The Politics of Eco-Grief, Guilt, and Anxiety

Question 1

According to Cunsolo and Ellis, why does climate change create grief?

Answer 1

Because it creates human loss

Question 2

According to Cunsolo and Ellis, environmental grief is unusual in these 2 characteristics

Answer 2

1. Timeframe (grief can be anticipatory, grieving what you expect to lose)
2. Disenfranchised (mostly unrecognized publicly, no processes or resources to deal with it)

Question 3

What are 3 types of eco-grief and loss, ccording to Cunsolo and Ellis?

Answer 3

1. Loss of material possessions, immediately after a climate disaster
2. “Slow violence” of gradual change to environment
3. Disruption to how people interact with and connect to environments, disrupting their sense of place and home (esp. Indigenous communities)

Question 4

How can a loss of identity and knowledge play into eco-grief? 2 points

Answer 4

1. Knowledge of environment thrown into disarray by climate change, losing know-how passed on over generations
2. This can call into question the identity and confidence of those why maintain close ties to environment and whose sense of self is linked to it (e.g. farming communities) - can lead to self-blame

Question 5

How does environmental grief connect to politics, according to Cunsolo and Ellis? - 3 points

Answer 5

Grief implies interdependence and reliance on what’s been lost, which draws attention to dependence on nature

Eco-grief because of this implies that we have ethical (treating nature morally correct) and political (using collective power to protect it) responsibilities toward it

It also implies that people suffering from it may be entitled to justice and reparation

Question 6

How does the UNFCC Warsaw International Mechanism recognize reparations for climate change?

Answer 6

They recognize the need to compensate “loss and damage” which is assumed to be material but could also be immaterial and psychological too

Question 7

Why is it important to also provide both material and immaterial reparations?

Answer 7

It would give a more accurate tally of what climate change costs people and thus what they are owed = what climate justice entails

Question 8

How do people respond to eco-grief (non-politically)? - 3 points

Answer 8

Through denial (no climate change -> no anxiety) or disavowal (climate change isn’t that threatening, either to me or right now -> no anxiety)

This can create a vicious cycle of denying and disavowing which leads to no climate change action which only worsens the feelings of denial and disavowal (and eco-grief)

People can also manage eco-grief via numbing and substance use

Question 9

What are 2 different political implications of eco-grief?

Answer 9

1. Nostalgia linked to eco-grief can be used to strengthen appeal of authoritarianism (Make America Great Again) or eco-authoritarianism (strong leader denies climate change and promise turn to less anxious time)
2. Climate change throws a wrench into people’s ability to manage existential fear of death by giving life meaning (having children, pursuing accomplishments, adhering to religion), which can heighten existential dread and lead some to seek relief in reaffirming the status quo - far-reaching policies to deal with climate change will be met with reactionary backlash because they press on emotional sore spot of existential fear and distress

Question 10

What is eco-friendly rhetorics, according to Jensen?

Answer 10

Appeals to make small adjustments to everyday behavior for the sake of the environment (e.g. “recycle me”)

Question 11

Why are eco-friendly rhetorics very common?

Answer 11

Because they are profitable in:
- Converting interest in environmentalism into sales and consumption
- Distracting from systemic change by focusing on individual action (profitable if you want to maintain the status quo)

Question 12

How is eco-friendly rhetorics related to eco-grief and anxiety?

Answer 12

It taps into low-lying levels of collective guilt regarding destroying the environment and offer us atonement through individual action

Question 13

2 implications of eco-friendly rhetorics

Answer 13

1. Eco-friendly rhetorics can perpetuate guilt-atonement cycle (we feel bad, we buy more, we feel worse, we buy more etc.)
2. It can inhibit collective political environmental action and change by atomizing collective guilt to be expressed in individual behavior and atonement

Question 14

Jensen’s 3 eco-friendly rhetorics

Answer 14

Environmental scapegoating
The hypocrite’s trap
The double bind

Question 15

Jensen: what is environmental scapegoating

Answer 15

Blaming a single person or group for environmental misfortunes or wrongdoings

Used by corporations to shift/displace blame for environmental harm from corporations to consumers, absolving themselves of any wrongdoing

Question 16

Example of environmental scapegoating: the “Crying Indian” - 6 points

Answer 16

1. A response to rise of radical green movements
2. Two dimensions of scapegoating: viewers blamed for pollution of physical landscape and for industrial-colonialism
3. Audience asked to identity both the the protagonist and the forces that made him cry, triggering a sense of collective guilt
4. This guilt breeds desire for emotional relief, turning potential anger into a quest for reconciliation and atonement instead
5. This commercial absolves corporate actors of guilt by rendering them indistinguishable from others actors in “people” (people start pollution, people can stop it)
6. Collective guilt individated and attached to atomized consumers who are invited to atone via individual action and not politics

Question 17

What is an example of environmental scapegoating today? - 3 points

Answer 17

“Carbon footprint” concept invented by British Petroleum

Attributes blame and guilt for environmental harm to individual consumers who should track and reduce their personal footprints to save the planet. Again focusing on individual behavior instead of collective, systemic change

Distracts from BP and other economic actors’ own emissions and contributions to environmental harm

Question 18

Jensen: The hypocrite’s trap - 4 points

Answer 18

1. Used to silence advocates of environmental change by pointing out how they either participate in or benefit from the environmental status quo (e.g. criticizing politicians for flying)
2. When personal actions not aligning with recommendations for change, advocates for change are dismissed as “hypocrites”
3. Normalizes neoliberal commonsense wherein systemic compulsions are reduced to a matter of personal choice, thus taking on an economic logic
4. Transforms collective, systemic culpability into individual blame and obstructs change because no one can avoid accusation of “hypocrisy”

Question 19

Jensen: The Double Bind

Answer 19

1. Communization paradox where the substance of a message is undercut by its context
2. Suggested behavior modification (e.g. changing from plastic to paper straws) may be environmentally beneficial but is mismatched to the severity of the problem so is dismissed
3. Used to guilt people into taking environmental action that is insufficient, only to blame them for this insufficiency