On climate anxiety and where we find hope

As a terrestrial ecologist who studies how people and nature interact in forests and cities – it’s amazing how little I know about the oceans. Despite the fact that they make up over two-thirds of the earth’s surface (70.8% according to Wikipedia), and are the place where life evolved on our planet. I’m not a rare case – ecologists as a species are simply not taught enough about what goes on in seas and oceans. This is not new – in 1989, a group of scientists led by oceanographer John Steele, joined by luminaries like Steve Carpenter and Robert Ricklefs, came together in Santa Fe to produce a report, Comparison of Terrestrial and Marine Ecological Systems Report of a Workshop – in which they laid out the important differences (and commonalities) between terrestrial and marine systems, but also stated “Considering the urgency of the global problems, there is distressingly poor communication among ecologists…But nowhere are differences greater than those existing between terrestrial ecologists and biological oceanographers.”

On a recent visit to the gorgeous islands of Lakshadweep in March 2027, to combine forces with the Khayal nature festival organized by Nature Conservation Foundation India, with our own Coasts and Oceans of Life climate festival from Azim Premji University, my colleagues and I ventured out into the sea around the islands, in a glass bottomed boat. For me, after 33 years embedded in landscape ecology, that was a transformative experience. Watching shoals of fish swimming in patches of dead and live coral, green sea turtles nibbling on the last fragments of overgrazed seagrass meadows, and then listening to the islanders speak about transformations in the lagoon, reefs and ocean over time – I felt terror, experienced magic, and eagerly drank in hope wherever I could find it.

A recent article by Jeremy Hance describes an “epidemic of suffering” due to climate grief and anxiety amongst conservationists across the world. Yet alongside, a growing body of work on environmental psychology from diverse authors and groups seems to show that there is a difference between worrying about the future of the world, and grieving or mourning its collapse. Worry, these papers seem to suggest, can be a productive emotion that inspires action to protect, conserve, restore, replant – while fear, anxiety and grief can lead to emotional cascades that spiral out of control.

Preliminary research, to be sure, and certainly we have a lot more to investigate along these lines. But as a self-proclaimed optimist, I know that I’m constantly searching for what it is that we can actually do to induce hope, make a difference, see some change in the world. Inspired by the memories of Lakshadweep, and in honour of World Oceans Day, I want to bring to you two conversations I had with brilliant marine scientists Teresa Alcoverro and Rohan Arthur, a powerhouse couple who are also dear friends and deeply respected colleagues.

Dr. Teresa Alcoverro is a Research Scientist at CEAB, CSIC in Blanes, Spain. In her own words, she is interested in developing “a larger understanding of the resilience (resistance and recovery capacity) of nearshore benthic systems in the face of rapid global change (increasing temperatures, overfishing, invasive species and eutrophication)”. Growing up in a rural Catalan village, in a gorgeous stone house in which her family can trace their ancestry and lineage for several hundreds of years, she speaks about the importance of ecology and its connection to place from a unique perspective – one that few of us are so fortunate as to have. Amongst many other things, her research examines how extreme “once in a century” storms and coastal fires destroy seagrass meadows and marine life, but also, how coastal and marine ecosystems stage recoveries. Speaking about the emotional toll it takes to witness the collapse of coral reefs, she and I also speak about how it is to be a mother in these challenging times, and how to discuss difficult topics of climate and ecological futures with our children while also being mindful of not transferring climate anxiety to them – or indeed, to the young students we both teach. When I ask where she gets her hope from, it lies in small-scale communities of the kind she sees all around her in rural Catalonia – where people return to farming after living full professional lives, foster circular economies, and revive communities and a collective spirit of the celebration of life.

Dr. Rohan Arthur is a Senior Scientist and Founding Trustee of the Nature Conservation Foundation, India. He leads the NCF Coasts and Oceans programme, and has been conducting long term ecological research in the coral reefs of the Andamans and Lakshadweep islands – covering a fascinating range of issues from ecological history to reef ecology and climate communication. Rohan and I speak about how ecology has changed in the landscapes of India over the past ~30 years that we’ve been doing research.

Rohan likes to call himself a messy thinker, but he’s really one of the most imaginative scientists I know. For him, inspiration lies in the creative ferment at the edges of disciplines, where collaboration and dialogue thrive, and storytelling intertwines with science. We talk a bit about the sad reality that most modern academic institutions often discourage such messy dialogue, prioritizing “pure” science – whereas ecology has always been a discipline that integrates the study of people and nature.

Rohan and I also speak about climate anxiety – as he says, too many young people feel so overwhelmed by the news they read that they tend to shut down all thoughts about the environment. For him, ecological grief represents a natural human response to what we see around us, and we should not shut it out or pretend it doesn’t exist – just try and find our way through, by speaking to and relying on each other. For him, like Teresa, hope lies in moving away from a search for grand solutions that can save the world, and instead looking for the thousands of blooms, of little movements that demonstrate alternatives, which help us keep a sense of optimism alive through real examples. In the end, as he says, hope lies in the messiness of ecology – a messiness that is defiant, combative and resilient to pressure. Like Teresa, Rohan also points out that we need to seek to realign human life to a smaller, more local scale, through commoning and cooperation with humans and non-humans alike.

This article is also published on Harini Nagendra’s Substack. illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the opinions of leading Sustainability Thought Leaders, their views do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

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