Climate and Eco Grief Resources
If you experience eco grief or climate anxiety, you are not alone. These are natural emotional responses to climate distress, environmental injustice, and the degradation and loss of ecosystems and species due to acute or chronic environmental change. (Cunsolo & Ellis, 2018)
"Grief and love are two sides of the same coin. We grieve because we love, and our grief shows us what we love." – Joanna Macy
Watch with French captions here.
Understanding Eco/Climate Grief
Climate grief can include a wide range of emotions related to past, ongoing or anticipated impacts of climate disruption such as anger, despair, denial, numbness and betrayal.
It also encompasses emotions related to one’s connection with the earth such as love, empowerment and gratitude. (Hickman et al., 2021; Pihkala, 2022.)
It is common to feel multiple climate emotions at once and varying climate emotions throughout your day.
Climate Emotions Wheel
Source: https://www.climatementalhealth.net/resources
Ways climate and eco grief can show up
Building Emotional Resilience & Well-being
Responding to climate change requires more than technical solutions. Research shows to implement climate solutions that are responsive to, and proactively address, the urgency, complexity and systemic causes of climate change, we need to build our capacity to hold and process the grief, love and emotional pain for all that has been lost and for what’s at stake (Olsen, Cunsolo, Lammiman & Harper, 2025).
This process of building climate emotional resilience supports mental health and well-being in an era of uncertainty and loss. Evidence highlights the importance of both individual and collective practices to process and move through climate grief. When attention is placed only on individual coping skills, feelings of overwhelm and isolation can increase. Participating in community healing practices of sharing and honouring climate grief presents opportunities to validate and transform climate emotions, build social connections and increase motivation to act (Olson et al 2025; Hamiliton 2022).
As one increases their capacity to tend to their climate grief, they increase their capacity to sustainably engage in climate action that aligns with their values. This significantly supports personal and collective wellbeing; turning grief into solidarity with impacted communities, the more-than-human world and the planet.
“Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.”
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
Originally created by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and adapted by Refugia Retreats
69% of Canadians understand that climate change is a serious or very serious problem (Hatch eta al, 2025, Re.Climate; PARCA Tracking Survey Wave 5).
78% reported that climate change impacts their overall mental health
Riley Brandt
Resources
Here are resources to help you navigate eco grief and support your mental health and well-being including books, contemplative practices, webinars, podcasts, service providers and community groups that support healing and coping with climate grief while maintaining your personal well-being. This list was curated by Refugia Retreats.
Riley Brandt
Peer and Community Support
Peer and community-based spaces offer facilitated, non-judgmental conversations where people can share or simply listen. These spaces focus on connection and validation, but they do not offer clinical health service, supervision or professional consultation.
- Good Grief Network: An online 10-week program offering social and emotional support for people feeling overwhelmed by the state of the world.
- Yoga for Ecological Grief: A self-paced online course combining trauma-conscious yoga, guided practices, journaling and reflection to support people moving through eco grief.
- Calgary Good Grief: A nature-based walking and connection program supporting people experiencing grief and loss. People experiencing eco and climate grief are welcome, though it is not the primary focus.
- Online Climate Cafes: Regular, open climate cafes hosted by the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America, offering space to share climate emotions with others.
Activity Guides, Contemplative Practices and Cultural Ceremonies
Self-guided resources that offer practices, reflections and frameworks for understanding climate emotions and supporting personal and community well-being.
- Unthinkable Earth Resources: Climate Mental Health Resources & Contemplative Practices
- Flourishing Kin: Indigenous Wisdom for Collective Well-being by Yuria Celidwen
- Work that Reconnects: individual and group practices, rituals and analysis/frameworks
- Refugia Retreats Reflective & Activity Guidebooks
- Mindfulness and Meditation practices
- Meditation for Eco Anxiety by Dekila Chungyalpa
- Creating a Sit-spot outdoors, or indoors by a window or plants, to connect with nature
- Climate Mental Health Network Resources
- Eco-anxious stories: power of storytelling to advance social movements
- Eco Anxiety Africa Project
- Reflective Venn diagram worksheet by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
- Participate in cultural ceremonies in community or in your home. If you are not familiar with your culture’s ceremonies, learn about your ancestral lineages and the traditional ways they honoured the earth
- Journaling
- Movement: dancing, walking, running, swimming, sports, gardening, tai chi etc.
- Creating or engaging in art, music or poetry
Riley Brandt
Getty Images
Professional Support and Counselling
Some people may prefer one-on-one support, particularly when climate grief intersects with personal or mental health concerns.
- Climate Aware Therapist Directory: A searchable directory of climate-aware therapists provided by the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America. Most sessions are offered online.
- Gabrielle Gelderman, Climate Grief Chaplaincy & Healing Justice
- Online Column: “The Climate Therapist Will See You Now”
Resources for Youth (18-30 years old)
These resources are designed for young adults navigating climate emotions alongside identity, activism, education and early career experiences.
- Shake Up the Establishment: Practicing Rest, Recovery & Resistance: An Interactive Dreaming Journal, written by experienced intersectional youth climate justice organizers.
- Online Youth Support Space: Facilitated conversations and reflective space for youth aged 18-25 offered by the Climate Psychology Alliance.
- It's Not Just You: How to Navigate Eco-Anxiety and the Climate Crisis by Tori Tsui. A guide to understanding eco-anxiety and the climate crisis from a youth climate activist and mental health advocate. Tori is an intersectional youth climate activist and mental health advocate from Hong Kong, based in the UK.
- Tending Grief: Embodied Rituals for Holding Our Sorrow and Growing Cultures of Care in Community by Camille Sapara Barton. A resource focused on embodied rituals and community care for holding grief.
Riley Brandt
Riley Brandt
Resources for Parents and Caregivers
Supports for adults helping children and youth navigate climate-related emotions.
- Climate change and kids’ well-being: A Guide for Parents and Other Caring Adults, Climate Mental Health Network
- Additional Climate Mental Health Network resources for supporting children with climate emotions (recorded webinars, books and guidebooks)
- Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer, adapted by Monique Gray Smith
Educator Resources
K-12 and Informal Educators
- Climate Mental Health Network
- Thimble Berry environmental education programs
- Climate Emotions in K-12 Education: A Guide for Canadian Educators by Learning for a Sustainable Future
Post-Secondary Educators Resources
- The All We Can Save Project
- Shake Up the Establishment Practicing Rest, Recovery & Resistance (3Rs) Teaching Guide, for climate justice educators engaging youth
- Climate Mental Health Network Gen Z Resources
- The Existential Toolkit for Climate Justice Educators, edited by Jennifer Atkinson & Sarah Jaquette Ray
- Coming Back to Life: the Updated Guide to the Work that Reconnects by Joanna Macy & Molly Brown
- Campus Nature Rx
- Climate Wayfinding Training for campus, communities and cultural institutions
- Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and this Planet We Call Home by Dr. Katharine Wilkinson
- Katherine Hayhoe’s Insights on Climate Action and Leadership from a Climate Scientist
- Olsen, S., Cunsolo, A., Lammiman, J., & Harper, S. L. (2025). The role of collective grieving in supporting wellbeing and capacity for climate action. Ambio, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-025-02237-2 https://rdcu.be/eAFpZ
Getty Images
Getty Images
Podcasts
- For the Wild
- Work that Reconnects
- Second Nature with Dr. Ashlee Cunsolo
- Establish (Shake-up the Establishment podcast led by youth)
- From Root to Bone with Dr. Jennifer Mullan
- Climate Psychology Alliance podcasts
- Facing It
- Climate Grief with Dr. Shawna Weaver
Books
- Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Anxiety by Britt Wray
- Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer, adapted by Monique Gray Smith
- A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety by Sarah Ray Jacquette
- Active Hope: How to face the mess we are in without going crazy by Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone
- What if We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
- Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira
- How to Live in a Chaotic Climate by Laura Schmidt, Aimee Lewis Reau and Chelsie Rivera
- Relational Mindfulness: A Handbook for Deepening Our Connections with Ourselves, Each Other, and the Planet by Deborah Eden Tull
- The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller
- Earth Grief: The Journey Into & Through Ecological Loss by Stephen Harrod Buhner
- Kinship: Vols. 1-5, edited by Gavin Van Horn, Robin Wall Kimmer and John Hausdoeffer
- Finding Refuge: Heart Work for Healing Collective Grief by Michelle Cassandra Johnson
- We Were Made for These Times by Kaira Jewel Lingo
- Erosion: Essays of Undoing by Terry Tempest Williams
- The Red Deal: Indigenous Action to Save Our Earth by The Red Nation
- As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Getty Images
Riley Brandt
Practitioner and Advanced Learning Resources
For practitioners, facilitators and those seeking deeper training or research-based learning.
- Centre for Climate Psychology
- Climate Coaching Alliance
- Work that Reconnects
- Climate Psychology Certificate, California Institute of Integral Studies
- Decolonize Therapy, Dr. Jennifer Mullan (book and online courses)
- Psychology of Deep Resilience: Addressing Ecoanxiety and Climate Distress for Individual, Social and Ecological Well-being
- Climate Psychology – Leslie Davenport
- Project Inside Out online resources created by Renee Lertzman
Climate Conversations speaker series
Climate Conversations, hosted by the UCalgary Office of Sustainability, brings together the campus community and Albertans for discussions that connect climate science, lived experience and action. The series highlights diverse perspectives and world views that are critical to advancing equitable and effective climate solutions.
Previous Climate Conversations events are archived and available to watch online.
Riley Brandt
References
Cunsolo, A., Ellis, N.R. Ecological grief as a mental health response to climate change-related loss. Nature Clim Change 8, 275–281 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0092-2
Hickman, C., Marks, E., Pihkala, P., Clayton, S., Lewandowski, E., Maywall, E., Wray, B., Mellor, C., & van Susteren, L. (2021). Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey. The Lancet Planetary Health, Volume 5, Issue 12, e863 - e873
Macy, J., & Johnstone, C. (2022). Active hope: how to face the mess we're in with unexpected resilience and creative power.
Olsen, S., Cunsolo, A., Lammiman, J., & Harper, S. L. (2025). The role of collective grieving in supporting wellbeing and capacity for climate action. Ambio, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-025-02237-2
Pihkala, P. (2024). Ecological sorrow: Types of grief and loss in ecological grief. Sustainability 16: 849. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16020849