It may not be to marvel at the glaciers, but to grieve their passing.
Glaciers across the globe from the US state Oregon to the Swiss Alps have been sites for funerals as people eulogize once mighty ice caps that have been pronounced dead.
These are the 2019 trends ceremonyIt was held at Iceland’s Okjkull ice sheet (Ok glacier), which was said to be the first to be affected by climate change. Mourners unveiled plaques announcing that all of Iceland’s major glaciers would follow in the next 200-years.
Panu Pihkala (a postdoctoral researcher University of Helsinki Finland specialising in eco anxiety) has described the psychological strain caused by the loss of iconic winter landscapes.
Pihkala explained that for decades, communities have felt “uneasiness, discomfort, and changes in seasons” because of climate change. But, this anxiety has now turned to a grieving, as snow and ice recede.
Global warming will increase global warming, and so will the grief over the loss of winter. The Arctic’s mythical North Pole, a winter wonderland, is now closed. Warming three times fasterIt is lower than the global average. In the near future, cultural representations of European or northern American Christmases could be gone. People wearing hats and scarves will no longer be able to skate on frozen lakes or sledging down snowy hills.
Climate grief and eco anxiety
Climate grief can be difficult to deal with because it anticipates a loss which often hasn’t happened. 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”Algos is a combination of the Greek word for pain and the word solace, a term Glenn Albrecht coined to describe the psychic pain that results from the loss of the environments where we find solace.
Albrecht and his coworkers wrote in a 2007 paper that “Instead of nostalgia, the melancholia (or homesickness) experienced by individuals when they are separated from their loved home solastalgia” Australasian Psychiatry.
Solastalgia describes the grief that one feels at the end of the world as it was due to climate changes.
This solastalgia is now being called “snowscapes loss” by some researchers. “ecological grief.”
These eco emotions can also be triggered by deeper material and cultural losses. Alaskan indigenous people are facing real fear due to melting sea ices. Victoria Herrmann was called“A way of living that has been handed down from time immemorial.”
Climate change and cultural loss
The Saami community, which lives near the Arctic circle, considers snow their lifeblood, especially in the traditional reindeer herding tradition.
“If reindeer do not get hard frost or snowfall, the foundation of the entire livelihood crumbles.” said Klemetti NkkljrviSaami cultural anthropologist at University of Oulu, Finland, giving a lecture about climate change and the Saami.
He stated that climate change means cultural change for many Indigenous peoples, ahead of the UN Climate Conference in 2021. Nkkljrvi, a Saami man who lived the Saami way for many years, said that he is seeing “changes every other day,” including the loss or displacement of language.
A peculiar psychological effect is also caused by the disappearance of mountain glaciers, from Kilimanjaro to Europe Alps.
Saami, an Arctic circle indigenous community, is feeling the cultural and economic losses of a warming planet
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 on social media that compare glaciers today and a century ago.
He stated that the retreat of glaciers was an incredibly powerful symbol for the environmental consequences of climate changes. “It is evident that when we compare the drastic retreat of glaciers, it overwhelms us.”
Can activism help with climate grief?
Losing Winter landmarks such glaciershas raised awareness about the imminent danger of climate change.
The memorial plaque at Iceland’s Ok Glacier says: “We know what’s happening and what we need to do.” Only you can tell if we did it.
Sren Ronge is the coordinator of Protect Our Winters Europe. This advocacy group, based in Innsbruck (Austria), acknowledges “climate anxious” but seeks “to engage people in speaking out for the climate, and pushing governments for solutions.”
Glaciers across the globe are receding
Climate grief can lead to resistance for Pihkala but it depends on the psychological resilience and willpower of activists.
“If they feel sadness and anxiety, it often leads to guilt,” he stated, describing the process for acknowledging that everyone is a part of the climate emergency.
Baccolo believes that seeing the glacier melt at such a rapid pace has, at the very least, raised our awareness of the climate crisis.
He said, “We are sad,” in reference to the funerals of disappeared glaciers. “We see an amazing element of nature disappearing and know that we have a part in this.”
Edited By: Jennifer Collins
