Introduction: Why so blue?

Polar bear and the melting Arctic ice, Telegraph

I'm starting this blog as a form of therapy, since I found out that I'm not alone in my problem of green thinking turning black in the perspective of global climate and environmental change

I live in Belgrade, Serbia, southeastern Europe. By training I'm an environmental impact analyst. I have work background in science education, animal protection and journalism, though currently I'm not actively working (except 24/7 as SAHM, cough). Also, I've been running this little environmental blog, Zeleno Majmunče ("Green Monkey"), for six years or so.

I've felt increasingly depressed and anxious about issues we face on our planet, and the future we face, to the point it had started to mess with my daily functioning.

Knowing that I'm a fragile person, somehow I've managed to keep climate topics as sort of a blind spot in my repertoire of interests for years and focused mostly on direct conservation issues. There is no conversation about conservation without climate change of course. I accepted it as a fact, but somehow rough and distant, and what's distant also seems sort of unreal. Of course I dreaded droughts and freaky weather and West Nile fever carrying mosquitoes and noted (real or imaginary) changes in city vegetation all the time. It just hadn't hit me hard, it hadn't been a chronic obsession. There were phases that went on for a few weeks, but not actually working in my field gave me a luxury to just shut down all the environmental resources I was following whenever I felt I was burning out.

A real game changer were four things: one, my husband getting increasingly interested in environmental topics, esp. climate change, and him discovering amazing people like Stefan Rahmstorf and George Monbiot. Suddenly, environment and climate became a daily topic of our conversation - suddenly, there was no unfollow button anymore; two, things getting politically, ecologically and economically grimmer and grimmer in Serbia, due to our unusually US Republican-like, wannabe-totalitarian government; three, having a new baby and all the natural anxiety that comes along with being responsible for a sweet and completely helpless living creature, in the social atmosphere described above under no. 2; four, Trump getting elected as a, ahem, "president of the free world". After that frail win that Paris conference was...

So shortly after US election, which were obviously a final straw, I started having nightmares about plants dying, rivers flooding, and Nazis still residing somewhere in the Earth's core. I started having mini-panic attacks at random moments throughout the day when my apocalyptic thoughts would overwhelm me. All the data vividly presented to me by reliable sources weren't really helping, as you might imagine. I would catch myself trying to connect the scientific prophecy of climate catastrophe with the prophecy of Revelations. All this, with having small children in your care, is a problem.

And of course, I blamed it on myself, and had perceived this as exclusively personal weakness of mine. I was telling myself that I was too tired and too sleepless. That it was the hormones. That the media was driving me crazy. That my hb, being online whole day because of work, was keeping me unnaturally updated. That I'm by nature and by nurture, prone to panic and different kinds of psycho-crisis.

Neven's beautiful new home

Couple of days ago, I read a Washington Post article about Neven Curlin, owner of a fairly popular blog about Arctic (and it's demise). "He created a beloved blog about the melting Arctic. But it got harder and harder to write". After years of monitoring the situation and publishing interesting data, creating a whole community around it in the process, he announced he was taking a break because, well basically - he burned out. He would shift his focus on practice instead - eco-friendly living in his new passive house. Exactly what I've been fantasizing about these days. Off the grid, underground.


Neven's case made think for the first time that I might not be alone in my weakness. Or that it's not a weakness, a fault, at all. That it might be a normal response of every conscious person.

And what does one do at this day and age when one has a problem? Google it, of course.

So last night, I poured my troubles into the search bar. Something along the lines of "environmentalist depression", and I ran across these three (great) articles: two at Grist (links: 1, 2), and one at Psychology Tomorrow (3)

"For your everyday environmentalist, the emotional stress suffered by a rapidly changing Earth can result in some pretty substantial anxieties." (1)

“I don’t know of a single scientist that’s not having an emotional reaction to what is being lost,” (1)

"Lise Van Susteren, a forensic psychiatrist based in Washington, D.C. calls this emotional reaction “pre-traumatic stress disorder,” a term she coined to describe the mental anguish that results from preparing for the worst, before it actually happens. “It’s an intense preoccupation with thoughts we cannot get out of our minds,” Van Susteren says."

"...a more general kind of suffering, the suffering that comes from trying to fight climate change in the first place."(3)

"Being overwhelmed, of course, is also a difficulty for educators themselves. There is a growing scientific literature on “exhaustion syndrome,” or burnout, a problem that affects all of us, activists and caregivers in particular" (3)

"I did that because I believe that I and many other people around the world are suffering from “Climate Trauma.” It’s my own term. I am not a mental health professional, but I can identify plain as day the symptoms I recognize in myself and in my colleagues traumatized by our work to tackle climate change" (2)

So, there's my "diagnosis".
And of course, I can't compare with working scientist fighting in the front lines of this mess.
But I think anyone who had his blindfold taken off, anyone aware of human impact on our planet, anyone who knows beauty and frailty and complexity of Earth's systems, feels threatened to the point of anxiety disorder. A year ago when we were discussing deforestation and holiday season's massive attack on young trees all over our country, a dear friend and colleague of mine said "I feel like living a parody life. No one cares about things that are important to me".

It is common, it's just not talked about. Why? I guess it's because of the taboo of bringing emotions into science and science-based communication. But then, that taboo backfires, besides alienating us from one another, as denialists portray us as lying, manipulative and insensitive villains scaring descent folks for our own sinister purposes. They're scared?? "You don't know the half of it", as Monbiot said in another context.

The doom is still there and my nightmares probably aren't going anywhere soon, but at least now I know that I am not insane. And I know that many of us are in this together.

Except for the "therapy" thing, I don't have any special ambitions for this blog (except maybe giving that free world a preview glimpse now and then how it's like to live under amazingly Trump-like government for four years now). It's like a message in a bottle, in the internet ocean. If you're worried about environment and our common home Earth - you are not alone. Talk about it. Share how you cope. It heals. It helps us continue our little fights. I'm already feeling more up to it.

P.S. And yes, I'm starting to apply these 16 tips for avoiding further climate trauma. So thankful to Grist for paying so much attention to this important topic and opening the field of climate change psychology to me!