- Sessions being held at the University of Derby by Dr Jamie Bird
- They involve participants trying to express feelings through art and poetry
- Student Claire Prowse felt she may not have a future because of climate crisis
By Harry Howard For Mailonline
Published: 09:45 EST, 24 January 2020 | Updated: 10:01 EST, 24 January 2020
Students and staff anxious about climate change are being offered therapy to tackle feelings of anger, guilt and grief.
University of Derby are running art therapy sessions for those suffering ‘eco-anxiety’ -an issue brought to the forefront of public attention by 17-year-old activist Greta Thunberg.
Participants are encouraged to express their feelings about climate change through ‘poetry and movement’.
One student attending the therapy sessions, Claire Prowse, said climate change makes her feel like she is ‘not going to have a future’.
She told the BBC: ‘It makes me very anxious because every time I look at the news I rarely see any good news about the environment.
‘It just makes me think I’m not going to have a future.’
Another attendee, Nicola Grigg, added that climate change made her feel ‘isolated and lonely’.
She said she felt ‘guilty’ because she does not have the power to ‘change’ the climate situation.
The academic behind the sessions, Dr Jamie Bird, said people suffer ‘climate grief’ when they see the environment being damaged.
Writing on a blog on the university’s website, Dr Bird, who is head of health and social care research at Derby, said: ‘This activity focuses on the here and now. It does not seek to solve problems or provide solutions.
‘It provides a safe space to express feelings in a compassionate environment.’
Eco-anxiety is described by Psychology Today as ‘a fairly recent psychological disorder afflicting an increasing number of individuals who worry about the environmental crisis’.
No stats are available on how widespread it is, but some experts said there is increased public anxiety around climate change.
In a 2017 report, Professor Susan Clayton at the College of Wooster, in Ohio, wrote: ‘We can say that a significant proportion of people are experiencing stress and worry about the potential impacts of climate change, and that the level of worry is almost certainly increasing.’
As well as being offered to students and staff, Derby University’s workshops have been held in towns nearby, with more planned in Derbyshire this year.
Dr Bird said: ‘More and more I think there’s this recognition that people are feeling not only anxious but also a sense of loss, or it might be a sense of anger or guilt or shame.
‘Helplessness underlines a lot of those feelings because it’s something we’ve never really had to face before and we don’t know how it’s going to pan out.’
He added that the sessions have been successful, with some finding that they feel less anxious or guilty when they leave.
First – get them worried.
Then – take all their money….
What e said…
How pathetic are the children of today.
Mondeoman—-The children of today didn’t create themselves [snip]
Climate anxiety seems to be an ailment that disproportionately affects those which are young, female and white. Why is that ? I live in
Asia. Don’t seem to be a lot of eco anxiety sufferers over here.
It seems to be the humanities students who are suffering anxiety, probably because that believe all the activities say.
Do the STEM students suffer in the same way?
StephenP,
Damn good question!
Are there any legitimate social researchers out there who would be able tackle such a survey among college students based upon: majors of study; admission test scores; or other quantifiable measures.
No! I suggest STEM students experience anxiety from a different pathway. Any STEM student who shows the slightest doubt about the Anthropogenic Global Warming Hypothesis is likely to be harangued by staff and students and fear that they will not complete the course. They will be accused of being in the pay of Big Oil. An additional complication is that they may be literally in the pay of Big Oil, because Big Oil is more likely to fund bursaries for geology and engineering students than for gender studies and environmental artistry.
The best “therapy” I can think of for these poor brainwashed dweebs is a lifetime subscription to WUWT!!
Yes, fear of the “climate crisis” is unwarranted.
Though he might very well be an alarmist if alive today, nevertheless, in the words of FDR, “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
“One student said climate change makes her feel like she is ‘not going to have a future.”
She could be right. If extreme, foolish actions to combat climate change wreck the global economy, she might not have a future.
I grew up under daily hysteria about Mutually Assured Destruction and The Bomb; complete with the school ordering duck-and-cover drills under our desks.
Somehow or other I never needed a “therapist.” Y’know why not? Back then we were taught the Facts of Life, which included the knowledge life has no guarantees of safety, peace, prosperity, comfort, or predictability. And our generation was mostly fine with that, as my Gen-Z nephews who were raised property are today.
Maybe the “Elites” need to re-think how they’re raising their children; they won’t be capable of leading anyone the way they’re going; infantilized, whining, scared and impotent geeks!
Unwarranted but necessary if you goal is to manipulate absent facts.
Finally – make them work.
It’s a perpetual money machine administrated by the university system.
Are these females, ……
Greta Thunberg
Claire Prowse
Nicola Grigg
actually suffering from “climate change” anxiety, …….. or PMS?
I’m sure it doesn’t matter to Dr Jamie Bird.
Dr Bird said: ‘More and more I think there’s this recognition that people are feeling not only anxious but also a sense of loss, or it might be a sense of anger or guilt or shame.
Personally, I feel a sense of humour about all this. I suggest those feeling the other senses take solace in the words of philosopher and humorist Jackie Mason. Look up his treatise on “The meaning of life”. It will bring you back to earth in a hurry.
Those kids don’t need therapy, all they need is the truth.
How do you recognize truth, these days?
Yes, the first tell of the underlying cause of the “anxiety” is “every time I look at the news, …”.
Since the “news” about “climate” is essentially little more than propaganda and misinformation, that’d do it!
Stop the media to publish lies and BS
From: Allan MacRae
Sent: December-23-19 9:16 PM
To: President, Alberta Teachers Association
Cc: Minister of Education, Alberta
Subject: The Alberta Teachers Association (ATA) and the False Crisis of Global Warming Alarmism
PLEASE CONFIRM RECEIPT BY RETURN EMAIL
Jason C Schilling
President, Alberta Teachers Association
Cc: Hon. Adriana LaGrange
Minister of Education
Subject: The Alberta Teachers Association (ATA) and the False Crisis of Global Warming Alarmism
Hello Mr. Schilling,
I have a daughter in Grade 6 in a Calgary Public School, and I am very happy with her school and its capable and dedicated teachers.
I should also advise you that this letter has been reviewed by some of the most competent scientists in the world.
The following presentation by Michelle Stirling is a well-informed rebuttal of Tzeporah Berman’s climate speech to the Alberta Teachers Association (ATA):
https://blog.friendsofscience.org/2018/12/18/were-smarter-than-this-michelle-stirlings-rebuttal-to-tzeporah-bermans-speech-to-the-alberta-teachers-association/
The science and politics of global warming alarmism is an area of my expertise, and I probably know more about this subject than anyone in the ATA. I have an accomplished career on six continents and have made outstanding contributions to the well-being of Calgary, Alberta and Canada.
Based on my two engineering degrees and my decades of analysis of this topic since ~1985, I conclude that global warming alarmism is a false crisis. One of my recent publications is included below.
I am concerned that school children are being propagandized and some are suffering from extreme anxiety due to fears of runaway global warming.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/were-going-to-die-toronto-mother-says-young-daughter-terrified-by-school-presentation-on-climate-change
It is simply child abuse to support this false propaganda. I am shocked to learn that climate activist Steve Lee “has already spoken at dozens of student assemblies at high schools in Edmonton, Calgary and across Canada”.
https://edmontonjournal.com/business/local-business/david-staples-oil-and-gas-and-cattle-industries-under-fire-at-canadian-schools
It is truly wrong for Alberta teachers to encourage our children to take a radical position on this false crisis. It is even more wrong to encourage the irrational fear that is destroying the feelings of safety and security of our children.
This letter serves to put you, the ATA and its members on notice that promotion of the climate scare is false propaganda that is causing harm to our children.
Yours truly, Allan MacRae
B.A.Sc.(Eng.), M.Eng.
Reference:
CO2, GLOBAL WARMING, CLIMATE AND ENERGY
by Allan M.R. MacRae, B.A.Sc., M.Eng., June 13, 2019
https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/co2-global-warming-climate-and-energy-june2019-final.pdf
Excel: https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2019/06/co2-global-warming-climate-and-energy-june2019-final-3-1.xlsx
ABSTRACT
Global warming alarmism, which falsely assumes that increasing atmospheric CO2 causes catastrophic global warming, is disproved – essentially, it assumes that the future is causing the past. In reality, atmospheric CO2 changes lag global temperature changes at all measured time scales.
Nino34 Area Sea Surface Temperature changes, then tropical humidity changes, then atmospheric temperature changes, then CO2 changes.
The velocity dCO2/dt changes ~contemporaneously with global temperature changes and CO2 changes occur ~9 months later (MacRae 2008).
The process that causes the ~9-month average lag of CO2 changes after temperature changes is hypothesized and supported by observations.
The ~9-month lag, +/- several months, averages 1/4 of the full-period duration of the variable global temperature cycle, which averages ~3 years.
Based on the above observations, global temperatures drive atmospheric CO2 concentrations much more than CO2 drives temperature.
Climate sensitivity to increasing atmospheric CO2 must be very low, less than ~1C/(2*CO2) and probably much less.
There will be no catastrophic warming and no significant increase in chaotic weather due to increasing CO2 concentrations.
Increasing atmospheric CO2 clearly causes significantly improved crop yields, and may cause minor, beneficial global warming.
Atmospheric CO2 is not alarmingly high, it is too low for optimal plant growth and alarmingly low for the survival of carbon-based terrestrial life.
Other factors such as fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, etc may also increase atmospheric CO2. The increase of CO2 is clearly beneficial.
“Green energy” schemes are not green and produce little useful (dispatchable) energy, primarily because of the fatal flaw of intermittency.
There is no widely-available, cost-effective means of solving the flaw of intermittency in grid-connected wind and solar power generation.
Electric grids have been destabilized, electricity costs have soared and Excess Winter Deaths have increased due to green energy schemes.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Allen I am so glad to see that there are scientists who have the courage to speak out against this drive to destroy global economies, ecologies and the environment.
With all the talk about ‘tipping points’ in regard to climate, I’m more concerned about the real agenda and political tipping points. Though, elections in America, Australia and Britain seem to show that although the mainstream media is predominantly left wing the majority see through their lies.
I know that there are many scientists of courage, getting the message out there is what is most difficult.
Stop funding for the BBC, or draconian conditions on allowing all points of view equal weight.
RIP David Bellamy!
Problem instantly solved.
If they would all just stop using fossil fuels (and products thereof) they would feel much more at ease.
Exactly.
I have no idea why children of today want to abdicate responsibility to authority. All they have to do is buy solely renewable energy, only ‘green’ products, don’t fly, and when they have their own investments, don’t invest in fossil fuel companies. It’s very simple.
I can’t work it out fully but offer two related components.
There are two millennial components.
First, “ it’s not fair” everyone needs a prize.
And
Second, not understanding to achieve something you have to first study, work hard, and make mistakes.
The above phenomenon virtually only exists in wealthy nations when the parents and children have not faced adversity.
A young western middle or upper class person will be shocked when a migrant or working class citizen takes “their “ parking space or whatever. We need rules for that.
They are susceptible to propaganda that assigns blame to someone else and they can’t be bothered researching
Send them to Africa, on a boat, for perhaps a month. That should help remedy their anxiety. Africa, of course, is the perfect example of an environment, with limited exposure to fossil fuels, a climate that rarely changes and a lifestyle which is the envy of the world.
Problem solved.
Ron, Perhaps Cuba or Venezuela? A month with little food should do the trick.
Even Vikings forged metal to make nails for their boats. The only fossil free way is to walk and swim. They also have my permission to eat fruits and nuts along the way, but no cooking.
They should also give up their iPhones, iPads, and laptops.
Also no calculators. They can use sliderules or even logarithms and a pencil.
You’re not going to let them get away with the environmental vandalism of chopping down trees. And no fancy carbon powered machines inserting the sequestered carbon into their tree killing pencils. Can’t anybody do a balance sheet any more.
Eh? Have you ever seen any work product from a calculator come from a climate alarmist?
A calculator to someone obsessed with other people’s reducing of their “carbon” emissions is like a silver cross to a vampire. Chanting “one point five degrees” is the upper limit of their mathematical abilities (and they don’t even understand that that’s a bogus number either).
If they were capable of using log tables or pencil and paper to calculate they would not be CAGW true believers.
…they are not just condoning…they are encouraging…..and normalizing it
Yup.
Why am I 100% certain that this so-called “therapy” consists of cementing these irrational ideas firmly into the brains of these silly ignoramuses?
If Dr. Bird has a professional license, it should be revoked.
‘Safe spaces’ are the very opposite of what is required for effective therapy. They make things worse, not better.
I totally agree. I was just going to call them snowflakes- which they are, but you are right to point out that this is to further the brainwashing agenda.
These sessions ought to be open not only for students, but for the general population.
However, it is an issue for both the Green Mafia worshipers as well as for the skeptics.
Personally I am a bit terrified about a near future where a totalitarian overreach takes away my freedom to enjoy life and my economy to keep my quality of life at a reasonable level.
In my head, I recall my brief experience of East Berlin long before the fall of the Iron Curtain, and I think for myself: Is that what the Green Mafia silently is leading us towards?
Will the universities start physiological support classes for people like me?
Could they not offer some courses on critical thinking?
Funny you mention it. Back in the 60’s we were taught in school how to critically read the newspaper.
Especially for journalists.
Journalists and critical thinking? Isn’t that an oxymoron?
Yes they all went thru the lefty brain washing in the Arts faculty to get that journalism degree.
How dare you enable people to think critical. After that they will be so hard to control. Critical thinking does not belong in a university anyway…!
” … better choices to address the issue … ” ” … space to express feelings … ”
The promoters of this need to watch out. One form of expression that I have witnessed involves venting one’s anger at being taken in by this scam.
kairophobia
phobia – an unreasoned or irrational fear.
kairós – greek for weather.
from wikipedia:
“Intimidation (also called cowing) is intentional behavior that “would cause a person of ordinary sensibilities” to fear injury or harm. It is not necessary to prove that the behavior was so violent as to cause mean terror or that the victim was actually frightened”
and..
“The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation defines eco-terrorism as “…the use or threatened use of violence of a criminal nature against innocent victims or property by an environmentally-oriented, subnational group for environmental-political reasons, or aimed at an audience beyond the target, often of a symbolic nature.”
Surely scores of Snowflakes are melting down due to Brexit Anxiety too? Where is their therapy?
It is called Darwinian Theory or just life, and these snowflakes are the cannon fodder off to learn it’s lessons the hard way.
@Carl Friis-Hansen
In my head, I recall my brief experience of East Berlin long before the fall of the Iron Curtain, and I think for myself: Is that what the Green Mafia silently is leading us towards?
I’m not aware of your experiences, but you are nearby.
https://twitter.com/jochen_rohrberg/status/1166262043453861893
Unfortunately in German…..
Spot on.
No worries, German is one of five languages I speak fluent 🙂
I have seen several court cases in Germany where former East German gestapo-like people had continued their terrible work in a mafia style in the unified Germany to this very date.
Back in the 1950’s USA, you were hated if you were socialist or communist, today it the “right thing” to be.
Re: “Back in the 1950’s USA, you were hated if you were socialist or communist, today it the right thing to be.”
Today, it is the Left thing to be, in the USA.
That should be ‘echo anxiety’ since the pitiable sufferers have their heads in an echo chamber that drowns out the facts.
Tell them to lead by example. Tell them no-one will listen to you while you are not living the way you demand others live…and then turn off the air-con and remove all car parking spaces and drop-off points, as they will want to be using buses, pushbikes or walking. Offer only vegetarian choices. Offer only certified low carbon minimalist one size fits all uniforms of un-dyed hemp to avoid any sweatshop labour, no leather shoes and ban any electronic devices during school hours.
I would offer them these options as a climate aware package and give them a vote on it….and when they rejected it overwhelmingly would brook no further whining about their delicate feelings or climate hysteria.
And I would publish the results for the public to see.
Clearly the wanted effect of climate crazy propaganda. They can’t convince adults of their lies, so they focus on kids and students. Rather disgusting.
And then teach them all adults are the enemy and build up irrational hatred and fear of all elders.
JS, here’s an example of how we are encouraging hate in our young people, put out by the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) propaganda machine. We pay a billion dollars a year from our taxes for the privilege of the total leftist crap they put out. They claim to be a balanced Network, read this link from an ABC radio broadcaster. We are lucky if there is any opportunity at all to give and alternative point of view and if they don’t like the direction the conversation is going they cut it short. Any politician who doesn’t agree with their agenda will be edited to point that any truth is gone.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-29/climate-change-global-warming-six-groups-rebecca-huntley/11893384
Thanks Meg for the link…….the woman from Mallacoota mentioned in the ‘A Bout of Commie’ article is known to me. Quite the pain in the rear end actually………can play the victim card like a professional whiner.
Therapy Session minutes:
“CO2 Climate Change is prairie fertilizer. You have nothing about climate to fear ourside of the same risk all of your ancestors faced. ”
Session terminated.
This is the famous Bob Newhart “Stop It!” therapy.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bob+newhart+stop+it
So, the university creates anxiety, and then the university attempts to rectify the damage. Lawsuit, anyone, or did they offer a trigger warning when they went on-and-on about climate change?
It’s easy to fix their problem. They should stop looking at the news.
Yes, news is a first-order forcing of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Anxiety (CACA). However, it would be irresponsible to dismiss that the university is itself a first-order forcing of CACA progress.
Nice. I think you should start a new academic journal dedicated to the subject, “The Annals of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Anxiety.” Annals of CACA, for short.
O, the poor little darlings.
I think I’m going to start a new web site called Environmental Good News. Com. Egn.com for short.
It would be a good start for all these kids to read about all the positive things happening in the environment and frame events in a positive light. For example…
Good News, the polar ice caps did not melt this year, and the forecast is they will not melt next year either. …… or Good News, Polar bear populations have rebounded from the lows of XX year that was the result of over hunting. …. or Good News, the earth has greened by XX% over the last ten years.
It’s not that Climate per se is depressing these kids, it is the Media Spin that is killing them.
Is there even one “alarmist” scientist who would support the fear of a 20 year old that she “is not going to have a future”?
Catastrophic Climate Change is debatable, but the harm being done to the young people today by the MSM, psychologists and “Climate Activists” is very real and easily documented. It is not a “model”.
If the leading scientists like Mann, Trenberth et al don’t stand up and put a stop to this they are clearly showing a lack of professional ethics and have demonstrated the movement is entirely political!
I just wish I would be around 30 years from now so I can tell my grandchildren “See, Grandpa was right!”
Pathetic idiocy – dangerous situation with this monumental ignorance threatening the globes future priorities where apparently the most important global issues of poverty, sanitation and filth, education and health care are all made worse by wasteful allocation of critical resources to phony and completely irrelevant climate alarmism schemes.
“Therapy” like this, especially creative-oriented therapy, does not work. All it does is provide a coping mechanism but it never provides substantive recovery. For example, in these therapy sessions, is it just a free-for-all safe space where anxious students are free to do whatever they want? Or, are their conceptions of reality actually examined?
If a man insists he lives on the moon, the best medicine is to help him see and understand the reality that he is not on the moon at all. The worst medicine is to put him into a place where he is free to further reinforce his disconnect from reality through creativity.
Oh!?
You mean like bird and bat slicing machines and thousands of acres of solar arrays?
• Or Urban blight crushing nature under bitumen, cement, cinder blocks and steel?
• Or asinine jet skiers running their machines up and down beaches scaring away man, fish, mammals and birds?
• Or people who believe they can dump anything down their sinks or flush down their toilets? keeping mind these same folks go bonkers over anything but a well tended grass lawn.
I doubt Dr. Bird has any concept of reality regarding what damages the environment.
For God’s sake! Doesn’t anyone have the common sense to open their eyes and look around to see that during the last 40 years since this silly climate hoax has been rammed down the gullible public throat NOTHING bad has happened. Every human alive today will go to their graves without a single dire prediction about climate happening! It really is true that you can fool most of the people most of the time. Fortunately most of the readers of this blog are not scientific imbeciles and are not fooled.
I worry about these poor dears….. Derby U should provide each of them with a ‘Widdle The Worrier’ doll, to help them to express their irrational fears and learn coping skills for the non-problem of Climate Change.
“Widdle the Worrier is a talking doll that gives your child tips and coping techniques every time you squeeze his tummy.” https://gozen.com/product/widdle/