Speaking at the World Economic Forum in 2019, Swedish teen climate activist Greta Thunberg captured a continuing generational frustration among today’s young people: we don’t want to pick up slack for the generations most responsible for the climate crisis. We want them to act.
Sally Weintrobe strives to inspire that action and explain the inertia that has stalled it in her new book “Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis.” Weintrobe, a psychoanalyst and Fellow of the Institute of Psychoanalysis in London, considers an understanding of human psychology critical for understanding the climate crisis — of how human-caused climate change came to be a “crisis” and why we’re still facing it today. Through a combination of psychoanalysis, social theory, memoir, and history, she deftly illustrates how neoliberals have exploited human nature to keep the systems and policies needed for a just and sustainable future from coming into place, even as public opinion increasingly demands them.
By offering a critical and comprehensive view of the psychological factors underpinning an exploitative and extractive status quo, Weintrobe shows how we can start transforming it. Weintrobe attributes the climate crisis in large part to “neoliberal Exceptionalism,” or the phenomenon by which those who are ruled by their inner exception and promote deregulated capitalism dominate society’s political agenda. To have this inner exception or a part of us that says we are special, ideal, and beyond reproach is natural. Problems arise, however, when it takes control. Weintrobe argues that over the last few decades, the ascent of neoliberal Exceptions to political power has bred a culture of carelessness in which parts of broader society have colluded, unleashing the worst of our humanity. Hence, working ourselves out of the climate crisis requires enacting robust political, social, and economic frameworks that breed a “culture of care,” unlocking the best of our humanity — our empathy and compassion for one another and the planet. Enacting such frameworks requires good leadership unafraid to harness our emotional responses to climate change to move people to action and advance frameworks of care, like the Green New Deal (which Weintrobe interestingly calls a “vital mental health measure”).
Perhaps what I most appreciated about Weintrobe’s argument is that it hits on a fundamental truth about human nature: its duality. Our capacity to create is rivaled by our capacity to destroy — to wishfully think ourselves out of harm’s way, to see anything that doesn’t square with the preservation of our self-image as a threat, to see ourselves as exceptional and therefore, invincible. And in some sense, it’s this duality that can save us from the climate crisis: because if we can uncare, we can care again.
For followers of progressive climate thought-leaders like writer Naomi Klein and fans of the Sunrise Movement end of the climate activism spectrum, Weintrobe’s argument feels somewhat intuitive. It’s predicated on ideas like the need to limit economic growth on a finite planet and the impossibility of techno-thinking humanity’s way out of the climate crisis, which such followers readily accept. Her critique of neoliberal Exceptionalism confirms and deepens a now prevalent mentality among many youth climate activists. Those who don’t already subscribe to such beliefs, however, may find themselves unsatisfied. Even as the book seems on its surface to present an apolitical argument and does in some respects cut through the political noise in its psychoanalytic orientation, it’s hard to imagine conservative ideologues or many who lean right on the political spectrum following Weintrobe to her conclusions.
Moreover, some aspects of Weintrobe’s book may jibe less well with environmental justice advocates. Namely, the book leans heavily on Extinction Rebellion (XR), the nonviolent environmental movement which first arrested public attention (pun intended) when it staged massive protests in London — where Weintrobe is based — and called on the UK government to declare a climate emergency. XR’s focus on truth-telling and emotion-sharing makes it a prime example of the culture Weintrobe wants us to strive toward. But XR is far from the only climate group employing the methodologies and philosophies critical to this “culture of care.” The frequent references to XR, then, seem to come at the exclusion of others who have done similar work, with much less public recognition, for longer. In the past, XR, a predominantly white middle-class group (at least, in its founding), has faced criticism for lacking racial diversity and connections to frontline communities, and for centering language about mass species extinction over the immediate and human costs of environmental degradation, born largely by low-income communities of color (which Weintrobe recognizes). While I don’t think Weintrobe’s reliance on XR discredits the book or diminishes her core argument, it does risk leaving readers with a narrow view of the climate movement and who in it is pioneering the cultural transformation for which tackling the climate crisis calls.
Though Weintrobe’s book holds invaluable insights for people of all ages and masterfully breaks down academic jargon for a popular audience, it reads as most clearly directed toward the “adults” in the room — readers who don’t identify as contemporaries of the “youth” climate movement (which I will define as including everyone from elementary school-aged climate strikers to the 20-something-year-olds leading the Sunrise Movement). At some moments, it speaks even more directly to today’s grandparents: “We oldies who will soon be dead have the luxury of thinking the damage is too hard to face, and that the work to repair the world that we damaged is too hard to undertake.” For these generations who won’t live long enough to see the worst effects of climate change, putting the climate crisis out of mind comes easier than for today’s children, which is precisely why Weintrobe sees children as “our best source of hope.” You don’t have to understand Arctic sea ice decline to care about climate change, she posits; you just have to care about your granddaughter not living in a world plagued by conflict over finite resources, where human rights go unprotected and basic needs unmet.
Weintrobe’s choice to speak directly to her own generation, an older one, makes sense to me. After all, research shows that younger Americans are already the most worried about climate change (a 2018 Gallup poll found that 70% of Americans age 18 to 34 are worried a great deal/fair amount about global warming, compared to only 56% of Americans age 55 and older). In her book, Weintrobe recognizes today’s children as “the realists.” As a young person and a climate activist reader, I found this portrayal personally vindicating as well as culturally apt. We Gen Z-ers and to some extent, Millennials, who have grown up doom-scrolling posts about rampant wildfires and mass migration due to natural disasters know no reality other than one in which the need for bold climate action is iminent. We’re speaking out on the world stage, organizing global climate strikes, and pressuring elected officials to say no to fossil fuel money. Most of us really don’t need yet another book about climate change telling us it matters, that it will impact our generation and any children or grandchildren we might hope to have more than it will our parents and grandparents. Calling for systemic change sounds much less radical when you know your future is on the line.
But we need the people whose futures aren’t on the line mobilizing alongside us. It’s older people, our parents’ and Weintrobe’s generations, who now control most of our political and economic systems. And if we want to avoid dangerous levels of warming, we need them leveraging their power as community members, employees, pensioners, and public leaders to accelerate a transition off of fossil fuels. Weintrobe’s book helps make the case for their action, from one “oldie” to another. In setting our mental wheels in motion and prompting us to start relating differently to each other and the planet — cultivating an alternative culture of care — Weintrobe reminds us that, in order to save tomorrow, we must empathize with and acknowledge the climate psychology of today.
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Image Courtesy of Sally Weintrobe
