Most of us are worried about climate change, and sometimes that worry can turn into anxiety or depression. In 2022, about 7% of American adults were found to be experiencing at least mild levels of climate-change-related psychological distress, according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, the publisher of this site. Climate journalists may be especially prone to experiencing climate distress because they regularly encounter difficult and emotional stories in their work.
With that in mind, the Yale Climate Connections editorial team sat down together over Zoom for a heartfelt conversation about the mental and emotional toll of covering climate change. We also discussed how we cope individually and how we support each other as a team.
This roundtable discussion has been edited and condensed.
Sam: How are you thinking about your mental health during a summer where we’re seeing a lot of hurricanes, a lot of wildfires, and a lot of heat waves?
Pearl: I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I have this tendency of not doing much outside of work and caring for my family. What I’m trying to do, now and always, is create a life outside of those two spheres. A mantra that I often have in my head is “Be more like Sam,” so have more hobbies, just to make sure that I’m creating an identity outside of what I do and my family. [Editor’s note: Sam is an avid knitter, painter, gardener, and just general hobby-collector.] I feel like we do beautiful work, and oftentimes, if you’re doing something that’s meaningful, you can allow it to take hold of your identity. I still have pride in it. But I also know that in order to protect myself more, I need to have an identity outside of it as well.
Sara: I think that’s a really lovely way of putting it, Pearl. I have pretty strict boundaries about when I’m working and not working, which helps a lot. My laptop gets closed at the end of the day, and I’m not working in the evenings or on the weekends. And that allows me to be a person who is not thinking about climate change 100% of the time, which I don’t think would be healthy for anyone on the planet. Like you said, I have hobbies. I have a decadeslong obsession with classical music and performing classical music.
And then the other piece for me is that it just feels really good and healthy to be contributing to people’s understanding of climate change and being part of a team that’s larger than myself. It helps so much to feel personally like I’m part of the solution. What about you, Sam?
Sam: I think a thing that I felt the full force of last year was how much climate change has become part of my personal life. Like, yeah, I’m going to close the computer at 5, and then I’m going to go for a walk – oh wait, I can’t go for a walk, because the air is full of wildfire smoke!
So that’s the new thing that I’ve been trying to figure out. And, yeah, I have a lot of hobbies. I like to spend a lot of time with friends. I like to be outside. I like to spend time with my friends’ kids because they’re just like wonderful little vehicles into seeing the world in different ways.
Sara: Like you’re saying, Sam, we are thinking about climate change for our work, but also experiencing it directly in our personal lives. And that really came to the fore last summer for all three of us. And that can be incredibly taxing.
Sam: Yeah. Yeah.
Sara: We saw that with journalists covering COVID, too, and in the way they talked about incredible burnout because they’re writing about people dying and all sorts of things for their work but then being personally afraid for their families and friends.
Pearl: It’s also just hard, as somewhat of a perfectionist, to feel that you’re doing enough. Climate change is a part of every aspect of our lives. I have a very hard time not going outside and being like, “Well, am I doing enough just in my own home? Do I have enough biodiversity in my yard?” I am always asking myself these questions. And that’s really hard for me to break because you’re reminded of it, or at least I am, in everything that I look at, everything that I’m a part of, and so that makes this work very hard.
Sam: Yeah, totally agree. It can be difficult because there’s just so much to fight for. There’s so much to save. There’s so much that can be done. And we see that all the time in our stories. And time is of the essence, right? It’s hard to be like, “Downtime is fine.”
Sara: I always think about the saying, “Saving yourself is saving the world.”
Pearl: Well, it depends on who you are. [Everyone laughs.]
Sam: So one change that I made going to the summer was to have a relationship with a talk therapist. And I was talking to her in March, when I was working on the climate death story. And she was like, “Why do you have to be the one to do this story?”
I think then I realized that I feel a lot of pressure, not necessarily climate-specific, but journalism-industry-hellscape-specific, to do a good job. Stable journalism jobs aren’t common. There’s a very small group of people that will do it and have the resources to do it. And I have the resources, and the privilege, and the staff position to do it. We need more people doing this.
Sara: Yeah, that’s a really wise point. I think it might be useful to talk about how we’re trying to take care of each other as a team because we are some of the privileged few who are climate journalists full-time. And that is incredibly rare in this country.
Sam: Yeah, we had a really good debrief conversation in November of last year about the previous summer. I think we probably all agree summer can be the most difficult time just because there’s so much extreme weather and suffering. So I think the No. 1 thing that we have done really well is to like create a foundation to talk openly about these things and be able to be humans at work.
That really set a good baseline for us to develop a written team mental health plan. And yeah, this summer we were talking about trying to do less, trying to take on fewer new things in the middle of hurricane season, and trying to do some of our planning for the organization ahead of the summer instead of during the summer. I, in particular, find it really difficult – my brain does not want to think about the future when it is stressed in the present.
Sara: One thing that I am really appreciative of that we talked about in the plan was how important it is to take time to decompress after a difficult situation, and how that is part of the work. So there’s time to, for example, prepare for a difficult interview with someone who’s been affected in a very serious way by climate change. So you take that prep time, then you do the interview, but then there’s time afterward to reflect and decompress as a human being. And just acknowledging that that time is part of that work is really important.
Sam: Totally. Something that I worry a lot about in this work, particularly in the reporting part of the work, is not making people’s lives worse by reporting on them. I don’t want to re-traumatize a source that has been through something really awful. I really appreciate that we, again, have the security of a full-time staff job to be like, “This is part of the work.” And I can take the time to do it really well, for this person and also for myself, so that I can then open the computer the next day and do something else that is related to climate change, and not just be like, “AHHHHHH!!!” [Everyone laughs.]
Pearl: Prior to coming up with this plan for this year, we made the decision to make a work environment where it’s OK to be vulnerable, it’s OK to cry. And I think that’s such a great model, especially for this kind of work, and I don’t think it’s as common as it should be. I feel like if I am having a tough time, I have no fear of calling either one of you to say that, and I don’t feel like I’m at risk of losing my job or you two having some negative opinion about my capabilities.
That’s just really important to have because while you do need a great support system in your personal life, it’s sometimes hard to talk to them about what is happening within your work environment because they’re just not involved in it as much as you are. So having people that you know are going through a very, very similar situation, it’s really comforting to know that I have that support. We all have that support for each other.
Sara: Yeah, I mean, the Army doesn’t send soldiers into war without sending medics with them. But there’s a lot of journalists in the world who don’t have that medic, or they’re on a very small team, or they’re just by themselves.
Pearl: Something that I learned from covering last year’s hurricane season is to look for the signs and make sure that you’re preventing getting into that crisis mode mentally. I mean, we’ll learn a bunch of new lessons this year. Nothing is going to be perfect. We’re not going to get through it fully unscathed. But hopefully, every year we’re learning new ways to do this better and to also protect our contributors, too, to make sure that they’re OK.
Sam: We have a couple more minutes left. For readers who are maybe struggling with feelings of distress around climate change, do we have any advice for them?
Sara: I would say find other people who care as much as you do. And team up with them.
Pearl: Yeah, I think that was something that I underestimated the importance of. And that having that sense of community. And I think the society we live in is a very much an individualistic, isolationist society. You need to have people around you who are there for you.
Sam: I think, too, a lot about all the research that has found that what helps people like get through a crisis is strong social ties. I really try to be part of my community. That helps me feel safer. I know a lot of people. I try to be connected. We had a big tornado warning and I texted my friend down the block, “Do you have a basement? Are you good? Do you want to come over?” And then I was like, “Maybe also just come over? Because like, I’m bored.” [Everyone laughs.] Feeling like I’m engaging in community solutions, and also community building – I find a lot of solace in that.
Pearl: I think that goes for everything in life. No matter what sort of crisis you might be going through, or feelings you’re going through, having others around you is super important. I learned the hard way – having a child and not having good support systems around me – made me fall into depression. It’s just so important to have it in your life for it for everything.
Sara: And everyone in the world just got a lesson in that during lockdown. We hated that. We know why: because we couldn’t see each other.
Sam: Social animals. All right. As always, thank you for being so open. I think this is something people should be talking about more, so I’m glad that we’re doing it.
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