Responding to Eco-Anxiety: Educating the Next Generation Back to the Land

Reader Contribution by Jodi Kushins and Over The Fence Urban Farm
Published on September 20, 2019
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A few weeks ago, the world learned the Amazon rainforest, affectionately referred to as “the earth’s lungs” is burning at an alarming rate. Upon hearing this news, I caught myself spiraling down into a dark place, feeling hopeless about the future of Gaia.

Sadly, after a growing season that started with torrential rains and rolled into months of urban drought, our little urban farm in Columbus, Ohio is offering a clear analogy to the climate crisis. The soil is dry despite my best efforts to keep it watered and the rats are stealing the last few tomatoes. Our farm, a place I can usually turn to at a moment’s notice to immerse myself in beauty and to do something meaningful, has become another site for my eco-anxiety.

Psychologists define eco-anxiety as “the overwhelming and sometimes debilitating concern for the worsening state of the environment.” Eco-consciousness led me to begin farming, could eco-anxiety propel me to keep going? Or would it cause me to give up?

Caroline Hickman, a psychologist who works with the Climate Psychology Alliance, works with adults and children to better understand and address eco-anxiety. When asked recently on the podcast World Affairs what advice she would offer those of us feeling anxious about climate change she replied, “I hope you do feel some eco-anxiety because that’s the price you pay for being alive and awake in the world and in connection with yourself and others and the reality we’re facing.” She went on to add “Feel enough to take action but not too much that you collapse into despair.”

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