Turning Climate Grief Into Action: Supporting Children, Youth and Ourselves

Turning Climate Grief Into Action: Supporting Children, Youth and Ourselves

Climate Anxiety and Grief Two-Part Fall Workshop Series

November 17, 3 PM ET | 12 Noon PT

Join Elders Climate Action for our two-part Fall Workshop series Climate Anxiety and Grief on November 14 & 17 at 3 PM ET | 12 Noon PT. This series is designed to help us understand and cope with the emotions that come with the frightening changes and heart-breaking losses we are experiencing as our beautiful planet overheats.

Part Two – November 17: Turning Climate Grief Into Action: Supporting Children, Youth and Ourselves. This session will be led by wellbeing and climate justice advocate, researcher, and activist, Shaun Trainor.  Shaun will discuss strategies and tips for redirecting our climate anxiety and offer suggestions for how to best support ourselves and our children and grandchildren.  Shaun will lead us through interactive and creative exercises to turn our grief into action.

Shaun Trainor (they/them) is a mental wellbeing and climate justice advocate, researcher, and activist from Mi’kma’ki. They have been active in the climate and social justice movements for over a decade. Shaun has taken the knowledge they have gained from their studies and activism, and is working to raise awareness of the effects of the climate crisis on mental wellbeing, as well as, how we can move towards regenerative cultures by creating meaningful hope through art in all of its many forms. Recently Shaun has been leading a Youth Climate Circle and co-designing Flourish! A Youth Learning Journey of Climate Resilience and Regeneration with One Resilient Earth. The climate circle offers a space for youth around the world to come together in community to share about their emotions, insights, and experiences of the climate crisis. Flourish! is a deep learning journey from climate anxiety to courage, regeneration, and resilience within a global community. Shaun is currently writing a book on mental well-being in the climate crisis and the role of art in fostering resilience and regeneration.

Join us for the postponed session –

November 30: It’s Hard Knowing: The Inner Work of Climate Action.  We will be joined by special guest Dr. Sarah Jaquette Ray. Dr. Ray will explain how we can recognize the complex feelings that come with understanding the full scale of the climate crisis and its impacts on all that we love. Motivated by the despair she began observing in her students about a decade ago, Ray’s work focuses on the role of emotions in climate justice advocacy, and the relationship between inner resilience and collective action for climate justice.

Dr. Sarah Jaquette Ray is chair of the Environmental Studies Department at Cal Poly Humboldt in Arcata, California, on Wiyot territory.  Her 2020 book, A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet, was written to be an “existential toolkit for the climate generation.” Ray’s writing on emotions and climate justice activism has been published in the LA Times, Scientific American, The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, Edge Effects, KCET, and Zocalo Public Square. She consults extensively on the topic of climate anxiety, is editor of the upcoming book, An Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators, and offers a professional development workshop to help center emotions in climate work, the Climate Wisdom Lab. She teaches a mindfulness course on transforming climate anxiety.