I'm a climatejustice activist since 2019 and haven't really had anything like climate anxiety until recently.

I'm not sure if it's because I had to deal with a severe depression until the beginning of this year and didn't have it in me to worry about anything else too, or because shit is getting way worse in most parts of the world right now. Probably both.

I can't really describe, what I'm feeling. I guess "despair" might describe it best.

In 2019, in many countries, not a single political party dared to openly claim that they don't give a shit about the climate. Now it's almost the opposite. Almost all parties are anti science, anti future, anti democracy and anti human rights and they believe, that will get people to vote for them. They are right, unless there is a party more to the right than them. Then they just push voters to that party.

I'm worried because the acceptance for fascism grows and grows, while the acceptance for climate justice fades away.

I'm not hopeless - I don't think we can afford that (but being too hopeful neither). I'm not going to stop fighting. I just don't know which fight to pick. Where can I use my energy effectively to make a change?

#ClimateAnxiety #doomerism #ClimateJustice #ClimateDespair #democracy #HumanRights #activism #voting #elections #fascism #hope #hopelessness

I have an essay in the first-ever issue of Symphonies of the Imagination magazine, titled "Imagining Differently In Order to Act, Or Not Another Anti-Apocalypse Speech".

Check it out: http://symphoniesofimagination.com/issue1

#solarpunk #nonfiction #article #magazine #SymphoniesOfImagination #ImaginativeExpansion #Apocalypticism #Apocalypse #doomerism #ClimateHope #HowTo #Eschatology #Expectation #Futurism #ClimateDespair #ClimateAnxiety #FaithInHumanity #writing

Have you read @xtinadlr 's blog post from last month? Because this month's blog post from @arielkroon is kind of a companion piece.

CW in that the two pieces deal with some heavy topics (grief, despair, American politics...) and might not be everyone's cup of tea. But if you have the headspace and spoons for it, here's the link:

https://www.solarpunkpresents.com/blog/hope-for-the-present-not-the-future

Note from Ariel: I hope I am not too naive or blasé in tone here; the last thing I want to do is offend anyone with what I've written. Let me know what you think in the comments - should I dial it back?

#hopepunk #hope #solarpunk #despair #politics #AmericanPolitics #CanadianPolitics #GermanPolitics #ClimateChange #ClimateGrief #ClimateDespair #Poetry #apocalypse #persistence

From book #ActiveHope by #JoannaMacy & #ChrisJohnstone on #ClimateDespair & Hope.

Where are you? Business as Usual- denial/not doing your part to slow down damage; The Great Unraveling, you recognize & acknowledge there’s a problem re the natural world & climate crisis, widening inequality, dis & Misinformation re what’s going on; or The Great Turning—turning towards raising awareness & engaging in behaviors that support the flourishing of life.
I’m moving toward The Great Turning. Join me?

Join me in reading #ActiveHope by #JoannaMacy & #ChrisJohnstone

If there’s interest, I’ll offer a free on going Zoom group to explore the book and work with #ClimateDespair (I’m American on the east coast but I’ll be sensitive to time zones).

This will not be a (small) group to debate #ClimateChange but rather how to be a okay and PRACTICE active hope, despite the despairing circumstances, in the context that climate change is real & humanity IS in part creating this mess.

In climate conversations lately I feel a bit like Arwen in her first appearance in Fellowship of the Ring, telling Frodo not to give in to the spreading evil infection of the Morgul blade as she works furiously with Aragorn and Sam to make a poultice out of kingsfoil.

Trying to tell people in the midst of climate catastrophe not to give in to despair and doomerism because it will consume their soul as I get my friends and their friends to apply plants to stop the poison... #ClimateDespair

I'm devastated! One of my favorite trees in my little patch of #PacificNorthwest #forest just fell. 😭 [sobbing emoji]

It's hard to get a sense of the scale in photos, but this was a huge, straight, tall, #WesternHemlock #tree. It was home to so many critters. I've sat under it and had squirrels yell at me and bats swoop around my head so many times. I knew its position was precarious, being right on the edge of a steep ravine cut by a seasonal creek, but being near the creek is part of what made it a great place to sit (and probably for the animals, part of what made it a great place to live).

I had hoped that the roots would be strong enough to hold it as long as it was alive, but with the amount of rain we've gotten and the wildly fast winds, I guess it was too much.

I know trees fall, that's just part of it, but I find it difficult not get into a cycle of #ClimateDespair when things like this happen. Is #ClimateChaos going to bring more of these irregular, heavy rains instead of our usual consistent, gentler rain, making more trees die and/or fall, furthering the disaster?

Maybe I'm unreasonable, but I just get really bummed out when things happen to trees.