The Unbearable Whiteness of Climate Anxiety

[Metaphor]

The climate movement is ascendant, and it has become common to see climate change as a social justice issue. Climate change and its effects—pandemics, pollution, natural disasters—are not universally or uniformly felt: the people and communities suffering most are disproportionately Black, Indigenous and people of color. It is no surprise then that U.S. surveys show that these are the communities most concerned about climate change.

One year ago, I published a book called A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety. Since its publication, I have been struck by the fact that those responding to the concept of climate anxiety are overwhelmingly white. Indeed, these climate anxiety circles are even whiter than the environmental circles I’ve been in for decades.

"Responding to the concept of climate anxiety". What does that mean? Taking an interest in the concept, or suffering from it? I notice the author does not cite evidence for her 'even whiter' comment. I also notice that the minority communities show the 'most concern' about climate change. When white people do it, it is an anxiety disorder.

Today, a year into the pandemic, after the murder of George Floyd and the protests that followed, and the attack on the U.S. Capitol, I am deeply concerned about the racial implications of climate anxiety. If people of color are more concerned about climate change than white people, why is the interest in climate anxiety so white? Is climate anxiety a form of white fragility or even racial anxiety? Put another way, is climate anxiety just code for white people wishing to hold onto their way of life or get “back to normal,” to the comforts of their privilege?

I'm surprised the author even has to ask these questions. If the question is in some way "are white people doing something wrong", the answer is, obviously, "yes".

The white response to climate change is literally suffocating to people of color. Climate anxiety can operate like white fragility, sucking up all the oxygen in the room and devoting resources toward appeasing the dominant group. As climate refugees are framed as a climate security threat, will the climate-anxious recognize their role in displacing people from around the globe? Will they be able to see their own fates tied to the fates of the dispossessed? Or will they hoard resources, limit the rights of the most affected and seek to save only their own, deluded that this xenophobic strategy will save them? How can we make sure that climate anxiety is harnessed for climate justice?

And climate panic can be as dangerous as it is galvanizing. Dealing with feelings of climate anxiety will require the existential tools I provided in A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety, but it will also require careful attention to extremism and climate zealotry. We can’t fight climate change with more racism. Climate anxiety must be directed toward addressing the ways that racism manifests as environmental trauma and vice versa—how environmentalism manifests as racialized violence. We need to channel grief toward collective liberation.

If Dr Ray has an effective strategy for reducing the influence of the mostly white Extinction Rebellion activists who glue themselves onto public transport, I don't mind that she is such a white guilt liberal who even has white guilt about her white anxiety.

EDIT: full article at 'Scientific' American
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-unbearable-whiteness-of-climate-anxiety/

 

[DrZoidberg]

I agree completely. But it's not whiteness. It's middle-class. Sure, being white is associated with being middle-class (in the west). But I think that's what's going on.

People who are middle-class have always been anxious about maintaining their status. And will use whatever methods they can to signal they belong. Since the middle-class have their status through education and knowledge, rather than money and power, that's how they can signal their status. Displays of wealth is something for the poor or aristocracy.

I'd argue that a lot of climate activists are disingenuous. It's all about signaling being middle-class.

The Extinction Rebellion people are the most vile of these. I know plenty of these guys and boy does it annoy me. I think they only act to hurt the cause. Because to these people it seems to be nothing a horse they can get up on, so they get to look down on people.

It's the same kind of people who shout slogans against racism but become uncomfortable when a black person moves into their neighborhood.

They're activists against climate change but rarely have any arguments for why they should be. A lot of these guys are total bimbos. I have met my fair share.

 

[Jarhyn]

I agree completely. But it's not whiteness. It's middle-class. Sure, being white is associated with being middle-class (in the west). But I think that's what's going on.

People who are middle-class have always been anxious about maintaining their status. And will use whatever methods they can to signal they belong. Since the middle-class have their status through education and knowledge, rather than money and power, that's how they can signal their status. Displays of wealth is something for the poor or aristocracy.

I'd argue that a lot of climate activists are disingenuous. It's all about signaling being middle-class.

The Extinction Rebellion people are the most vile of these. I know plenty of these guys and boy does it annoy me. I think they only act to hurt the cause. Because to these people it seems to be nothing a horse they can get up on, so they get to look down on people.

It's the same kind of people who shout slogans against racism but become uncomfortable when a black person moves into their neighborhood.

They're activists against climate change but rarely have any arguments for why they should be. A lot of these guys are total bimbos. I have met my fair share.

So, vaguely related... In Minneapolis, there's a fairly common sticker tag that gets put up from earthprotector(dot)org.

The actual website this connects toni's ridiculous: claims of 5g giving cancer, and irrational fears of EM radiation, antivaxx, anti-mask... I sincerely can't tell if it's a Poe who is using "earth protector" the same way Landover uses "Baptist" or whether this is par for the course for "earth protectors" in general.

To me it comes down to the idea that when we all know there is a problem, we all feel like each of us must be part of the solution, even though realistically, we cannot be.

So each of us loudly screams IM HELPING! Even if there is nothing we individually can do to meaningfully help. And then the whole effort is hurt by this misplaced feeling of needing to assist.

 

[thebeave]

My first thoughts reading that was sorta, "yawn... yet another woke article from some lefty rag going on about the link between racism and <insert random event>, and its all whitey's fault". Then I get to the end, and its from Scientific American. So, now they've been infected by the woke virus?! Or maybe they've been infected for a long time, and I just haven't been keeping up. Oy vey... whose left now?

 

[Elixir]

My first thoughts reading that was sorta, "yawn... yet another woke article from some lefty rag going on about the link between racism and <insert random event>, and its all whitey's fault". Then I get to the end, and its from Scientific American. So, now they've been infected by the woke virus?! Or maybe they've been infected for a long time, and I just haven't been keeping up. Oy vey... whose left now?

Yeah, science (and the rest of reality) has a pronounced leftist bias.
Maybe our society is too far right?
NAH!

 

[DrZoidberg]

I agree completely. But it's not whiteness. It's middle-class. Sure, being white is associated with being middle-class (in the west). But I think that's what's going on.

People who are middle-class have always been anxious about maintaining their status. And will use whatever methods they can to signal they belong. Since the middle-class have their status through education and knowledge, rather than money and power, that's how they can signal their status. Displays of wealth is something for the poor or aristocracy.

I'd argue that a lot of climate activists are disingenuous. It's all about signaling being middle-class.

The Extinction Rebellion people are the most vile of these. I know plenty of these guys and boy does it annoy me. I think they only act to hurt the cause. Because to these people it seems to be nothing a horse they can get up on, so they get to look down on people.

It's the same kind of people who shout slogans against racism but become uncomfortable when a black person moves into their neighborhood.

They're activists against climate change but rarely have any arguments for why they should be. A lot of these guys are total bimbos. I have met my fair share.

So, vaguely related... In Minneapolis, there's a fairly common sticker tag that gets put up from earthprotector(dot)org.

The actual website this connects toni's ridiculous: claims of 5g giving cancer, and irrational fears of EM radiation, antivaxx, anti-mask... I sincerely can't tell if it's a Poe who is using "earth protector" the same way Landover uses "Baptist" or whether this is par for the course for "earth protectors" in general.

To me it comes down to the idea that when we all know there is a problem, we all feel like each of us must be part of the solution, even though realistically, we cannot be.

So each of us loudly screams IM HELPING! Even if there is nothing we individually can do to meaningfully help. And then the whole effort is hurt by this misplaced feeling of needing to assist.

Totally. Don't get me started on all the hysterical arguments for recycling and sorting trash. It's so stupid. Apart from aluminium and the collection of batteries, the rest is all bullshit, with either negligible gains or in some cases negative gains. I get it. It's a super easy way to spot who is a traitor to the cause. All we need to do is when at their place is check how well they sort their trash and we immediately know if they are evil. It's so fun when somebody is hysterical about recycling lives in a house in a suburb and drives a car. Prius of course. It's so absurdly counter productive.

It's the old liberal lie (classic liberalism, not another word for socialism) that anybody can succeed if they just apply themselves and work hard. By extension it's how any problem can be solved. Any failure is always because we didn't try hard enough.

But I don't think 5G and anti vaxxers are necessarily middle-class. I think it's working class people, who identify as middle class, and who are copying the middle-class virtue signaling language in order to come across as middle-class. What sets these people apart from the actual middle-class is that the middle-class actually are educated. I think the middle-class on purpose pick virtue signaling language which is hard to understand in order to keep out the riff raff. It's essentially a method with which to identify who else is middle class to keep the working class in their place. So when people who are middle-class spot the antivaxxers they know that they can go ahead and stop inviting this guy to parties.

But I do think that individuals can do something to help meaningfully. They can vote for a political party that takes science seriously and wants to fund it. It's the ONLY solution to climate change. Anything else is a pipe dream.

I saw a funny article on an analysis of what would happen if we'd all eat locally grown organic food. Within a year 8 billion people would be dead. That was the authors conclusion. So it was never a player in the war on climate change. But it is a way for the middle-class to signal their superiority. If they buy the organic locally produced food, they can drive home to their house with a good conscience and happy in the knowledge that the guests tonight won't judge their moral character negatively.

 

[DrZoidberg]

My first thoughts reading that was sorta, "yawn... yet another woke article from some lefty rag going on about the link between racism and <insert random event>, and its all whitey's fault". Then I get to the end, and its from Scientific American. So, now they've been infected by the woke virus?! Or maybe they've been infected for a long time, and I just haven't been keeping up. Oy vey... whose left now?

I think we have quite the way to go before Woke will grind to a halt.

Internet is killing traditional print journalism. Why read scientific American when you can read the scientific report directly? So they're panicking and have hired a marketing professional.

A marketing friend explained it like this. Internet killed marketing. Today people buy stuff because of recommendations of friends or honest ratings. The ONLY story that still exists for marketers to trumpet on with is Woke. So any brand today will be encouraged by marketing professionals to go woke. If they don't the marketing professionals, who are already redundant, will be out of a job. Scientific American are panicking because they're losing readers, the marketers are panicking because they're losing customers and they will cling to each other in a deadly hug as they spiral down into oblivion.

It's a good explanation. I'm fucked if I have a better one. But oh, god do I want Woke to hurry up and die. It's pure intellectual poison.

 

[Metaphor]

My first thoughts reading that was sorta, "yawn... yet another woke article from some lefty rag going on about the link between racism and <insert random event>, and its all whitey's fault". Then I get to the end, and its from Scientific American. So, now they've been infected by the woke virus?! Or maybe they've been infected for a long time, and I just haven't been keeping up. Oy vey... whose left now?

I think we have quite the way to go before Woke will grind to a halt.

Internet is killing traditional print journalism. Why read scientific American when you can read the scientific report directly? So they're panicking and have hired a marketing professional.

A marketing friend explained it like this. Internet killed marketing. Today people buy stuff because of recommendations of friends or honest ratings. The ONLY story that still exists for marketers to trumpet on with is Woke. So any brand today will be encouraged by marketing professionals to go woke. If they don't the marketing professionals, who are already redundant, will be out of a job. Scientific American are panicking because they're losing readers, the marketers are panicking because they're losing customers and they will cling to each other in a deadly hug as they spiral down into oblivion.

It's a good explanation. I'm fucked if I have a better one. But oh, god do I want Woke to hurry up and die. It's pure intellectual poison.

I don't have a better one either, but to me it implies that either the Wokeness actually appeals to the customer base directly, or the company is afraid of the digital mob if they are not seen to be proactively Woke, but lack the courage to test the market. I haven't lost enough faith in humanity to believe the former so I have to believe the latter.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Authors bloviating in Scientific American aside, people tend to prioritize things that affect their survival. Different groups have different factors to different degrees that affect immediate survival. Different groups also have different awareness of social issues according to different education. Therefore, one would naturally expect to see average group differences in prioritization of the different factors. It is a natural phenomenon that comes from the numbers and has no additional meaning, other than the meanings already known that are concerning--that different groups have different levels of access to information and different privileges. The idea that one group may have different concerns is clearly politically being used as a wedge to separate and divide people and claim usual elitism and wokeness (attacks on people) rather than addressing the science and legitimacy of environmental activism. This is what the Reich wing does--it is what it always does--tries to get people from acting in their own interest and the thread itself is just another example of drama-drama-drama instead of focusing on the crux of the matter, the climate problem itself, because the thread's purpose is incongruent with constructive politics.

 

[repoman]

White American leftists are way into climate change as a thing, which is good. Most white right wingers especially in the US are not just neutral and apathetic about it but search only for tenuous bullshit that "debunks" it.

Not sure what the spread of acceptance and denial along political lines is for other races and nations.

I would consider myself an exception in that while being right wing I am fully convinced of man made climate change because from bottom to top, theory to empirical evidence it IS happening. We are in for a rough millennia long patch with the climate. Bye bye coastlines.

 

[repoman]

The white response to climate change is literally suffocating to people of color. Climate anxiety can operate like white fragility, sucking up all the oxygen in the room and devoting resources toward appeasing the dominant group. As climate refugees are framed as a climate security threat, will the climate-anxious recognize their role in displacing people from around the globe? Will they be able to see their own fates tied to the fates of the dispossessed? Or will they hoard resources, limit the rights of the most affected and seek to save only their own, deluded that this xenophobic strategy will save them? How can we make sure that climate anxiety is harnessed for climate justice?

And climate panic can be as dangerous as it is galvanizing. Dealing with feelings of climate anxiety will require the existential tools I provided in A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety, but it will also require careful attention to extremism and climate zealotry. We can’t fight climate change with more racism. Climate anxiety must be directed toward addressing the ways that racism manifests as environmental trauma and vice versa—how environmentalism manifests as racialized violence. We need to channel grief toward collective liberation.

If the continental USA had sealed, 100% heat and gas trapping dome reaching to space above it (even including a large proportional swath of sealed ocean with it), that kept in all of the greenhouse gases that it has ever emitted...

I would bet that even here in Seattle it would be far along the path to being completely uninhabitable. The midwestern bread basket would be toast.

If the industrial shot callers and politicians and their descendants who worked to keep using fossil fuels and sabotage conservation efforts were given their own biodomes with even higher greenhouse concentrations, they would be killed in a Venusian hellscape.

 

[DrZoidberg]

My first thoughts reading that was sorta, "yawn... yet another woke article from some lefty rag going on about the link between racism and <insert random event>, and its all whitey's fault". Then I get to the end, and its from Scientific American. So, now they've been infected by the woke virus?! Or maybe they've been infected for a long time, and I just haven't been keeping up. Oy vey... whose left now?

I think we have quite the way to go before Woke will grind to a halt.

Internet is killing traditional print journalism. Why read scientific American when you can read the scientific report directly? So they're panicking and have hired a marketing professional.

A marketing friend explained it like this. Internet killed marketing. Today people buy stuff because of recommendations of friends or honest ratings. The ONLY story that still exists for marketers to trumpet on with is Woke. So any brand today will be encouraged by marketing professionals to go woke. If they don't the marketing professionals, who are already redundant, will be out of a job. Scientific American are panicking because they're losing readers, the marketers are panicking because they're losing customers and they will cling to each other in a deadly hug as they spiral down into oblivion.

It's a good explanation. I'm fucked if I have a better one. But oh, god do I want Woke to hurry up and die. It's pure intellectual poison.

I don't have a better one either, but to me it implies that either the Wokeness actually appeals to the customer base directly, or the company is afraid of the digital mob if they are not seen to be proactively Woke, but lack the courage to test the market. I haven't lost enough faith in humanity to believe the former so I have to believe the latter.

The fear of the digital mob is real. But I think the fear is about not being accepted and seen as a good person rather than being cancelled or hate. But it's rife with NIMBYs. The best comment I heard on this is, BLM is by and for white people who don't actually want a change. They just want to be seen as wanting change. I know it's a bit flippant. But I think it has a lot of truth to it.

I never trust anybody who bangs on a big drum for stuff. If someone is against racism or sexism then just don't be racist or sexist. Why the great need to convince the world they aren't? I think the whole woke movement is rotten to the core

 

[Swammerdami]

The article cited in OP is being attacked as "too 'Woke.'" IMO, This attack is off-base.

Ms. Ray is not inventing claims of racism. She is (or claims to be) reporting a curious statistical fact.

Climate change and its effects—pandemics, pollution, natural disasters—are not universally or uniformly felt: the people and communities suffering most are disproportionately Black, Indigenous and people of color. It is no surprise then that U.S. surveys show that these are the communities most concerned about climate change ... [but] those responding to the concept of climate anxiety are overwhelmingly white.

I agree that the message is confusing. I think Ms. Ray should have spent a paragraph or two at the beginning distinguishing between "climate concern" and "climate anxiety." At first they seem almost synonymous, but she uses the terms very differently.

And because her claim is surprising, it would be good to back it up with polling results. Her claim may well be wrong; but without knowing if that's the case, what's with the leap to calls of 'Wokeness'?

Climate anxiety is certainly a problem. Life has always been fragile: it is normal to worry about career, supporting one's family, health and so on. But it is silly to worry excessively about things over which an individual has no control, such as climate change.

My own experience reading message-boards etc. makes me know that climate anxiety is excessive. Ms. Ray provides an interesting example:

In a recent, dramatic example, the gunman of the 2019 El Paso shooting was motivated by despair about the ecological fate of the planet: “My whole life I have been preparing for a future that currently doesn’t exist.” Intense emotions mobilize people, but not always for the good of all life on this planet.

 

[Metaphor]

The article cited in OP is being attacked as "too 'Woke.'" IMO, This attack is off-base.

Ms. Ray is not inventing claims of racism. She is (or claims to be) reporting a curious statistical fact.



I agree that the message is confusing. I think Ms. Ray should have spent a paragraph or two at the beginning distinguishing between "climate concern" and "climate anxiety." At first they seem almost synonymous, but she uses the terms very differently.

And because her claim is surprising, it would be good to back it up with polling results. Her claim may well be wrong; but without knowing if that's the case, what's with the leap to calls of 'Wokeness'?

You cannot have read the article if you do not understand how it is constructed of textbook Woke language and ideas. The author even chastises white people for calling climate change 'the greatest existential threat' as white privilege, because black and brown people have faced ongoing existential threats.

 

[Trausti]

I'm surprised the author even has to ask these questions. If the question is in some way "are white people doing something wrong", the answer is, obviously, "yes".

Yeah. No matter what White people do, they’re always bad with evil motives.

 

[Derec]

I agree that the message is confusing. I think Ms. Ray should have spent a paragraph or two at the beginning distinguishing between "climate concern" and "climate anxiety." At first they seem almost synonymous, but she uses the terms very differently.

"Climate anxiety" == "what white people exhibit"
"Climate concern" =="what so-called 'people of color' exhibit"

Or do you have another idea what different things she might mean by those two terms except just putting different value judgements based on the race of the individual?

Like how according to CRT white people voicing concern over anti-white racism are always dismissed as exhibiting "white fragility" while black people voicing concern even over "microaggressions" are treated as if they have a legitimate concern regardless of if they do or do not.

In a recent, dramatic example, the gunman of the 2019 El Paso shooting was motivated by despair about the ecological fate of the planet: “My whole life I have been preparing for a future that currently doesn’t exist.” Intense emotions mobilize people, but not always for the good of all life on this planet.

And I guess "people of color" never kill anybody for bullshit reasons? Or is it that it automatically becomes understandable if the person is non-white?

 

[DrZoidberg]

The article cited in OP is being attacked as "too 'Woke.'" IMO, This attack is off-base.

Ms. Ray is not inventing claims of racism. She is (or claims to be) reporting a curious statistical fact.

Woke isn't about racism. It's about demonstrating you are more aware of the plight of minorities and important causes. Woke's aren't for anything. They're against those they deem as ignorant. It's a club for the initiated intended to exclude those with the wrong upbringing, education or values. Being demonstrably against racism (while not really being against racism) is just one of the spokes on the wheel of woke.

 

[Jarhyn]

The article cited in OP is being attacked as "too 'Woke.'" IMO, This attack is off-base.

Ms. Ray is not inventing claims of racism. She is (or claims to be) reporting a curious statistical fact.

Woke isn't about racism. It's about demonstrating you are more aware of the plight of minorities and important causes. Woke's aren't for anything. They're against those they deem as ignorant. It's a club for the initiated intended to exclude those with the wrong upbringing, education or values. Being demonstrably against racism (while not really being against racism) is just one of the spokes on the wheel of woke.

To be fair, excluding people who have shitty values is a normal and acceptable action of society.

Usually, and when done correctly, this has the form of "until they stop being shitty."

 

[DrZoidberg]

The article cited in OP is being attacked as "too 'Woke.'" IMO, This attack is off-base.

Ms. Ray is not inventing claims of racism. She is (or claims to be) reporting a curious statistical fact.

Woke isn't about racism. It's about demonstrating you are more aware of the plight of minorities and important causes. Woke's aren't for anything. They're against those they deem as ignorant. It's a club for the initiated intended to exclude those with the wrong upbringing, education or values. Being demonstrably against racism (while not really being against racism) is just one of the spokes on the wheel of woke.

To be fair, excluding people who have shitty values is a normal and acceptable action of society.

Usually, and when done correctly, this has the form of "until they stop being shitty."

The problem is that you've left one thing vague, but which needs to be specific, or your statement is one of two things.

1) To prevent dysfunctional people from having positions of power where they can harm minorities.

2) To prevent people form having unpopular but harmless opinions.

I somehow doubt you are ok with thinking you mean the latter? Woke tells themselves they're doing the former. But they are today mostly doing the latter. The problem with that is that it stifles all debate. It kills all meaningful discussion.

Today people can have perfectly fine values but still get fired from their jobs because they fail to utter the correct virtue signal at an important moment. People can say things in anger and is then ascribed to their entire person.

I'm arguing that today we're mostly doing woke "incorrectly" and we're not solving the problems. If anything only making it worse. I think woke today stinks of Maoism. While I am progressive I think conservatives today have a point in this.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The article cited in OP is being attacked as "too 'Woke.'" IMO, This attack is off-base.

Ms. Ray is not inventing claims of racism. She is (or claims to be) reporting a curious statistical fact.

Woke isn't about racism. It's about demonstrating you are more aware of the plight of minorities and important causes. Woke's aren't for anything. They're against those they deem as ignorant. It's a club for the initiated intended to exclude those with the wrong upbringing, education or values. Being demonstrably against racism (while not really being against racism) is just one of the spokes on the wheel of woke.

"Woke" is the 21st Century Schizoid Strawman.