In the fight against the virus, we forgot about floods, droughts and plastic pollution

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Our lives have changed dramatically in the past few weeks. The inhabitants of the Earth were united by a common misfortune and anxiety for their health - perhaps never before has humanity mobilized so quickly in the face of danger and uncertainty. But why can't we also get together and join forces to save our planet from the coming floods, droughts and plastic pollution?

Indeed, during the pandemic, the climate crisis has not gone anywhere. Psychologist Daria Suchilina from the Pure Cognitions project tells how you can take care of the planet while we are in quarantine and trying to keep ourselves busy.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the topic of the climate crisis somehow suddenly disappeared from the headlines. There were only viral photo reports about swans and dolphins that returned to the canals of Venice during quarantine - and they turned out to be fake. It seems that the disease is perceived as a more understandable threat to life and health, so it seems that everyone has decided not to think about the super-fast melting of glaciers and widespread natural disasters.

Does the panic of the past two months cancel out the fact that the previous five years were the hottest on record? Antarctica and the Arctic lose billions of tons of ice every year, and even now the coastlines of many continents are swallowed by the growing ocean. Gusty winds and downpours are becoming the new climate norm around the world, forest fires threaten life on entire continents. In August 2019, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that global warming would deal an unprecedented blow to the world's food supply.

Obviously, the climate crisis affects not only the environment, but also the economy, politics, food, lifestyle, health of the inhabitants of the Earth - and not only physical, but also mental.

Abrupt climate changes are causing leaps insuicide statistics, not to mention depression, anxiety and PTSD in people affected by natural disasters

Even those who have not yet personally faced the consequences of the climate crisis are already experiencing what threatens us. New terms are emerging to describe the disorders of our time: climate anxiety and climate despair.

And this is another similarity between the climate and epidemiological crises: experts expect that the number of anxiety disorders and depression, triggered by isolation and uncertainty about the timing of the pandemic, will rise sharply. People with a history of mental disorders and vulnerable populations are now at greatest risk: stressors like the loss of jobs or home schooling for children due to a pandemic can trigger relapse.

However, we have yet to figure out exactly how the current situation with self-isolation, the collapse of many enterprises, complete uncertainty and constantly fueled anxiety for our health and the lives of loved ones will affect the mental health of mankind. Psychologists and scientists of the world have already begun to actively study the reaction of people to what is happening. The world community calls for interdisciplinary research on this topic, but any predictions are premature.

I would like to believe that there should be a spoonful of honey in this hopeless tar - for example, that human suffering can somehow help the planet to get out of the garbage heap into which we have turned it. But as much as we would like to see a ray of hope (for example, in China, carbon dioxide emissions have decreased by a quarter, because consumption and industrial production decreased during the pandemic), the state of the climate will not change if people sit at home for several months. What's more, scientists expect this temporary respite for our atmosphere to turn into a new wave of pollution if governments don't take proactive steps to transition to green economies. In the same China, factories have resumed their work, and the emission indicators are gradually returning to "pre-viral".

What do coronavirus and the climate crisis have in common?

The victims of both climate change and pandemics are the most vulnerable members of society - people with low incomes, living in disadvantaged areas, without access to quality medicine, suffering from chronic diseases and age-related complications, without sufficient social support.

Both the virus and natural disasters reveal the real heroes of our time: rescuers, scientists, doctors, selfless neighbors, firefighters, who in the most difficult moment show miracles of kindness and courage.

At the same time, at the beginning of the pandemic, we managed to see the base features of humanity: greed, forcing us to buy up much more goods than we actually need, cowardice, fraud

Dodgers around the world are already finding ways to cash in on fear and social unrest. In addition, both the pandemic and the climate crisis threaten the world economy with multibillion-dollar losses, so the authorities refused to the last to acknowledge the degree of the threat, hoping to get by with easy measures.

Finally, any natural disasters, epidemics and crises remind us how much the life we are used to depends on stability - on scheduled flights and trains, on the regular change of seasons and harvests, on uninterrupted food supplies. It seems that the loss of this certainty is now generating in us not only anxiety, but also grief: what if the era of predictability has come to an end?

Protecting ourselves from the virus, we forgot about the planet

There is also a significant difference between a pandemic and climate change. Coughs, fever, and death statistics force us to react swiftly, while the invisible molecules of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the complex numbers of climatologists seem to be something abstract and ephemeral - which means that you might think about it sometime later.

And if the frightening exponent of infection and mortality around the world teaches us to wash our hands properly and makes us isolate for many weeks, then even the heartbreaking headlines about the extinction of a million biological species due to human fault to many seem to be only the madness of the "green" and do not affect our behavior. Perhaps the World Health Organization's forecast that malaria, diarrhea, famine and droughts will claim 250 thousand lives a year in the coming decades will sound more convincing?

We seem to secretly agree to pretend that nothing is happening to the planet. Denial of fear, behavioral paralysis, ignorance of the climate crisis and paradoxical inaction of world leaders in the field of environmental initiatives - this is a real problem, and a psychological one

“Psychological responses to climate change, such as avoidance of conflict, fatalism, fear, helplessness, detachment, are becoming more common,” says psychology professor Susan Clayton, who co-authored the American Psychological Association's guide to dealing with the psychological consequences of the climate crisis. “These reactions are preventing us from understanding the root causes of climate change, finding solutions and developing psychological resilience.”

Psychologists in the Struggle for the Life of the Planet

The climate crisis is a human problem. We influence the well-being of the planet by our behavior: greed, fear, shortsightedness, unconsciousness. In order to resist the inaction of people and protect those who will suffer from it, the heads of most of the world's psychological communities signed an agreement in November 2019 to combat the consequences of the climate crisis (although there was not a single Russian association at this congress).

The world's psychologists have an important mission - to organize assistance to victims, especially in vulnerable regions. Information on how the climate crisis affects people's mental health is to be added to the training programs. But the most urgent task is to change the behavior of the inhabitants of the Earth. Solving the problems of the climate crisis requires a systematic approach: the introduction of new technologies and energy sources, changes in urban landscapes and industries, reforestation and the elimination of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.

But an important part of the struggle for life on the planet is also our daily habits

In this sense, the example of the coronavirus epidemic gives hope that people can change: greetings with elbows, parties via video link, remote picnics - all this became expected and encouraged in a matter of weeks. The dramatic changes caused by the epidemic have shown how flexible and adaptive we are. So maybe the same changes are possible in the field of separate waste collection, rational consumption and energy?

The main challenge is reinforcing the effect of sudden change and making new habits sustainable. Environmentalists believe that the pandemic has caused not only a decrease in emissions, but also difficulties in the implementation of long-term projects in the field of green production and green technologies, so now it is necessary to lower expectations about global solutions. The more important it becomes to change our daily habits - this is the art of small steps.

How to change your behavior for what's important

Fighting for life on Earth is a great value for many. People embarking on the path of sustainable lifestyles may never see the end point in which the danger is completely forgotten, and children will see extinct species not only in the pages of old textbooks. Yet the value of struggle and hope is high enough to help us move forward even in situations of uncertainty and powerlessness. This explains well the psychological model that underlies Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).

People are able to make a commitment to do what is important through awareness and acceptance of even their most difficult and painful experiences

It is on this principle that the process of psychotherapy in this approach is built: specialists help clients learn to be in contact with the present moment, untangle thoughts, accept their experiences and observe them in order to do something specific for the sake of the chosen values.

Psychotherapists help clients analyze why they need avoidant behavior and what the consequences will be. For example, if a person tries not to think about the climate crisis in order to avoid anxiety and guilt, then they will continue to buy disposable plastic and throw away trash at random. Will this reduce anxiety and guilt about how he is affecting the environment? Right now - perhaps simply because the person will close their eyes to it. In the long run, the effect will be the opposite, because the impact will become more and more detrimental.

This is the paradoxical effect of avoidance. Sometimes it takes time in the process of psychotherapy to realize the consequences of their habits and to treat them with understanding and curiosity instead of self-criticism.

When a person understands why he is avoiding the unpleasant truth, he should ask himself: what can be done instead? The client, accompanied by the therapist, begins to look for an alternative and formulates concrete actions. Ask yourself questions:

• What am I ready for, so that my behavior leads to filling my life with meaning, so that I am the person I really want to be?
• What can my anxiety do to motivate me - for example, in the field of ecology?
• What could I have done if I had the courage to face my fear and admit that the climate crisis is not fiction?

What can you do right now?

Find a community of like-minded people

It could be neighbors who share your ideas about separate waste collection, or a group of activists on social media, or the international community of minimalists practicing smart consumption. Join charity events supporting eco-organizations or a training group on creating environmental initiatives. Contact with people makes our fear bearable and gives hope to overcome together.

Examples of projects that can be adopted:

waste disposal “People together - separate garbage!” and “Separate collection”;

minimization of waste - Zero Waste;

personal eco-activism;

project "Give a tree"

Share your experience

Personal stories sound much more convincing than dry statistics and have a stronger effect on social norms. Share what you are doing now, such as what smart consumption and segregated self-isolation looks like.

Look for reliable information

Even if stories about the climate crisis make you sad and worried about the future, it's still the only way to stay honest and make informed decisions. Being aware is important, because this makes the problems concrete and no longer so frightening. The monster under the bed is scary only when we are not looking at it. If we learn more about the tasks, it turns out that we can cope with them.

Eat more plant foods

There are many books and films dedicated to the impact of meat production on the environment. Of course, vegetarianism has its pros and cons. But even if you skip meat once a week, it will be your contribution to saving water on the planet.

Strive to comply with the rules of reasonable consumption

The so-called 4 R rules:

• Refuse(refuse)
• Reduce(lower)
• Reuse(reuse)
• Recycle(recycle)

Avoid frills you don't need, especially disposables like coffee cups and plastic bags.

Buy as little as possible - say, toys or clothing. Reuse everything that can be fixed, give things a second life: even during quarantine, you can figure out what to make out of torn jeans, or find video tutorials on the Internet on repairing furniture and simple mechanisms. You can prepare things for swaps - parties to exchange clothes, cosmetics, books, and more.

During isolation, it is unlikely that you can exchange in person, but after quarantine you will have something to share. And only if all this is not possible, it makes sense to use the recycling of separate waste, which can still be carried to the blue government containers. By the way, the service of paid contactless removal of separate waste "Ecomobile" from "Collector" continues to work even during quarantine. Unfortunately, buying everything thoughtlessly and handing it over for recycling will not solve systemic problems.

Analyze your household chores

• reduce electricity consumption;
• turn off the water while soaping your hair with shampoo;
• use a dishwasher to save water;
• disassemble the closet - perhaps you will find things that can be donated to charity;
• Install a food waste disposer in the kitchen so as not to throw food leftovers into the general trash can;
• only store “dry” waste that is more likely to be recycled or reused;
• Pay attention to product labels to buy only recyclable packaging - for example, glass, aluminum or plastic marked "1" instead of a mixture of plastics, tetrapak or plastic "7", from which no one can make anything new.

Our life has long turned into a continuous unpredictable experiment. We all froze in anticipation: what will our life be like after the epidemic? And in many ways, it depends on us what awaits us when the panic over the coronavirus subsides: the rage of an exhausted planet - or the combined efforts to take care of our large common home.