How To Worry Less About Climate Change
(or should you be worrying more?)
Welcome to the 4th of my ‘How To Worry Less’ series - you’ll find the first three on everything, ageing & failure here. Next week we’ll be taking a break from worrying about worrying and sliding gently into the holidays.
“No! We should all be worrying more about climate change.”
This is the thought that burst through me when I sat down to write this piece.
Five years ago I woke up to the reality of the climate and ecological emergency.
calls it the ‘oh FUCK’ moment. It catapulted me into a new phase of my life. For the first time I started to experience intense waves of climate grief and rage. I reluctantly got involved in non-violent civil disobedience and was arrested many times. I put a picture of the Earth around my neck and sat in meditation for an hour every day in the middle of my local town in the year running up to COP27. I got involved in organising, co-leading the Extinction Rebellion Buddhists and running a 40 day 24-hour vigil outside Parliament with other faith groups.I wrote to friends who were in prison because of their activism. I hoovered up information about climate change, especially the science and how little this was being reported by the media. I saw the depth of the denial we’re all in. Again, I’m afraid there’s no other word for it: FUCK.
I began to understand the predicament of our politicians and of our huge corporations. If they did (or even spoke of) what the situation actually required of them, they would lose their jobs. I starting seeing the machine consisting of capitalism, extractivism, colonialism… so old and heavy and insanely powerful and EVERYWHERE. I saw that this machine isn’t just outside of us - we breathe it. It runs through all of our blood.
I got very tired. I went on yet another rebellion in London and there were fewer people there than ever before. Marcus and Morgan got put away for three years (they’re still inside). The president of COP28 is chief executive of the state oil company. I started to ask questions, to have doubts. Was climate activism changing anything at all? Could it even be polarising people and making things worse? The fear and worry, absent during my times of intense action, started to return. WHAT SHOULD I BE DOING?
Here’s the thing. I don’t think it helps me or the world when I worry about the climate crisis.
Worry is like a violent tremor that takes energy from my body and mind but doesn’t actually move me anywhere. I just goes back and forth, back and forth, in a doomed attempt at solving something that isn’t solvable.
I totally understand why I (and maybe you) do worry. Our worrying parts1 are encountering something scary and unknown and uncontrollable and huge, and they are doing the only thing they know how to do. They are trying to prepare us for the impending catastrophe. They are forcing us to be vigilant. They are making us consider all of our options, over and over, and encouraging us to obsess about minutiae. They are making damn sure that we don’t forget this threat and leave ourselves or our loved ones even more vulnerable to harm.
I feel so much tenderness towards my worrying parts, and towards yours. What else can they do? We’re all up shit creek, and they know it. And, I would like to offer them some help. I propose that there are other ways of engaging that will allow us to stay steady, whilst still staying connected to the truth. That will allow us to live happily and well, even within the context of these crazy times.
This piece will only reference the very tip of the iceberg2 of all the things that could be said about climate change. Before we go on it feels important to first bow to the communities who have long histories of living in harmony with our dear Earth, and to honour the treasurehouses of knowledge they are holding for us all. I want to acknowledge the communities who were born on the wrong end of the cruel machine that is modernism, and who have less so I can enjoy my out-of-season vegetables, my mobile phone, my car. They are bearing the brunt of the climate crisis right now, and they will bear the brunt of it in the future. I also want to acknowledge that, wherever we live, we are all carrying different burdens. For some of us climate change is, totally understandably, very low down on the list of survival priorities.
With all that in mind, how can we worry less about climate change and do something different instead?
🌏 Begin to meet reality outside. It wasn’t attending a talk about the climate crisis that woke me up five years ago, but watching a woman cry after the talk. It helped me to locate my own grief, which I had hidden from myself very cleverly. Since that dramatic time of awakening I have continued to meet the truth whenever I can - staying open to noticing the changes in our weather, remembering how many insects used to be squashed onto our car windscreens after long journeys, reading about biodiversity loss. I can’t always manage it, and that’s okay, but I also want to keep taking this information in and composting it - without becoming obsessive, and without shutting the emotional impact completely out.
🌎 Begin to meet reality inside. These first two will happen in tandem - as we encounter the truth of the situation, we will have reactions, and it then becomes necessary to tend to the parts of us that are reacting and offer them support. I can say without any doubt that the climate grief I felt was the fuel that powered my activism-engine. After some years this fuel is now a different mix - some sadness, some anger, and mostly love of the Earth. I wouldn’t have any of this fuel (luckily carbon-footprint free!) if I hadn’t made space for all the emotions inside me. It’s easier to feel this emotion when we are accompanied by others who ‘get it’ (e.g. you could find yourself a climate café or join a local group or get therapy from someone who understands.) In my experience, this process is ongoing, but it might help you to know that it can be more intense at the start. I have found that if I can keep feeling and working with these deeper emotions, then my worry (which partly has the job of keeping me away from grief, rage, terror) will dissipate.
🌎 Consider taking action. My climate activism has kept me sane over the past five years. It has provided me with an amazing community, given me a place to express my love and grief, offering me learning and giving my life meaning. Getting arrested isn’t for everyone (!) - there are many different ways of helping out and many forms of activism - making art, having difficult conversations with colleagues, writing to activist prisoners, becoming involved in local community groups or local politics, rewilding your garden, sharing this piece (😉). I’d encourage you to focus your efforts on system change rather than individual change if you possibly can. Our systems (governments, gas and oil companies, huge corporations…) would prefer us to obsess over doing more recycling as then they don’t have to be held accountable for the huge harm their systems are doing. Please do also eat more plant-based food and fly less - and this will make you feel good - but system change is where it’s at.
🌏 Remember how small you are. Unless you are in charge of a large country or one of the ten richest men in the world (and even if you are) you are not going to be able to solve the climate crisis. You are one of 7.88 billion. I feel a great relief when I remember this. Parts of me drastically over-amplify my own importance/potency because it makes me feel better about how powerless I actually am. When I remember my smallness, it helps me to right-size my expectations about what I can actually do, and what change might realistically be possible. Also…
🌎 Remember that we don’t know what happens to our ripples. We are small, and, we also cause effects that we’re not aware of. It is a good thing to do good things, and who knows what might unfold as a result. Kennedy’s words are a comfort to me.
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. ~ Robert F. Kennedy
🌎 Remember that we don’t know. We have a tendency to think that we (especially the ‘we’ of the Global North) are the only chance the Earth has. Who knows where the healing might emerge from? Maybe another pandemic will sweep the Earth clean. Maybe a shining future will emerge from ten thousand grass-roots groups. Maybe, in the very long term, this awful despoliation will be the best thing that ever happened to humanity. As Dougald Hine said, our short lifespans mean that we won’t ever know the end of this story - but we can play our part whilst we’re here.
🌎 Continue to be curious about what your part is. This year, my part was first to have a long rest, and then to begin a year-long Earth prayer project. I am nearly four months into this and it is bringing me huge joy. Your part this year might be to tend to your children and elderly parents, or to put political leaflets through doors, or to include dear Earth in your writing more, or to get involved in a campaign to save a local tree. Listen, and the Universe will give you some hints.
🌎 Enjoy your life. If your loved one was given a diagnosis which limited their life in some unknown way, and that had no cure, it would be a shame if you spent the remainder of their time hunched over your computer on medical forums. Yes - the planet is in trouble, and yes, things will get worse. We don’t know when and how. Right now, through my office window, there is mist lying in skeins across the valley, and the sky is the perfect baby blue. Later I will walk in the frosty garden with my dogs and notice the splashes of colour even as we enter deep winter - flamingo pink, orange, bright red. I love this world, and I appreciate its amazing gifts every day. I would go so far as to say that it is your duty to enjoy her too, and to enjoy your life.
Where does all that leave my anxious questions about my eco-activism?
It leaves me surrendered. To knowing that I don’t know, and to knowing that I have less control over the world than parts of me would like to think. It leaves me with a deep knowing that taking small actions feeds my soul, and that - if I’m lucky and as a bonus - it will also have small effects on the people around me. It leaves me with an ongoing grief - we have lost so much! We will lose so much more! - and a sweet, enduring and FIERCE love for this planet.
It leaves me at peace.
I hope you can find your own way towards peace - not a political quietism, but a deep quiet that honours the truth and that can remain steady as we move into whatever is next.
Sending you so much love.
Go gently,
Satya <3
Tell me: What worries you the most about our climate and ecological crisis? What’s your experience been over the past years? What have you found that helps you?
Blessed by Amitabha’s light
May we care for all living things
and the holy Earth
(This is the closing verse we use here at our temple and that I say at the end of my daily Zoom Earth prayer. Amitabha is the Buddha of Compassion and represents Great Love.)
Resources
There are so many places I could point you to, and, our encounter with these polycrises is such a personal one. More than anything I’d encourage you to trust your gut and follow your nose. If you want some jumping off points…
Here on Substack I love Britt Wray’s work at
. Dougald at is a voice very worth listening to - his new book At Work In The Ruins is recommended. See also , , Bill McKibben at and many more.Here’s a good list of books.
Here’s a list of facts. (Not easy reading.)
Anthea Lawson’s The Entangled Activist & Bayo Akomolafe’s These Wilds Beyond Our Fences take us a little bit further than we usually go.
Enough… explore!
PS This Friday in my Supporters-only email I’ll be sharing the story of when I was first arrested (and why I sobbed), and a short Internal Family Systems exercise to help ALL of your parts that have thoughts or concerns about the climate and ecological crisis. If you want to join me before my yearly subscription goes up:
When I talk about parts I’m using the language of Internal Family Systems.
I can’t write this word now without thinking about melting. That makes me very sad.
Tell me: What worries you the most about our climate and ecological crisis? What’s your experience been over the past years? What have you found that helps you?
What worries me most is that we don't realise that we are in fact the majority. And if the majority realise that they are the majority, if they come together, then they have the power. Power in numbers. But we easily feel powerless, helpless, numb, too scared to act. We're capable of so much if we come together, and like you say, we'll never know the ripples of our actions. No, we can't fix it or change everything, but I do believe we can do more than we realise, especially together.