Battling climate grief and anxiety as a parent

One of the best tools for tackling one of the hardest topics

As I tend to tell it, my environmentalism started with grief and anger, at the young age of 10. I visited Homasassa Springs State Park and saw manatees for the first time. Their huge size and gentle nature enchanted me. As I watched them, my parents had to nudge me insistently to get me to leave. The same day, reading the informational signs, I learned that they were terribly endangered. I signed up for the Save the Manatees club that day and told everyone I could get to listen to me about it.

But in reality, my environmentalism started years before that. It started when I’d plunk myself down in my backyard and search out what seemed like rare plants in the backyard to match those in the fantasy world in my head. I’d thrill at finding the single weed in the yard that had the precise seed I was searching for. It started when my parents brought me to see the Man in the Mountain in New Hampshire and the Adirondack Mountains just north of us and I gazed up at their rocky faces. It started when I rode a wooden boat down the gorges of Western New York, staring up at the eons of history written in the cliffs.

It was good preparation for being an environmentalist in a rapidly changing world.

Finding solace in nature is how we maintain sanity and joy in a world that seems to be falling apart before our eyes. This is how we can keep it together for our kids, especially as they start to notice things are bad, if they haven’t already.

My older son has already learned this lesson well. He’s declared to me that as long as rabbits exist in the world, he will be alright. Luckily for him, rabbits aren’t going to be endangered anytime soon. My younger son isn’t so lucky - elephants are his favorite animal. I hate answering when he asks how endangered they are in the wild as we watch them at the zoo. But there is so much that he takes pleasure in that’s not so at risk of disappearing imminently that we some relief to fall back on.

So if you are having to take deep breaths reading the news or you’re doom-scrolling the latest news about wildfires and hurricanes and heat waves, step outside (as long as the air is safe!).

Look closely at a flower. Find out the name of a nearby tree. Gaze up at the clouds or the moon. Consider the vast networks of fungi connecting the trees under the ground.

Take in what there is to take in. Gather strength from the beauty, no matter how brief.

Then use that strength to take action and demand change for climate justice. Call a senator. Email your state representative. Attend a city meeting. Raise your voice.

We need all of us. We need us to be able to take action without being paralyzed by fear and sadness. So let’s all support each other and get out in nature as much as possible!