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A Guide to Eco-Anxiety: How to Protect the Planet and Your Mental Health
This is the first mainstream book to tackle the growing phenomenon of eco-anxiety. Written by a psychoanalyst, with a foreword from Greenpeace's Ed Gillespie, this book offers emotional tools and strategies to ease anxiety by taking positive action on a personal and community level.
A Guide to Eco-Anxiety outlines a manifesto for action, connection and hope. Showing how to harness anxiety for positive action, as well as effective ways to reduce your personal carbon footprint.
The most powerful thing we can do to combat climate change is to talk about it and act collectively. But despite it being an emergency, most people don't bring climate change into conversation in everyday life.
The book explores the health impact of experiencing eco-anxiety, grief and trauma, and signposts recommended treatments and therapies. It also tackles practical issues such why it's important to reduce plastic waste; parenting and the choice to have a family; which is more effective to bring your carbon footprint down, go vegan or fly less?
The book will cultivate a pragmatic form of hope by offering a dynamic toolkit packed with practical ways to connect with community and systemic support, self-care practices to ease the symptoms of anxiety, and strategies to spread awareness and - crucially - bring about change.
A Guide to Eco-Anxiety outlines a manifesto for action, connection and hope. Showing how to harness anxiety for positive action, as well as effective ways to reduce your personal carbon footprint.
The most powerful thing we can do to combat climate change is to talk about it and act collectively. But despite it being an emergency, most people don't bring climate change into conversation in everyday life.
The book explores the health impact of experiencing eco-anxiety, grief and trauma, and signposts recommended treatments and therapies. It also tackles practical issues such why it's important to reduce plastic waste; parenting and the choice to have a family; which is more effective to bring your carbon footprint down, go vegan or fly less?
The book will cultivate a pragmatic form of hope by offering a dynamic toolkit packed with practical ways to connect with community and systemic support, self-care practices to ease the symptoms of anxiety, and strategies to spread awareness and - crucially - bring about change.
204 pages, Paperback
Published September 8, 2020
11 people are currently reading
468 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
December 1, 2023
I've put off reviewing A Guide to Eco-Anxiety: How to Protect the Planet and Your Mental Health for nearly two weeks, partly because I've been busy but also because I'm struggling to articulate my response to it. There is definitely some thoughtful insight in it, but the whole is hard to swallow when you’re greeted on Monday morning with headlines like Richest 1% account for more carbon emissions than poorest 66%. The book was written during the early months of covid, which understandably gives it an uncertain and jittery tone at times. The foreword states that, ‘COVID-19 is almost a training run for the climate chaos to come,’ which in 2023 is not an encouraging statement at all! Of course, no published book can respond instantly to events.
The author, Anouchka Grose, is a psychoanalyst. She talks briefly about medical treatments for anxiety, but focuses on the fact that anxiety is, by definition, irrational fear and fear of climate change is entirely rational. She applies psychoanalytic thinking, plus elements of neuroscience and behavioural psychology, to the fear of climate chaos. Separate chapters discuss trauma, grief, and denial in this context. She links fear/denial of death and climate change, which I always appreciate in climate fiction (the best example I know being The Living Sea of Waking Dreams).
I think Grose is trying to walk a very difficult line with this book, between acknowledging the grim global reality of climate change and encouraging people to do what they can while remaining mentally healthy. I appreciate that this is extremely hard to manage in a way that works for most people. However the combination of chatty writing style and academic material didn't really work for me. Notably, I found the chapter overviews a bit too glib. Essentially, I tried to get emotionally engaged with the book rather than my usual habit of judging from a distance, but couldn't seem to. It didn't provide anything that seemed helpful for managing my own eco-anxiety. That very likely says more about me than the book, although I did wonder once again why careers never get mentioned in books talking about reducing your environmental impact. Whether to have children is covered, but not the impact of work.
The author, Anouchka Grose, is a psychoanalyst. She talks briefly about medical treatments for anxiety, but focuses on the fact that anxiety is, by definition, irrational fear and fear of climate change is entirely rational. She applies psychoanalytic thinking, plus elements of neuroscience and behavioural psychology, to the fear of climate chaos. Separate chapters discuss trauma, grief, and denial in this context. She links fear/denial of death and climate change, which I always appreciate in climate fiction (the best example I know being The Living Sea of Waking Dreams).
I think Grose is trying to walk a very difficult line with this book, between acknowledging the grim global reality of climate change and encouraging people to do what they can while remaining mentally healthy. I appreciate that this is extremely hard to manage in a way that works for most people. However the combination of chatty writing style and academic material didn't really work for me. Notably, I found the chapter overviews a bit too glib. Essentially, I tried to get emotionally engaged with the book rather than my usual habit of judging from a distance, but couldn't seem to. It didn't provide anything that seemed helpful for managing my own eco-anxiety. That very likely says more about me than the book, although I did wonder once again why careers never get mentioned in books talking about reducing your environmental impact. Whether to have children is covered, but not the impact of work.
July 14, 2022
A lot of good references and pointers for further reading but poorly written and scarce on solid/useful advice. It evokes the feeling of reading a teen girl's blog. If you're a millennial heavily weighing up whether it's morally/socially/ecologically responsible to have a child in todays world, Grose's advice is "Just have one! It would be so annoying to reach menopause and realise it would have been OK!". This book's very gentle, colloquial approach to a heavy topic was clearly intentional and I'm sure it will appeal to and resonate with many, but it didn't really work for me. Although, I did appreciate all the good news listed at the end of the book about the many wonderful initiatives that are happening all over the world to help save our planet. I think it's really important to make an effort to keep informed of these positives to help balance the worry.
I think I'll stick with Sarah Wilson who seems to be a little more willing to do some heavy lifting and offer some solid advice.
I think I'll stick with Sarah Wilson who seems to be a little more willing to do some heavy lifting and offer some solid advice.
April 30, 2020
Subtitled How to Protect the Planet and Your Mental Health, this book sets out to answer the question: If the very planet we live on seems to be on course for total ecological collapse, how can any of us hope to keep going? While the book only mentions COVID_19 very briefly (it was written before the pandemic hit) much of the content is very relevant to coping with the anxiety many people are feeling about the coronovirus pandemic.
Anouchka Grose is a psychoanalyst and offers easily understandable definitions of what anxiety is and looks at the physiological basis for the feelings. She outlines how anxiety can be used to inform our actions but also shares ideas, including meditation, therapy and medication, for preventing anxiety from taking over. Climate grief is a fear of losing our current way of life and anxiety may well be the sane response to the situation we live in. Can we find a middle ground between climate related nervous breakdown and climate denial? Grose offers insights into why we may treat the earth so badly. looks at two alternative ways of dealing with this grief, the political and the psychoanalytical.
The book gives a condensed history of early approaches to environmentalism and why they failed, most sobering of these failures being the lack of long term impact from the first Earth Day in 1970. Grose also looks at contemporary thinkers such as ornithologist Janis Dickinson whose work addresses environmental issues and mental wellbeing issues together, such as encouraging urban gang members to redirect their energies into conservation work. Dickinson's work also inspired Grose to install a birdfeeder outside her consulting room, which both she and her patients benefit from.
Grose offers advice on how can we manage our feelings in the face of ecological catastrophe; useful attitudes to adopt (such as curiosity, generosity, social engagement, ingenuity, honesty and an active hope). She asserts that if we understand more of our unconscious drives, we may become less likely to act unthinkingly in ways that damage our environment. She urges us to be kind to ourselves, pointing out that none of us can do everything and feeling guilty doesn't help anyone. She suggests that while much mental health advice focuses on extroverts, the quiet power of the introvert could prove very valuable in the looming climate crisis.
She also discusses practical approaches to reducing our personal environmental impact at home, in our gardens, at work and when travelling. She advises how to do enjoy the things you enjoy (for example clothes, food, hobbies) in more eco-friendly ways, often in ways that are less well known (for example she offers some particularly useful advice on how to make tights last longer). Occasionally, however she leans so far towards laissez-faire environmentalism it seems almost no environmentalism at all ("If you LOVE steak, and can handle the idea of a cow being killed and rainforests cut down to clear land for the sake of your enjoyment, maybe it’ll be better for you in the long run to allow yourself to eat it" seems a total cop out, though at least she does then say "consciously choosing cows who have at least lived more locally to you". Livestock farming can indeed be eco-friendly, but large scale ranching is so damaging that any environmentalist should know never to eat meat that has been shipped in from former rainforests and this book should acknowledge issues like that.
Grose picks up on specific issues and situations from across the globe. For example, climate change impacts on travel in Greenland mean that people are becoming isolated, leading to increased depression and causing a rise in the rate of suicides. The current lockdown is certain to be having similar negative effects on people's mental health and well-being.
We live in a world in crisis and it can be very challenging to maintain good feelings of mental and emotional wellbeing. This book does a good job of helping the reader to understand more about eco-anxiety and to find practical ways to manage anxiety about climate change. And it's important to remember as Grose says: "Don’t let environmentalism frighten you into a lacklustre existence. A responsible life can still be utterly brilliant."
Disclaimer: I received a free e-copy of the uncorrected proof of this book in return for an honest review.
Anouchka Grose is a psychoanalyst and offers easily understandable definitions of what anxiety is and looks at the physiological basis for the feelings. She outlines how anxiety can be used to inform our actions but also shares ideas, including meditation, therapy and medication, for preventing anxiety from taking over. Climate grief is a fear of losing our current way of life and anxiety may well be the sane response to the situation we live in. Can we find a middle ground between climate related nervous breakdown and climate denial? Grose offers insights into why we may treat the earth so badly. looks at two alternative ways of dealing with this grief, the political and the psychoanalytical.
The book gives a condensed history of early approaches to environmentalism and why they failed, most sobering of these failures being the lack of long term impact from the first Earth Day in 1970. Grose also looks at contemporary thinkers such as ornithologist Janis Dickinson whose work addresses environmental issues and mental wellbeing issues together, such as encouraging urban gang members to redirect their energies into conservation work. Dickinson's work also inspired Grose to install a birdfeeder outside her consulting room, which both she and her patients benefit from.
Grose offers advice on how can we manage our feelings in the face of ecological catastrophe; useful attitudes to adopt (such as curiosity, generosity, social engagement, ingenuity, honesty and an active hope). She asserts that if we understand more of our unconscious drives, we may become less likely to act unthinkingly in ways that damage our environment. She urges us to be kind to ourselves, pointing out that none of us can do everything and feeling guilty doesn't help anyone. She suggests that while much mental health advice focuses on extroverts, the quiet power of the introvert could prove very valuable in the looming climate crisis.
She also discusses practical approaches to reducing our personal environmental impact at home, in our gardens, at work and when travelling. She advises how to do enjoy the things you enjoy (for example clothes, food, hobbies) in more eco-friendly ways, often in ways that are less well known (for example she offers some particularly useful advice on how to make tights last longer). Occasionally, however she leans so far towards laissez-faire environmentalism it seems almost no environmentalism at all ("If you LOVE steak, and can handle the idea of a cow being killed and rainforests cut down to clear land for the sake of your enjoyment, maybe it’ll be better for you in the long run to allow yourself to eat it" seems a total cop out, though at least she does then say "consciously choosing cows who have at least lived more locally to you". Livestock farming can indeed be eco-friendly, but large scale ranching is so damaging that any environmentalist should know never to eat meat that has been shipped in from former rainforests and this book should acknowledge issues like that.
Grose picks up on specific issues and situations from across the globe. For example, climate change impacts on travel in Greenland mean that people are becoming isolated, leading to increased depression and causing a rise in the rate of suicides. The current lockdown is certain to be having similar negative effects on people's mental health and well-being.
We live in a world in crisis and it can be very challenging to maintain good feelings of mental and emotional wellbeing. This book does a good job of helping the reader to understand more about eco-anxiety and to find practical ways to manage anxiety about climate change. And it's important to remember as Grose says: "Don’t let environmentalism frighten you into a lacklustre existence. A responsible life can still be utterly brilliant."
Disclaimer: I received a free e-copy of the uncorrected proof of this book in return for an honest review.
July 29, 2022
I picked the book up without having expectations or knowing anything about the author, I honestly just liked the title and the little information on the cover convinced me. The book surprised me in a pleasant way. Reading it felt like having a nice and long coffee with a dear like-minded friend on topics that until now you didn’t realize you’re both very emotionally invested in.
January 6, 2024
i’ll be coming back to this one for reassurance and encouragement. lots of helpful perspectives.
December 21, 2020
I had previously never heard of Anouchka Grose, so I looked her up before I started her book. She ended up being a very interesting person and this made me more interested in reading her book. She was a guitarist for several bands and is a Lacanian psychoanalyst teaching at the center for Freudian analysis and research.
In her newest book, the topic at hand is eco-anxiety. You can probably tell what that means by the term itself but I will explain anyway. There are people who are concerned about the environment and these people are not just “tree huggers.” Many sensible people are concerned about climate change and things of that nature. People are staying up all night, worried about the future of our planet.
Grouse is clear that there needs to be a balance of perspectives, we don’t want nationwide panic and debilitating anxiety but we also don’t want our heads in the sand when it comes to addressing climate change. She talks about how anxiety can be used for good if we aren’t just viewing anxiety through the lens of anxiety disorder. Generally speaking, everyone experiences anxiety, not everyone has an anxiety disorder.
Grouse makes an interesting point in the first chapter about popular neuroscience. We can sometimes reduce ourselves to merely biological meatbags who need serotonin while ignoring that our thoughts can have physical effects on our body. The example Grouse uses is to imagine if you think there is a burglar in your house. Regardless if there really is one, you’re likely to panic and hide or to grab a weapon and prepare yourself for confrontation. You don’t act like you would when you didn’t think there was a burglar in your house. Anxiety kinda works the same way. It doesn’t matter if the reason for anxiety is true or false, the fact is the anxiety is there. So even climate skeptics should take the anxiety that many people feel about the environment seriously.
Grouse goes on to talk about how anxiety is treated medically, listing and explaining several takes of medications like SSRIs, SNRIs, and tricyclic antidepressants. She goes through various possible treatment methods that I personally found to be helpful. She cites Freud a bit and makes some funny references to popular culture, in particular some box office successful movies. The humor doesn’t stop there, one thing I admired about her writing is that she was pretty funny throughout, while maintaining a serious outlook on the dangers of climate change on mental health.
Grouse talks about the many levels to this issue, such as talking to your children about these issues, having hope in the face of despair, and how to bounce back when you’re taken down by your own mind regarding these issues. Essentially, how you could use your anxiety to push forward positive change in the world instead of crying in your room in the fetal position. Overall, I think it is a very helpful book if you or someone you know is suffering from anxiety-related to climate change.
I was given an early copy in exchange for an honest review.
In her newest book, the topic at hand is eco-anxiety. You can probably tell what that means by the term itself but I will explain anyway. There are people who are concerned about the environment and these people are not just “tree huggers.” Many sensible people are concerned about climate change and things of that nature. People are staying up all night, worried about the future of our planet.
Grouse is clear that there needs to be a balance of perspectives, we don’t want nationwide panic and debilitating anxiety but we also don’t want our heads in the sand when it comes to addressing climate change. She talks about how anxiety can be used for good if we aren’t just viewing anxiety through the lens of anxiety disorder. Generally speaking, everyone experiences anxiety, not everyone has an anxiety disorder.
Grouse makes an interesting point in the first chapter about popular neuroscience. We can sometimes reduce ourselves to merely biological meatbags who need serotonin while ignoring that our thoughts can have physical effects on our body. The example Grouse uses is to imagine if you think there is a burglar in your house. Regardless if there really is one, you’re likely to panic and hide or to grab a weapon and prepare yourself for confrontation. You don’t act like you would when you didn’t think there was a burglar in your house. Anxiety kinda works the same way. It doesn’t matter if the reason for anxiety is true or false, the fact is the anxiety is there. So even climate skeptics should take the anxiety that many people feel about the environment seriously.
Grouse goes on to talk about how anxiety is treated medically, listing and explaining several takes of medications like SSRIs, SNRIs, and tricyclic antidepressants. She goes through various possible treatment methods that I personally found to be helpful. She cites Freud a bit and makes some funny references to popular culture, in particular some box office successful movies. The humor doesn’t stop there, one thing I admired about her writing is that she was pretty funny throughout, while maintaining a serious outlook on the dangers of climate change on mental health.
Grouse talks about the many levels to this issue, such as talking to your children about these issues, having hope in the face of despair, and how to bounce back when you’re taken down by your own mind regarding these issues. Essentially, how you could use your anxiety to push forward positive change in the world instead of crying in your room in the fetal position. Overall, I think it is a very helpful book if you or someone you know is suffering from anxiety-related to climate change.
I was given an early copy in exchange for an honest review.
September 20, 2020
This was a really informative read that wasn't overwhelming. Grose outlines ways in which climate change is making an impact on our mental well being, and how we don't have to get everything right. She offers advice on making lasting sustainable practices that don't require a constant panic regarding the impending doom surrounding the planet. I would recommend this to anyone looking to learn more about sustainability and climate change that offers small changes rather than completely uprooting our every day routines.
June 20, 2022
A Guide to Eco-Anxiety : How to Protect the Planet and Your Mental Health by Anouchka Grose
《5/5》
A book I'd recommend through and through if you also keep thinking a lot about the world and where it is heading.
=====
As a woman frequenting the activist circles around mental health, caste, feminism, environment as a child brought up in a dysfunctional home, as a young adult who suffered from low self esteem and internalised fatphobia, as an adult whose life featured co-dependent behavior and depression in large chunks - anxiety is a daily phenomenon. It has pervaded my life to an extent that till I started medication along with moving into a safe space, I did not know how a non-anxious heart and mind felt like. You see why this book attracted me. I wanted to understand how a person with anxiety can really cope with the constant political and economic changes, something that the pandemic only seems to have worsened. Seems like just yesterday we were mourning young lives lost back to back due to unavailability of right medical guidance and equipment, and yet today we have moved on from the pandemic as if it is already history. We are back to thrusting upon each other, crowding spaces, sneezing all over, fighting with our neighbors over petty issues - and everyone else seems to be going through this without a second of anxiety. Of course, that's not true. My practical mind tells me that most people around me are massive balls of undiagnosed anxiety, but my anxious mind thinks I am all alone in this.
How to then navigate through these very confusing emotions, is what Anouchka Grose’s book tries to deal with. I believe it is a tremendously helpful book because Grose is a psychoanalyst, and presumably a good one. She quotes lots of studies and gives us plenty further reading material. Despite it being a fairly vast topic, she covers most areas with brilliant articulation, humility and tries to give us practical understanding of our own behavior as a species.
She begins with the basics of anxiety as a psychological and physical problem, the related therapies like CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) and MBCT (Mindfullness-Based Cognitive Therapy) and how they are typically flawed from an eco-anxiety perspective because eco-anxiety is not simply an imagined fear. It is actually happening around us as an undisputed reality, a fact (except maybe some climate change deniers, but stats show these are getting fewer). She also gives examples and studies which help us identify how every fight that a person with basic empathy and understanding of our lives is fighting, is interconnected, be it, feminism, environmentalism, anti-classeism, anti-racism, anti-casteism, anti-capitalism, anti-war, anti-guns, demilitarization, labour laws, border controls, anti-religion, anti-natalism, veganism. It is possible to fight for one cause and care for others as well, together. What Grose helps us to figure eventually is that we ARE living in an extremely problematic socio-economic system, and it is no longer an individual onus, so we have to try to not feel personally shitty about not doing everything at once, but try to form communities so every small step individually taken actually starts counting.
She introduces us to the concept of Pre-Traumatic Stress Condition, as opposed to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that many anxiety-sufferers likely have, alongwith its close cousin, the one with the prefix complex (cPTSD). She speaks of introverts vs extroverts in activist circles and how to deal with the constant requirement of “being there”.
She tries to draw connections between how deniers of climate change are often staunchly religious, and what that means to the world as a whole, read - election of right wing fundamentalist leaders to powerful positions, rapid dependency on capitalist consumerism, and how all of this is an elaborate trick to tell yourself that all is fine and nothing needs to change aka conservatism. She brings forth a very interesting study of how the brain structures of conservatives and progressives also are very dissimilar. About how there is also a difference of self delusion or suspension of disbelief, versus self awareness that results in self hate and depression. She dabbles with the procreation and child free question as well in good detail.
Grose also admits along the way about her own limitations as a human being, and makes a good case for why 100% consistency is very difficult for us to aim at. She proposes radical friendliness, with maybe a 1-2 percent deviation, considering we all sometimes end up making choices in life that we are not very proud of. In that Grose’s idea of resistance and resilience is also very practical and does not at all come off as preachy.
Every chapter ends with a gist of points covered in the chapter. The book ends with a list of further reading and resources available that are already working on the current problems.
The only criticism could be that it does not speak of the space debris as pointed out by Sarath during our discussion. But I am willing to let that go off personally, hoping that we shall come to that, if and when we manage to save the Earth first.
In conclusion, the book is an absolute must read if you are too critically aware of your surroundings and want to understand why some people are the way they are, and how you can try and make some kind of constructive change, in the face of impending overwhelming destruction.
《5/5》
A book I'd recommend through and through if you also keep thinking a lot about the world and where it is heading.
=====
As a woman frequenting the activist circles around mental health, caste, feminism, environment as a child brought up in a dysfunctional home, as a young adult who suffered from low self esteem and internalised fatphobia, as an adult whose life featured co-dependent behavior and depression in large chunks - anxiety is a daily phenomenon. It has pervaded my life to an extent that till I started medication along with moving into a safe space, I did not know how a non-anxious heart and mind felt like. You see why this book attracted me. I wanted to understand how a person with anxiety can really cope with the constant political and economic changes, something that the pandemic only seems to have worsened. Seems like just yesterday we were mourning young lives lost back to back due to unavailability of right medical guidance and equipment, and yet today we have moved on from the pandemic as if it is already history. We are back to thrusting upon each other, crowding spaces, sneezing all over, fighting with our neighbors over petty issues - and everyone else seems to be going through this without a second of anxiety. Of course, that's not true. My practical mind tells me that most people around me are massive balls of undiagnosed anxiety, but my anxious mind thinks I am all alone in this.
How to then navigate through these very confusing emotions, is what Anouchka Grose’s book tries to deal with. I believe it is a tremendously helpful book because Grose is a psychoanalyst, and presumably a good one. She quotes lots of studies and gives us plenty further reading material. Despite it being a fairly vast topic, she covers most areas with brilliant articulation, humility and tries to give us practical understanding of our own behavior as a species.
She begins with the basics of anxiety as a psychological and physical problem, the related therapies like CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) and MBCT (Mindfullness-Based Cognitive Therapy) and how they are typically flawed from an eco-anxiety perspective because eco-anxiety is not simply an imagined fear. It is actually happening around us as an undisputed reality, a fact (except maybe some climate change deniers, but stats show these are getting fewer). She also gives examples and studies which help us identify how every fight that a person with basic empathy and understanding of our lives is fighting, is interconnected, be it, feminism, environmentalism, anti-classeism, anti-racism, anti-casteism, anti-capitalism, anti-war, anti-guns, demilitarization, labour laws, border controls, anti-religion, anti-natalism, veganism. It is possible to fight for one cause and care for others as well, together. What Grose helps us to figure eventually is that we ARE living in an extremely problematic socio-economic system, and it is no longer an individual onus, so we have to try to not feel personally shitty about not doing everything at once, but try to form communities so every small step individually taken actually starts counting.
She introduces us to the concept of Pre-Traumatic Stress Condition, as opposed to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that many anxiety-sufferers likely have, alongwith its close cousin, the one with the prefix complex (cPTSD). She speaks of introverts vs extroverts in activist circles and how to deal with the constant requirement of “being there”.
She tries to draw connections between how deniers of climate change are often staunchly religious, and what that means to the world as a whole, read - election of right wing fundamentalist leaders to powerful positions, rapid dependency on capitalist consumerism, and how all of this is an elaborate trick to tell yourself that all is fine and nothing needs to change aka conservatism. She brings forth a very interesting study of how the brain structures of conservatives and progressives also are very dissimilar. About how there is also a difference of self delusion or suspension of disbelief, versus self awareness that results in self hate and depression. She dabbles with the procreation and child free question as well in good detail.
Grose also admits along the way about her own limitations as a human being, and makes a good case for why 100% consistency is very difficult for us to aim at. She proposes radical friendliness, with maybe a 1-2 percent deviation, considering we all sometimes end up making choices in life that we are not very proud of. In that Grose’s idea of resistance and resilience is also very practical and does not at all come off as preachy.
Every chapter ends with a gist of points covered in the chapter. The book ends with a list of further reading and resources available that are already working on the current problems.
The only criticism could be that it does not speak of the space debris as pointed out by Sarath during our discussion. But I am willing to let that go off personally, hoping that we shall come to that, if and when we manage to save the Earth first.
In conclusion, the book is an absolute must read if you are too critically aware of your surroundings and want to understand why some people are the way they are, and how you can try and make some kind of constructive change, in the face of impending overwhelming destruction.
December 2, 2020
I like reading books about the environment. This book is about how climate change is affecting our mental well being, and how we should not panic about it. The author gives some solutions. This book is good for anyone who is just started to learn about sustainability. Because a small step in our routines is a step ahead to a better earth.
December 8, 2021
This was useful, nicely worded and organized. It didn't really give the reader a magical solution to climate anxiety which makes sense because there is no such thing, but it did explore both the anxiety inducing problems surrounding the climate crisis as well as solutions people can and are already adopting to improve the way we respond to it.
Most of the sections on mental health in general (anxiety, depression, PTSD, etc) weren't super enlightening because I already had a pretty good knowledge about these themes, but the way the author framed them withing the context of dealing with the climate crisis was interesting. I'm sure I'll reread some bits somewhere in the future to better solidify the information. This feels like a book that's most helpful when consulted every now and again.
Overall, a good read with enjoyable writing style and useful information. I'm not giving it 5 stars because a lot of the information wasn't new to me and also it felt a little more objective than what I'd like. There was a lack of connecting with the reader on an emotional level (something Jonathan Safran Foer does really well in his books about similar topics) which again isn't essencial to communication but it does make it a lot more effective.
Most of the sections on mental health in general (anxiety, depression, PTSD, etc) weren't super enlightening because I already had a pretty good knowledge about these themes, but the way the author framed them withing the context of dealing with the climate crisis was interesting. I'm sure I'll reread some bits somewhere in the future to better solidify the information. This feels like a book that's most helpful when consulted every now and again.
Overall, a good read with enjoyable writing style and useful information. I'm not giving it 5 stars because a lot of the information wasn't new to me and also it felt a little more objective than what I'd like. There was a lack of connecting with the reader on an emotional level (something Jonathan Safran Foer does really well in his books about similar topics) which again isn't essencial to communication but it does make it a lot more effective.
April 17, 2020
This is another sobering and grim account of climatology and where we are as species on the planet. Our species as a whole is making the planet warmer and accelerating the sixth extinction rate at an alarmingly quicker rate. Thank goodness coronavirus has decreased some of the carbon footprint but it is only temporarily while most of the planet is quarantined and or in self-isolation. Has some good advice to help bring down your own carbon footprint including becoming vegetarian/vegan.
This was well researched and I will definitely be buying a hardcopy when it becomes available to add to my fascination of climatology and earth studies. This has some of the same sobering information as the book, "the Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert," "The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace Wells," just to name a few of the books I have already read on the subject. I am horrified but also fascinated by it and this book doesn't disappoint.
Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. I will definitely be getting a copy for myself when it is published and telling people about this.
Available: 6/9/20
This was well researched and I will definitely be buying a hardcopy when it becomes available to add to my fascination of climatology and earth studies. This has some of the same sobering information as the book, "the Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert," "The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace Wells," just to name a few of the books I have already read on the subject. I am horrified but also fascinated by it and this book doesn't disappoint.
Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. I will definitely be getting a copy for myself when it is published and telling people about this.
Available: 6/9/20
February 14, 2021
This is great - it's pitched nicely in terms of being honest about what's going on with the climate and the impact of this on mental health, while not being overwhelming or too depressing. The psychology side is described in an accessible way, and the writing style is humorous at times in spite of the subject matter. The summary sections at the end of each chapter were a nice touch and would be worth reading on their own. There's advice on making manageable changes as well as staying hopeful in the face of bad news. A good introduction to an important topic.
March 11, 2023
2.5* It was all going so well until the immensely complex discussion of childbearing descended into 'lol just have them, it would be so annoying if it turned out you chose wrong'. just... o_O *facepalm* wuld be prty annoying if it turned out I ruined their lives too lol, thanx 4 ur advice (y)
March 21, 2024
this was very much just like here’s what you can do to help the planet, not so much like here’s how to combat eco anxiety other than being like hey it’s ok it’s right to be nervous. it wasn’t what i wanted it to be, but i still am thankful that someone is writing literature for this topic!
March 31, 2023
I was expecting something a bit more specific, but it was a good and easy read overall. I didnt like that the author used the term "American Indian".
May 25, 2025
Definitely recommend if you think about climate change a lot. Gives reassurance and hope, as well as facts. I wouldn't say it sugar coats stuff, but rather shows it in a very neutral way.
January 30, 2022
Eco-anxiety is a topic that I explored in the early months of 2021 because it’s something that I had experienced in 2020 when I got back to climate advocacy after my long hiatus. I resonate well with some of the stories in this book. I love how Anouchka framed the rationalization of these uncomfortable feelings and presented that people around the world are experiencing these feelings. She also did not blame people who have these feelings, nor put it in a way that these mental health issues are diseases that need to be cured. She pointed out that people experiencing eco-anxiety aren’t sick, and they’re (okay, we’re) only responding to the present realities of our environment.
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