At ‘Climate Cafés,’ mental health experts and environmentalists create a community to tackle climate anxiety
CHICAGO -- Ten years ago, Beth Beyer’s youngest child walked out to Lake Michigan on a mild winter day and cried.
The Lincoln Park resident thought her son would be excited about spending time outdoors, but the seventh grader was distraught thinking about what the unseasonably warm weather meant for the world and its climate.
“I was like, ‘Wow, you’re taking this in a way that I had no idea,’” Beyer remembers saying.
Since, Beyer’s advocacy and nonprofit work has allowed her to keep her “ear to the ground” and share what she learns from other environmentalists with her two sons to ease their eco-conscious minds. She is the executive director of The Technology Alliance, which makes new technologies available to local underserved communities, and also works with the Chicago Wilderness Alliance.
“We need to figure out how we channel this anxiety,” she said. “How do we create hope?”
Beyer recounted this during a Climate Café, one of a few gatherings that Chicago psychotherapist and clinical social worker Libby Bachhuber has helped organize for those struggling with the emotional burdens of climate change: from anxiety to grief, from guilt to shame.
Many mental health professionals agree the most effective way to deal with the difficult feelings brought up by the enormity of the climate crisis might just be to slow down, pay
