How Climate Change Affects Your Mental Health by Britt WrayThe final source presented involves scientist Britt Wray. She earned her PhD in planetary health with a primary focus on climate change and mental health. I was inspired by her work through one of our weekly readings, therefore decided to investigate other content she has released on these subjects. She maintains interests with eco-anxiety, climate psychology, climate grief, and science communication with a strong appeal towards younger generation’s psychological health and well-being. While this lecture was not found via the KU libraries page, I decided to pursue an online search and was very excited about what I came across. Although Britt Wray is more popular in comparison to the other authors I used for this paper, she represents the minority group as a woman and is gradually developing her profile in the world of science. In this speech, Britt Wray introduces psychological influences of climate change and how our welfare is ultimately at stake. Her TedTalk reveals how the unfortunate actualities of climate change are affecting the health and functionality of not only the planet, but also its inhabitants. Alongside these gradually evolving environmental catastrophes, she introduces cultural, emotional, and intellectual outcomes seen in the human species. A warming world comes with inevitable feelings of fear, hopelessness, frustration, and even a loss of identity. Furthermore, many people engage in avoidant behaviors and resignation as they ponder life’s future if no modifications are made. The scarcity of resources and observed irreversible damages naturally lead to conflict and violence, as well as political instability. Additionally, she prompts a question relating to raising children in the current world. She elaborates that many people, despite wanting children, do not want to bring them into a state of ecological crisis and governmental inaction. While there are individual contributions to these problems, it is recognized that many of them are systemic. Moreover, our current practices symbolize anthropocentric attitudes which have paved the way for challenges of colossal magnitudes. Wray wants our actions and policies to reflect an understanding of how climate changes affect us on spiritual, societal, and psychological levels. The way we view the world and what occurs within it plays a large role in combating and accepting these issues. It is important to be honest with ourselves and understand that climate change affects our minds in ways we often cannot imagine. By involving mental health in climate change adaptation and survival, we may finally seek some form of peace or reassurance, and hopefully, the drive to not only change today but our foreseeable future.
This speech strongly aligns with the message in her writing, “Generation Dread”. She similarly addresses the dooms of climate change and the mental impacts that result these undesirable changes. Her purpose is to educate, evoke emotion, and validate such concerns. Wray believes it is important to acknowledge worries for what they are and then redirect this energy towards positive action. The speech she presented was very well-spoken and she provided numerous facts and empirical data to highlight the issues in place. Her articulation conveys reasons to incorporate mental health in this topic and how to appropriately manage our psychological well-being as our population concomitantly works to confront ecological catastrophes. I can confirm this piece was my favorite source I gathered. The established tone, passion, and expression portrayed is undoubtedly moving as well as motivating. I appreciate her ability to identify not only the environmental flaws but also those on an intellectual, emotional capacity. It further emphasizes that our mentality may be the foundational root of the problem and thus requires we tend to this aspect first prior to instating any type of policy changes. - Annotation by Trinity Hadel, Spring 2023