Season 3, Episode 5: The Climate Emotions Wheel

Climate Change and Happiness

Climate Emotions Wheel © 2023 by Anya Kamenetz, Panu Pikhala, Sarah Newman, Megan Slade, JulieSouza, Ryleigh Corrigan is licensed under CC BY-SA4.0 | Resource at ClimateMentalHealth.Net. Based on research by Panu Pihkala at the University of Helsinki and particularly his 2022 paper: “Toward a Taxonomy of Climate Emotions“ | Featured in NYC Times Square Hope Hydration Hydrostation.

Season 3, Episode 5: The Climate Emotions Wheel

Thomas interviewed Panu about his recent climate emotions research and the Climate Emotions Wheel created by the Climate Mental Health Network based on Panu’s work.

Links

• Climate Emotions Wheel

• Climate and Mental Health Network

• Panu Pihkala 2022 Toward a Taxonomy of Climate Emotions

• Gen Dread: Climate emotions aren’t all “negative”

Transcript

Transcript edited for clarity and brevity.

Thomas Doherty: Please support the climate change and happiness podcast. See the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.

[music: “CC&H theme music”]

Doherty: Hi, this is Thomas Doherty …

Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala.

Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. This is our podcast. Panu and I have been working on this podcast for a couple of years now. It came from our own personal dialogues, and we thought we'd open this up and share this with the public and with our, you know, bringing in our colleagues. This is a podcast for people around the globe who are thinking, and most importantly, feeling a lot of interesting, deep things about climate change and other environmental issues. And so in this particular podcast, we talk about the emotional aspects. Panu has been doing a lot of research and writing on this. I'm working with people on this and also doing my own writing and work. And so this is a place for the emotions, all emotions all the time. The emotions are in our bodies, they're physiological, we can measure those, the feelings, of course, are infinite, because it's our language and our words and all around the world are all kinds of different feelings words we use to describe our emotions. So, Panu, speaking of emotions, I know you've been working on this for years now, recently, someone adapted some of your work into an emotions wheel. A Wheel of different kinds of emotions that think about in terms of climate change. And I thought we would touch in on that, see what you see what you think about that, and how that how that flows out of your work. And we'll go from there.

Pihkala: Yes, thanks, Thomas. This climate emotion wheel has now been shared pretty heavily in social media. And the visualization and the selection of the words was made by the organization, the Climate and Mental Health Network. And they asked me to comment on the project also. So, I did some of some of that. And there's been interesting developments. For example, it's been on a Times Square advertisement in New York for him for a while. And so it really seems to resonate with many, many people. And myself, when I started to dig deeper into emotion studies, I remember that visualizations were very helpful—in addition to all this text that we have about emotions. Robert Plutchik has this famous emotions wheel and there are several versions available online. And as you Thomas well know, emotion researchers have debates between them as all researchers do. So there's no standard emotion wheel that would be accepted by everyone, I really think that these are practically useful. But of course, they also have their limits. And there are always simplifying things. So there's pros and cons in using this. But I'm very happy that my work has been useful in the creation of this wheel.

Doherty: Yes! You can go on Amazon and find a climate emotions wheel pillow and a climate emotions wheel … therapists use these in their work. And there's posters. And any mental health person will be familiar with this stuff. It's helpful to have some sort of guide to all different kinds of emotions. So there's two things that we're talking about in this podcast for people in the know. For researchers, there's all the backstory of how people empirically study this. And it's quite interesting. And then there's just our own need of it. Because we cannot be alive without having emotions, all living things have some sort of emotional response to the environment. And then of course, as humans, we have these nuanced, potentially nuanced feelings. So it's nice to have, like anything else, a guide, a taxonomy, as you say, a list of words. And the wheel is just putting that into a graphic form. And so I think it's helpful. Do you think, you know, as someone who gets deep into this. Obviously, I believe you think it's helpful for people to look at these kinds of wheels and I'm so impressed that it's in Times Square, I didn't know that. I think that's great. Is there any downsides of putting this onto a wheel?

Pihkala: Well, there's all always potential dangers. And also in relation to the old emotion wheels, people have been wary of the possibility that folks would think that the emotions in the middle somehow are really the most important and primary ones. That's a big debate in emotion research, whether there are sort of basic emotions or universal emotions shared by people worldwide. [Yeah.] So that's one possible misconception is that, you know, these four, emotional words in the middle, that they would be the only real overall candidate categories. But then then again, that is not what know what the wheel and the people are saying. So, the makers of the climate emotion wheel, they didn't intend that this would have all the relevant emotion words, they just wanted to provide many useful emotion words, so that people can think about what they may be feeling and what others may be feeling. So this may be validating both for people themselves and in relation to others. And we know from science, that if we have names for emotions, even roughly pointing to the right direction, then it's easier for us to engage with that, with those emotional energies. And I know Thomas that this is a very commonplace thing for you as a therapist, you know, helping people to name and recognize what they are actually feeling.

But this brings us to a very important another point, which is that there's lots of different emotional energies often in our body-mind, by body-mind I mean that our body and mind are connected, and I liked the word even though it's a bit technical. And that's also something which sometimes doesn't come up in climate emotions research or public discussions. For example, people may sort of have the presupposition, that, you know, should I feel just anger? Or is somebody just feeling anxiety or sadness or just hope? And it's not so, people are feeling many kinds of emotions and feelings and sometimes there can be interesting clusters of emotions, or interlaced emotions, you know, emotions which are somehow tied to each other in the person's experience or the group's experience. And that's something I think Thomas we haven't talked about yet in the podcast, even though we have been talking a lot about climate emotions. But I'm interested about these emotions that go together for some people in certain situations.

Doherty: Yeah. When I see the climate wheel (and we'll put a link to this—you can google “climate emotions wheel” and you'll find this and you'll find other famous wheel models of emotion.) I think of the color wheel, you know, when people are doing art and design, when we're mixing colors to get different shades. I haven't seen that, you might have seen that talked about, but you know, these primary colors, you know, primary emotions. Obviously, humans like to categorize things so we're always sort of seeing what box and so they categorize emotions they're always looking for, for more simpler sets of emotions. But the color wheel I think is a helpful analogy. Because feeling blue, whichever emotion you want to categorize for blue, and then of course, feeling yellow emotions, you know, creates green emotions. So we can run with that metaphorically. People who are feeling sad about the environment and also love and curiosity might lead them to some deeper connection with the environment. You know, I don't know. So, I love playing with the metaphors. But yes, and just for the public. I mean, we're … we've, you know, read too many pieces and too much stuff about climate emotions. We're kind of deep into this. But just keeping in mind like Panu was saying, people have researched emotions for forever going back to you know, Aristotle or whatever, and tried to make different categories and different things.

And there's some famous researchers out there that have studied people's facial expressions and how emotions are physical things in our bodies and we have the physical posture or facial expression that causes us to feel certain things. So the bi-directional aspect. Psychologist used to be a debate about what came first—a thought or a feeling you know—which was faster? That's an interesting area and, of course, more recently, people have been like yourself, talking about climate emotions and really trying to figure out what people are feeling about all these issues. And that's, that's newer. And that's really interesting.

And then we have different even different views on that, right? We know people use regular emotions words like loneliness or loss. You know, Glenn Albrecht is a thinker that has created a whole special vocabulary of climate words to kind of, I think, give justice to these unique kind of … and I think that speaks a little bit to those special feeling mixes that you're talking about. But, you know, “solastalgia” is a well-known word that that a lot of people have heard that was came out of that work, this combination of being nostalgic, but feeling lost for an area that you're actually haven't left, it's idea that the world is leaving you versus you leaving the world. And we're, that's a very interesting, nuanced emotion that's really touched a chord for people. But it's important for people not to get confused about this. These are just diverse, interesting ways, you know, that people are talking about emotions. Right? Is that a fair statement, Panu?

Pihkala: Yes, I think definitely, so. And I love the color metaphor that you are using Thomas and I have sometimes been thinking about shapes and colors. So if a person, like many Finns are, is feeling, climate, guilt, and sadness, and hope, at the same time, or next to each other, what kind of form and color a visualization could depict that? And this is something of course, which can sometimes be done in self-reflection or in workshops for it, for example. And it's not scientific, but it's helpful. And that's the most important thing. And Glenn Albrecht work has been highly influential for my own book and solastalgia for example, is in this taxonomy of climate emotions paper. It didn't end up in the wheel, but it's, it's there, broadly. Earth emotions, as Glenn calls them. There's lots of very important shades that are coming out.

Two big things that are also related here is one that you hinted at Thomas, which is sort of the length or intensity of emotion. So there may be sort of short-lived emotions or feelings and tentatively, maybe longer time, affective phenomena, for example, mood. And this is something which is important in relation to climate emotions, also. And I know that many people have generally a bit like sad moods and you know, then hopefulness may pop up at times. And if you have a tendency towards sad mood, that doesn't mean that you wouldn't ever experience joy, for example. And this is one of the richnesses of our emotional lives. And especially when they are healthy, when we are able to feel these different emotions, then our capacity to feel all kinds of emotions is larger. And this is a long road for any of us.

I know that personally, for example, it's a continuous learning process to be open to various emotional energies. Of course, one needs to also do some regulation about it. And in social situations, we can't just always let all emotion out. That would be very problematic. But it's also very problematic if we do too much suppression or repression. And finally, before, I want to ask what you think about this issue, the “about-ness” of emotions, so climate emotions, some of them are about climate change in general, but then some are about certain aspects of it. And for example, joy, it's very difficult to feel joy about the existence of the climate crisis. But it's very often that I feel joy because of the large number of climate activists, for example.

Doherty: I was thinking about some of the research, but the last … What was the last part about climate activists? So I didn't quite follow that piece. The last part of your statement there.

Pihkala: Yeah. Well, what I mean, is that some of the so-called positive emotions, may be much easier to feel in relation to, for example, climate action. Yes. Yeah. Then to climate change in general?

Doherty: Yes, exactly! I was watching some film recording of the recent climate march in New York City. And I saw a little bit of the speech of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, you know, and it was very uplifting and it was, you know, you could … I could sense the energy of the crowd there. And so I think that's one of the one of the aspects, one of the many is like, we don't feel them [emotions] only in isolation, they're social, you know, social things that happen within groups of people. So that's, that's one angle here. And what is, there's a saying, you might know it, I think it's a Swedish saying about being together cuts our grief and half, but it doubles our joy, you know, something like that. So, being together with people is both helpful for sad feelings. It helps to bear the weight of sad feelings, we're sharing them, but like, being together and sharing them positively kind of multiplies, … I mean, we could do a whole podcast on emotions. We do! But we could do a whole other podcast just on the science of emotion. And the social aspect and the neuropsychological, brain aspect of it, and the philosophical, social justice aspects of this kind of stuff. It's just fascinating.

Pihkala: Yeah, I think that's a great, great point Thomas and very relevant for climate emotions. Because some of them are so heavily intertwined with our social relations. And that's why, for example, I didn't just apply any theory of basic or universal emotions, because those are more related to, you know, “what did we get in evolution type of thing,” and what sort of emotional energies we need, for example, if we live in a forest or jungle, but then amidst other members of our tribes, and also contemporarily, there's all these dynamics about guilt, and honor, for example, social approval or disapproval, and feelings related to sharing life, but also social hierarchies and so on. So many of our climate emotions, are heavily moderated by the social dynamics. And that's, I think, an important aspect.

Doherty: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So there's a saying, you know, all models are wrong, some are useful. So all these different models are limited in some way. They, they obscure something. And that's why we have different thinkers. And that's why I have people with different models, because they show things that that are lost. So a wheel image captures some things, but a list captures another process. You know, I mean, one way to moderate our climate emotions, and is go to different groups of people. I mean, that's one way to categorize climate subcultures like what is their dominant feeling? Well, I know if I go to this meeting, it's going to be dominantly fear and anxiety of this particular group. I know that this one is going to be curiosity. You know, if I know this one, it might be if I go to the Climate March, I imagine the feelings are going to be righteous indignation and camaraderie. And so we can we can put ourselves where we want to get the feelings, you know, it's, we're social beings, you know, we're group animals. And so that's one way of coping, coping with this stuff.

And like I talk about being a climate cosmopolitan, like, I can go and hang out with the people that are creating new interesting language words and see what that's like. And I can go to the scientists and see what they have to say. And I can go to the march and see what they have to say. And it's the right tool for the job. I think practically, when you're, if someone's trying to make change in their organization, or in their school or in their job … this is the classic with any kind of change. You have to understand your audience and you have to understand how they typically speak. I know if I bring in ideas like solastalgia or “terrafurie” is another great word. I love that—sort of like anger about the climate and environmental issues. You know, it's anger, like we all know, but “terrafurie” has this special tone to it. Now with some groups, they would love to hear that and it really is helpful. But if I am at the hospital, at Mass General Hospital, and I'm talking about working with the patients and the researchers, and I say, we have to channel our terrafurie, well, they might say, “Okay, that sounds like environmentalism. That's not going to fit here in our hospital.” So, if I talk about emotions, and that our clients are struggling with difficult emotions, and that, you know, so it's using the right emotional language for the right subculture and for what you're trying to do. So there's always this practical side. I imagine you've seen that as well in your work.

Pihkala: Yes, definitely. Definitely so. My public work in Finland has taken me to many kinds of audiences and it's quite different if you work with an environmental NGO, or then a network of car sales persons who have become interested about climate matters. So just to mention a couple of couple of examples. Our episode with Renee Lertzman some months ago was closely related to this, because she's one of the persons who has been studying and observing emotions which are under the surface. And that's a yet another complication, that there may be climate emotions that people are not aware of themselves for complex reasons. For example, it may feel intuitively too painful to allow all the sadness to come to the surface, for example, or people, including myself, often might want to repress some of the guilt. So, for communication and education, that's another layer of trying to be aware that there may be things under the surface. And for me, following the guidance of Susan Moser and others, one key takeaway has been to not be threatening in communication because there is so much fear underneath the surface in people, even those who don't claim themselves to be environmentalist in any way. So, all kinds of threatening imagery, for example, can just block people more. So that's something that I do in my public work, that I really try to make those safe spaces and allow for different kinds of emotional responses, including sometimes frustration towards environmental matters in general. Then sort of recognizing and validating that can be a way forward in the conversation. Instead of presupposing that everybody should be right away keen about this matter for sure.

Doherty: Sure. When you brought in repression, then that opened up a whole another window around emotions that brought I mean, if, if we could bring Sigmund Freud back, or Melanie Klein, or one of the great psychoanalysts, you know, they would, of course, have a whole very rich take on all of how we feel emotions, what's conscious or unconscious, I'm always pragmatic about this. So it's like, you know, certain things we express, like, we share, certain things we suppress, like, we don't share for various reasons, because I'm not going to talk about this feeling in this particular audience, or in this particular situation, or, “Hey, I'm in a crisis, I can't afford to break down right now I need to keep on my game face and get things done.” So I'm going to suppress this emotion in service of getting things done.

And then of course, the idea of repression, where we shove these under the surface somehow and forget that they're there, or unconsciously channel them, that's a whole another rich area that, you know, some listeners are going to respond to. So that's a whole another, and just broadly, like you say, the therapeutic process, because it's a process, you know, it's like, like anything else these some, like, I've talked about this before. But you know, when I work with people, I say, well, there's, there's both what do you feel? And you can use a wheel for that or whatever? And then what do you want to feel? So there's, there's this kind of going toward, like, What feelings do I want to grow and cultivate? That turns this into a personal growth project. And then of course, from that there are some feelings that are frankly, a stretch. Like I don't know if I'm going to be able to get to, you know, empowerment. That seems like a stretch at a given moment when I'm feeling loss and depression. But I can stretch toward it.

And because feelings are wild, and you know, things happen. And I go to that … I can guarantee if you're depressed, but you went to that climate march and, and you listened to some of those speeches, you might lo and behold, feel empowered. So it happens. So there's those stretch feelings. And then then there's some feelings [that] are really scary, tender feelings that people don't want to go to. And we have to be very respectful of that and kind of kind of sneak up on those feelings and become comfortable. So it's a whole process, right? I guess that's the therapeutic process, whether you're in therapy yourself or, or just your own life, you know, your own daily struggle. So, really rich.

Pihkala: Yeah, I think Thomas that's very helpful for us all and a great, brief definition of suppression and repression. And that's those kinds of things. You know, pumping up the energy in a certain emotion is one option and then sort of pumping it down. I'm not sure if this is the best metaphor in English, but anyway, there's more technical terms, for example, in emotion-focused counseling, which I find very interesting, and that's something I've been trying to learn myself also in relation to emotional energy is that sometimes, you know, consciously sort of increasing it a bit or allowing it to grow a bit more, if the situation so demands, and then sometimes, you know, trying to lessen it often because the situation doesn't allow more of that. And those situations in my life are often related to public facilitation or speaking. And it's terrible if you are having a presentation or workshop about ecoanxiety and then the facilitator breaks down. So that's going to be quite a situation when the group then has to carry the facilitator and that’s human and may happen to certain degrees. But for safety, it's important that there's enough of that. But I wonder whether you, Thomas, how much do you use this with your clients? You know, these skills of sort of bumping up or down the energy of emotions?

Doherty: Oh, yeah. I mean, it's at the heart, I think, of almost any therapeutic work, I mean, in my sort of approach, and the manuscript I'm working on, you know, it's basically chapter two of this manuscript, you know, how to feel or how do you want to feel? The first chapter is how to think, so it's starting to just be aware that we have all these models, and we have different lenses we look through and there's diverse ways to look at the world. I think that's a good place to start. But then yeah, how do you feel? I mean, I've always thought there's three main tasks in environmental work: how do we feel about the situation? How do we describe it, what do we think about it? And what should we do? And so much of our all our education and academia and science and climate change, reports in the news is all about the description and how do we think about it and all the data and all the info. And then of course, what should we do this policy or that policy? But the “how to feel” is always underneath all of that.

And that's why … part of my theory on how why ecoanxiety is so prevalent, because it's bubbling up, because people's feelings aren't really honored. And then we know just in science in general, scientists are taught not to share their personal feelings and policy laws are very dispassionate. Right? That's the ideal being dispassionate. But where those feelings go? So, yeah, so I think it's just huge. And, yeah, sometimes we want to, we want to fake it till we make it and pump up some positive emotions, just like coaching a team of young people in a sport or something like that, or coaching ourselves, running over a hill when we're running our race, or getting through our day. And then sometimes, yeah, we want to take time to just “feel all the feels” like, you know, Britt Wray has a section in her book about, you know, feeling all the feels, all of them, you know. So yeah, so giving permission, giving permission about that.

Where do you think you're going? Where are you going with some of your work? Like, what, what kind of projects are you working on now? Or what's the next step for this for you?

Pihkala: Thanks. Thanks for asking. Since the completion of the process model of ecoanxiety and grief, which we discussed at an earlier episode, I've been working heavily on theories of grief and bereavement, not to be gloomy, but bring out nuances related to how much change there is around us and in us, and the sort of perceived need to be able to name those kinds of nuances. Like you know, changes and losses related to identity and roles, in addition to the very visible changes in our so called natural environments. So that's hopefully going to be finished quite soon. The first quite long, regrettably, again, long article about theories of grief and bereavement as applied to ecological grief. And the sort of practical next step is what I've been drafting was just like a sort of questionnaire or self-reflection sheet about ecological sadness and grief. So if somebody wants to do that kind of work, either as in a work or with others, then there's sort of practical application of, of doing reflection about what things are changing, and that should also include, I think, those kinds of changes which have many sides, there may be both personnel growth and loss at the same time, for example. So those kinds of things. And I'm eagerly awaiting your forthcoming book, Thomas. Also, I know that's a long distance run but it’s in the process.

Doherty: Yeah. And it's, you know, I mean, I shared a milestone, I shared the first chapter with my, you know, my book agent person I'm working with and so that's been a personal milestone for me this week, to keep moving forward, you know, into this process. But you're speaking to a final thing here, I think we can end on, which is, you know, on the emotions, whatever, model you want to use, whether it's a vocabulary list, or [making up ] new words, or the emotions wheel, there's one thing to talk about it from a distance. And it's another thing to, like, if we're like a dart and we throw ourselves at the emotional wheel, we land, boom! in sadness, or, you know, we land in depression, and we, okay, we're sitting in that. And that's a whole, that's a process, that's part of the, you know, we're in that and oh, okay, I have to open myself up to this loss and depression.

And of course, loss is a part of life. So many, many losses related to just general life and letting go of things. And, of course, from a Buddhist perspective, you know, life is suffering, because we're attached, and we have to let go. So just being aware, at any given moment, you're going to be sitting, we're going to be sitting in a in a section, I can also be in a section that's has empathy. Okay, I'm empathizing with myself, and that. So we can, we can kind of move our peg around the wheel. When we're in a slot, we're in a slot and we have to feel that so that's the job, I think. So we can nudge ourselves to sort of different sections, if we want, we will find ourselves in different sections. Is there anything you're looking forward to for the rest of the evening Panu as we and as you wrap up your long day, Panu?

Pihkala: Autumn is coming in Finland, so the sun is already setting. So if there may be a chance to get a bit of sun, sunlight, or when going out. And how is your starting day looking like?

Doherty: Well, yeah, I know, you're really a student of the seasons, and I am as well. And so there's the seasons of emotions. And so yes, I was actually thinking about autumn as well, because we're in early, early autumn coming into October here, and the leaves haven't really changed yet. But the weather has clearly changed. And it's cooler and wetter. And for me personally, that moves me more into the purple part of the [climate emotions] wheel there where I'm more likely to, to naturally feel some loss and melancholy as the year is ending. So yes, but I'm frankly looking forward to after this, I'll be with my therapy training group. And I have people coming in from around the world this season, from India, from Italy, from England, from Hawaii. And so in a few minutes, I'm going to jump in with that group. And they're, you know, they're really interested in this stuff. And we'll get we'll get to talk about this stuff. And it's generally pretty much like this podcast, very uplifting for me. It gives me hope, gratitude, empathy, inspiration, empowerment, interest, it keeps me in that blue positive section of the wheel. So that's all good.

And you know, I have I've spent some time in the overwhelm section this week! My daughter has been home from school because she's been ill and I've been working on my manuscript, you know. So yes, we can get overwhelmed. So listeners, just be aware you're in all these different feelings. Some of you are experts on certain news areas, both as scientists or as humans. So be well and Panu you have a great evening and listeners, take care.

Pihkala: Take care.