,
5 tweets,
2 min read
Read on Twitter
The main thing I learned at an Environmental Humanities conference: there's a place for my climate grief in the humanities.
It's remarkable that there's no place for climate grief in the sciences. I now see it as my mission to help make space for scientists to grieve.
It's remarkable that there's no place for climate grief in the sciences. I now see it as my mission to help make space for scientists to grieve.
In my experience, climate grief couldn't be more different than climate fear/anxiety. Both come from a sense of loss. But fear is paralyzing and separates us from that which is being lost, while grief is aligned with love and leads to kinship and empowered action. #ASLE2019
The path forward here is to learn how to do the hard work of feeling the grief. Fear/anxiety is a product of repressing grief. And there's something essential about working together - talking, making sacred space - for learning how to feel grief for the greater-than-human world.
Scientists are culturally uncomfortable with this kind of work. But we scientists need to realize that we're not just scientists. We're also humans. And I think more and more of us in Earth science are realizing that we can no longer act like we're not deeply feeling loss.
Climate inaction certainly isn't the fault of Earth Scientists, but nonetheless, in my opinion the Earth science community as a whole could do more to communicate appropriate urgency. Whether we like it or not, our community plays a key role. "Owning" our grief might help.
