“Climate grief” is overwhelming many Australians who now suffer from “eco-despair” because of global warming, the ABC has warned.
The national purveyor of climate doom published an article today warning that constant reporting of doom was creating a sense of doom that could leave many Australians feeling doomed.
ABC health reporter Paige Cockburn wrote: “Feeling miserable, anxious, helpless and just generally terrible because the world is becoming less habitable? You’re not alone.
“Climate grief — or eco-anxiety/despair — is a strong psychological response to the current and future loss of habitats, species, and ecosystems.
“It’s recognized by the Australian Psychological Society (APS) and sufferers may feel emotions like fear, anger, guilt, shame, grief, loss, and helplessness.”
Returned veterans suffering from PTSD will be heartened to learn that a bunch of activists now know just how they feel because of CO2.
Of course, the best remedy for climate grief would be a strong dose of empirical scientific evidence.
Failing that, teachers and politicians could stop trying to create an environment of hysteria. Or we could simply defund the ABC.
But since those options are about as likely as a Tim Flannery climate prediction coming true, what to do with the growing number of traumatized people racked with guilt and shame every time they switch on a light?
How do we help good people who can’t even start their car engine in the morning without hearing in the back of their mind an angry Swedish teenager chiding them “How dare you”?
Fear not, The Australian Psychology Society has devoted much of its website helping people “cope with climate change distress”.
The Society warns that failure to process feelings of grief or guilt about climate change could lead to people being overwhelmed and unable to function in their everyday lives.
This could explain why Greens like Adam Bandt and Sarah Hanson-Young make so little sense. Emotional wrecks are unsuitable for involvement in public debate.
The website recommends climate change worriers consider “having a day job that is separate to your activist work” in order to avoid sinking into a fully-fledged eco-funk.
If getting a job sounds a bit extreme, another coping strategy for those burdened by “the existential threats to civilization as we know it” is to take what the Australian Psychology Society calls “a doona day.”
Because, you know, sometimes you just need to lay in bed while the planet burns and, besides, it beats going to work.
Other coping strategies are to “watch a fire, gaze at a waterfall, or pick flowers without exerting attentional effort”.
If this fails to take your mind off polar bears stranded on ice blocks then the website encourages you to “let yourself have a cry from time to time”.
“Some people find that expressing their sadness by crying can be a relief. It is sad that our planet is struggling to cope with overpopulation and overconsumption. These feelings are real, so let them out” it advises.
Dr. Tristan Snell, a counseling psychologist and researcher in environmental psychology at Deakin University told the ABC that “there’s no ritual around loss of environment.”
“When you lose someone, there’s a funeral and all sorts of ways people connect and this helps process that loss. That’s just not the case for loss of environment,” he said.
Someone might like to advise Dr. Snell that the Earth is still very much alive. When you want to hold a funeral before the patient has even died, you really are in a bad way!
The ABC article laments the fact that “no research on climate grief among Australian Indigenous people exists”.
No doubt it will be done because everything – even eco-grief – must be viewed through the prism of race. Black Climate Grief Matters.
But it will probably not be done until research on climate grief among the two-spirited genderqueer trans women is first completed.
While it’s all very well for the ABC to publish articles to assist snowflakes afflicted by climate torment, what about the acute sense of grief and loss the rest of us feel, knowing our taxes are used to pay someone to write this stuff?
Read more at Spectator AU
I’ll bet Californians are feeling eco-despair, but it is from the devastating green energy policies that are turning this once-prosperous gem of capitalism into a socialist nightmare.
All socialist regimes are nightmares except for those at the very top. The rest of the populous suffers.
“…what about the acute sense of grief and loss the rest of us feel, knowing our taxes are used to pay someone to write this stuff?”
Well said. And the author showed admirable restraint with that final word. I would have used something stronger – and been banned for life…..
Their to much watching their fake news programs or fake Earth Day or Eco-Freak TV Specials Climate Grief sounds like just anther word for being Paranoid Yes even in the land down under they have Fake News Programs and empty headed liberals
Climate Grief sounds like just another stupid idea coming from the Eco-Freaks just as stupid as the Earth Hour
Serves the idiots right for watching their AlpBC, don’t have a gram of sympathy for any of them. That organisation pumps out lefty garbage almost daily, why would any sane person watch the bile they put out. Get rid of the monstrosity the AlpBC has become and spend the money on something worthwhile.