Why talking about climate change matters
As a counsellor I spend a large part of my working life listening to people talk – talk about themselves, talk about their feelings, talk about the people in their lives, talk about their aspirations hopes and dreams.
I have seen firsthand how talking can really create change. The first time I really noticed this was back in the year 2000 when working as a probation officer in a prison. I met with a handful of offenders each week, talking to them about what got them into prison and what their plans were upon release. It was here I began to truly appreciate the difference having somebody to talk to you could really make. I saw over and over again offenders that wanted to make changing their lives are far more likely to succeed if they had a support person to.
Over the more recent years I have began to see existential anxiety around climate change creep into counselling sessions. Many people are concerned about the deterioration and destabilisation of our planet, the ravaging of the natural environment, how sustainable our future is, the state we’re leaving the world in for future generations.
It is all too easy to become overwhelmed by what is happening around us, wildfires – hurricanes – heat waves – floods – storms – droughts and so on. What we are seeing is the beginning of a changing climate, caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases. After decades of distancing ourselves from nature and sustainability we now have to face the fact that we are reaching crucial tipping points …. Points if no return…. once triggered irreversible and irreparable catastrophic damage is done, creating new biophysical states.
I remember a time when I was in a restaurant in Edinburgh. The fire alarm went off and everybody sat around waiting for a staff member to turn it off. I was the first person that got up and left the building. Everybody else just presumed it was a test or false alarm. I remember feeling arising anger that people did not respond to an alarm that could save their lives, not wanting their meal to be interrupted or to be inconvenienced.
Research shows there are typically four reasons people don't want to talk about climate change:
I don't know enough.
I don't want to talk about scary things.
I don't think I can make a difference.
I don't want to cause an argument.
My challenge to you this coming year is to have more conversations about the environment and sustainability. Just like mental health, the more we speak about it, the less taboo, shameful and stigmatised it becomes.
We can't solve a problem we don't talk about. You do not have to become an expert in the climate science. People talk about what matters to them. People are not likely to care or act on issues that aren't important enough to talk about. If we do not have these conversations, how do we expect the world to change?
Mother Earth is sending us a massive warning alarm for how many of us will respond to it?
