Book Review: "Generation Dread" by Britt Wray

 

 

*Spoilers warning!*

4/5 stars

This book was both difficult to read, but a necessary read at that. 

Britt Wray is a researcher who works at the intersection between climate change and mental health. She tackles the very big elephant in the room of climate change, but also that elephant's less-noticed twin, mental health. 

As someone who has survived a once-in-a-generation pandemic and is witnessing an ongoing climate crisis, Wray gave words to the complicated feelings of existential dread, anxiety, depression, and grief I had (have) watching all this unfold: eco-anxiety. (Although there are many alternative clinical names for "eco-anxiety," for clarity, I will stick with "eco-anxiety.")

"Coping with eco-anxiety is an ongoing process; we toggle between distress over difficult information and states of resilience."

In 2020 more than ever, I mourned the loss of "normal" life due to COVID-19 and what appeared to be a future of never-ending disasters. Of course, being in a somewhat socioeconomically privileged class has blinded me to the everyday suffering already happening for poor and marginalized communities around the world. So far, I have been insulated. I acutely recognize that and feel guilty about that every day. 

Generation Dread gives you permission to face your deepest, darkest fears and guilt regarding climate change, as it is intimately tied with humanity's well-documented fear of death and mortality. However, Wray also pairs this with the understanding that allowing these emotions to take over (usually due to suppression or the not-addressing of emotions) will not help all of us coming together collectively to find solutions wherever we can. 

She makes the argument that our survival of the constant uncertainty that the climate crisis brings now (and into the future) comes from first doing "internal activism," which essentially is working to acknowledge your complicated emotions surrounding climate change, allow yourself to feel them, and then harnessing them to power "external activism." External activism being the marching, attending legislative meetings to advocate for climate adaptation and mitigation. (What we think of when we think of the word "activism.")

"Activism on its own is not the antidote to despair; acknowledging your feelings and connecting with others who share them, alongside taking action, is...The aim is not to get past climate trauma, but to learn to live with it while working to reduce its harms, because it is ongoing cultural trauma."

Admittedly, I hadn't known much about internal activism before this book, but it makes sense. It is similar to what I have learned in therapy to deal with anxiety and depression, to stop catastrophizing thought spirals that will leave me emotionally burnt-out and with little capacity for the emotional/mental resilience already needed for everyday life. To learn that emotions aren't inherently bad, but actually adaptive, and that each emotion is trying to teach you something, showing you your most cherished personal values and pointing to injustices that need addressing in the world. 

No surprise here that we both need to prepare ourselves to be resilient in the face of repeated disasters while also rebuilding frayed community ties. After all, we can't do this alone.

That's the primary takeaway for me on this one. No one can do it alone and no one should take the world on their shoulders. Finding a better future for all of us in the climate crisis will require that we all shoulder that weight, instead of a solitary Atlas. No one is coming to save us. We have to save ourselves.

Happy reading!

--BookOwl