Every day we’re fed a slew of headlines warning of the scale of the climate crisis. Yet little is written on how it feels to witness these existential threats – whether on the news or in our communities – and how we might begin to process it all emotionally.
The Climate Mental Health Network, a US-based resource hub, hopes to kickstart those conversations through the Climate Emotions Wheel. The tool consists of four colour-coded quadrants – representing anger, positivity, sadness and fear – each of which has its own subcategories of more specific emotions such as outrage, panic, empowerment and inspiration.
The wheel, which also has a text-free emoji version, was created in collaboration with Dr Panu Pihkala, an adjunct professor of environmental theology at the University of Helsinki, based on his research, which, for the last decade, has focused on our emotional response to the climate crisis.
