Solastalgia
Isaias Hernandez,
Environmental Educator and Founder of QueerBrownVegan
As people increasingly experience drought, rising sea levels, hurricanes, and wildfires as a result of the climate crisis, they’re not only losing their environment - they’re also losing cultural landmarks, identity, and practices. The term solastalgia has emerged to describe the feelings of anxiety and sorrow that follow immediate impacts to our environments.
When environments are altered, it affects the person not only through a physical level (food insecurity, forced migration) but a psychological level, often manifesting as stress, grief, and depression. Solastalgia, coined by Glenn Albrecht in 2003, looked into the psychological impacts of continuously seeing our environments change around us in ways we find distressing.
Communities throughout the world that rely on farm-to-table food systems or subsistence farming are more prone to experience solastalgia as their source of life is through the land. Solastalgia helps highlight that human emotions are a reflection of the status of the environment, and human wellbeing is directly tied to the planet’s prosperity.
When environments are altered, it affects the person not only through a physical level (food insecurity, forced migration) but a psychological level, often manifesting as stress, grief, and depression. Solastalgia, coined by Glenn Albrecht in 2003, looked into the psychological impacts of continuously seeing our environments change around us in ways we find distressing.
Communities throughout the world that rely on farm-to-table food systems or subsistence farming are more prone to experience solastalgia as their source of life is through the land. Solastalgia helps highlight that human emotions are a reflection of the status of the environment, and human wellbeing is directly tied to the planet’s prosperity.
(1) Glen Albrecht, Solastalgia: the distress caused by environmental change
(2) Handbook of Climate Psychology: What is Solastalgia?
(3) Environment Change, Distress & Human Emotion Solastalgia
(4) Force of Nature, Get to Grips with Grief
(2) Handbook of Climate Psychology: What is Solastalgia?
(3) Environment Change, Distress & Human Emotion Solastalgia
(4) Force of Nature, Get to Grips with Grief
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287 Park Avenue South, Suite 700
New York, NY 10010
United States
hello@climatewords.org
+1 (332) 900-7880
Climate Words is fiscally sponsored by Ecologistics, Inc. (EIN 27-2116150), a non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation.
© 2023, Climate Words, Inc. All rights reserved.
