Climate Resources
Climate Grief & Anxiety
The New Republic: How to Live in a Burning World Without Losing Your Mind, by Liza Featherstone (Warning: This link contains a couple expletives!)
"The problem wasn’t that people cared too little about the environment, but that they care too much. This has important implications for how we approach climate information. Bombarding people with information that will shock and alarm might be productive if people really didn’t care. But since many of us are instead busily repressing big feelings of sorrow and terror about global warming, this doomsaying approach just activates our defenses. We tune out."
"Sometimes I’m sure that we humans can solve this problem. But that attitude isn’t always helpful, either. Positivity can be just as tone deaf as relentless doom-saying, say trauma experts, if it denies us the space for sadness, hopelessness, and despair—emotions we need to acknowledge, work through, and become resilient enough to face."
"The way out of this confusion is neither feel-good solutionism nor submitting to the apocalypse. Instead, we need to learn to make space, in our conversations, activism, and media, for feeling grief, anxiety, guilt, and fear about climate change, no matter how difficult or dark. Where many of us rush into the role of town crier—a Paul Revere shouting out warnings—we may be better off, to use Lertzman’s framing, becoming a guide, helping those around us work through difficult emotions and figure out how they can take action."
Climate Activism
New York Times Opinion: How to Stop Freaking Out and Tackle Climate Change, by Emma Marris
(This is also available online through the CPH Library)
Step 1: Ditch the shame.
Step 2: Focus on systems, not yourself.
Step 3: Join an effective group.
Step 4: Define your role.
Step 5: Know what you are fighting for, not just what you are fighting against.
Climate Justice
Books on Climate and Environmentalism
"It’s time to change our mindset toward implementing solutions. A vibrant, fair, and regenerative future is possible–not when thousands of people do climate justice activism perfectly but when millions of people do the best they can." -Xiye Bastida
"Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal, it is not a question of first getting enlightened or saved and then acting. As we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us." -Robin Wall Kimmerer
Dr. Ludka organized a Circle for Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) colleagues. (Although the Circle was formally about the All We Can Save Book, we discussed Braiding Sweetgrass at length too because so many Circle members had been transformed by it.)
Climate Education
Climate Champions at UC San Diego CREATE is a collaborative effort among UCSD campus and community partners to address the growing need for K-12 (kindergarten through high school) climate change teaching and learning in schools. Solving the climate crisis requires creating climate champions of all ages — people who are educated on climate science, passionate about addressing the climate crisis, and engaged in concrete efforts to “bend the curve” of global warming via all sectors of our society.
The pilot project, funded by a grant from the Social Sciences Division at UC San Diego, seeks to increase K-12 climate literacy, impact public discourse on climate crisis issues, and stimulate community engagement and conservation action. Climate Champions is a collaboration among CREATE, Birch Aquarium at Scripps, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the UC San Diego Community Station EarthLab, Social Sciences Division and the San Diego County Office of Education. Dr. Nan Renner, research associate at CREATE, senior director of Learning Design and Innovation for Birch Aquarium at Scripps, and steering committee member for the UC-CSU Environmental and Climate Change Literacy Project and Summit (ECCLPS), is the project leader.
A 2019 NPR/Ipsos survey found a significant percent of California parents with K-12 children (84 %) and the majority of California K-12 teachers (86%) believe climate change should be taught in school. Yet many teachers (55%) say they do not teach or discuss climate change with their students, Renner noted.
“There’s a lot of climate curriculum out there, but the key is what actually happens in classrooms and communities,” Renner said. “We aim to address the needs of teachers and students by adapting existing climate education resources and filling gaps with help from UC San Diego researchers. With a local focus, we will make the global climate crisis relevant to local communities. We will build on this pilot project to expand the network of climate champion teachers and students, adding to the growing movement to address the existential threat posed by the climate crisis. Collective action and human creativity fuel our hope.”
Dr. Ludka had the privilege of working with the Climate Champions initiative.
Climate Science Reports
Dr. Ludka was a reviewer for the IPCC 6th Assessment, a co-author for the San Diego Regional Report of the 4th California Climate Assessment, and used the Rising Seas in California Report while working at the California Coastal Commission.
Header Photo: Punta San Jacinto, Baja California, Mexico