Like many young people my age, I feel a sense of disconnect from my natural environment.
Our world is on fire. Climate change-induced extreme temperatures and drought-like conditions have fueled a spate of wildfires, painting skies of U.S. cities orange and filling our lungs with polluting smoke.
Many of my environmental studies classes at Bowdoin begin with the jolly suggestion that humanity is about 10 years away from catastrophic climate change. Some scientists describe our current era as the age of the “anthropocene,” a fancy word that refers to a time in which human activity has dramatically altered the planet’s climate and ecosystems. As I go about my daily life, I find myself more and more aware of the fact that I and others of my generation appear to be coming of age at the end of the world.
As members of Generation Z, we’re well equipped to deal with the intricacies of an ongoing mental health crisis. Our ability to articulate emotions and call out for help surpasses that of any preceding generation. However, what we risk ignoring in the broader mental health debate is what is now being referred to as “climate grief.” If I could self-diagnose myself with this particular affliction, I’m sure I would.
As a Sikh-American, I grapple every day with the chilling fact that Punjab, my ancestral land, is set to become a desert state in only 25 years. This ironically leaves Punjab, “the land of five rivers,” to contemplate a future without its once-thriving agricultural sector, colorful harvests and boisterous dances. Instead of looking forward to a job, a secure future, owning a car and perhaps my own home, I find myself actively mourning the loss of my land – and the culture and traditions that may die along with it.
I can only imagine how indigenous communities across Maine and the world may feel. As temperatures rise, the Aroostook Band of Micmacs of Northern Maine fear that their traditional foods will soon vanish. While their battle to preserve physical elements of their culture continues, we need to also seriously contemplate the state of their mental health and the emotional distress and exhaustion they’re going through.
Feeling grief is one thing. Collective action and the pursuit of it is another. We have been raised to be a generation of activists. It feels almost mandatory to repost brightly colored infographics breaking down statistics and offering instructions on our various social media handles. Yet, how do we go about activism that amounts to more than performance or tokenism? There’s no blueprint for us. This pressure to be change-makers and undo the climate catastrophes of preceding generations is a recipe for burnout and only exacerbates climate anxiety.
Even the people we are taught to idolize, faces of our generation like Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, force young people to swallow a kind of unidimensional horse pill. We are meant to be angry. We are meant to rally in the streets with picket signs and our fists raised high in the air.
The climate issue can’t be viewed in a vacuum of anger, frustration and despair. More must be done to appropriately empathize with young people, particularly vulnerable members of marginalized communities, and to understand our collective angst and hunger for change.
But there are few, if any, resources to help us reflect on or mourn the loss of our natural world as we know it. We don’t know nearly enough about the repercussions of a climate struggle that rages on violently in our world and in our hearts since the day we were born. We have been thrown into the depths of a new type of crisis and simply told to “make do.”
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