next Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific time

927
00:53:07,320 --> 00:53:09,160
and 1 p.m. Eastern time

928
00:53:09,160 --> 00:53:12,040
on the Voice America Empowerment Channel.

929
00:53:12,040 --> 00:53:15,640
This week, make things happen in your life.