Do you ever feel as though you are living in the early scenes of a dystopic film? I have to confess that I do.
In the background, the audience is being shown hints of the coming catastrophe. We hear the news radio mention increasing numbers of extreme weather events and related disasters. We see newspaper headlines declare, 'We have 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe' and '1 million species are facing extinction'. And yet our heroes appear to be carrying on with their lives normally.
As the film progresses, this apparent normality is punctuated by signs of anxiety, despair and resistance. Parents sit up late quietly discussing their fears about the future. Colleagues share a bleak joke about the upcoming apocalypse. Grandparents start becoming radical. School children walk out of school.
Soon it becomes clear that the looming disaster has already arrived, and people react in a range of predictable ways. There are, of course, those who continue to deny the problem — either because they benefit from the status quo or because it is just too confronting to face the truth.
Other people fall into despair, believing (or understanding?) that it is too late to avert collapse or that the structural change that would be needed is simply too difficult to achieve. This pessimism leads some to inaction, while others seek out distraction or the nihilistic pursuit of pleasure. In contrast, there are the more optimistic people who double-down on their individual or community efforts to reduce their ecological footprints by reducing, re-using, recycling, growing food, restoring local habitats, and building resilient communities.
And, finally, there are those who are motivated, angry and courageous enough to fight for structural change.
If this was a Hollywood film, our hero would fall into this final category. We would cheer her on as she confronts complacent world leaders and vested interests in her campaign for a new world order. She would encounter many setbacks, but ultimately, she would prevail.
"This state of paralysis is often mistaken for apathy, but many researchers have been keen to emphasise that while it looks like people don't care, the problem is that many actually care too much."
Unfortunately, I'm starting to feel like this might be a French film or something similar to On the Beach. In response, I find myself swinging wildly between despair, optimism and action. And, it turns out, I'm not alone.
I casually asked people on Twitter whether climate change and mass species extinction are affecting their daily mood and am still being inundated by the response. Many people wrote about feeling overwhelmed by a pervasive feeling of despair and powerlessness. Some described living with a constant sense of doom, a 'permanent heavy wet knot in the pit of my stomach' and of being regularly close to tears. Others reported feeling angry.
Fear and anxiety around the impact of climate change on future generations was a particularly common theme. People spoke of feeling sick with worry when they thought about their children or grandchildren. As one person commented, 'it adds daily sadness and anxiety to even the most innocent moments with my daughter who is three. I don't know how I will tell her about the world she is inheriting.' A surprising number also mentioned that climate change is the most significant factor in their decision not to have children.
When I looked into this issue further, I found that researchers and psychologists have been documenting the rise of what they call 'eco-anxiety' or 'eco-angst' for some time, and these feelings of despair and powerlessness are common. Finnish scholar, Panu Pihkala, argues that 'for many people, the roots of the existential and spiritual crisis that climate change posits go very deep into the core of being mortal humans'.
In the face of our own mortality, humans have long relied on the knowledge that after our death we will 'live on' through our children, our work, our creative outputs, our religion, and (most significantly) our part in the wider natural world. Now climate change and other environmental devastations are threatening almost everything we turn to for this 'symbolic immortality' and it is leading us to a state of 'ecoparalysis'.
This state of paralysis is often mistaken for apathy, but many researchers, such as Glenn Albrecht, have been keen to emphasise that while it looks like people don't care, the problem is that many actually care too much. When people find themselves unable to process the emotions and existential questions raised by climate change, they shut down — leading to denial, avoidance or outright despair. And it is this ecoparalysis that best explains why more of us are not marching in the streets in the face of the existential threat of climate change and mass extinction.
Rebecca Solnit argues that in the face of this overwhelming threat our only real option is hope — which she emphasises is 'not the belief that everything was, is or will be fine.' Instead, she argues for a hope grounded in critical thinking — one that acknowledges the current state of affairs and the grief and rage that it provokes within us, but that nonetheless inspires us to work towards an alternative vision.
So, I guess this means that we need to become the heroes of this dystopic film plot. Somehow, in the face of all our anxiety and despair, we need to locate our capacity for hope and our courage to take action.
Dr Cristy Clark is a lecturer at the Southern Cross University School of Law and Justice. Her research focuses on the intersection of human rights, neoliberalism, activism and the environment, and particularly on the human right to water.
Main image: Anthony Perkins, Gregory Peck and Fred Astaire in the 1959 dystopian movie On the Beach.