The Environmental Digest is a short daily newsletter that delivers the hottest climate change news directly to your inbox.
A note from the author:
Today’s newsletter is mainly dedicated to the coverage of tragic natural disasters that have hit various parts of the world. We understand that news like that can be upsetting and daunting to many and we would like to recommend taking them in one article at the time. We hope that our newsletters will be filled with more good than bad in the future.
Living in the vast, fast-paced, and changing world, balancing life and the overwhelming amount of negative and unfortunate news can be challenging. If you are someone who struggles with climate change anxiety, please refer to these set of guidelines and advice from Harvard Health.
What is Climate Anxiety?
Climate anxiety, or eco-anxiety, is distress related to worries about the dangerous effects of climate change fueled by uncertainty about the future.
It is often accompanied by feelings of grief, anger, guilt, and shame, which in turn can affect mood, behavior, and thinking.
According to a survey by the American Psychological Association, more than two-thirds of Americans experience some climate anxiety. A study published by The Lancet found that 84% of children and young adults ages 16-25 are at least moderately worried about climate change, and 59% are very or extremely worried. Understandably, children and young adults will disproportionately suffer the consequences of environmental changes in the future.
How to Manage Climate Anxiety?
Allow yourself to feel
"It can be denial at first, and then you may have some fear and anger and then sadness," says Phoenix Smith, an ecotherapist who works with anxiety related to climate change.
They say that climate change emotions can feel like grieving. When you really sit with that degree of loss, you may feel fear or despair. Those feelings are a normal response to this crisis, they say, and you can't just inject optimism and brush aside your negative feelings.
So first just let yourself feel all the feelings. They are complex and intense, but only by recognizing them can you begin to address them.
Find a way to reset and calm your central nervous system
Play your favorite music, meditate, and participate in mindfulness practices to ground yourself in the present moment. Breathing exercises and physical exercise even as minor as going on a walk can be a useful distraction.
Use these emotions to connect with other people and talk
Maybe you can reset on your own, but you may need to talk to someone. Talk to a friend or a colleague, but also drop a comment under this newsletter or start a conversation in the notes and tag us! We are always here to listen, validate, and understand. If you can find a therapist, look out for something called climate-aware therapy. They won't tell you that feeling despair about the climate crisis means you're engaging in catastrophic thinking.
Channel your frustrations with community driven help
Climate change can disproportionately affect low-income neighborhoods and community of color. You don't have to disavow these more hopeless emotions, you can tap into other more energizing feelings too per NPR.
There have been major institutional failures that have caused climate change. If that makes you furious, you can use that rage as a starting point to taking action.
Maybe that means helping people in your community who are dealing with high food prices or unaffordable housing. Britt Wray is the author of Gen Dread, a newsletter about staying sane and finding purpose in the climate crisis, suggests signing up for a mutual aid network to do things like deliver groceries to those in need.
Remembering and recreating family traditions, especially around nature, can be a healing way to deal with fear around the climate crisis.
We, at the Environmental Digest, are always trying to incorporate these practices into our daily writing and we hope they can be helpful to you too.
Environmental Disaster
Libya Storm Claims 2,000 Lives, With Thousands More Missing
A frenetic search for survivors — or bodies — ensued in eastern Libya on Tuesday after a Mediterranean storm lashed the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries member’s shores, with dams collapsing and triggering floods that killed at least 2,300, almost all in one city per Bloomberg.
The toll, which seemed poised to rise given the number of missing people, appears to be the result of two dams bursting after excessive rainfall. Flooding reportedly covered entire areas in Derna, which sits about 290 kilometers east of Benghazi. There was also severe damage in Benghazi, Sousse and Al-Bayda, according to reports.
Libya’s situation “is the very definition of a disaster,” Othman Abdel-Jaleel, the health minister said in a clip carried by the TV station. “The corpses are still scattered” in various hospitals awaiting identification. He said that the water levels had reached the fourth and fifth floors of some buildings in Derna.
Libya’s envoy for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies told reporters in Geneva that 10,000 people were missing, according to the Associated Press.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said his country, which sits on Libya’s eastern border, would provide assistance and offer its military to help with search and rescue efforts.
Environmental Disaster
Frustrating Search and Rescue in Morocco Amid Political Turmoil
The earthquake with a magnitude of at least 6.8 hit Morocco on Friday night. The shockwave was centered in the High Atlas Mountains not far from the major city of Marrakesh. It was the most powerful to strike that area in at least a century, flattening fragile mud brick houses in the poor, rural villages that were the hardest hit.
Morocco’s government has drawn some criticism for what has been seen as a slow response and a seeming reluctance to accept a myriad of offers to send in expert international teams and aid.
King Mohammad VI, who makes decisions on all the most important matters of state in Morocco, and other authorities have released little information since the earthquake struck, updating casualty figures infrequently and making few public statements.
Ordinary Moroccans, many of them frustrated at the government’s response, have begun their own makeshift relief efforts to send donated aid. On Tuesday morning, the roads winding through the Atlas Mountains remained largely empty of rescue crews, but civilian vehicles loaded with water, food and blankets sped toward the devastation.
“The streets have collapsed,” said Erez Gollan, an Israeli paramedic with the relief group United Hatzalah, who was surveying the damage in the mountainous region southeast of Marrakesh that was hard-hit. “Buildings of clay and stone have been wiped out, people are living in the streets — these are sights that are difficult to comprehend,” he added.
In another stricken area of southern Morocco around the city of Taroudant, cars and trucks packed with supplies prepared to begin the ascent into the mountains from a gas station. The impromptu aid convoy has been going nonstop since Saturday, residents said.
“People from all over Morocco have come to help,” said Said Boukhlik, a local resident.
Environment and Disaster
Typhoon Haikui Causes Major Flooding in Hong Kong
Torrential rains have pounded southern China, flooding low-lying homes and roads, choking expressways, and prompting officials to suspend classes while the record-breaking storms lingered over the region per NYT.
By Friday morning, Shenzhen, a southern Chinese commercial city next to Hong Kong, had endured nearly eight inches of rain overnight, in the most intense downpour since records began in 1952, according to the city’s official news service.
Hong Kong was hit by about six inches of rainfall in several hours. The Hong Kong Observatory headquarters recorded over six inches in just one hour, the most in that spot since its records began in 1884, according to the South China Morning Post.
The rainstorms were caused by remnants of Typhoon Haikui, which had been grinding along the Chinese coast until striking the densely populated tip of Guangdong Province, home to much of China’s manufacturing and commerce.
Rescue services in Shenzhen evacuated or rescued over 3,000 people from flood dangers, the city’s authorities said. Officials also announced that water would be released from a nearby dam in the early hours of Friday to relieve pressure on it, and warned residents downstream to stay away from swollen rivers. But in an apparent effort to ease the public’s concerns, the city government said the dam release would be limited.
Heavy rains also pounded the coast of Fujian Province in China’s southeast, forcing around 300,000 residents to move to safer ground, according to official estimates.
Classes were suspended in Hong Kong, Shenzhen and other parts of southern China on Friday. But across the region, some people returned to work, despite transit disruptions.