Unspiraling

A social worker reckoning with the climate crisis.

    • Existentialism at the End of the World

      The UN recently dropped what is supposed to be a bombshell report about the state of climate change. We’re still a trajectory toward the 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) global temperature increase. While it is not inevitable, it is not unlikely. And that is frustrating to say the least. We have known about climate change and its connection to the greenhouse effect since the 1850s (thank you, Eunice Newton Foote) and the concept entered into political dialogues beginning in the 1950s and became increasingly prevalent in the public consciousness the 80’s and 90’s. This is to say, what we are learning about is the product of a dialogue that scientists have been attempting to have with the general public for almost 200 years. It is depressing and anxiety inducing – this isn’t something we can recycle, or carpool, or green-wash our way out of.

      As I have gone through my college experiences, I have had to focus a lot on therapeutic approaches and modalities. As I’m writing this, the dominant approach to treatment is cognitive-behavioral therapy: The idea that by challenging cognitive distortions/unhelpful thinking you can shift your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors into a more positive direction.

      I think it is a generally helpful approach because it encourages action and problem solving, which can be helpful on an individual and group level. I don’t necessarily think it is helpful on large scale, systemic problems. There’s only so much a single person can do before change needs to occur on a larger, more permanent scale.  

      For me, this is why existentialism has become such an important philosophical approach for me. In my opinion, two of its most important premises are the concepts of meaning and freedom. Throughout life we seek to make our lives mean something and to find personal meaning for ourselves. We are also granted inherent freedom. Although we are locked in to a specific time and place that may or may not press limits on our freedom, we are also shaped by that place and time and contributes to our concept of freedom.

      Søren Kierkegaard, a Danish Existentialist, described the concept of angst as a sense of dread that accompanies living and being free. It is the excitement of endless possibilities and the anxiety of limitations. The interesting thing about angst is that it makes us have to face our choices and their consequences, good or bad.

      The changing climate is a considerable source of angst for many of us. We are faced with a nearly limitless, escalating problem and we have almost equally limitless amount of choices to wrestle with and a small window of time to implement them. Every day on the news we are seeing a rapidly increasing amount of climate related trauma from wildfires to landslides to extreme flooding which can increase our angst, grief, and anxiety. Existentialism can provide for us a framework to cope with these traumas while reaffirming our desire to change the outcome. 

      It reminds us that although we are in a fixed place and time, we can change this outcome because we have the freedom and opportunity to do so, if we so will it. It reminds Us, loudly, that this meaning and moment belong solely to Us and We alone can rise to meet it.

      I hope this finds you well,

      -N. 

    • Hyperobjects & the Curse of Caring Deeply

      My name is Nikki and I’m a social worker-in-progress. 

      I primarily focus on environmental justice and its impact on human health. Right now, things look and feel bleak. At some point, I would like to be a part of the solution but I need to work through the grief and anxiety that I feel as a result of the constantly shifting landscape around me in order to make it feel like something I can do something about.

      Recently, I was thinking about a concept I read about in the Handbook of Climate Psychology published by Climate Psychology Alliance that was called a hyperobject which was proposed by a scholar named Timothy Morton. To summarize this concept as I understand it, a hyperobject represents something that is both abstract and difficult to put into words and is on such a massive scale that it outgrew our ability to fully grasp and conceptualize it. Morton captures the concept by observing that “the more data we have … the less we know about them” (p. 29). 

      For me, climate change is a hyperobject hydra. The more I think about it, the more heads it sprouts and… as a social worker, I do a lot of thinking and contemplating about the well-being of others. Maybe its more like conceptual poison ivy, the more you scratch the more likely it is to spread. 

      It doesn’t take much to feel the enormity of the struggle we are facing: Sea levels are rising to the point where the shape of maps have changed due to the tides (anyone else remember Louisiana being boot-shaped?), greater numbers of species are tilting toward endangerment or extinction, policy lags far behind the data, there’s mistrust of the science or rejection of it altogether, and people across the world are being displaced from their homes due to climate related catastrophes.

      On the opposite side of the coin, I live in a rapidly developing region and I feel like it brings the large(r) scale outrage I feel from a simmer to a boil. I have watched the town I lived in as a child become virtually unrecognizable. I’ve seen the woods I grew up playing in and exploring being stripped to build expensive single-family housing, unnecessary grocery stores, and gas stations, among other things. The worst part is knowing that this small-scale destruction and hostile divorce from both ‘rural’ and ‘nature’ in favor of suburban sprawl is occurring on a larger scale pretty much everywhere else, too. One more head for the hydra.

      Recently, there has been land clearance in Big Bend National Park, talks of clearing even more public land, and repealing the roadless rule which would allow development to reach into the national and state parks. The boil begins to roll and we add three more heads for the hydra.  

      The problem is that its not just pure outrage. Underneath the ocean of white-hot anger inside of me is a cold undercurrent of helplessness because these problems are so massive that it is more than any one person alone can tackle. The problem is that climate change is not the only hyperobject, it’s also the nature of human greed, indifference, and carelessness. I want to believe that we will wake up one day and realize that we’ve taken it all for granted and hold power to account in some meaningful way, the problem is that I know that day is more than far away.

      I realize that to care deeply is not the curse I think it can be sometimes and, also that to care to the point of consumption is not a sustainable or healthy practice, either. My problem is that I don’t know how to reconcile the world I know with the world I want and I don’t know how to nurture the flame I feel without turning it into a wildfire. 

       At home, on the whiteboard next to my desk, I have a quote from Antonio Gramsci that says “Pessimism of the spirit, Optimism of the will.” I think the only way to scale down a hyperobject is care with a dose of rationality and I’m writing this publicly so I can find a way to twist this grief into a lantern that I can navigate the darkness. Maybe it’ll help you, too. 

      I hope this finds you well. 

      – N.  

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