Climate activism and burnout

Working to keep the planet cool can wear people out psychologically.

Effecting societal or political change is daunting. Writing letters, manning phone banks, handing out flyers, can take a lot of time away from family and other activities. Many activists volunteer after work, when they are already tired. And seeing the results of all those efforts can take years and is often met with setbacks and defeats. It’s no surprise that many climate activists often drop out, complaining of burnout.

A paper published last week looked at climate activism and burnout. The researchers involved in the project found, big surprise, despair and burnout among those involved with the climate movement. The two factors leading to burnout were exhaustion, the feeling of being drained and weary, and disengagement.

Exhaustion seems almost inevitable for climate activists. The researchers found that despair over climate change leads to feelings of exhaustion. Once a person reaches a certain level of exhaustion, psychological solutions such as focusing on practical solutions to climate change or even being hopeful—envisioning a better tomorrow—weren’t much help. The bright spot, the researchers found, was that staying focused on solutions for climate change mitigated people’s desire to disengage from the movement.

To perform this study, the scientists recruited volunteers who reported at least a moderate level of involvement with the climate movement. The researchers then administered psychological tests for burnout, such as the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory, adapting the questionnaire to climate action. They also administered questionnaires on stress, despair, exhaustion, and disengagement. Their paper was published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology.

This study garnered some press. I’m glad the study received some attention, but I think there is an effort in much of the press to overemphasize the silver lining, the glimmer of hope, in a study or story. I think that is what happened in the description of the paper in Phys.org, which emphasized staying focused on solutions.

Although this is a good study, I think it actually overlooks an even greater amount of despair and burnout when it comes to fighting the climate crisis. The volunteers recruited for the study were still engaged to a greater or lesser degree in fighting climate change. Probably thousands of folks were left out of the study, including those who had already given up. I think if scientists include those folks in the next study, the results will be WAY different.

Burnout is one thing. It can come up in any job, and it doesn’t always take a long time to reach burnout. I got burned out from driving a cab, and I only did that for nine months.

Burnout is nonetheless manageable. I’ve known folks to be burned out engineers, salesmen, or teachers who stayed in their careers for decades. Working on the climate crisis is different. Wetlands are disappearing. Coastlines are crumbling. Cyclones have destroyed swaths of the South from Georgia to Tennessee. Climate change did not cause these cyclones, but it made them worse. Climate change increased Helene’s rainfall by about ten percent and raised the power of its winds by about 11 percent. Milton was also supercharged by climate change.

For many working in climate change, the emotional toll is profound. David Corn, writing in Mother Jones back in 2019, talked to the scientists on the frontlines of the climate change disaster. The scientists expressed deep sadness and mourning. One climate scientist, emotionally distraught by the election of Donald Trump, described a spiral of debilitating depression that left her unable to get out of bed. She recalled:

I had the firm belief that Washington would act on climate change and would be acting soon. When Trump was elected, it came crashing down. My most resounding thought was, how could my country do this? I had to face the fact that there was a veritable tidal wave of people who don’t care about climate change and who put personal interest above the body of scientific information that I had contributed to.

Other scientists described lost sleep, feeling overwhelmed, emotional exhaustion, grief, anxiety, even rage. Doctors and other caregivers are given training in dealing with grief, but this subject rarely comes up for scientists. Seeking counseling, one meteorologist-turned-journalist, recounted that his therapist was unprepared for his predicament.

A personal note

I had read about climate change before I saw An Inconvenient Truth, but it was the Al Gore documentary to really spark my concern about our warming planet. Although there were glaciers retreating and a few other signs of global warming, any sort of crisis or tipping point were years, possibly decades away. It was easy to feel hope in such circumstances.

Now, the climate crisis commands headlines, affecting everything from the weather and health to the very foundations of the buildings in our cities. I have to admit my view has darkened. I am not, by nature, a hopeful person. But I like being an adult. I like the satisfaction of being responsible. I guess that’s what keeps me going.

How about you? Are you involved with the climate movement? Have you experienced burnout?