When I think about the climate, I feel anger.
Under the anger, frustration. Under that, disappointment.
And beneath all of it, sadness.
RELI 230 · Journal Prompt #2 · Name Your Feelings
Anger is what love feels like when the thing it loves is being hurt.
The Climate Emotions Wheel asks one question: what are you feeling, right now? My answer was not one feeling but eight, pulling in different directions, all true at once. Choose one.
My anger has other names: frustration, disappointment. It rises when I watch people treat the world carelessly, and when I think about where that carelessness leads.
If nothing changes, up to half of all species may face extinction by 2100. A mass extinction would not stop with the animals. It would reach our fields, our harvests, our food. And still, so many people choose not to help, and many don't even realize what they are doing.
What frustrates me most is the silence. People aren't interested. No one talks about it. There is an elephant in the room, and everyone has learned to look past it.
Up to 50% of species may face extinction by 2100.
Source: What is Missing?
But I know where this anger comes from. It comes from love: for my hometown, for Kyrchyn, for my country, for a small lake fifteen minutes from campus. For all of it. Anger is what love feels like when the thing it loves is being harmed.
Under the anger is something quieter, and heavier. Sadness. I know what is happening. I can see it clearly. And I feel I can't change it. I can't even touch it.
We are the smartest species that has ever lived. And no species in the history of the Earth has done more harm.
Fifteen minutes from PLU.
When I feel empty, I go to American Lake. It belongs to everyone. On hot days people swim, fish and train along the shore, and the whole community has something to be glad about.
It also shows what we do to the places that give us joy. One day I watched a drunk couple throw a glass bottle into the water. I still don't understand why. That glass will lie on the lakebed for hundreds of years, maybe thousands. Every piece like it makes the lake a little harder to keep clean.
What stayed with me was that they were young. My generation: the ones who are supposed to keep this planet safe, healthy and clean. Protecting the Earth is our duty, and watching them care so little made me sad.
Sadness is not the only thing I feel. People give me something too: inspiration, and even a kind of power.
My brother's friend was an extraordinary diver. In his free time he went down to the bottom of the lake to bring up trash. It was hard work, and dangerous. For a long time I didn't understand it. Why risk your life for something so small?
It wasn't small. People watched him, and they were moved. I was moved. He showed me how much one person can do, and how far one person's good can spread.
I want to be that kind of person: someone people look up to, someone who makes them want to do good.
Once a feeling has a name, it can finally go somewhere.
My feelings don't stay inside me. They turn into action. My friends and I clean up parks, fields and open spaces. We read, we learn, and we talk to people about what is happening. Every time, it helps. Every time, I am reminded that I am not the only one who sees it.
I am not the only one.
Suzanne Crawford O'Brien, Climate Anxiety and Spiritual Resilience, Chapter 2: “Retrain your brain,” and the Climate Emotions Wheel
Naming our feelings, and putting them into words, images, music or action, calms the brain's alarm. Our emotions are some of our best data: they show us what we truly care about.
My anger is data. It points straight at what I love: my hometown, Kyrchyn, my country, American Lake.
The chapter explains why people struggle to face climate change: we downplay how immediate the threat is, our brains misread the facts in predictable ways, and we want to believe we are good people in a community of good people.
I see this every day. People don't talk about it. The elephant stays in the room, and my frustration grows out of that silence.
People who feel climate distress are more likely to take climate action. Grief and anxiety, when they are faced and given shape, become part of the work.
That is exactly what happens to me. My feelings turn into cleanups, reading and conversations. And the diver showed me how far one person's action can reach.
With surprising regularity I have the same dream. It's as if it's trying to make me go back to those bitterly dear places where my grandfather's house once stood. When I see the log walls, darkened by time, and the half-open door into the dark entryway, I start to feel a deep longing. I wait and can't wait for that dream, where I see myself as a child again and feel happy once more.
Translated from Russian.