Climate change has been increasingly affecting psychological health through the form of climate anxiety. As society grows more concerned about the safety of their livelihoods in the face of environmental disasters, Indigenous communities are spearheading a solution: wildfire as soliphilia. We spoke with Dr. Melinda Adams to learn more about the transformation of wildfire from a colonization weapon to a regenerative power. For a transcript, please visit https://climatebreak.org/how-native-american-ecology-can-tackle-climate-anxiety-with-dr-melinda-adams/.
Climate or “eco” anxiety refers to people feeling distressed about climate change and its impacts on our ecosystems, the environment, and human health and well-being. It is rooted in a deep existential dread concerning the future of the planet. Symptoms include feelings of grief, loss, anger, sadness, and guilt, which in turn can cause jitteriness, nervousness, increased heart rate, shallow breathing, difficulty concentrating, changes in appetite, or insomnia due to worry or concern about the effects of climate change.
According to Grist, Google searches for “climate anxiety” soared by 565 percent in 2021. And according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, an all-time high of 70 percent of Americans express worry about climate change. In September 2021, the largest study of its kind found that the climate crisis was causing widespread psychological distress for young people between the ages of 16 and 25 across 42 countries from both the global North and South. Over 45 percent of teens and young adults said that climate anxiety was affecting their daily lives and ability to function; 56 percent said they thought that "humanity is doomed" and nearly 4 in 10 said that they were hesitant to have children because of climate change.
The steps people must take to address their climate anxiety depends on each individual, as people are affected by climate change in different ways. For example, some people have lost homes or even loved ones, while many others have witnessed these catastrophic events unfold on their phone screens.
Dr. Melinda Adams describes this trauma as “solastalgia,” originally coined by Australian philosopher Glen Albrecht to describe the distress caused by the destruction or loss of one’s home environment. This concept helps people to understand and express the “psychoterratic,” or the relationship between human mental health and the earth’s own well-being. Many have taken legal and political action to deal with their solastalgia. For example, last year Montana youths sued the state for its failure to recognize that approving fossil fuel projects was unconstitutional without further review of the impacts to the climate. Others have drastically altered their lifestyles, opting instead to practice underconsumption to limit their personal contributions to the changing climate.
Dr. Adams has another solution, reminding those who suffer that the definition of solastalgia also includes hope. Hope can lead us either into action or ecoparalysis. It is within this framework that Dr. Adams introduces Native American cultural burnings as a way to achieve soliphilia, “the political affiliation or solidarity needed between us all to be responsible for a place, bioregion, planet, and the unity of interrelated interests within it.’’
Cultural fires or “good fires,” which involve lighting low-intensity fires to heal the surrounding ecosystem, can exemplify this step. Not only do these fires restore degraded soils, decrease vegetation or fuel overgrowth, encourage re-vegetation and biodiversity, but they also deepen the spiritual ties people have to the land they inhabit. Fire therefore has a regenerative power, both spiritually and ecologically, as participants share stories and strengthen communal and spiritual bonds with one another during these ceremonial burnings. As a member of the N’dee San Carlos Apache Tribe, Dr. Adams takes Glen Albrecht’s theory of the “psychoterratic” and frames it as a relationship between siblings. Subsequently, as siblings, humans and the land must help each other survive. By treating the earth as a more-than-human sibling, and by practicing cultural burns, participants can begin to heal from their solastalgia.
Directly engaging with a regenerative process such as “good fires,” “grounds people’s intentions and allows for deeper connections—to place and among one another.” “[C]eremonial fires create opportunities for social, environmental, and cultural healing among young persons (Native and allied)” (Tom, Adams, & Goode at 3). Essentially, the strengthening of community through spiritually uplifting activities alleviates climate anxiety by showing young people that there are people out there who share their concern for the climate and are motivated to do something about it.
Dr. Melinda Adams is a member of the N’dee San Carlos Apache Tribe and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Atmospheric Science at the University of Kansas. A cultural fire practitioner and scholar, her research focuses on the revitalization of cultural fire with Tribes in California and more recently with Tribes in the Midwest. Her work with Indigenous communities combines environmental science, environmental policy, and Indigenous studies methodologies. Read more about Dr. Melinda Adams here.
For a transcript of this episode, please visit https://climatebreak.org/how-native-american-ecology-can-tackle-climate-anxiety-with-dr-melinda-adams/.
Ethan: I’m Ethan Elkind, and this is Climate Break. Climate solutions in a hurry. Are you suffering from solastalgia? Also known as climate anxiety? Dr. Melinda Adams, cultural fire practitioner and assistant professor at the University of Kansas, explains how Indigenous ceremonial burns can help mitigate emotional or existential distress caused by climate change.
Dr. Adams: It's like a salve, a way to cure them. So, developing this idea, cultural fire as soliphilia: the love or the care that you have for a place. So, if you familiarize people with a place, they'll grow to like it, and if they grow to like it, they might defend it against climate change.
Ethan: These ceremonial fires give participants a sense of agency, connection, and community, alleviating some of their anxiety. But that’s not the end of the story. Adams also sees a connection between the current use of cultural fire and healing from historical traumas.
Dr. Adams: Part of soliphilia is reckoning with that history of colonization and really calling it out that fire removal coincides with the removal of our peoples from all across the United States. So I think that to use fire as a lens to reckon with the history of colonization has been pretty powerful. Especially when these fire lessons are being again called on by state and federal agencies at the top levels of the United States government for implementation to mitigate against the impacts of both climate and wildfire.
Ethan: That was Dr. Melinda Adams. You can learn more about the potential of cultural burns to reduce eco-anxiety at climatebreak.com.