I have tried to keep my eco-anxiety at bay, to box it into my working life. But every month this becomes more difficult. The rising sense of panic I feel is entirely rational; we should all be feeling it. But we can't live with it through every hour of every day.
Interpretation
Eco-anxiety is a natural response to environmental crises, but it's important to manage it.
In this quote, George Monbiot expresses his struggle with eco-anxiety, highlighting the tension between acknowledging the urgency of environmental issues and the need to maintain a semblance of normalcy in daily life. He articulates a common emotional response to the reality of climate change and ecological destruction, emphasizing that while feeling anxious about the state of the planet is rational, it is unsustainable to let that anxiety dominate our lives continuously.
In practice
This quote can be shared at environmental rallies to acknowledge the emotional burden of climate change.
The notions that nature exists to serve us; that its value consists of the instrumental benefits we can extract; that this value can be measured in cash terms; and that what can't be measured does not matter, have proved lethal to the rest of life on Earth.
I believe that anyone who wants to stand in a national election should receive a course of psychotherapy. Completing the course should be a qualification for office. This wouldn't change the behaviour of psychopaths, but it might prevent some people who exercise power from imposing their own deep wounds on others.
I became an environmentalist because I love the living world, but I spend much of my life thinking about electricity, industrial processes and civil engineering.
Places that have become agricultural deserts, trashed by giant corporations, could be reforested, drawing carbon dioxide from the air on a vast scale. The ecosystems of land and sea could recover, not just in pockets but across great tracts of the planet.
Never underestimate the power of intrinsic values. They inspire every struggle for a better world.
Why is it so easy to save the banks - but so hard to save the biosphere?
Even in the stifling bosom of the town,_x000D_ _x000D_ A garden, in which nothing thrives, has charms_x000D_ _x000D_ That soothes the rich possessor; much consol'd,_x000D_ _x000D_ That here and there some sprigs of mournful mint,_x000D_ _x000D_ Or nightshade, or valerian, grace the well_x000D_ _x000D_ He cultivates.
For better or worse, zoos are how most people come to know big or exotic animals. Few will ever see wild penguins sledding downhill to sea on their bellies, giant pandas holding bamboo lollipops in China or tree porcupines in the Canadian Rockies, balled up like giant pine cones.
Nature does have manure and she does have roots as well as blossoms, and you can't hate the manure and blame the roots for not being blossoms.
Meditate, oft. Separate thyself for a season from the cares of the world. Get close to nature and learn from the lowliest of that which manifests in nature, in the earth; in the birds, in the trees, in the grass, in the flowers, in the bees; that the life of each is a manifesting, is a song of glory to its Maker. And do thou likewise!
The grass as bristly and stout as chives and me wondering when the ground will break and me wondering how anything fragile survives
April ... hath put a spirit of youth in everything.
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