ABC: Failure to Acknowledge the Climate Change Grief of Others Causes Serious Health Problems

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

According to the Australian ABC, people frequently fail to properly acknowledge or recognise “Climate Grief”, feelings of loss and despair some people experience over events which mostly have not happened yet. Supporters of the idea of climate grief claim the failure of members of the public to validate the climate grief of others leads to “major physical and mental health problems”.

Climate grief expected to be widespread soon but it’s still not openly acknowledged

ABC Health & Wellbeing / 
By health reporter Paige Cockburn

Feeling miserable, anxious, helpless and just generally terrible because the world is becoming less habitable? You’re not alone.

The good news is there are strategies that may help you cope. The bad news is the pandemic we’re now facing may test your passion and enthusiasm for climate action.

For the past 18 months, Canadian scientist Kurtis Baute says he has been dealing with a lot of ‘climate grief’.

“Basically I can’t stop thinking about the fact that millions of people, real people, are dying or will die because of something that is completely unavoidable,” he recently announced on his YouTube channel. 

“We can stop using fossil fuels but so far we’ve completely failed to do so…it feels completely out of control and it’s depressing.”

The danger of unvalidated grief

Climate grief is often categorised as a form of disenfranchised grief which means it isn’t always publicly or openly acknowledged.

“People may feel this isn’t something someone else can help with,” says Dr Snell.

This can then snowball into major physical and mental health problems.

Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2020-08-19/the-danger-of-climate-grief-lies-in-the-fact-its-often-ignored/12563930

The idea of victimhood seems a persistent theme of the climate fear narrative. High profile green campaigner Bill McKibben is almost open about his apparent need to feel like a victim.

The Wannabe Oppressed

By STANLEY KURTZ
October 16, 2013 8:00 AM

Today’s college students, climate change, and the cult of victimization

In a 1996 piece titled “Job and Matthew,” McKibben describes his arrival at college in 1978 as a liberal-leaning student with a suburban Protestant background. “My leftism grew more righteous in college,” he says, “but still there was something pro forma about it.” The problem? “Being white, male, straight, and of impeccably middle-class background, I could not realistically claim to be a victim of anything.”

At one point, in what he calls a “loony” attempt to claim the mantle of victimhood, McKibben nearly convinced himself that he was part Irish so he could don a black armband as Bobby Sands and fellow members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army died in a hunger strike. Yet even as he failed to persuade himself he was Irish, McKibben continued to enthusiastically support every leftist-approved victim group he could find. Nonetheless, something was missing. None of these causes seemed truly his own. When McKibben almost single-handedly turned global warming into a public issue in 1989, his problem was solved. Now everyone could be a victim

Global warming allows the upper-middle-class to join the proletariat, cloaking erstwhile oppressors in the mantle of righteous victimhood.

Read more: The Wannabe Oppressed

The demand for societal “acknowledgement” of something as ill defined as climate grief in my opinion verges on abusive.

If you accept someone is a genuine victim, the natural response is to try to help ease their pain. If this idea of climate victimhood sticks, it will be very difficult to refuse demands from climate victims to do whatever is necessary to alleviate their suffering.

I am not rejecting the idea that some climate worriers may suffer from serious psychiatric disorders, and I am certainly keen that people in pain receive the medical treatment they require, even if the source of their anguish is entirely imaginary. But I feel no compulsion to pretend their climate delusions have any objective validity.

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August 25, 2020 2:59 am

“McKibben continued to enthusiastically support every leftist-approved victim group he could find.”

He’s found a new one in Massachusetts- where a group of lunatics are fighting to stop all logging- which they claim is a major cause of climate change. He strongly supports their cause.

fred250
Reply to  Joseph Zorzin
August 25, 2020 3:38 am

Why isn’t he fighting against the logging of timber sent to Drax in the UK?

A very worthy cause for a REAL environmentalist……. instead of a pseudo one like McGibbon

I would love to see Trump put an end to that logging…. on environmental grounds.

MarkW
Reply to  fred250
August 25, 2020 6:42 am

Two points
We need all the exports we can find.
UK is the closest thing we have to an ally in Europe.

fred250
Reply to  MarkW
August 25, 2020 2:56 pm

So you are an anti environmentalist that likes chopping down trees and burning them.

So long as its in a “good cause” ie.. allowing the UK to virtue seek…

OK !

MarkW
Reply to  fred250
August 25, 2020 4:46 pm

The trees that are being chopped down are from tree farms.

You really need to use a few facts to rein in that indignation of yours.

fred250
Reply to  fred250
August 25, 2020 5:29 pm

Tree hater.. Polluter..

Only the most hypocritical of leftist AGW apologists could condone this.

fred250
Reply to  fred250
August 25, 2020 5:37 pm

http://euanmearns.com/wood-pellets-drax-and-deforestation/

Such a great idea.. NOT !!

The idiocy of shipping US trees to the UK for the purpose of power generation CANNOT be underestimated. !

fred250
Reply to  fred250
August 25, 2020 5:43 pm

https://e360.yale.edu/features/carbon-loophole-why-is-wood-burning-counted-as-green-energy

” Ecologists say that the claims of carbon neutrality, which are accepted by the European Union and the British government, do not stand up to scrutiny. The forests of North Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi — as well as those in Europe — are being destroyed to sustain a European fantasy about renewable energy.”

Loydo
Reply to  fred250
August 26, 2020 12:11 am

This squawking reminds me of some one.

fred250
Reply to  MarkW
August 25, 2020 5:31 pm

“We need all the exports we can find.”

Great to see you are going to vote for Trump next election..

Voting for the Dumbs will see all exports basically stop.

Nick Graves
August 25, 2020 3:21 am

If people are unable to think rationally, they are unable to rationalise their emotions.

It’s all stimulus>response.

Stephen Skinner’s parents’ generation would have had the solution; give ’em a slap, tell ’em to GTFU and get a grip.

No psychobabble required.

old construction worker
August 25, 2020 3:54 am

What’s this, another rebranding of “global warming”?

Clive08
August 25, 2020 3:54 am

Fascism and it’s handmaiden socialism.

Reply to  Clive08
August 25, 2020 4:35 pm

All variations of acute collectivism.

mike macray
August 25, 2020 4:08 am

I sympathise with the poor sods…”..as he shed a bitter tear”. Like the Walrus and the Carpenter weeping over the tragic fate of the oysters they were eating..
Cheers
Mike

icisil
August 25, 2020 4:10 am

“For the past 18 months, Canadian scientist Kurtis Baute says he has been dealing with a lot of ‘climate grief’.

“Basically I can’t stop thinking about the fact that millions of people, real people, are dying or will die because of something that is completely unavoidable,” he recently announced on his YouTube channel.

“We can stop using fossil fuels but so far we’ve completely failed to do so…it feels completely out of control and it’s depressing.””

Replace “climate” with “covid” and “stop using fossil fuels” with “stop functioning as a society” and a pattern of mental illness becomes apparent.

paul courtney
Reply to  icisil
August 25, 2020 9:23 am

icisil: speaking of patterns, in the US we see a similar formulation, “racism is a public health crisis.” If we don’t see it that way, it makes them sad. Soon to be diagnosed by our betters in the press. So we had better sit down and shutup so lefties can have the floor and not face criticism from deplorable people like me. Mr Baute’s depression would clear up (he thinks) if we just stop talking. The left is so clever and creative at identifying new mental health “problems” that just happens to be “solved” by the same solution to every other non-problem they identify.

Krishna Gans
August 25, 2020 4:26 am

A question of religion always to be gulty of what ever, use of fossils, warming the earth, rising the sealevel, increase extreme weather, melting the glaciers and the poles…

Matthew
August 25, 2020 4:33 am

Recognize? Are the emotions people feel real? Sure.

Validate? Never. They are feeling emotions based on non-factual events that either haven’t happened or won’t happen. I refuse to validate that.

Thingadonta
August 25, 2020 4:39 am

My tax dollars at work

ozspeaksup
Reply to  Thingadonta
August 25, 2020 5:05 am

yeah mine too, and THAT! is really depressing me.
abc its become a clan of relatives friends uni mates and upwardly (paypacket) mobile wokes with approved views.
their ads on how theyre aussies most trusted news etc has me raging angry
trusted to lie mislead skew and misreport to their biases every time ,would be honesty in advertising
theyre as bad if not worse than the private services, who at least go broke if they get outed
abc just gets more govvy handouts

Bulova
August 25, 2020 5:03 am

Someone should write a PHD thesis on “Victim Envy”. I see or read about a lot of people who really would like to be oppressed. It would excuse all the failures in their life. It would allow them to do a lot fun stuff like acting out and getting in the face of their “oppressors”.

Many people seem to lack purpose in life and having a cause (pick one at random) seems give meaning to their lives. Climate victumhood is a big tent and anyone can join. To many people it does not matter if it’s true or not.

Mickey Reno
Reply to  Bulova
August 25, 2020 6:18 am

Ha ha ha. Hey, that’s a nice little Western Civilization you’ve got there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.

In the current age of leftist environmentalism, intersectionality, and electioneering, the brokering of victim status of cryo-babies, Climate Scientologists, CAGW alarmists and other eco-loons was inevitable. They have to know where they sit on the modern left’s power curve, don’t they? It’s an election year, fer goodness sake.

But it still leaves much room for debate. Does the pain of well-known white climate criers like Eric Holthaus who voluntarily dons a climate hair shirt, and thus can never again step foot on a modern airliner, or a openly Christian white woman like Katherine Hayhoe who accepts the faint glow of righteousness of the both Michael Mann AND normal Saints and the likes of Mother Theresa, trump the victim-hood of a hedge fund managing, black, transsexual, formerly gay, but now ostensibly heterosexual woman with a penis? We know climate change will disproportionately affect the poor more than the wealthy, so do we count the value of government benefits and food stamps into our equations? And what if your skin has been ripped off after you glued yourself to a train station, a pipeline, a road or a barricade for your cause? That should count for something, too. It’s far too complicated for a person like me to decide. So I will wait for the mobs looting Portland, Seattle and Chicago for the final ruling. A thousand white Antifa rioters trying to burn a Portland police station, or inner-city black rioters clearing out a Chicago Nike store have never been known to be wrong, have they?

ScienceABC123
August 25, 2020 5:41 am

More drivel from some to blame others for their feelings, and to justify their bad actions.

August 25, 2020 5:50 am

Spend two minutes looking up the author of this ABC piece, and it will become obvious that she has a lot of her own psychological issues and unacknowledged personal grief over her chosen lifestyle.

Gerry O'Connor
August 25, 2020 5:57 am

Feeling severe climate grief is a badge of honour ….it’s a testament to you level of wokeness and the degree of disability and irrationality it imparts on you is the measure of that wokeness on a tangible scale

Brian
August 25, 2020 5:58 am

Logging in

August 25, 2020 6:02 am

The pot is calling the kettle black here. Basically, the pointy-headed ones want you to kowtow to whatever emoting someone has over anything like climate since feelings are so much more important than facts in their brave new world.

If someone has climate grief they are a victim of propaganda which means the propagandists are making people mentally and physically ill and weak with their constant false climate crisis claims, unprepared for the real world.

The warmists are screaming ‘fire’ in a theater. I thought we had laws to protect against such terrorism.

August 25, 2020 6:08 am

When we ridicule them, doesn’t that acknowledge their grief?

Tom in Florida
August 25, 2020 6:32 am

“Basically I can’t stop thinking about the fact that millions of people, real people, are dying or will die because of something that is completely unavoidable”

Yes you can. Stop pretending that your thinking about it makes you noble.

eyesonu
August 25, 2020 6:52 am

For the past 18 months, Canadian scientist Kurtis Baute says he has been dealing with a lot of ‘climate grief’.

“Basically I can’t stop thinking about the fact that millions of people, real people, are dying or will die because of something that is completely unavoidable,” he recently announced on his YouTube channel.

================
“… millions of people, real people … ”

Canadian scientist Kurtis Baute needs to rid himself of the self-gratifying latex, vinyl, imaginary, and digital companionship he seems to be bedfellowed with. To feel the need to make a distinction as to “real people”? roflmao

Jeffery P
August 25, 2020 6:56 am

These people all need help. They have serious mental health issues. The fact professional organizations have not publicly recognized and published regarding this issue shows the politization and bias of the industry.

Trump Derangement Syndome/Histerical Trump Derangement Syndome is another great example. If having Trump in the White House causes one to lose sleep, be depressed or beotherwise unable to enjoy life, one has deep-seated issues that must be addressed.

In other words, man up snowflakes. Walk it off then go live your lives the best you can.

Josie
August 25, 2020 7:04 am

“Failure to Acknowledge the Climate Change Grief of Others Causes Serious Health Problems”

Yeah. It probably causes CoVid. /sarc.

LdB
Reply to  Josie
August 25, 2020 11:53 am

Nah it only causes serious health issues if you have a baseball bat at hand to try and beat some sense into the snowflakes.

freedom monger
August 25, 2020 7:26 am

This notion of acknowledging those with “Climate Grief” reeks of the 4th principle of Robert Lifton’s “Eight Principles of Mind Control: Ideological Totalism”:

http://protocriteria.com/index.php/eight-principles-of-mind-control/

The Cult of Confession demands that we should confess to “crimes we have not committed, to sinfulness that is artificially induced, in the name of a cure that is arbitrarily imposed.”

The same can be seen with the concept of White Privilege that leads mindless idiots to kneel before a certain group of people, simply because of the color of their skin, and apologize for things they didn’t do and for things they never had any control over.

Ed Zuiderwijk
August 25, 2020 7:29 am

Step 1: go downtown and buy a pair of sturdy boots.
Step 2: put on.
Step 3: apply forcefully to behind of griever while admonishing to grow up.

And I thought that Aussies considered the British as whingers ….

John Dilks
August 25, 2020 7:48 am

“Basically I can’t stop thinking about the fact that millions of people, real people, are dying or will die because of something that is completely unavoidable”

Why is everyone missing the word “unavoidable” in his statement?
You can’t avoid it, so you must adapt, or not.

August 25, 2020 7:51 am

Once the drive to create, produce, achieve, invent and generally make life better is replaced with a desire to be a victim with no autonomy, wholly dependant on the state for every need, and forever aggrieved, the end of modern society is near.
People who dream romantically of the apocalypse will soon feel the painful reality, at which point they will be in no position to change course. The success of modern human society is a mighty edifice built on a complex foundations that include, rational thought, imagination, exploration, striving, competition, reward and punishment, freedoms, and democratic cooperation. We live in a time when the ironically named “progressives” are trying to disassemble each and every one of those foundations.

Walt D.
August 25, 2020 9:02 am

Pre Traumatic Stress Disorder? Or just psychosis?

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