What is ecological grief and how can we overcome it?

Grief is a fundamental part of the human experience. We experience grief when we lose loved ones, the breakdown of relationships, and the death of our pets. However, grief also transcends personal loss. We grieve the passing of strangers across the globe and celebrities we have never met. Additionally, we can experience profound grief in response to environmental change and destruction.  

Have you ever discovered your favourite tree to climb in your childhood was cut down and felt a sense of loss? Or perhaps you went on your favourite hike only to find it unrecognisable after a bushfire? 

The unique experience of grieving the environment has been termed ‘ecological grief.’ It might sound strange at first, but why would we not grieve the environment? Grief is a natural response to the loss or change of someone or something important (Cunsolo & Ellis, 2018). Over the last decade, we have certainly seen loss and degradation of the natural world such as the mass bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef (Jacobsen, 2016) and the 19 million hectares burnt during the Australian bushfires of 2019-2020 (Filkov et al., 2020). Witnessing environmental loss has been linked to anxiety, depression, and loss of meaning in life (Cunsolo & Ellis, 2018).  

Ecological grief can be a response to present-day experiences like the examples above, as well as anticipated experiences like how we might imagine the future state of the environment if we fail to respond to climate change (Cunsolo & Ellis, 2018). Young people, people who work closely with the environment like farmers, and people with cultural connections to place like Indigenous peoples seem to be the most vulnerable to the effects of ecological grief (Cunsolo & Ellis, 2018).
  
If traditional grief is normal, should we be concerned about ecological grief? Unlike traditional grief, experts worry that ecological grief may not resolve because people are exposed to more and more present-day and anticipated future environmental degradation through traditional and social media (Pihkala, 2024). In places more vulnerable to climate change, people only need to look out their windows to be confronted with these changes. This means that they may not get enough time free from ecological grief to properly recover (Pihkala, 2024). However, ecological grief is not commonly recognised, and society is unprepared to deal with ecological grief on a large scale as the impacts of climate change get worse (Cunsolo & Ellis, 2018). 

Research on recovery from traditional grief may provide insights into how people can adjust to ecological grief. For example, grief often reminds us how important people are to us (Fowlkes, 1998). When we grieve the loss of a person, we often turn to our family, our friends, and the social groups we belong to for support.  

Social connections could therefore help people adjust to ecological grief. Indeed, people with stronger social ties seem to recover better after bushfires than people with weaker social ties (Cruwys et al., 2024). However, some research has found that people experiencing ecological grief may feel isolated, lonely, and ashamed of their grief (e.g., Cooke et al., 2024). These feelings can emerge when our friends and family don’t share our beliefs about climate change (Budziszewska & Jonsson, 2021) and may lead people to hide their emotional reactions to climate change or environmental loss for fear of judgement from others (Clayton, 2020).  

Leaning into our social groups, as well as joining new groups, has been shown to help adjustment to grief if the groups are meaningful and consistent with our identity (Haslam et al., 2018). Maybe it’s your extended family group, your friendship group, a book club, or even your work colleagues. The key is that they must mean a lot to you. These connections help us cope better with loss because of the benefits that come from group belongingness, such as emotional support to process our feelings, feeling good when we are with others, and feeling like we can act in line with our values and beliefs. 

If you are struggling to adjust to ecological grief and you feel isolated, joining new groups that share your environmental values can help. You could think about joining local hiking groups, community gardens, or nature conservation groups. If your ecological grief stems from anxiety about climate change, you could join an advocacy group pushing for governmental action. The people who participate in these activities and belong to these groups are likely to share your love of the natural world, and your grief around environmental changes and loss. For psychologists, the group Psychology for a Safe Climate offers resources, workshops, and training that may be helpful, including this short video with advice about coping with climate distress by Dr. Susie Burke. 

In summary, ecological grief is a natural response to environmental loss. As climate change worsens, we are likely to see more and more people experiencing ecological grief. Meaningful social connections can help us adjust to ecological grief and develop resilience to present-day and anticipated environmental loss and change.  

By Joel Whalan

Further Reading  

Budziszewska, M., & Jonsson, S. E. (2021). From Climate Anxiety to Climate Action: An Existential Perspective on Climate Change Concerns Within Psychotherapy. The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 2216782199324. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022167821993243  
Clayton, S. (2020). Climate anxiety: Psychological responses to climate change. Journal of 
Anxiety Disorders, 74, 102263. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2020.102263  
 
Cooke, A., Benham, C., Butt, N., & Dean, J. (2024). Ecological grief literacy: Approaches for responding to environmental loss. Conservation Letters, 17(3), n/a-n/a. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.13018  
 
Cruwys, T., Macleod, E., Heffernan, T., Walker, I., Stanley, S. K., Kurz, T., Greenwood, L.-M., Evans, O., & Calear, A. L. (2024). Social group connections support mental health following wildfire. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 59(6), 957–967. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-023-02519-8  
Cunsolo, A. & Ellis, N. R. (2018). Ecological grief as a mental health response to climate change-related loss. Nature Climate Change, 8(4), 275–281.  
Filkov, A. I., Ngo, T., Matthews, S., Telfer, S., & Penman, T. D. (2020). Impact of Australia’s catastrophic 2019/20 bushfire season on communities and environment. Retrospective analysis and current trends. Journal of Safety Science and Resilience = An Quan Ke Xue Yu Ren Xing (Ying Wen), 1(1), 44–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnlssr.2020.06.009  
Fowlkes, M. R. (1990). The Social Regulation of Grief. Sociological Forum (Randolph, 
N.J.), 5(4), 635–652. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01115395  
 
Haslam, C., Lam, B. C. P., Branscombe, N. R., Steffens, N. K., Haslam, S. A., Cruwys, T., Fong, P., & Ball, T. C. (2018). Adjusting to life in retirement: the protective role of new group memberships and identification as a retiree. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 27(6), 822–839. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2018.1538127  
 
Jacobsen, R. (2016, October). Obituary: Great Barrier Reef (25 Million BC-…). Outside. https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/environment/obituary-great-barrier-reef-25-million-bc-2016/  
 
Pihkala, P. (2024). Ecological Sorrow: Types of Grief and Loss in Ecological Grief. Sustainability, 16(2), 849. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16020849