From social-emotional-learning (SEL) in preschools to awareness of post-traumatic-stress-disorder in veterans, research and progress in the world of mental health has come a long way in the past few decades. We now hear about “crises” of mental health among various populations, from parents or Gen Z, to teachers and health workers. But what happens when you add the issue of climate change into the mix? How much are these mental health crises caused by people’s worry about– and even direct experiences with– climate change? Higher temperatures and disruptive climate events can certainly affect mental health, and heat even interacts with psychotropic medications in adverse ways. People harm themselves and each other more, the hotter it is. Then there’s all the grief and worry that comes with anticipating and experiencing climate change, as well as joy and inspiration that comes with addressing it. Clearly, climate change is an important part of the mental health story.
Enter the Climate Mental Health Network, a community-based, open-access, multilingual mental health support resource for people suffering from challenging climate emotions, as well as building emotional and community resilience for confronting climate change. This week on Climate magic, we learn about the work of Sarah Newman, founder and Director of the Climate Mental Health Network. We discuss how climate change and mental health are connected, the interventions she hopes the organization offers, and her personal story of coming to these offerings as her own climate magic.
Resources:
- Climate Mental Health Network
- Joanna Macy’s Active Hope: https://www.activehope.info/
- Rebecca Solnit’s essay, “When the Hero is the Problem”, http://rebeccasolnit.net/essay/when-the-hero-is-the-problem/
- On the concept of “small is all,” from adrienne maree brown’s “principles of emergent strategy”: https://www.6seconds.org/2021/08/15/emergent-strategy/
- On the fish organizing symbol from the labor movement: https://inthesetimes.com/article/the-organizing-model-goes-global
- 2023 US Surgeon General Vivek Murthry’s declaration of a “loneliness epidemic”(chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf) and the “crisis of parental mental health” (https://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/reports-and-publications/parents/index.html)
- Jonathan Haidt’s book, the Anxious Generation, on social media’s influence on the mental health of young people: https://jonathanhaidt.com/anxious-generation/
- The best research on Americans’ views and politics about climate change can always be found at the Yale Center for Climate Communication. The executive summary of the most recent report, which shows overwhelming support for climate change policies, came out in June, 2025: https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/climate-change-in-the-american-mind-politics-policy-spring-2025/toc/3/.
- An example of people on the frontlines of climate change and climate distress not wanting to say “climate change”: https://www.theassemblync.com/environment/climate-change-down-east/
- Lise Van Susteren’s website: https://www.lisevansusteren.org/
- Education and Gen Z resources on Climate Mental Health’s website, including the ‘zine, short film, and climate emotions wheel, https://www.climatementalhealth.net/education
- Resources on eco-grief, including how to talk to kids, and multiple resources for identifying and supporting eco-grief: https://www.climatementalhealth.net/grief-resources
- Zero Waste Humboldt: https://zerowastehumboldt.org/
- North Coast California Native Plant Society: https://northcoastcnps.org/
- Article on “Why Getting to Know Your Neighbors Can Be an Important Climate Solution,” https://www.npr.org/2025/06/10/nx-s1-5340713/north-carolina-climate-change-solutions
Transcript:
RAY: This is Climate Magic. I'm your host, Dr. Sarah Ray, chair of the environmental studies department at Cal Poly Humboldt in Arcata, California, and author of A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety: How to Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet. In this show, I talk to guests who are experts in the work of enlisting what Paul Hawken called the most radical climate technology available to us– our hearts and minds– in service of climate justice and action.
Today, I'm speaking with Sarah Newman, founder and executive director of the Climate Mental Health Network, which works on addressing the mental health consequences of climate change. Sarah started the Climate Mental Health Network in the spring of 2021, after her own struggles with climate emotions. The organization is one of the largest in this emerging sector, reaching young people, parents, and educators with research informed programs and resources.
She worked previously in the media impact sector and at nonprofits as an outreach director and a community organizer. The sort of larger purpose of Sarah's work really, is to move stakeholders to protect the health of the people on the planet. Thanks so much for joining the show, Sarah.
NEWMAN: It's great to be here. Thank you. Sarah.
RAY: Tell us a little bit about the Climate Mental Health Network, what gap it's filling and how it's manifesting your purpose on this planet.
NEWMAN: Well, first, maybe I'll start with how I got to this point. So I started developing climate anxiety when I was in high school. But I'm again, Gen X, so this was a really long time ago, and there was definitely no terminology to describe it. And I just thought, well, this is just my worrying about the world. And I mean, I distinctly remember in, I can't remember what grade, but in high school in an environmental studies class, and learning about plastic pollution and how plastic is made from oil and things like that, and it's something that I've carried in the background of my life ever since then.
And it would show up in small ways, such as being really overwhelmed by, say, an environmental theme documentary to a much larger life choices and just carrying a lot of concern and worry about what is happening to the planet because of climate change. And it really became very acute, though in the past, decade, let's say.
And then I started reading articles and seeing this term climate anxiety and realizing, oh my gosh, this is what I have. And I've had for so long, and it really became acute during Covid and I started looking for resources and I found some really great resources online. But I realized that this was an emerging field and that there's a need for a lot more resources and without much of a plan, I'm going, this is what I need to do.
And this is something that's so deeply part of who I am and that I want to work on this issue. So the organization uses a community-based or a public health approach to addressing these issues. And one of the things that I recognize is that there's obviously many paths to address this issue, many points of intervention. And one of the things that I really firmly believe is that, there should be no barriers to access resources or tools for people to address their emotions because of climate change.
And so that's really integral to our model. So that there's, it's a community-based approach that there's no paywalls, that the resources are free. And that's very much about meeting people where they are and really emphasizing that this is done in community rather than, say, an individualized one on one therapy model. And, obviously, if someone's having acute symptoms and so forth.
Yes, please go see a mental health professional. But in general, this is really about this a collective experience. And part of our, navigating and developing the skills to manage the mental health impacts of climate is about being in community.
RAY: Yeah, I love that. I love the open access model to it, the no barriers model to it. Especially since, as you know, the vast majority of people who are going to be experiencing the worst impacts of climate change are not people who have necessarily a lot of resources for things like mental health care. And of course, mental health care itself is kind of put aside as a luxury.
You know, it's not considered a necessity, and you don't have a lot of insurance policies that cover it. You know, it's really hard to access that, you know, if you are, you know, basically, you know, fairly insulated from climate change. So that's really beautiful. Yeah. And so, yeah, you you actually shifted what you were doing. You kind of gave up what you're doing and started from scratch to do this.
And as you've sort of developed this thing in the journey then coming along now for a few years since Covid, what is it that you're sort of like? The big ahas or the big takeaways that are shaping where you want to go next?
NEWMAN: It's a really good question. I think that, when I started the organization four years ago and I would talk to people and I'd say I have climate anxiety, and I started this organization, I'd often get a blank expression from people like, what is that? Not from Gen Z-ers, but from other people, or, oh, that's an issue that's so interesting.
And now I feel like, I don't get that. It's, oh, you work on that, can I please talk to you? You know, or this is something. So I think that there's been this really dramatic increase in awareness and understanding of this issue. And I think it's because everyone has experienced now extreme weather because of climate change, there's more information and news about this issue.
So I think that it is definitely there's an increased knowledge around it. There's perhaps less stigma around it. And so our strategy as an organization has really been, placing youth at the center of our work because young people are disproportionately experiencing very high rates of a range of emotions, because of climate, but not just about reaching youth directly, but also adults in their lives.
And that includes parents and caregivers as well as educators and, I think that, one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot more is how do we how do we create more community amongst those different demographics and do more intergenerational work so that it's not just, you know, each each group needs their own support, but then how do we create more integration amongst those groups to build more community overall, like community strength and engagement.
So that’s one of the things that I've been trying to figure out.
RAY: Yeah. And, and I want to go down the direction of are you seeing anything changing or are you seeing climate becoming less and less of a topic. Those things I'm going to get to. But before we even get to that, in case listeners are not familiar with thinking about climate change and mental health in the same thought stream, can you unpack a little bit about what the relationship is, even between climate change and mental health?
If you're not even familiar, like those blank stare people from four years ago, if you're not even familiar talking about these things in the same breath, what is your sort of shtick about explaining how they're connected?
NEWMAN: Yeah, that, you know, as the planet is changing and we're all experiencing a range of impacts because of climate change. There's, this is affecting how people are feeling. This is affecting people's physical well-being as well as their mental well-being. And it brings up a range of mental health experiences and emotions. And so, you know, I think the, at a kind of a little bit more of a granular level, there's just knowledge about what's happening because of climate change, and that indirect experience and just reading about it in the news, reading about, disasters, or, leadership or policies, or learning about it in school or reading about it on social media that can invoke a range of emotions in people, including like anxiety or we worry or perhaps inspiration. Depending on what you're reading.
And then there's also the more, there's the direct experiences. It's living through some type of extreme weather events such as a wildfire or extreme heat. And, that also is impacting how people are feeling, obviously, from going through those types of things.
And I think something else that's important to think about. Back to your point about, you know, who has access to mental health resources and that there's, you know, a lot of barriers to accessing them and to think about, in addition, in those barriers to access that, you know, people are living with a range of, of lived experiences already that are impacting their mental health.
It could be poverty or violence or discrimination, and all of those things are already impacting people's wellbeing. And then you add on the layer of climate change and those are additional, mental health, impacts to, to people's wellbeing.
RAY: Yeah. Right. Thank you. And would you also say something about, you know, your Climate Mental Health Network and the relationship between mental health and climate change. You're describing it in terms of climate change happening and impacting people's mental health. And so the intervention there is about making sure that their wellbeing and that they're processing and that they're healing from that are coping… I'm not even sure what your favorite verb is there, but I'm thinking about this kind of reaction to climate change. And I also wonder if you can speak some to why mental health or why strong mental health or whatever adjective you want to use, intact mental health might be an important intervention for dealing with climate change.
So sort of like the other side of that, that other direction of that too. Do we need mental health to deal with climate change?
NEWMAN: One hundred percent and, well, everyone has a right and has the ability to thrive and experience joy and gratitude and all, you know, a range of these experiences, despite all the challenges we're facing. And, you know, to your question, though, about why, I mean, I see this as addressing mental health is part of addressing the climate crisis.
We cannot address the climate crisis fully without ensuring that people are emotionally resilient, that they have the skills to navigate, all of the myriad impacts of climate, whether it's learning about it, seeing news, experiencing it, the myriad things that people are experiencing. And, you know, I see this as one people need to be prepared for the impacts of climate change.
And so often when we talk about preparation, we talk about physical resilience or, preparation for a disaster, like having, go-bag for a disaster, things like that. But often what's missing in those conversations is that mental preparedness. And so people need the toolkit, the mental toolkit for navigating those people need, toolkit and the skills for engaging with other people, like if they're a parent engaging with children on this.
And I also see this as you know, we talk about people taking action to address the climate crisis. And I see this as really critical that addressing the mental health impacts are an essential first step to bring in more people into addressing the climate crisis because it helps them develop a sense of agency.
I feel that, they'll say, oh, the climate crisis. Like, I can't do anything, but it's so awful or it's so overwhelming. What am I supposed to do? And I see this as a mental health intervention, because if people understand, I'd, you know, move from that sense of despair or overwhelm to a sense of I have agency, I have a role to play, I have power.
This is a way to bring more people as stakeholders and as agents, to take action to help move us forward in terms of climate mitigation, climate action, climate adaptation, all of those things. And it really is about also when you address the mental health, we might be talking about this as an individual's mental health, but really looking at all of these things from a collective perspective.
So when we think about an individual's agency that's tied up in the community agency, when you talk about an individual's emotional resilience that's tied up in like a family unit or in a community as well. And so all of the climate kind of sectors or pillars, whether it's education or technology or policy or science, all of these things, I see the importance of bringing in mental health into every single one of them, every single outcome, every single engagement will be strengthened if you ensure that there's tools to navigate to help people engage, and respond and explore the emotions that might be coming up, in all of those sectors of the climate, of the climate space.
RAY: Yeah. And just I'm, I'm loving what I'm hearing you say about indirect versus direct and the necessity for mental health and all these spaces to be able to act on climate. What would you say to somebody who would say something like, and I'm just, you know, hypothetical thing that I may have heard from 1 or 2 students in my life, that whether they are individually have their mental health intact and are individually involved, what if they're, you know, even if they had all of the resources, internal and external, all of the capacity, all of the energy, all of the motivation, all of the agency that you just described, none of what they would do would matter anyway.
What would you say to that kind of, you know, push back on all of the arguments you're making in favor of why it is that we need to have all that stuff in place order to—I mean, it makes perfect sense to me that I have to have a good night's sleep and I have to have my family going well, and I need to feel materially secure and stable, and I can't have a hurricane bearing down on me if I'm going to think about something like climate change and participate in mitigation or adaptation efforts with my community. Absolutely makes total sense what you're describing. But I hear from students who maybe, you know, young people especially, you think about this Gen Z –Alpha as coming too– they're doing this too. I'm sort of interested if you have a generational nuance there, too. I'm thinking about them as they come into my classes as well. But are they are, you know, one of the sort of biggest pillars of futility that I hear is this kind of it doesn't even matter, you know, if I have all that together, because any one person like myself is just not going to make a difference.
NEWMAN: Okay. I have been that person.
RAY: I thought you might have some experience with this one. Yes.
NEWMAN: Yes I, I—this is for sure. And I mean, I remember one time I said this, I was working on an interfaith climate change campaign. So I was engaging with religious leaders and many different denominations and I can't remember exactly what was happening. But there was something that was just very acute happening politically. And I was just so frustrated.
And I said something to my boss to that effect, like, why are we doing this? You know, like—
And yeah, and just like what? When I'm your boss. But she said, no, but she said, we have to. We can say that we tried and, and I kind of thought and I said, yeah, you're right. And I, you know, and it's not like I haven't had those thoughts since. But I think that, I mean, it seems kind of like a simplistic answer, but it's true.
Like, we—I—my perspective kind of in the world is that everyone has a role to play. We all have a responsibility. We all have a role. And that having those roles of addressing what we're facing in the world and that—
Even if we are deterred or what we aspire to, or our vision for the world is not the reality right now, it's—we still have a responsibility to work for that. And I think that, you know, I think about Joanna Macy and her concept of active hope when there is not just this kind of Pollyanna sense of hope.
And like, I just hope that, you know, the world will be X, Y, Z. But it's like we—you're actively working towards what you believe and want the world to be.
And I think that there’s been so many significant historical leaders of so many different movements who've never seen their vision actualized. And there's so many movements that still are not actualized. And that social change, environmental change—all of these things are very, very, very long journeys and long processes.
But it doesn't mean that we shouldn't do those things, that we shouldn't take action, that we have a responsibility to. To the previous generation that have worked so hard in all of these movements, and we have a responsibility to future generations who are already looking at us saying, what are you doing?
And it's sort of like a daisy chain. And it can be so hard when it seems like the forces are so daunting and so overwhelming. But I also see this as finding those moments of inspiration in like the tiniest little things.
And when it comes to climate change, when it is so overwhelming, and if you can find that small little thing like, hey, my neighbor just planted a tree or, wow, you know, there's more birds returning with migration this year or whatever it might be—like those small little things. It shows that humanity is not giving up.
RAY: I love what you're saying. And the first thing you described about the daisy chain—of seeing yourself in this longer arc—reminds me of Greta Thunberg’s cathedral thinking.
And I love also Olufemi Taiwo, in his book Reconsidering Reparations, he talks about thinking about the “ancestor principle” as a way of inoculating yourself against complacency. And he invites people to inherit, you know, the obligations and responsibilities of the projects of their ancestors. He says in your lifetime—in your short lifetime—you’re only going to bring that project a tiny little bit forward, and then you’re going to pass it on.
And how impoverished we would be if those people who could not see whether the outcomes of their movements would manifest the way they wanted—if they gave up because they couldn’t see that. Right? Oh wow, can you imagine?
And then all the people who don't even have names in those movements. You know, Rebecca Solnit writes so beautifully about the kind of unnamed groundswell of unglamorous workers that are also moving these things forward. That they did all the work for 30 years before Thunberg could have that—that kind of thing.
The fire moment. So yes, all of that. And the daisy chain idea of seeing yourself in this longer arc of time.
What I think you're offering—and that for anybody who would say, "I'm too small. It doesn't matter what I do"—is kind of not a denial of that. You're not saying, "No, you're not small." You're not saying, "You have a lot of power. Get up and get to action." Because I think that that’s not really working, right?
I mean, I love that argument too, and I try that with people. But what you're actually saying is: Yes, you are small. Yes, you are small. And actually, small is all we ever are. And, you know, small people all the time have made massive cataclysmic change—in collectives.
You know, when I say, when I'm talking to people who are experiencing despair about the climate because of their sense of powerlessness to do anything, I say—they’re suffering from individualism.
But that sort of, you know, inoculation against despair in the collective—is that the thing you opened us up with? When you first spoke about what Climate Mental Health Network is doing?
NEWMAN: I love everything you're saying. And there's an image—like this old image from the labor movement about organizing. And there's a picture of one huge fish and then one small fish. And then there's another picture of the fish, but then there's like a bigger school of fish, and it's going to eat the single fish. And it says at the top: “Organize.”
Just the idea—like, one small fish is not going to be able to take on whatever big institution or whatever it might be. But collectively, when you have all these fish together, it can take on that big fish.
I think also we live in such an individualized culture. Particularly here in the United States, it's just a very individualized culture. And so I think that it's also sometimes a new concept or challenging for people to think about. It's not what I'm doing individually—it's really what I'm doing in community.
And I think we also have... there's kind of developed a cult of personality. And we look for heroes, and there's the hero narrative. And there are so many inspiring people who are well-known public figures in the climate space.
But at the same time, it's about all of us. Those people are great messengers and perhaps they motivate and mobilize people—and we need that. But those people are not going to solve this.
And I often kind of lament, why doesn't the media just interview a random person who is doing their little part? Because that is just as important. And we need to really elevate the non-celebrity voices to show that this is really everyone's issue.
RAY: I love that. I love that. It makes me think I'm just going to fire up a few people who are doing stuff locally and say, "What are you doing?" You don't even have a name or a fancy, you know, set of letters after your name, or your influencer mystique on Instagram or whatever it is. You know? Beautiful.
I wanted to hint to this earlier. And I think now that we've covered some of that ground about the relationship between mental health and climate change—direct and indirect reactions, how important it is as an intervention, all of that stuff—I am a little bit curious.
This is one of the reasons I really wanted to talk to you, Sarah, because I know about your work with the Climate Mental Health Network, and we've known each other for a few years in these spaces.
I myself, in my research on climate anxiety and climate emotions, I'm noticing people not really identifying climate as the cause of their anxiety or their mental health—or they’re diminishing climate’s role in that. Or saying, no, it's really about this other stuff going on. It's politics, it's authoritarianism, it’s systemic problems.
Even if they're not talking about politics or social structures, maybe they're saying, "I'm just depressed and anxious and there's something wrong with me"—through that mode.
But climate seems to be going away as a thing. And I was struck by, for example, the book that has come out recently by Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation, and how many people—including the U.S. Surgeon General, Murthry—are talking about the loneliness epidemic and the mental health crisis of parents.
Yeah, all of these things keep coming out, and no one’s saying climate.
So I'm curious. I'm kind of curious—aside from bemoaning this and wagging our fingers at these people—what do you think is going on there? Do you have a deeper analysis? Can you help us understand?
NEWMAN: I think it's interesting. Because, like, when former Surgeon General Murthry's report about parents came out, I had some conversations with different people about why didn’t that include climate? Or, you know, his report on loneliness.
And actually, as an organization, we did reach out to his office, and some of our Gen Z advisors actually had a conversation with his chief of staff to talk about climate and mental health and loneliness, and why this is something that they want the office to be tackling.
Of course, now that won’t be happening. But I think it’s maybe because people—well, I think as an issue, this is still not mainstream yet.
When I first started doing this work, I thought about the issue of PTSD. There was a time when people were really isolated or marginalized when they would talk about PTSD or say they had it. And now it’s just very common. You can talk about having PTSD, and hopefully there's no social stigma around it.
And so I don’t think climate anxiety or climate-related emotions have reached that level of recognition yet.
And I think also with climate, it’s maybe not something that people are struggling with every single day. It comes in waves. I call it “climate amnesia.”
In the winter, people start to forget what happened the previous summer and focus on other issues. They might think, “Oh yeah, that flood, that wildfire—that was a problem over there,” and now things feel “normal” again.
And I think also, when people are struggling with so many different issues—as I mentioned at the beginning, whether it’s economic insecurity or violence or discrimination—they're not necessarily parsing all of these elements out and examining the relationship between them.
But I do think that as we have more climate impacts and more extreme weather events, and you know, increasing frequency and more physical impacts—which will affect our mental health—that it will increasingly be just front and center in people’s daily lives.
So that’s my very humble take.
RAY: I think—yeah. Yeah. I am so curious if you’re finding less interest or attention to the work you’re doing, or if you're feeling the need to reframe "climate mental health" into other terms that are more salient for people right now.
And just those kinds of questions—and the frustration I feel with you around talking about youth mental health, and the loneliness epidemic, and parental mental health—but never talking about the state of the planet.
It just seems like such a glaring omission, especially when we look at it next to the data on how many Americans care about climate change and are worried about climate change.
I mean, the data on the amount of people who worry is—is—we know there's a lot.
Yeah. So clearly that should be at least a side story, you know, to these other things going on.
And I think for me too, it has to do with—there’s the beautiful concept of climate amnesia that you described. It points to the different ways that cognitive biases play into our ability to grasp climate change as a threat that we would even have a mental health response to in the first place.
You know, so the idea that, you know, if it is not a boogeyman at your door with a scary face and a chainsaw, then it’s very difficult to muster up the kinds of fight, flight, or freeze nervous system responses one would need to take action to do something different.
And yeah, there’s all kinds of ways we could talk about cognitive biases not allowing for climate to be center, center of our conversations about these things all the time. A conversation for another time—or maybe not.
I'm very interested in cognitive biases and how they play into this too, but I think they’re part of the neuroscience, which is a big side story to mental health, obviously. I don’t know if you have anything to add about that. I’d love to hear.
NEWMAN: No, I agree. That climate is so overwhelming. And it goes back to, like, people having a sense of agency or taking action. I think another issue is that we’re so disconnected.
I mean, not—I can’t say that. Many people are very disconnected in their daily lives from nature and the earth.
And so if your connection with nature is in a very limited scope, or not in your daily life, or your professional life is not tied to being a farmer or an outdoor educator or something like that, then it also—I think—might affect whether this is something that's front and center in your thinking.
You know, if you're mostly inside, or your livelihood is not dependent on nature, or—you know, just things like that. Like, you go to the supermarket—do you really think about where this food came from? Those types of things.
And if you go through an extreme weather event—and hopefully it's not too devastating—it's like, "Okay, that was awful, but my life is now resuming." You know?
And I think it’s also just very scary for people to try to cognitively go into a place where you try to grasp and wrestle with what is happening now, and what all the modeling shows.
It's just—it’s very hard.
RAY: Yeah. I mean, it is—absolutely—nothing in the brain wants to go look at that. Clearly, yeah, I'm in that space. I have to confess—quite a lot, actually. You know, and every day I kind of check in with myself, like: Did I notice nature in the last 30 seconds at all? Did I even notice how I depend on it in any way? Probably not. Oh gosh.
You know, and every now and then I’ll have these moments where I'm like, “Nature! Where did it go? What happened? Am I in touch with it?” You know? And that's from a person who's pretty much thinking about this all the time. So, you know. Yeah. I love that answer. Thank you for that.
And I'm thinking too about—you said farmers and people who work in outdoor recreation or education as examples of people who might be more attuned to nature in the first place.
And not to go too far down this rabbit hole, but I do think it's fascinating that a significant number of people whose livelihoods are dependent on the environment, who might be really in touch with nature, are often also not voting in favor of climate.
So it's an interesting dissonance between one's interests and one's reality.
And I think that the Climate Mental Health Network isn’t mostly focused on folks who already kind of come to the table thinking, "I'm having a climate mental health thing." Whether that's, "I don't feel my mental health is up to the task of engaging in climate," or "The climate is affecting my mental health."
But when we think about the people who might be in distress about climate but who are not naming it climate—and who are actively not naming climate—you know, that's a whole other thing that I’d love to talk about at some point.
NEWMAN: But—yeah. I have thoughts.
Oh, you have some thoughts? Oh good. Good. Because I was like, “This isn’t something Sarah is working on,” and it might be asking too much to say, “What about the people who aren’t knocking on your door?”
NEWMAN: Well, it's something I've thought about a lot. I talked to Lise Van Susteren about this at one point. Because I think that, for example, there's a lot of really negative mental health outcomes among wildland firefighters. But they often are not climate activists or advocates.
And I remember talking to Lise about this—and I hope I'm quoting her correctly—but she said it was very much a kind of masculine dominion over the land.
So even though someone might have a career that is so tied up in the land, it's not necessarily in a reciprocal or integrated way. It's more sometimes like a domination or extractive relationship.
And I think it also plays into, again, that very individual nature—like “I am the person who is controlling the land,” rather than seeing us in a very symbiotic relationship and very interdependent with nature.
RAY: And I think that makes us vulnerable. Right? I mean, if we are dependent on nature, that makes us really vulnerable. And that's not what our culture defines as what men should be feeling or what the ideals of masculinity are. And, you know, that’s no shade on men themselves for swimming around in that water. But that is—that is kind of the norm, right?
NEWMAN: Yeah. Yeah. And that we have this very much—you know, that technology will solve problems, which is very disconnected from nature, rather than seeing nature as a healing force. So that if we live in harmony with nature, rather than extractive or dominating nature—and seeing nature as a source of support and...
You know, so I think that’s also part of it. And just seeing more of, like, “Oh, technology can solve this.” And part of—not all—but some of the climate technology is about controlling nature rather than working with nature.
I think also one of the things that I talk with my colleagues about is: I really am trying for us to reach beyond the lowest-hanging fruit. Because the lowest-hanging fruit people—they will find us. This is already on their radar and so forth. And how do we have those conversations with people who are struggling with climate emotions but might not have the language to describe what they're going through?
Maybe they don't use the words “climate change,” or maybe they don't use the words “mental health,” but they can say, “Well, I just went through a drought,” or “I just went through a wildfire or hurricane, and I'm not feeling okay now.”
And how can we reach them? And how important it is to bring those people to the table—to have conversations with them, to engage with people who might have different political perspectives but who do believe in the science of climate change, and they are concerned about it.
And I think that trying to look at this issue from a really nonpartisan perspective is such an important way to bring more people into the climate space in terms of, again, like, that sense of agency, action, resilience, community strength.
And we can’t just do it anchored in a smaller group of people. That’s at a saturation point. We have to engage people more broadly.
And so one of the things I’m really trying to do is: how do we reach people who believe in this and need these resources—but we’re not necessarily reaching them yet?
RAY: I'm so glad that you inserted yourself in the answer to that, because that is so beautiful. And I'm not surprised, actually, that you are trying to do that. And it makes a lot of sense that there is—culturally—whether you want to call it in terms of gender or individualism and capitalism or however you want to attribute it, colonialism—you can attribute it in lots of different places, which we don't need to go into here.
But there's a cultural display or persuasion, I should say, toward thinking about mental health and climate as kind of soft, weak things. That, you know, if you're paying attention to mental health or you're paying attention to climate, that there's a softness to you. Right? In some way or shape or form—however you want to think of that. And there's a shame to it. Shame for mental health needs—same as you were describing around PTSD in the past. There was all this stigma and shame.
And I think you're absolutely right—there are multiple values and interests that are common ground. There's sort of a nonpartisan common ground here around, like you said, community resilience, around trying to respond to this disaster, or to be heroic around climate science. Right? There are some places to tap on this. And the way you described it really was: there's this common ground around suffering.
Like, "I'm suffering from this experience, and I need to lean into community to come out of it," whatever my political stripe is, you know? So I really appreciate that you're saying, "We're at a saturation point—we're trying to do something else."
I completely agree. And I'm really glad you invited us to think about that.
In thinking about climate mental health—we're kind of coming to a close on our conversation—what do you think is the sort of cutting-edge stuff that the Climate Mental Health Network is offering? What kinds of resources do you want to maybe share with listeners and highlight? And how might they be able to follow or join in or be part of what you're doing in some way?
NEWMAN: Yeah. Thank you.
Well, the first thing is—on our website, which is climatementalhealth.net—everything is available for free. All of it is available in English, and most of it is available also in Spanish.
The first thing I would invite people to look at is our Climate Emotions Wheel, which is something we did with a Finnish researcher named Panu Pihkala. He had done a paper called The Taxonomy of Climate Emotions.
And so we made this Climate Emotions Wheel, which is representative of the most common climate emotions based on his research. And it's available in 30 languages—plus an emojis version for kids.
RAY: Oh my gosh.
NEWMAN: Yeah. When we made it, we just kind of—like, I know!
RAY: Yes, that's so cool.
NEWMAN: Adults or kids. So, you know, we just put it up there and said, "Here's the common emotions." And people kept coming to us saying, "Can I translate it?" or "Could you get it translated into this language?"
And I think what's so incredible about it is that it allows people to name what they're going through. It’s that "name it to tame it" idea. Just verbalizing, saying what you're experiencing—it helps to perhaps reduce anxiety or whatever it is you're feeling.
And it's just a really important and easy way for people to say, “Oh, what I’m going through is normal. These emotions are on this wheel.” It’s used in classes and groups and conferences—things like that.
So the Climate Emotions Wheel is just—I think—a really cool tool.
Then we have a ton of resources: for Gen Z, there’s a new Gen Z zine that our Gen Z cohort created. We have short documentary films, things like that.
We have a bunch of resources for parents—how do you talk to kids? And it’s broken down by different age groups.
We also have a short guide for parents to talk to kids after a disaster—during and after a climate disaster.
And then we also have resources for educators. One tool for educators that I’m really excited about is a multi-year project we did in partnership with the National Environmental Education Foundation.
It’s the first of its kind—the first evidence-based, teacher-tested toolkit for middle school teachers to use both for themselves and for their students. It helps teachers process their own climate emotions and also gives them activities to support students in the classroom.
We did a ton of research with teachers nationwide. And then—back to our conversation about reaching beyond the lowest-hanging fruit—when we tested this toolkit, we did it with 40 teachers in 25 states in the fall of 2024.
The teachers were about 40% suburban, a third urban, a third rural. More than half were in Title I schools. We tested it in huge districts like New York City, L.A., Chicago, Atlanta—and also in very conservative rural areas: Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia, Montana. We also tested it in different places in Florida. And what’s extraordinary is that after this really rigorous testing, we did evaluations with the teachers, and 100% of them said they would recommend the intervention.
RAY: Oh my gosh.
NEWMAN: Which, to me, says—wow, this is not a political issue. This is people struggling. The teachers are struggling. The students are struggling. And they need support.
RAY: That’s incredible. That’s incredible. I'm loving this resource. I keep seeing it being shared around. I didn't realize the background of the research on it, so I'm so glad you just shared that with us.
Is there some way you would invite—if folks are thinking, “Besides just going and exploring your resources, if I want to lean in or offer or be part of it in some way,” is there something at a next level for people to be involved with the Climate Mental Health Network?
NEWMAN: Yeah. I mean, I think one of our models—or one of the things that we're pushing—is for people to use our resources and do things in their communities.
So we're going to be releasing very soon some climate grief resources that we created with Panu, and that will include a resource guide for people to explore what climate grief is and how that can be ritualized and processed in community.
So what I really invite people to do is to look at the resources and see how they could use them in their own communities.
We love when people share stories—like we have all these pictures of people using the wheel around the world, and things like that.
And then also—please come to our events! We do lots of different events online.
We're going to be having an event for parents later in the summer—around back-to-school time. We have Gen Z events, things like that.
So I’d love for people to be able to also connect with us through our events.
RAY: Thank you, Sarah. Sarah, is there anything else you’d like to add? Do you have a personal favorite tool when you're feeling really, really, really in the hole?
NEWMAN: That’s a go-to? I think walking outside with my dog is a serious thing—without a phone—and just talking to my dog or just being outside. And it’s me walking with him.
RAY: That’s one of my favorites. That’s one of my favorites. Do you feel—in the spirit of full-circle feelings about ending a show—you opened with talking about your own journey with climate anxiety, that was so long ago. Like you said, it was a long time before there was language for it, much less a wheel to look at.
Do you feel like the work you've done has been part of your alleviation? Healing? Coping? However you want to describe it—with your climate anxiety? Or do you feel it more acutely now because you're even closer to it all the time?
NEWMAN: Oh, this has been so therapeutic. I mean, there's a lot of stress running an organization—but in terms of my climate anxiety, it has been so hugely beneficial.
I feel that I came into this space saying, “I have climate anxiety and I want to do something about it,” with very few tools or knowledge. And I just continue to grow and learn from so many people—such as yourself.
I'm so passionate about helping people get tools and resources so that they don't have to struggle. You don't always have to be struggling with this. And that’s what really drives me and gives me purpose.
RAY: I love it. On that note, I think we’ll wrap it, Sarah. But I will absolutely put all of your resources in the show notes for this and connect people as much as I can to the Climate Mental Health Network. I love what you're doing. It's been such an honor to be able to pick your brain a little bit in this way. I wish I could do it every day, but this was a fun excuse. So keep up the good work.
NEWMAN: Oh thank you. I mean, Sarah—it's like, I see you as a mentor. And as I said when we first started, your book was one of the first books I read. It's dog-eared, and I'm so humbled and grateful to have been able to talk with you today. And I'm so grateful for all of your incredible, inspiring work and writings.
RAY: Oh thanks, Sarah.
I’m going to wrap it with Sarah Newman, founder and director of the Climate Mental Health Network, which is doing really incredible work to offer resources—free resources, multilingual—which I hadn't really grasped, which is really incredible—for youth, educators, families, and organizations to help people through both indirect and direct climate-related mental health crises, or anxiety, or anguish, despair, or—it sounds like—grief is in there too.
And what I love about the way you ended that, Sarah, is that even though you're leaning into the uncomfortable emotions of climate change and mental health, it actually gives you a lot of therapeutic healing to be doing the work—to feel like you’re of service. So I love ending on that note.
NEWMAN: Thank you. Thank you.
RAY: So I took Sarah up on her idea of talking to somebody who's just an everyday hero going about their lives, nobody with a big platform. And the first person who came to my mind was my neighbor, Kellie. She is a homemaker. She moved up to this area after she had had a career in the Bay Area in video making and computer programming and got up here and made some changes to her life.
And isn't really somebody who thinks of herself as a climate activist or somebody who even identifies with climate change as a major part of her identity, but has done a lot of things in her life in the spheres over which she has some power and control and agency to make sure she's living in alignment with her values about the planet.
RAY: Kellie. Hi, how are you? Hi.
KELLIE: Nice to see you.
RAY: Yay! I'm sitting in Kellie's kitchen. Okay. So, Kellie, I want to ask you about how you came to even think about climate change as a concern of yours in the first place.
KELLIE: I mean, I think a lot of things happened all at once in our lives. Like we moved from the city into a more rural area, and then we had kids, and all these things are happening at the same time. And for one, I think I've always been, I've always cared about the environment, like don't litter and save the whales, but not really understood what was behind it or just I cared about it on a very superficial level, and I always had this vague notion that things would be okay.
But once you have kids, it's like you just need more than that. You need to know that things will be okay. Another aspect was we moved somewhere where we could actually see the river pretty often as we drive, and before when we lived in the city, if there is a big drought, all we would see is the headline and water still came out of our faucets.
People still watered their landscaping and it didn't actually mean anything. Like I didn't know what a drought meant, but then we lived here. Like I could see a drought actually meant that the river levels were going down. And there's one winter where I could see seedlings dying in February, when we should have had a lot of rain. And also, in our neighborhood, more wild animals were kind of venturing out into neighborhoods where they don't belong, just simply because there wasn't enough food and natural resources where they were—like, they don't have faucets and grocery stores.
So, yeah. So living somewhere where a drought and all the implications of a changing climate were just more visually apparent to me. And I think the third thing was just that we moved somewhere where we no longer have trash pickup—curbside trash pickup available to us. So we—and we still do—we load all our household waste into the trunk of my sedan, and we drive it over to the dump.
And just seeing the sheer amount, like, I don't know if I was in my 30s when I saw it first—just where all our trash goes to. It's so much trash. And just seeing people—and I've done this before—throwing away perfectly good things, you know, that will never see the light of day again, just in this giant warehouse full of trash.
And so that kind of started me into the zero waste movement. And just looking into—it’s a lot of different parts of that movement—but just understanding what we can accomplish by consuming less, like just buying less. And that our earth isn't just this—it’s not this infinite well of resources. So thinking before we buy, and a lot of it also focuses on reducing plastic and what recycling really is—and more importantly, what it isn't.
I think a lot of people think recycling is just this infinite loop where you can just keep reusing the same melted plastic, but it's not like that at all.
RAY: So yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I love that moving here is part to do with it. That's really amazing.
KELLIE: Such a huge part. And then I mean, I think the last part was running into one of our other neighbors who kind of cultivates his native plant garden in front of his house. And it looks such a beautiful garden, but it looks so different—you know, no roses or daffodils. And he just kind of took the time to explain to me that a lot of the things that we plant thinking we're saving the bees—and if we don't care about the bees and insects that the birds really need to survive—it needs to have this foundation of native plants and not just whatever we're buying at the nursery and sticking into our gardens.
RAY: Ya ya. So these are the ways that your climate awareness has translated into actions in your daily life. Do you ever feel overwhelmed, like I myself can't possibly even touch this problem and decide, oh, why am I even bothering with all this stuff?
KELLIE: Right? So much. And I think that mostly happens when I am feeling very isolated—like I used to volunteer at the native plant nursery—and you can't, even though it is a very overwhelming problem. And there's just these few individuals working so hard to fix this huge problem. Like they themselves—we just kind of energize each other, and I see them working so hard, and there are other people working in different areas, and it just kind of...
Yeah. And it helps. Yeah. But it is overwhelming. And, you know, I have kids. I'm not exactly sure how much to say or how to say it. But, you know, we just try to have the hard conversations.
RAY: Yeah. Have you ever or do you ever currently experience climate despair?
KELLIE: I would say I do feel a lot of despair. And it hasn't gotten to the point where it immobilizes me. And whether I'm getting past it by sticking my head in the sand or actually doing something productive—it's hard to say. I think I probably do a little bit of both.
RAY: Yeah.
KELLIE: I go in between.
RAY: Yes. I think that’s—yeah. So wise. I'm sure I'm the same way.
KELLIE: Yeah. I think it's actually really necessary. And so a lot of the homemaking I do—I think it's some of that. There's so much chaos in this world, and just trying to cultivate a little bit of happiness and focusing on the sweet, simple things in our house really helps with that.
And there have been times where I've done more things out of the house, and times where I've just had to come back in and just focus on things I can control here.
But I wouldn't say—yeah—I don't think I ever despair to the point where I'm like, I don't know, just, what do we do? Like, what's the point?
RAY: I normally don't like to ask this question, but I'm sort of curious with you for some reason. I want to ask—what gives you hope?
KELLIE: I don't know. Gosh. I don't know if I have... I guess I think about it like—despite what's happening in the world, we just have to keep trying. It doesn't even matter sometimes how much of a chance we have to slow things down, I guess.
RAY: It's beautiful.
KELLIE: But we just—yeah—we just have to keep working towards it. I kind of think about: if I'm at a sports game and my kid is on a team that is losing—we’ve all sat through those games—am I just going to say, like, “Well, what's the point?” Like, you're just, you know, let's just wait for the inevitable, or just give up now?
We would never say that. We would never want our coach to say that, even though there are those games that you see where you're like, oh, we're just outmatched here.
But I think, yeah. So I kind of think about that scenario and what would I say? And I would say—we have to keep trying and fighting and make it mean something.
RAY: Yeah. Make it mean something. Thank you. Beautiful. Thanks, Kellie. Anything else you’d like to add?
KELLIE: Well, I do a lot of climate thinking. I think about this one quote, which is that just—like, people frame climate change so much in terms of what we’re losing. But if we look around, there's still so much more that we’re trying to save. So much beauty in this world.
And so just really focusing on what we have now—what we still have now.
RAY: Yeah, yeah. The frame of abundance, not scarcity. I love it. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Oh, how inspiring.
That was my conversation with my neighbor Kellie, who's exactly the kind of person Sarah Newman says we should be uplifting so people can see that it's accessible—and that it takes all of us doing what we can, wherever we are.
What struck me about Kellie was her creativity and the fun she had figuring out how to be zero waste, getting involved in native plant communities locally, and raising her kids with a love of nature. After living most of her life never having had exposure to these things, she just finds pleasure in doing the right thing and seeing people around her doing the right thing.
Surprisingly, in response to my question about what action she takes for the planet, she didn’t mention that she started up a neighborhood tea time. When I mentioned to her that getting to know your neighbors is the number one thing we can do to prepare for climate change, she was stunned.
She definitely doesn’t think of it as a climate action. For a self-espoused introvert, I think that took a lot of courage.
I’ll link that research about getting to know your neighbors in the show notes. I hope you were inspired by Kellie’s story in a way that helps you see that action for the climate isn’t rocket science. That’s everyday regular old Climate Magic.
I'm Sarah Ray. You’ve been listening to my conversation with Sarah Newman, founder of the Climate Mental Health Network, and Kellie, my neighbor. This is Climate Magic. You can find this episode and show notes on KHSU.org. Thanks for listening.
