Britt Wray is the author of Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis. She's a writer and broadcaster researching the emotional and psychological impacts of the climate crisis. Born and raised in Toronto, Canada, she is a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where she investigates the mental health consequences of ecological disruption. She holds a PhD in Science Communication from the University of Copenhagen. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post Guardian, and Globe and Mail, among other publications. She has hosted several podcasts, radio, and TV programs with the BBC and CBC, is a TED Resident, and writes Gan Dread, a newsletter about staying sane in the climate crisis. She is also the author of Rise of the Necrofauna: The Science, Ethics, and Risks of De-Extinction.

BRITT WRAY

So I have a background in conservation biology and have been a science communicator for well over a decade and a half now, and of course, doing that work you're confronted with climate, environmental reports and studies, which were a consistent part of my emotional baseline, just being aware of the fact that this is not all going well, which every now and then would make me feel low, for sure, in a way that was quite noticeable. But it became much more poignant in my life in 2017 when my partner and I started considering whether or not to have a kid, and I hadn't connected the reproductive part of life to the climate crisis. And all of a sudden this topic was the only thing I could really think about because it became such a dilemma for me personally, as to whether or not I felt comfortable having a child, given what the science says about where we're headed and what the lack of historical action means for the future of any child born to date, even one with privilege and protection from its parental outset. So that then, you know, eco-anxiety and climate anxiety and eco-grief in these terms that we now have as kind of household items that people are familiar with, that we have lots of journalism around, which has especially emerged in the last three years or so.

At that time, I didn't have words to describe what I was feeling and I felt very deviant for even questioning whether or not it was okay to have kids in the climate crisis. I didn't really see it reflected. I figured, Okay, this is probably me getting a little bit loopy here, and I ought to do something to bring more perspective into my line of view. And that started me on a research project looking at the psychological impacts of the climate crisis writ large beyond just the reproductive angle, but that was my on-ramp. And I very quickly discovered, Oh, I'm not alone in these concerns and fears. There's actually a very active, underground conversation of many people my age, millennials and younger, Gen Z, feeling the same. And it just hadn't risen to the surface as a topic that we knew much about. There weren't studies on it at the time.

*

I think the general waking up that I'm seeing around me in so many different parts of society, people from all walks understanding that this is here, it's not a future threat. It's active now. We need to get smart about addressing it. And there's a deep approach that... You know, we've just been through the great resignation with COVID where a lot of people are leaving their jobs. But similarly, a lot of people are also asking themselves how can I be of service? What can I do at this time? How am I going to be? And you know, the more climate job boards and networking communities and sites of bringing people together to do that work of figuring out how they're going to go on their climate journey while infusing it with a sense of joy, with a sense of how can we make this fun, right? How can we reshift so this is not just focusing on the negative, but really focusing on what we want to be building and what is abundant and the better life that we're working towards? All of that has been popping up a lot and that gives me an honest sense of hope.

You know, I see that reflected. I see real people doing real things and changes in their life. And I feel it within myself and all of those things are just great. It's possible to have high well-being, high meaning, high engagement with things that matter, and that are purposeful, and waves of cultivating, nourishing emotions around all of those things in an increasingly turbulent world. We can do that. So even as the systems around us change. If water is becoming more scarce, let's say, or food scarcity, climate disasters ramping up, and migration crises, there are lots of things that we can do within ourselves to stretch our capacity to be caring and continue taking action for the present moment.

*

In our study, we're looking at climate anxietyin 10,000 young people around the world, 16 to 25-year-olds in 10 countries across low, middle, high income settings, and 45% of the global respondents of these young people said that their climate anxiety is impairing their daily functioning. So concentrating, eating, going to school, going to work, playing, having fun, that kind of thing. They had very negative thoughts. 75% of the people around the world said that the future is frightening. 56% said that they feel humanity is doomed. And 39% said that they're hesitant to have their own kids. So, because of all that, we know - if we're talking in Nigeria, India, Philippines, Canada, UK, US, Australia, Finland, and some other countries - we're looking across really diverse scenarios in terms of the national income and what that means for their ability to adapt and respond to climate threats and also their exposure already to climate hazards and disasters that are going on.

So for that global aggregate to be that high, it's pretty striking. And then when you really dig into the most affected and underserved countries on this issue, so those with lower level economies and more climate disasters, you see the distress shooting through the roof – more around 74% of the young people saying that it's impairing functioning, for instance. So it's a severe health equity issue thinking about what it means to live with the psychological impacts of the climate crisis. And then also pointing out who's deserving who needs the most attention and support at this time, rather than just kind of foisting all the attention and resources on, in this case, it would be young people in industrialized nations who are suffering as well but not at the rates of lower income nations with more climate disasters.

*

Much greater investment in public transport infrastructure is enormous with about 40% of our carbon pollution in cities coming from cars and transportation. That really needs to be focused on and prioritized, and of course electrifying everything that we can, both in that sector and beyond, including in our buildings. I believe roughly 60% of our carbon pollution in cities is coming from buildings and those that are not built in smart kind of climate-secure ways. How can we shift off of natural gas and towards heat pumps that can heat and cool our homes at the same time, for instance, that are electric? These are big key questions that many people are already creating the pathways of change on that we need to find ways of strengthening and making affordable and having just the everyday homeowner and renter be able to tap into.

*

We're going to certainly have an evolving learning journey there together in our family, but it starts with engendering the kind of partnership model that we were talking about earlier, like bringing our kid out into nature, allowing him to foster that sense of connection and love for natural landscapes ecosystem species, so that there's a, an interest in protective measures and usually supportive relationships to nature growing up.

I think that's really important as well as listening, when he's ready to talk about it and tells me how he's feeling, be able to create space for that and attend to the emotions, if they're distressing or challenging. There are all kinds of approaches for supporting young people to deal with, you know, nervous system reactions and ways of thinking about the future to balance hope and fear that I think will be really key, but not introducing until he's ready. And not doing it too young because we don't want to unduly stress a young person who's not completed the development of their brain to think about such overwhelming problems, but we do live in a culture in which it's going to come in through osmosis at some point because we're living in it.

And so being just really attentive and validating and listening and engendering a culture of action taking in our lives in our family activism. And you know, young people need to understand that there are people around them who are supporting them, who are validating how important this is, and who are working alongside them to help them navigate the future and prepare in resilience, building ways for the massive changes that are underway.

So a lot of it is about that relationality, creating conditions of solidarity that bring a sense of stability and security. Even though there's a lot of uncertainty about what the impacts will be and how they're going to affect us, each and every one of us, in the decades ahead. There needs to, amidst all that uncertainty, be other things that can undergird a child and make them feel held, safe, secure, and like they belong to a protective community that's thinking and feeling with them through this.

Photo credit: Arden Wray

This interview was conducted by Mia Funk and Kade Cornelius with the participation of collaborating universities and students. Associate Interviews Producer on this podcast was Kade Cornelius. Digital Media Coordinators are Jacob A. Preisler and Megan Hegenbarth. 

Mia Funk is an artist, interviewer and founder of The Creative Process & One Planet Podcast (Conversations about Climate Change & Environmental Solutions).
Books & Writers channel