The PBS NewsHour was once again indulging the apocalyptic fears of residents of the liberal bubble (i.e. their viewing audience) with a full segment on the psychological woes wrought by…climate change. On Sunday’s edition of the tax-supported program, anchor John Yang interviewed a “climate psychology therapist” over this rather niche, first-world woe.
John Yang: This summer, millions of Americans are experiencing firsthand the effects of climate change. Triple-digit temperatures for days on end, smoke from record-setting wildfires fouling the air, warming oceans, bleaching coral reefs, Opinion polls when growing concern about climate change. Psychologists say that can be a positive thing, spurring people to action. But for some people, it becomes an overwhelming sense of despair or anxiety. Psychologists call it climate anxiety. This week, we asked people about their emotional responses to climate change.
PBS producers ran soundbites of seven souls who claimed the fear of “climate change” had made them anxious about the future, including Mark Ikeda, who said: “Climate anxiety affects my daily life, by the decisions I make about when I want to go someplace or where I want to go or more [inaudible], how I want to travel.”
Yang: The voices of Americans and how climate change is affecting their feelings. Leslie Davenport is a climate psychology therapist….
Davenport: Well, from the emerging field of climate psychology, one thing that's really important to understand is we view distress, upset, sadness, grief, anger about climate change to be a really reasonable, even healthy reaction. Because it's built into us as people that if we feel risks, threats, experience losses, there's going to be upset. So it's really important to acknowledge that if you're feeling that on any level of intensity, it really means you're paying attention, you care, you're empathetic to what's happening to our world.
So one should feel good about feeling bad, because that means you’re a good person? The left maintains the same virtue-signaling stance on vaccines and masks to fight the coronavirus.
Davenport doesn’t find such anxiety irrational, because she’s also a true believer in the concept of dangerous man-made climate change, encouraging sufferers to become climate activists and treat climate change as a clear and present danger, which seems a dubious way to treat "climate anxiety":
Davenport….But also we really encourage people to find their own way of becoming part of the solution. How can each person contribute in some way to creating a healthier, safer world, not only is that something that we all need, but it's empowering to not feel as victimized by what's happening.
….
Yang: If there are people watching this now who are worried about climate change, but it hasn't quite reached the stage of being something that really affects their lives, their day-to-day functioning, what would you tell them about how to avoid that, how to prevent that from happening?
Davenport: Talk about it, talk about it to other people who are like-minded, receptive, ‘I feel that way too,’ so that it's not as isolating. If it's hard to find that there are a lot of what are called climate cafes, or climate circles, that can be found by an easy online search, where people just get together often online, remotely, and just say what they're feeling what they're experiencing, what people have found helpful.
Yang indulged his viewers’ neuroticism.
Yang: If someone thinks they have sort of almost crippling climate anxiety, how do they find someone who can help them?
Davenport pointed them to something called the “climate-aware therapist directory.”
This climate-related condition is apparently chronic; PBS ran a similar story focusing on children in November 2021. If only they’d treated the actual psychological problems fostered by school closings and lockdowns with the same seriousness.
This biased segment was brought to you in part by Consumer Cellular.
A transcript is available, click “Expand” to read:
PBS NewsHour
July 30, 2023
7:13:14 p.m. (ET)
John Yang: This summer, millions of Americans are experiencing firsthand the effects of climate change. Triple digit temperatures for days on end, smoke from record setting wildfires, fouling the air warming oceans bleaching coral reefs, opinion polls when growing concern about climate change.
Psychologists say that can be a positive thing spurring people to action. But for some people, it becomes an overwhelming sense of despair or anxiety. Psychologists call it climate anxiety. This week, we asked people about their emotional responses to climate change.
Adam Burke: I would say that climate change has affected my mental health in that it has certainly increased my anxiety.
Alfred Artis: I feel very anxious about the state of the climate and our future. I believe that if we don't make necessary changes now, we will be changed in the future in ways that we do not want and cannot control and will not be able to mitigate.
Robert Wolff: We're really not seemingly taking seriously enough the efforts to make changes to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change. That to me is just that it's sent horrific in a way that I can't fully comprehend.
Pat Noble: I'm worried because this is all we have right now. We talk about going to the moon and mars. But this is this is what we have. I think I'm more worried maybe than anxious at this point.
Mark Ikeda: Climate anxiety affects my daily life, by the decisions I make about when I want to go someplace or where I want to go or work away how I want to travel.
Adam Burke: My climate anxiety does affect my daily life again, because I'm living in a city that reaches 117 degrees and I watched the birds outside struggling in the heat.
Alfred Artis: The moment when I realized that the climate change crisis was causing anxiety in my life was the day when the sky in the San Francisco Bay Area was orange, that is not the color of the sky. And that had a profound and deep effect on me, because it so clearly showed that the danger was real.
Liam Hefferman: I don't want to sound all kinds of doomsday bunker ready to go. But like, it's a thing. I think about looking at ways to move out what areas will be most impacted by coastal flooding. It's a lot of anxiety that I really don't have an outlet for.
Katherine Shaw: I think it was when I started to have a panic attack, literally just chopping vegetables for dinner one day, and it was because I was sitting there ruminating on some terrifying headline that I'd seen that day, it was a full on panic attack with like the not being able to breathe and the, you know, just kind of general shaky feeling. And I was just like, this is ridiculous. Like, I'm just trying to make dinner here.
John Yang: The voices of Americans and how climate change is affecting their feelings.
Leslie Davenport is a climate psychology therapist. She teaches at the California Institute of Integral Studies, and is author of "Emotional Resiliency in the Era of Climate Change." Leslie, when does healthy concern about the planet about climate change become this sort of climate anxiety?
Leslie Davenport, Climate Psychology Therapist: Well, from the emerging field of climate psychology, one thing that's really important to understand is we view distress, upset sadness, grief, anger, about climate change to be a really reasonable, even healthy reaction.
Because it's built into us as people that if we feel risks, threats, experience losses, there's going to be upset. So it's really important to acknowledge that if you're feeling that on any level of intensity, it really means you're paying attention, you care, you're empathetic to what's happening to our world.
John Yang: But when does it become a problem? When does it become something that people feel they should go talk to someone about?
Leslie Davenport: Well, it can certainly grow into something that interferes with functioning in daily life keeps you awake at night, gets in the way of enjoying life, becomes really the predominant concern, high levels of physiological distress racing hearts, intrusive thoughts, it can take many, many forms.
John Yang: Are you ever private practice in the Pacific Northwest Southern California? Are you seeing more people coming to you talking about this?
Leslie Davenport: I sure do. And I sure have, I'd say there's been a big leap in the last five years. And there are three groups I see the most, one are people working in this field, frontline workers, scientists who are studying this, and recognizing what a dangerous trajectory we're on to our people who have been touched very directly about with big losses, lost their home in the fires in Santa Rosa a couple of years ago, have had to decide if they want to still live in a fire prone area.
And there's a very high level of distress among children and youth. This is a time when they naturally glance into their future, deciding where they want to live, what they want to do a young adults if they want to start a family, and they're quite upset about the prospects of what their future may entail.
John Yang: This isn't like fear of flying, you're not trying to resolve an anxiety. So what do you do? How do you treat this?
Leslie Davenport: Well, there are several approaches are two main areas. One is there are lots of tools for processing complex feelings, learning how to calm our nervous system, not getting stuck in obsessive thinking, taking media breaks when necessary. And so that's a big part of it.
But also we really encourage people to find their own way of becoming part of the solution. How can each person contribute in some way to creating a healthier, safer world, not only is that something that we all need, but it's empowering to not feel as victimized by what's happening.
John Yang: This is not something new. You say you've been working on this for I think 20 years or so. Is the medical community is the mental health community. aware enough about this and handled, equipped to handle it?
Leslie Davenport: It's a growing awareness, but we have a long way to go. At this point, none of the mental health field psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, MDs, are required to have training in the mental health impacts of climate change, and how to work with it effectively.
And so to that extent, if a person seeking support they may or may not end up with a clinician, who is equipped and tuned into what's needed. I'm confident that will change. There are workshops and programs popping up here and there, but it hasn't yet become part of the mainstream training and approach.
John Yang: If there are people watching this now who are worried about climate change, but it hasn't quite reached the stage of being something that really affects their lives, their day to day functioning, what would you tell them about how to avoid that how to prevent that from happening?
Leslie Davenport: Talk about it, talk about it to other people who are like minded receptive, I feel that way too, so that it's not as isolating. If it's hard to find that there are a lot of what are called climate cafes, or climate circles. That can be found by an easy online search where people just get together often online remotely and just say what they're feeling what they're experiencing what people have found helpful.
John Yang: If someone thinks they have sort of almost crippling climate anxiety, how do they find someone who can help them?
Leslie Davenport: I would really recommend what's being called the climate aware therapist directory. Since this training again is not built in yet to the mental health field, there are some therapists who have chosen to have this as a specialization.
