The environmental impacts of climate change have been well documented, but the layers of its impact are constantly being peeled back to reveal different ways in which the changing environment is harming humans. Climate Grief: From Coping to Resilience and Action by Shawn Weaver addresses the more recently recognized emotional impacts.
With an increased number of the population acknowledging climate change, there are more conversations, and subsequently an increase in recognizing the psychological effect. "In the last ten, maybe twenty years," says Weaver. "we've brought with us a little bit more of an assertiveness around mental health."
The author notes that the anxiety and depression caused by climate change is a reasonable response to what is going on in the world. "We don't have tools for a grief that is so existential and universal," says Weaver who cites the five stages of grief in her book, as well as a sixth stage: meaning making. "We still have a lot more control over climate change than we think we do."
Climate Grief can be found at Zenith Bookstore, Barnes and Noble, and online.
Minnesota Reads is produced at The North 103.3 with funding provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
