The personal, the political and the paranoid

Snowflakes may continue to melt even now Brexit is 'lost'. As predicted here, climate change is becoming the new abstract cause celebre of the npb, and this one is satisfyingly long-lived enough to provde virtue-signalling for years.It has a moral panic-like quality of joining up so many emotional issues -- generational and cultural politics, sentimentality towards [cuddly] animals and 'Nature', lots of opportunities to say they told us so. Odd bits include a new admiration for 'science' which is positive, if probably pretty shallow, but emotional commitments seem to drive it.

With inevitable personal consequences. The Grd reports:

‘Overwhelming and terrifying’: the rise of climate anxiety

Experts concerned young people’s mental health particularly hit by reality of the climate crisis

Over the past few weeks Clover Hogan has found herself crying during the day and waking up at night gripped by panic...The bushfires ravaging her homeland over the past few weeks have taken their toll....her lowest point came when she heard about the death of half a billion [presumably cuddly ones unless she mourned malarial mosquitoes?] animals incinerated as the fires swept through the bush. “That was the moment where I felt my heart cleave into two pieces. I felt absolutely distraught.” [me,me, me]

Psychologists warn that the impact can be debilitating for the growing number of people overwhelmed by the scientific reality [only socially constructed, surely?] of ecological breakdown and for those who have lived through traumatic climate events, often on the climate frontline in the global south..

Those actually seem to be two kinds of victim though -- real and vicarious? Vicarious victimhood only seems to increase neediness:

[vicarious victims] felt that [the crisis] was bigger than their capacity to enact meaningful change,” [an" expert"] said. “The consequences of this can be pretty dire – anxiety, burnout and a sort of professional paralysis.”

Activist commitment to moral causes at the personal level is almost always bound to exceed the actual capacity to change, of course, and any activist needs to grasp that. Must be hard if you have an overweening moral superiority and sense of entitlement, of course. 

Given the stance of most primary schools I know, it is no surprise to find that:

worrying levels of environment-related stress and anxiety [have increased] in much younger children...My own daughter was just six when she came to me and said: ‘Daddy, are we winning the war against climate change?' [and what was your reply, Daddy?]

The answer doubtless seems to be more stunts to turn plastic cups into 'art', go on crocodilian demos with hand-made placards, and make an i-Phone video where the face of a chimpanzee morphs into a globe:

parents should talk to their children about their concerns and help them feel empowered to take action – however small – that can make a difference [a contradiction here, surely?] ...the cure to climate anxiety is the same as the cure for climate change – action. It is about getting out and doing something that helps. [Even if it is only symbolic, and politically pointless?]

 To no real surprise, the psychologist quoted had:

set up Force of Nature, an initiative aimed at helping young people realise their potential to create change...that helps them navigate their anxiety and realise their potential to get involved, take action and make a stand.

Again classically, it is all one struggle:

In the global south, increasingly intense storms, wildfires, droughts and heatwaves have left their mark not just physically but also on the mental wellbeing of millions of people...“The physical impacts related to extreme weather, food shortages and conflict are intertwined with the additional burden of mental health impacts and it is these psychologists are particularly concerned about.”...Psychologists are ready and willing to help [for free?] countries protect the health and wellbeing of their citizens

Victims might even include those same heroic psychologists:

[A spokesperson for another group of psychologists] specialising in climate anxiety – said he and his colleagues were not immune from the psychological impacts of the crisis...“This is such a universal thing that [we] have all been through our own set of climate-related grief and despair, and we talk about riding the wave between hope and despair … it is absolutely as real for us as it is for anyone else.” [so -- soft pyschotherapist heal thyself?]

The real issue is that the npb can see no way to deal with new global risks in the same way they have dealt with other more localised risks -- by reassuring fantasy, social distancing,  talking or buying their way out.This is what fuels the panic. It's probably the same with the current coverage of the new corona flu virus [definitely not cuddly]: it might not care whether you can bullshit about Lacan.

They have also been demoralised hugely by their failure to talk their way past Brexit.