Ecological grief (or eco-grief), or in particular climate grief, refers to the sense of loss that arises from experiencing or learning about environmental destruction or climate change. Environmental grief can be defined as "the grief reaction stemming from the environmental loss of ecosystems by natural and man-made events." Another definition is "the grief felt in relation to experienced or anticipated ecological losses, including the loss of species, ecosystems, and meaningful landscapes due to acute or chronic environmental change." For example, scientists witnessing the decline of Australia's Great Barrier Reef report experiences of anxiety, hopelessness, and despair.
Environmental disruption, such as the loss of biodiversity, or even the loss of inanimate environmental features like sea ice, cultural landscapes, or historic heritage can also cause negative psychological responses, such as ecological grief or solastalgia.
Background and characteristics
Usage of "ecological grief" dates back to at least 1940, where Aldo Leopold used the term to refer to the pain of environmental loss. In A Sand County Almanac, Leopold wrote that "One of the penalties of an ecological education is to live alone in a world of wounds". The phenomena of ecological grief became more widespread in the 21st century along with the worsening climate crisis.
In 2018, Cunsolo and Ellis wrote that "grief is a natural and legitimate response to ecological loss, and one that may become more common as climate impacts worsen."
A 2020 survey by the American Psychological Association found that more than two-thirds of American adults said they had experienced "eco-anxiety". The emerging model of climate grief suggests that people may process climate despair, or climate anxiety, through the stages of grief, and that forming social support networks is a part of this process.
Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht coined the term solastalgia, publishing the first academic paper on the idea in 2005. The term is derived from word root (meaning "comfort") and the suffix -algia (meaning "pain"), suggesting a loss of comfort, and akin to the terms climate grief, ecological grief, and environmental melancholia. A 2022 article in The Atlantic described solastalgia as a response to "losing your home while staying in one place". The article said the word "seemed to tap into a kind of angst about life on a warming planet", the word inspiring an instrumental music track in the U.K., an album in Slovenia, and a porcelain representation.
Climate communicators may focus initially on communicating climate impacts and adaptation rather than the aspects of grief. Communicators such as the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication have often addressed the question of grief by stressing the importance of describing solutions. Attempting to channel climate anxiety into action for solutions is consistent with the approach described by Sherman H. Dryer, Director of Radio Productions at The University of Chicago, in his manual for World War II propaganda, in which radio communications about the war always end with a message on how the listener can support the war effort.
However, it is not clear that encouragement to channel anxiety and despair into action is an adequate response for people who have experienced concrete personal losses, such as Greenlanders who have had to euthanize sled dogs. Cunsolo, an ecologist active in Nunatsiavut, in Canada's Far North, described grappling with this question in an article titled, "To Grieve or Not to Grieve?".
Some discussions in the media have focused on the question of whether presenting the negative aspects of climate change is making people despair and give up. A 2016 Scientific American article posed the question, "Is a traumatic sense of loss freezing action against climate change?" In 2019, journalist Mike Pearl asserted that "people are suffering from what could be called 'climate despair', a sense that climate change is an unstoppable force that will render humanity extinct and renders life in the meantime futile." More recently, research has indicated that emotional responses to crisis and disaster are inherently adaptive, and with appropriate support in reflecting on and processing the experiences, these emotions can lead to resilience.
Impacts
On April 14, 2018, civil rights attorney David Buckel, 60, self-immolated without witnesses at about 6 a.m. in a Brooklyn, N.Y., park, after having sent an email notifying news organizations. His suicide letter stated, "My early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves" and "Here is a hope that giving a life might bring some attention to the need for expanded action."