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It may not be to marvel at the glaciers, but to grieve their passing.
Glaciers across the globe from the US state of Oregon to the Swiss Alps have been sites for funerals as people eulogize once-mighty bodies of ice that have been pronounced dead.
This is what 2019 will look like Ceremony was held at Iceland’s Okjökull glacier, said to be the first lost to Climate change Mourners unveiled a plaque announcing that all the country’s main glaciers are expected to follow in the next 200 years.
The psychological strain that comes with the loss of iconic winter landscapes is known as “climate grief” by Panu Pihkala, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki in Finland specializing in eco-anxiety.
Although communities have felt “uneasiness, discomfort at the changes to seasons” for decades, this anxiety has now become a grieving. Visibly, snow and ice recede Pihkala explained.
Global warming will increase global warming, and so will the grief over the loss of winter. The mythical Arctic winter wonderland, the North Pole, is now closed. Three times faster warmingIt is lower than the global average. In the not too distant future, cultural representations of European or Northern American Christmases with people wrapped up in hats, scarves, skating on frozen lakes, or sledging down snowy hills could be a thing past.
Climate grief and eco-anxiety
Climate grief is difficult to overcome because it anticipates a loss that often hasn’t quite occurred, said Pihkalu. He noted that there was a lot more snow this year in Finland than last year. This creates anxiety about not having snow and a lack of certainty. Pihkala pointed out that this feeling has a specific Finnish word, “lumiahdistus”.
Climate grief is related to “solastalgia” — a combination of the word solace and the Greek word for pain, algos — a term coined by environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht to describe the psychic pain caused by the loss of environments in which we find solace.
“As opposed to nostalgia — the melancholia and homesickness experienced by individuals when separated from a loved home — solastalgia is the distress that is produced by environmental change,” wrote Albrecht and his co-researchers in a 2007 paper in Australasian Psychiatry.
Solastalgia is the grief at the loss of the world we once knew.
However, researchers have also called this solastalgia due to the loss of snowscapes and glaciers. “ecological grief.”
These eco-emotions are also influenced by deeper material or cultural loss. Indigenous people in Alaska, for example, are experiencing real fear as melting sea ices threatens communities both with displacement and the loss of what polar researcher Victoria Herrmann was called“A way of life that has been passed down from time immemorial.”
Climate change and cultural loss
For the Sami community, who live close to the Arctic Circle, snow is their lifeblood — especially in terms of their traditional reindeer-herding culture.
“If reindeer don’t get snowfall or frost hard, the foundation of their entire livelihood is ruined.” said Klemetti NäkkäläjärviA lecture on climate change and the Sami People by a Sami cultural ananthropologist at University of Oulu in Finland.
“Climate Change equals Cultural Change for Many Indigenous People,” he stated ahead of the UN Climate Conference in 2021. Having lived the Sami way of life, Näkkäläjärvi said he sees “changes every day,” including the loss of language due to climate-related displacement.
The disappearance Mountain glaciersThe unique psychological impact of everything from Kilimanjaro to Europe’s Alps is also evident.
Warming world has caused losses in indigenous communities like the Saami, which are particularly hard hit.
Although there is a cultural attachment towards mountains and their “multitude of other ecosystems,” glaciers create landscapes that are “unique in people’s imagination,” stated Giovanni Baccolo (a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy).
“Glaciers, they are literally another world,” Baccolo said. “Icons of mountains.” Baccolo said that the retreating ice caps have “impoverished” our connection with mountain landscapes. The future generations will not be able to draw alpine mountain landscapes “with a white cap” once the ice caps have melted.
Baccolo posts photos in social media comparing Glaciers of today and a century ago.
He said, “The retreating glaciers is an extraordinarily powerful symbol of the environmental effects of climate change.” “It is undisputed that we are overwhelmed when we look at the dramatic retreat of glaciers in comparisons.”
Can activism help with climate grief?
Losing Winter landmarks like glaciersPeople have been alerted to the imminent danger of climate change.
As the memorial plaque at Iceland’s Okjökull glacier reads: “We know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you will know if it was done.
Sören Ronge, coordinator of Protect Our Winters Europe, a climate advocacy group based in Innsbruck, Austria, acknowledges “climate anxiety” but seeks to “engage people in speaking up for the climate and pushing governments for solutions.”
Glaciers are receding all over the world, including here in Indian Kashmir.
Climate grief can lead to resistance for Pihkala but it depends on the psychological resilience and willpower of activists.
He stated, “If they feel anxiety or sadness, it often leads to also guilt,” and described the process of acknowledging the fact that all of us are contributing to the climate emergency.
Baccolo believes that witnessing the rapid pace of glacier melting has at the very least raised our awareness of the climate crisis as well as our contribution to it.
“We are sorry,” he said, referring specifically to the funerals for the disappeared glaciers. “We see an amazing element of nature disappearing and know that we have a part in this.”
Edited By: Jennifer Collins
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