It’s Not Just You: How to Navigate Eco-Anxiety and the Climate Crisis

Anxiety about climate change is “a rational, natural and adaptive response to truly irrational and unnatural circumstances,” climate activist Tsui reassures readers in this impassioned debut guide. Tsui posits that, while eco-anxiety can feel isolating, it also offers an opportunity to bring people together. Global warming is often presented as a problem to be solved through individual lifestyle change, with famous activists like Greta Thunberg (a friend of the author’s) presented as radical individuals fighting alone against the capitalist machine, and the burden of eco-anxiety is similarly presented as an individual struggle. Tsui argues that climate activism must reframe eco-anxiety as a collective experience, including by highlighting the lived trauma of those who have experienced the repercussions of climate change firsthand—Tsui draws on her childhood growing up in typhoon-prone Hong Kong—and the global structures contributing to environmental devastation, including capitalism, colonialism, and anthropocentrism. Focusing on collective experiences and collective problems will help people realize they are not alone in their fears and anxieties, she writes, using the metaphor of a mycelial network to reflect on how “there is power in the collective, and that a healthy ecosystem is one that relies on collaboration.” While occasionally repetitive, the points Tsui makes are deserving of emphasis. The author’s boisterous determination carries this one through. (Apr.)