Global Climate Crisis Seeking Environmental Justice and Climate Equality

Chapter 5

Situated ecologies of attention as a pathway for socially just climate policies

Melissa Nursey-Bray, Shoko Yoneyama, Anna Szorenyi, Anna Grage, Celeste Hill, Ariane Gienger and Vera Storp

This chapter begins stating the impact climate change has on worldwide communities and how policies to decrease it have failed. Communities facing the effect of natural disasters need policies on how to adapt to these disasters. These policy failures are due to issues with knowledge, credibility, adverse power dynamics and this chapter explores the root of these problems.

One of the problems it states is narcissism and disconnection. The ability to reject science and knowledge is paired with societal narcissism which fuels individualism. There's also the issue of the youth and how they experience nature. They wander less and discover nature less. All people are becoming disconnected with nature over time.

The chapter also defines the term “Ecoanxiety”, a chronic fear of environmental doom. This feeling is associated with feelings of fear, sadness, hopelessness, anger and guilt. Ecoanxiety is a cause and consequence of the growing disconnection from nature and exacerbates existing threats to vulnerable populations. 

In regards to climate change policies, researchers find that collective amnesia plays a role in policy failure. A decision-maker will forget to consider the past natural status of an environmental area or species and the decisions that have caused environmental change.

The way to address these problems is through imagination, insight and the willingness of people to come together, along with deep engagement with policy reconstruction and commitment to building relationship between communities and decision makers.

About the Author

Nina is the Research Intern for The Bahá’í Chair for World Peace. She is a junior at The University of Maryland on the Pre-Law track pursuing a dual major in Psychology and Theatre.