Why We Need to Talk About Climate Anxiety and Spiritual Resilience

And how comparative religions and Indigenous studies can help

Welcome to Climate Anxiety and Spiritual Resilience, a new newsletter series that seeks to bring comparative religions and Indigenous studies into conversation with the psychology of climate anxiety and eco-grief.

As most of us are well aware, 2023 was the hottest summer on record.

Smoke from wildfires choked cities–not just in the west, but along the North American eastern seaboard. Images of receding glaciers and shrinking polar ice caps accompanied warnings of floods, stronger hurricanes, and dire predictions of how the changing climate may (at the very least) impact our individual finances and (at worst) lead to total ecological collapse.

While this moment is dire, it’s important to note that there is a growing consensus among climate experts that we already know what we need to do, and that we already have the technology in hand to prevent the worst. What we lack, they say, is political will. In a word, we’re stuck. 

Psychologists specializing in climate anxiety have made a compelling case that our “stuckness” has everything to do with the sheer scope and emotional overwhelm of the problem: stung by grief, despair, and a sense of powerlessness, most of us are simply unable to respond. At the same time, those already in the trenches working to avert the worst of climate related disasters struggle with burnout, wearied by slow progress and unrelenting bad news. 

Twenty years ago, I had to convince my university students that climate change was a real threat. Today, I have to teach them that there’s good reason to have hope for their future.

Seeing my students’ growing anxiety reflected in countless conversations with neighbors, colleagues, and friends, I’ve become increasingly convinced that the work I do as a professor of comparative religions and Indigenous studies ought to be part of this conversation. This is true both because wisdom traditions can challenge our assumptions about the nature of the world and our relationship to it, and because they show us models for building resilient communities committed to ecological justice.

Systems theorist and Buddhist studies scholar Joanna Macy and physician Chris Johnstone have famously argued in their book Active Hope that this is a moment when we must choose between three competing stories. First, we can continue with business as usual—which will doom as all. Second, we can give in to despair, concluding that our ecosystems are destined to fail and our civilization to collapse—what they call the Great Unraveling. Or, we can choose to participate in a story of the Great Turning, in which we all play a part in transforming our world into one that is more just and more sustainable.¹

I know which path I’m going to choose. (Mt. Baker Wilderness, photo by the author)

I’m convinced that the strength to do that work will come from transformative, spiritual resilience. And that requires finding a way to get unstuck: to move through our profound anxiety and grief and into action, finding sources of renewal and purpose that will carry us through the hard times ahead.

As Terry Tempest Williams put it in an interview with NPR on October 8, 2023: “Do we have the courage to understand that this is not just an ecological crisis or a political crisis or even an economic crisis? Because it is all of those things, but at its heart, it is a spiritual crisis.”²

Or, as Rainn Wilson writes in his (really quite wonderful) book Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution: Issues like climate change and global health “don’t have an immediate political solution because, as much as they might appear to be at a first glance, the problems themselves are not essentially political. They have only a spiritual cure, because when you examine them deeply, the issues, imbalances, and disease are actually spiritual in nature. As long as we have a competitive, antagonistic, self-centered way of interacting with each other, we will never be able to overcome any of these toxic, life-threatening pandemics.”³

A spiritual crisis requires that we consider spiritual solutions, and it’s my hope that we can begin reflecting on some of those solutions here. We’ll consider guidance from Indigenous educators and community leaders and from a diversity of religious traditions for growing through grief, understanding what we really love, centering justice, and cultivating courage and hope. As many of these stories will show, that kind of work happens when we are grounded in mindful presence, guided by an understanding of the interconnected nature of life, and inspired by a commitment to repair the damage of settler colonialism.  

Consider the words of Fawn Sharp, Quinault tribal member and current President of the National Congress of American Indians:

“So our goal and objective is just to be true to Creator’s planning and calling for our life. to resist the temptation to become apathetic or negative, and just be true to our own purpose. Because we are all here by design, and with a good heart and good intentions we can constantly seek each day the wisdom and guidance we need… We have to face each day with prayer and seeking guidance because this crisis truly does exceed the scope of human understanding. But so do the solutions… Ultimately the solution to the crisis lies in our values.”⁴

A new morning at Donemark, near Bantry, Co. Cork, Ireland

In the weeks and months to come, I’ll be reaching out to introduce you to ideas, compelling authors and teachers, and stories of communities doing remarkable things. These are efforts guided by spiritual principles and sacred teachings, rooted in justice, and committed to doing the transformative work of deconstructing the extractive economies of settler colonialism, and reconstructing a more life-giving world.

I hope you’ll join us! 

1. Joann Macy and Chris Johnstone, Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re In With Unexpected Resilience and Creative Power (New World Library, 2022).

2. “Her antidote for ‘climate grief’ and a shrinking Great Salt Lake? Don’t look away,” All Things Considered. October 8, 2023.

3. Rainn Wilson, Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution (Hatchett, 2024).

4. Interview with Fawn Sharp, We Are the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices From Turtle Island (The New Press, 2022).