This document summarizes Dr. Panu Pihkala's presentation on addressing eco-anxiety and providing hope in discussions about climate change and environmental crises. It discusses how people have varying psychological and emotional responses to these issues, from denial and dismissal to feelings of anxiety and distress. Pihkala argues that we must give more attention to these psychological and spiritual dimensions, provide opportunities for people to express their feelings, and wrestle with existential questions about the future. He recommends combining action with hope, humor, and finding balance. The talk also references theological perspectives and literature that can help provide hope in the midst of tragedy.

1. Dr. Panu Pihkala, ECENAssembly, SofiaCenter, Helsinki 2016

2. “And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’
Heard the roar of a wave
that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers
whose hands were a-blazin’
Heard ten thousand whisperin’ and nobody listenin’…”
(Bob Dylan, A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, 1963)

3.  What do you think that the future will be like?
 What do people in general think about it?
Are they happy and optimistic?
 My main thesis: we must given more
attention to views of future, and the
psychological and spiritual dimensions of
”eco-anxiety”

4.  What happens in people’s minds when you
mention words like ”climate change” or
”environmental crisis”?
 We need to recognize that different people
frame climate change in very different ways
 The problem of polarization: some people dismiss
”eco-stuff” right away
 Do people discuss climate change in everyday
life?With their family?At work places?

5.  Instead of not caring, many people care too
much!
And they have to resort to defences.
 Growing psychological research on ”eco-
anxiety”: some people get even physical
symptoms (pain in stomach etc.)
 A huge pastoral challenge
 ->A new motivation for ”ecotheology”: even
if a Christian does not care much about
nature, he/she should care about the anxiety

7.  Running away from the problem
 Addictions, compulsive behavior
 Inventing another enemy,which can then be
fought with one’s own guild (inner group)
 Denial
 Disavowal (more dangerous than denial?)
 Focus on close ones and the near future
(see Sally Weintrobe (ed.), Engaging with Climate
Change, 2013)

8.  Versions of good adaptation:
 Action
 Humor, hope, even joy
 Balance between things that are close and ”far”
 In technical terms:
 responding to psychological vulnerability
 building psychological and existential resilience
▪ Spiritual resilience
 Combination of mitigation and adaptation

9.  Practical recommendations and theological
thoughts
 Some of these things have been done in
certain places
 the need for sharing ”best practices”, for example
in the small groups of this ECEN conference

10.  We need to provide more opportunities for
people to express their feelings and emotions
regarding environmental matters
 In addition to ”What do you think?” and
”What are you doing?” we need to ask more
often ”How do you feel?”

11.  Cf. Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone: Active
Hope
 A Christian leader must provide the Christian
adaptations. Cf. Douglas Christie: The Blue
Sapphire of the Mind

12.  A great help in this is the literature on
environmental education
 ”Affective and existential dimensions”
 David Hicks
 Elin Kelsey
 P. Pihkala (forthcoming)
 Lamentation
 The application of processes of loss and grief
into environment-related loss

14.  We need to wrestle with the ”grand
narratives” regarding the future of the world
 and we need to provide opportunities for
people to do this
 Technological optimism?
 Apocalyptic pessimism?
 ”Futures education”

15.  We need to frame the Christian story as hope
in the midst of tragedy
 Optimism may be difficult, but still there is
hope
 Cf. ”Modes of hoping”, Darren Webb 2007
 Taking the tragic elements seriously helps to:
 Understand the gravity of the situation
(cf.The role of tragic dramas)
 Set personal responsibility in proportion

16. Caspar David Friedrich: Cross in the Mountains, 1807

17.  God’s Grace and Man’s Hope 1949
 Seeks to correct ”social gospel” with
 a more realistic sense of evil
(Reinhold Niebuhr, PaulTillich etc.) and
 more emphasis on the value of the natural world
(process thought, Anglican theology of creation)

18.  1) “Christian hope is sustained by, and
expresses itself in, a reverent grateful love for
the good earth”
 One of the first major treatments of ecological
theology
(see Pihkala, Early Ecotheology and Joseph Sittler,
LITVerlag autumn 2016;
or a short open access article, “Rediscovery of
EarlyTwentieth-Century Ecotheology”,
OpenTheology 2016, 10.1515/opth-2016-0023)

19.  2) “Christian hope is sustained by, and
expresses itself in, the never-ending struggle
for the Good Society”
 3) “Christian hope is sustained by, and
expresses itself in, faith in the kingdom of
God”
 ->A position which is very relevant in times of
climate change

20.  Hope in the midst of tragedy
 Wrestling with the psychological and spiritual
impacts of climate change

21. P. Pihkala:
 ”Environmental Education After Sustainability:
Hope in the Midst ofTragedy”, Global Discourse
2017
 “The Pastoral Challenge of the Environmental
Crisis: Environmental Anxiety and Lutheran
‘Eco-Reformation’”, Dialog Summer 2016
(10.1111/dial.12239)

22.  The psychology of climate change:
 George Marshall: Don’t EvenThink About It (2014)
 Per Espen Stoknes: WhatWeThink AboutWhen we
Try Not toThink About GlobalWarming (2015)
 Cf. Clive Hamilton
 Theological literature on the anthropocene
 Michael Northcott, Sigurd Bergmann
 Alistair McIntosh

23. panu.pihkala@helsinki.fi
www.arocha.org