Engaging with Climate Grief, Guilt, and Anger in Religious Communities

Abstract

Climate change evokes many kinds of emotions, which have an impact on people’s behavior. This article focuses on three major climate emotions—guilt, grief, and anger—and other closely related emotional phenomena, such as climate anxiety/distress. The article explores ways in which these emotions could be engaged with constructively in religious communities, with a certain emphasis on Christian, monotheistic, and Buddhist communities. These religious communities have certain special resources for engaging with guilt and grief, but they often have profound difficulty working with constructive anger. The ways in which these emotions can affect each other are probed, and the complex dynamics of climate guilt are given special attention. Based on the work of psychologists Tara Brach and Miriam Greenspan, a four-step method of engaging with these emotions is proposed and discussed: self-reflection, exploration of various forms of these emotions, contextualization, and creative application of various methods to channel the energies in these emotions. The article draws from interdisciplinary research on eco-emotions, religion and ecology studies, and psychology.

1. Introduction

As the climate crisis grows more intense and complex, so do the affective responses. The broad phenomenon of climate anxiety has attracted growing attention (Ojala et al. 2021; Pihkala 2020a; Hickman et al. 2021). In addition to anxiety, fear, and worry, a wide array of other emotions and feelings have emerged: confusion, overwhelm, moral outrage, guilt, sadness, and hope—to name just a part of the array (for an overview, see Pihkala 2022c). These affective responses shape people’s actions and inactions in profound ways, and vice versa (e.g., Davidson and Kecinski 2022; Whitmarsh et al. 2022).1

The role of religious communities in relation to climate emotions needs much more deliberation. It is evident that members of religious communities experience many kinds of climate emotions and that they are affected by the various socio-cultural forces that shape these emotional dynamics (e.g., Pihkala 2016; LaMothe 2022; McCarroll 2022; Swain 2020). It is also evident that the actions or inactions of religious communities, including religious environmental activism (e.g., Taylor et al. 2005), have effects on society that include emotional aspects. There is, however, only a limited amount of research on the topic (for examples, see O’Dell-Chaib 2019; Pihkala 2018; LaMothe 2024).

In this article, the relationship between climate emotions and religious/spiritual communities is discussed, especially in relation to three wide-ranging emotions: guilt, sadness, and anger. All of these are, according to research and philosophers, essentially important and common climate emotions (Hickman et al. 2021; Pihkala 2022c; Ágoston et al. 2022a; Marczak et al. 2023). They are also emotions that are in many ways especially close to religious communities. Religious communities are universally places where sadness and grief are engaged with (e.g., Pargament et al. 2000), and most religions also engage strongly with guilt and norms about it (e.g., McNish 2010). Anger is more complex in relation to many religious communities, and religion has actually often increased ambiguity in societies about anger (e.g., Srinivasan 2018). The exploration of these three climate emotions and religious communities has relevance both for the communities themselves and in relation to their possible environmental impact in societies.2

Most of the observations in this article about climate emotions and spiritual communities apply to various kinds of religious communities, but it should be noted that Christian, monotheistic, and Buddhist communities feature heavily in both sources and interpretations. Future research should broaden this scope to a wider array of spiritual communities. It is argued here that religious communities have profound potential for addressing important climate emotions in constructive ways, but this requires deliberation and preparation from religious leaders. It is also pointed out that currently there are certain significant problems for religious communities as regards many of these important climate emotions, such as one-sided attitudes about climate anger in numerous Christian and Buddhist communities. Since there is already literature on spiritual/pastoral care and eco-emotions (e.g., LaMothe 2016, 2019, 2021; Pihkala 2022a), this article will focus on other aspects of religious/spiritual dynamics.

It is to be emphasized that this topic of engaging with climate emotions is not only therapeutic or related to well-being, even though that dimension is also present; it is also very closely related to pro-environmental action. Here, the author supports a multifaceted viewpoint: emotions are crucial for environmental action, but they are also important topics in their own right (e.g., Greenspan 2004). Not every engagement with climate emotions should be in the instrumental service of action, but all such engagements have at least implicit links with developing emotional resilience or affective adaptation, which are then connected with action capabilities (e.g., Chapman et al. 2017; Brosch and Steg 2021; Sangervo et al. 2022).

The article situates itself in interdisciplinary environmental studies, studies on religion and ecology, and eco-emotion research. The content is closely related to exploration of religion and psychology (Pargament 2013). Sources have been gathered during the author’s long research projects about related matters. It should be noted that the topics are of growing attention, and new research is emerging constantly; the article utilizes research up to spring 2024.3

2. Dynamics of Climate Emotions

In this section, the dynamics of climate emotions are briefly discussed, and the characteristics of the three selected emotions are introduced.

The objects of climate emotions can be either anthropogenic climate change in general or certain manifestations of that change. For example, there can be local climate grief and global climate grief: sorrow about local changes and sorrow about global changes (Pihkala 2024b). Climate emotions usually exist together with other ones, and there can be various trajectories and combinations of climate emotions. For example, it is common to feel both climate guilt and climate grief. Sometimes climate grief leads to climate anger, and sometimes it can lead to depressive moods.

All of the three selected emotions have intimate connections with climate anxiety/climate distress, a topic that is often discussed in media and research (Ojala et al. 2021; Benoit et al. 2022). While eco-anxiety can be related to any environmental threats and issues, climate anxiety is related to climate change, and it seems to be a very common form of eco-anxiety (e.g., Hickman et al. 2021; Hickman 2024b).4

Anxiety states can be paralyzing and difficult to bear, but most occurrences of climate anxiety seem to be less heavy: in other words, people have found various ways to cope (e.g., Whitmarsh et al. 2022). Fundamentally, anxiety as an emotion helps people notice potential threats and react to them. Kurth and Pihkala (2022) explore “practical eco-anxiety” as an adaptive form of eco-anxiety (and climate anxiety), while pointing out that anxiety can also develop into many kinds of problematic manifestations. This dual character (see also, e.g., Wullenkord et al. 2021) is a communicative challenge, as the title of a recent article by noted climate distress researchers testifies: “Eco-distress is not a pathology, but it still hurts” (Marks and Hickman 2023).

Climate guilt, grief, and anger can all co-exist with climate anxiety/distress. As a result of this, engaging with their climate change-related manifestations also helps with a broader “climate anxiety” or “climate distress.”

2.1. Guilt

Guilt is often discussed in relation to religion and psychology, because religions usually have systems for moral norms and administration of guilt (e.g., McNish 2010). Religious communities have often been places where guilt has been administered and either evoked or forgiven. An example is the strong presence of confession of sins in the Christian tradition. It is thus fitting that several scholars of religion and ecology have explored the dynamics of environmental guilt and shame (e.g., Fredericks 2014, 2021; Powell 2019). Furthermore, many commentators have observed similarities between the dynamics of environmental guilt and religion, such as discussions of carbon offsets as indulgences (see, e.g., S. M. Taylor 2019). Indeed, guilt has been argued to be a keystone emotion in environmental communication and behavior (Jensen 2019). Guilt and its close emotion, shame, are profound moral emotions, and their importance for climate matters has been discussed by philosophers and theologians (e.g., Aaltola 2021; Smith 2014).

Ecological guilt, also called eco-guilt and environmental guilt, can manifest in numerous places and in numerous ways. Because of the ubiquitous and systemic character of the eco-social crisis, all kinds of actions and inactions can feel linked to doing either right or wrong in relation to environmental ethics. Environmental humanities scholar Tim Jensen insightfully describes this ubiquity in his book Ecologies of Guilt in Environmental Rhetorics (Jensen 2019). People may feel guilt for something they did, for something they did not do, and for something that they think they did but actually did not do (for empirical studies, see, e.g., Nielsen et al. 2024). Furthermore, ecological guilt has many kinds of intensities. It often manifests as fleeting feelings of discomfort when making a behavior choice that has some perceived impurity in relation to environmental ethics or when something in one’s surroundings signals the existence of ecological crisis and issues of responsibility (Jensen 2019).

Environmental shame is a closely related eco-emotion and more related to conceptions of what one is fundamentally like. The lines between guilt and shame can be blurry, and there is ongoing debate about them, but guilt is usually seen to be more related to actions and shame more related to essence or personality (Aaltola 2021; Fredericks 2021; Lewis 2016). In the English-speaking world, laypeople often have difficulty separating the two (Fredericks 2021). Here, the focus is more on guilt and on broad combinations of these feelings; future research should explore more explicit nuances of engaging with shame.

Because of the centrality of the climate crisis as an ecological concern, climate guilt and shame are major features of ecological guilt and shame (Pihkala 2022c; Aaltola 2021). Due to the vast and difficult character of anthropogenic climate change, collective forms of climate guilt and shame can be powerful, sometimes resulting in “species shame” (Jensen 2019; Pike 2016).

It is evident that there is a lot of climate guilt in various forms, but this is a difficult thing to study because people may not be aware of this guilt or shame, and they may resist admitting it. Questionnaires and other methods for studying eco-/climate guilt have been developed during recent years, and these include efforts to study both personal and collective forms of these feelings (Ágoston et al. 2022a, 2022b; Nielsen et al. 2024).

Climate guilt and climate shame can cause many kinds of reactions in religious communities, including denial and repentance, and deliberate efforts to engage with these feelings constructively are greatly needed. It is telling that in a book about climate grief and Christianity from a global perspective, numerous chapters include discussion of problems around climate guilt (Malcolm 2020b).

Unrecognized or unprocessed guilt can contribute to anxiety or distress. If people feel and recognize guilt and/or shame, this can cause various degrees of anxiety and distress, sometimes very heavily so. There are environmentally conscious people who feel strong distress because of their individual and/or collective climate guilt and shame (e.g., Jensen 2019; Nielsen et al. 2024).

2.2. Grief

Sadness and grief are very common climate emotions (e.g., Hickman et al. 2021; Benham and Hoerst 2024), but they often remain half-hidden due to disenfranchised grief (Doka 2020): any kind of profound sadness is difficult for the contemporary mainstream. Cultural norms in industrialized societies have very often disavowed sadness as a sign of weakness, commonly associating it with femininity (Greenspan 2004; Horwitz and Wakefield 2007). As a result, it is difficult for many individuals to display sadness in public or to even recognize their grief (e.g., Levine 2017; Beran 2024; Cunsolo and Landman 2017). Sadness because of environmental changes, which is commonly called ecological grief, is even more tricky because it includes valuations of ecological relations that are countercultural to many industrial practices (Kevorkian 2004; Glendinning 1994; Cunsolo and Ellis 2018). There are many variations of “climate grief,” ranging from general sad moods to strong bereavement-type grief, and people need help in both recognizing them and addressing them (Pihkala 2024d; Comtesse et al. 2021; Varutti 2023).

Religious communities have special knowledge and skills related to grief. They could play a profound role in helping people to engage with climate grief, but that requires awakening to its existence and wisdom in evaluating it (e.g., Menning 2017; Collins 2016; Gelderman 2022). In particular, the connections between grief, activism, and politics need attention. Grief is not only an issue of individual or collective well-being; it has a strong political dimension. The shocks and griefs related to losses do not necessarily just paralyze people; they can spark them into determined action to prevent further damage and to oppose injustice (Willox 2012; Butler 2003; Mihai 2024). When this is taken into account, it is also evident that religious communities are not merely providing “grief therapy” in relation to ecological grief if they engage with it; they are participating in the ethical demand pointed out by related losses and sorrows (Burton-Christie 2011; Malcolm 2023).

Various forms of anxiety are common parts of grief processes. Unrecognized grief or so-called complicated grief can manifest as anxiety symptoms (Worden 2018; Prigerson et al. 2022). On an even deeper level, grief can activate existential ponderings and evoke issues of existential anxiety (Køster and Kofod 2022; Ratcliffe 2022). Because of the severity of climate disruption, climate grief can be very strong and complicated and anxiety-producing (Ojala et al. 2021; Comtesse et al. 2021; Pihkala 2022b). Constructive engagement with climate grief is thus a very important means of coping with climate anxiety/distress (e.g., Schmidt 2023; Boyd 2023).

2.3. Anger

Anger is another common climate emotion (Hickman et al. 2021; Marczak et al. 2023; Gregersen et al. 2023). It has many variations, which will be discussed more in the separate section on anger below. Anger also has profound connections with guilt and grief. People can respond to guilt-provoking situations with defensive anger (Cherry and Flanagan 2018). Anger is a common feature in processes of grief (e.g., Worden 2018), and it can be related to many things: mourners can blame others angrily for their losses, but their anger may also be directed towards themselves and in combination with guilt (Li et al. 2014, 2017). Since guilt and grief are so common in relation to climate change, climate anger is profoundly intertwined with them (Pihkala 2022c), and the questions about responsibility and culpability related to global warming are crucial in relation to climate anger (Antadze 2020; Bergman 2023).

Anger has historically been a much more difficult emotion for many religious communities than sadness or even guilt. This is related to a basic philosophical issue about interpretations of what anger is and can be. While psychologists argue that healthy anger is very much needed to protect important boundaries and to resist injustice, the word anger has often been linked with aggression, and already philosophers in Ancient Greece argued that such should be resisted (e.g., Srinivasan 2018; Cherry and Flanagan 2018). Religions, such as Christianity and Buddhism, have greatly contributed to the contradictions around anger, often teaching that it is a wrong reaction and thus failing to see its moral value in many cases (e.g., Cozort 1995; Shin 2020). Additionally, in practice, religions have often in history lapsed into out-group anger or even hatred, despite their peaceful teachings (e.g., Cairns et al. 2006). Many philosophers and ethicists have heavily criticized situations where privileged people argue against moral outrage, pointing out that if one experiences injustice, anger is needed (Srinivasan 2018; Cherry and Flanagan 2018; Cherry 2021). Several religious ethicists have joined these voices (for Christianity, see Shin 2020; for Buddhism, see McRae 2018). The legacy with which many religions now encounter varieties of climate anger is thus highly complicated and ambiguous.

The relationship between anger and anxiety is also complex and strong. In anxious states, there are often angry feelings, and when feeling strong anger, a person may also feel distress because the discharging of anger can be difficult (for anxiety and anger, see Bridewell and Chang 1997; Deschênes et al. 2012). When anxiety manifests as practical anxiety, questions about what exactly one should do can bring connections with moral outrage and indignation (psychologist Lifton calls this “anxiety of responsibility”; see Lifton 2017).

2.4. Empathy and Care

Fundamentally, climate emotions such as guilt, sadness, and anger are all related to caring. In cases that are positive from the viewpoint of environmental ethics, this caring is related to pro-environmental values: caring about the more-than-human world and other people. This is discussed by climate anxiety therapist and scholar Hickman when she argues that eco-anxiety is fundamentally eco-empathy (Hickman 2020, 2024). Many others agree. For example, eco-guilt scholar Jensen points out the connections between care, eco-guilt, and eco-grief (Jensen 2019), and climate anger scholar Antadze discusses constructive climate anger based on caring (Antadze 2020).

This empathetic motivation guides the possible counteremotions (Zillman 1996) of these climate emotions. Engaging constructively with climate guilt can lead to feeling “climate relief,” and climate shame can lead to “climate content” or even “healthy climate pride” (Pihkala 2022c). Dynamics of reparation (e.g., Lertzman 2015; Weintrobe 2021) are intimately related here. Engaging constructively with climate grief can lead to increased feelings of peace, possibly combined with relief, and a rejuvenated ability to feel joy and gratitude (e.g., Johnson 2018; more broadly, Solomon 2004). In addition, engaging constructively with climate anger can lead to feeling empowering emotions about having done what is felt to be right, having tried to make a change together with others who care (for discussions, see Wiseman 2021; Jamail 2019; Sherrell 2021).

For those who wish to engage constructively with climate emotions, for example, in religious communities, it is important to observe these kind of interconnections and to work towards the flourishing of empowering emotional dynamics.5 It is possible to appreciate both the so-called negative emotions—such as sadness, guilt, and anger—and the so-called positive emotions (for wide-ranging popular discussions of this, see McLaren 2010; Lomas 2016; Brown 2021).

3. Paradigm for Engaging with Climate Emotions

From the discussion above, a rationale for the importance of engaging with climate emotions emerges:

• Climate emotions can be linked with the well-being of members of the (religious) community. This is greatly impacted by the socio-ecological context. Some people already face much more dire consequences of the climate crisis.
• Climate emotions are related to ethical imperatives around climate issues. For example, guilt, anger, and sadness are all connected with issues related to responsibility and the losses that have already taken place.

Several psychological professionals have produced models of emotional engagement that have been applied to eco-emotions and climate emotions. What follows is a four-part application of tasks and possibilities for climate emotion engagement, drawing from interdisciplinary literature. This application is especially influenced by the works of two authors, Miriam Greenspan and Tara Brach.

Table 1. Methods of engaging with emotions by Tara Brach and Miriam Greenspan.

RAIN (Brach 2019)	Seven Steps of Emotional Alchemy (Greenspan 2004)
Recognize	1. Intention: Focusing your spiritual will
Allow	2. Affirmation: Developing an emotion-positive attitude
Investigate	3. Bodily sensation: Sensing, soothing, and naming emotions
Nurture	4. Contextualization: Telling a wider story
	5. The way of non-action: Befriending what hurts
	6. The way of action: Social action and spiritual service
	7. Transformation: The way of surrender (flow)

shows their methods. Both authors also discuss spirituality. With the term “alchemy,” Greenspan refers to transformation.6

The following four tasks and possibilities (

Table 2. Four tasks and possibilities of engaging with climate emotions.

Task
1. Working with one’s own emotions 2. Exploring the various forms and dynamics of climate emotions 3. Contextualizing climate emotions in the community 4. Supporting constructive engagement with climate emotions via various methods (e.g., action, rituals, spiritual practices)

) are an adaptation of both of these methods and other literature.

These tasks are basically relevant for anyone, but here the focus is on persons with responsibility who wish to advance the engagement with climate emotions in a religious community; these persons are here called “leaders” in short. Questions for reflection are offered below in relation to each task. These are generally about climate emotions, and then the specific questions about climate guilt, grief, and anger are included in related sections.

3.1. Working with One’s Own Emotions

First, there is the need for work with one’s own emotions. This resonates with the first three tasks of Brach’s RAIN model—recognizing, allowing, and investigating—and the first three tasks of Greenspan’s model—intention, affirmation, and bodily sensation. Intention and affirmation are related to proactive work: they are ways towards growth in emotional skills. Bodily sensations, as well as RAIN’s recognizing and allowing, are related to emotions that are happening. These skills help an individual to tolerate the experience of emotions without running away from them or moving into secondary emotions. Being able to recognize and name emotions has been found to be a very important skill in relation to being able to channel the energy in emotions (Barrett et al. 2016). Attending to bodily sensations can soothe and also increase understanding; sometimes it may be difficult to first name what one feels, but there are sensations in the body (e.g., Wright 2024).

By engaging with these kinds of skills and attitudes, leaders build fundamental skills. One cannot support others well in relation to emotions if one lacks emotional skills oneself. Perfection is not the goal but rather an attitude of constant learning and growth in self-awareness. Exploration of the topic resonates with investigating in RAIN and with many activities in Greenspan’s work.

Questions for reflection:

• What climate emotions do I recognize feeling? When and why?
• Are there bodily sensations that I find difficult to link with certain emotions? Who and what could help me in developing my skills of recognition and somatic methods?
• What kinds of attitudes do I have in relation to various emotions and climate emotions? Do I think that certain emotions are better than others? If so, which ones, and why? What could an emotion-positive attitude (Greenspan 2004) look like for me?

There are many resources and activities available that can help in these tasks. Engaging with books about climate emotions may be helpful in this (e.g., Wray 2022; Weber 2020; Schmidt 2023), as well as participation in group work (e.g., Good Grief Network 2021). Free-to-use visuals and activities include The Climate Emotion Wheel (Figure 1) and The Mind Map of Eco-emotions (Pihkala 2024f).

3.2. Exploring the Various Forms and Dynamics of Climate Emotions

The second task continues investigation by exploring the various forms and dynamics of related emotion(s), both in oneself and in others. This includes thinking about the interconnections of emotions and possible trajectories of moving from one emotion to another. Brach (Brach 2019) reminds readers that investigation of occurring emotions is only possible if there are enough mental resources for it, and the skills of engaging with embodied sensations are essential for developing those resources.

Questions for reflection:

• What climate emotions are often closely connected in my experiences? How do these emotions affect each other?
• When I think of people close to me, what about the same dynamics?
• Do I notice trajectories of climate emotions? Moving from a primary emotion to a secondary reactive one? Or just common cycles of emotions?
• When I or people close to me think of a certain climate emotion, what kind of intensity do they basically have in mind? Is there room for various levels of intensities?

3.3. Contextualizing Climate Emotions in the Community

The third task is to contextualize the emotions. This task of contextualization is explicitly discussed by Greenspan, who offers many activities for reflection about this. The task of investigation in the RAIN model also captures essential dynamics here.

Questions for reflection:

• What kinds of factors impact the climate emotions of people I work or live with?
• What kinds of issues of climate (in)justice are present? Is there injustice about climate emotions themselves? (For the latter point, “emotional injustice” related to the climate crisis, see Verlie 2024).
• How have people’s experiences and their socio-economic status influenced the ways in which they experience climate emotions and react to them? (e.g., Crandon et al. 2022) Have they experienced direct impacts of climate change, including natural disasters intensified by global warming? (see Swain 2020; Ramsay and Manderson 2011; Chen et al. 2020).

This kind of contextualization serves both therapeutic and ethical purposes. It can help in understanding one’s own experiences and those of others, and it may increase both empathy and self-compassion. It can provide peer support: that strong comfort in the fact that many others are feeling the same. It can help in seeing which social, cultural, and political forces shape emotional experiences in a given context, and this potential is closely related to justice issues and ethics. Contextualization is thus intimately connected with critical sociopolitical analysis (Neckel and Hasenfratz 2021; González-Hidalgo and Zografos 2020).

Contextualization can include the evaluation of various valences: how emotions are seen and felt in various contexts by various people. A very simple definition of valence is whether an emotion generally feels good or bad, but this can be context-dependent and has been argued to be overly simplistic (Solomon and Stone 2002). Related to this, many scholars have argued that there is a strong need to move forward from overly simple distinctions of “positive” and “negative” emotions in a value-laden sense.7

3.4. Supporting Constructive Engagement with Climate Emotions Via Various Methods (e.g., Action, Rituals, Spiritual Practices)

Fourth, there is the question of what should or could be done to support constructive engagements with climate emotions. Different contexts shape the dynamics of the possible and most feasible responses, but there are also some universal needs and possibilities, such as a need for peer support in climate grief and a need for collective engagement with climate guilt (e.g., Hamilton 2020, 2022). Contextualization can provide important insights for such work.

Greenspan delineates two ways of reacting that are very relevant for religious communities: the way of non-action and the way of action. The way of non-action resonates strongly with nurturing in RAIN: tolerating what hurts and practicing compassion. Participating in various kinds of action can help in many ways with difficult climate emotions, but action should not be the only way of reacting, because emotions also need explicit attention (e.g., Pihkala 2022b; Hickman 2023). Continuous action also brings the danger of exhaustion and/or burnout (e.g., Nairn 2019; Hoggett and Randall 2018).

Questions for reflection:

• What do I think about “way of action” and “way of non-action” as possibilities for engaging with climate emotions? Does my spiritual community participate in both, or only one of these? What would be the possibilities?
• Are there current practices in my spiritual community that are helpful for engaging with climate emotions?
• How could existing practices be modified or adapted into new ones so that various climate emotions could be better engaged with?

These four broad tasks and skillsets can be used as a bucket list for those leaders who wish to engage with climate emotions. Naturally, many other tasks and subtasks could be mentioned, since the related dynamics are so complex. In the following sections, the chosen three climate emotions are discussed in more detail, and these four tasks are linked with each of them.

4. Climate Guilt and Religious Communities

4.1. Challenges and Dynamics of Climate Guilt (and Shame)

Vignettes8 of climate guilt and shame:

Sergio buys a new phone and feels glad, but at the same time he remembers the carbon cost of the production of the phone and feels slightly guilty. He starts downloading new apps and suppresses the guilt.

Maria takes a flight after a while. On the plane, she feels both excitement about the travel and guilt for the climate emissions. She also remembers global inequity, and her flight guilt mingles with her guilt of being a part of the more affluent population who can travel. She makes a decision to pay more carbon offsets.

Lee and Huang watch a nature documentary about a coral reef, which is being destroyed by climate change. They feel shame about being part of a human race who has not been able to change its ways of life. Huang, a committed Christian, wonders whether God will forgive humanity for its ecological sins.

People can react to ecological and climate guilt in widely different ways. On one hand, people can resist culpability and use various defenses against it. Complex dynamics of guilt, disavowal, and denial are often discussed in climate psychology (Weintrobe 2021; Dodds 2011; Hoggett 2019; Gifford et al. 2018). On the other hand, climate conscious people can feel strong burdens because of recognized climate guilt and/or shame (e.g., Nielsen et al. 2024; Conradie 2010). These people can then feel even more distressed by the negations and denials of climate guilt by others (Hickman 2023, 2024a). The collection of articles about Christianity and climate grief (Malcolm 2020b) is filled with observations about how climate guilt complicates climate matters and climate grief itself (e.g., H. Jones 2020; Blower 2020). The problems of “guilty grieving” (Jensen 2019) have been observed by ecological grief scholars (Pihkala 2024d; Menning 2017).

Engaging constructively with climate guilt in religious communities is difficult but elementary. Knowledge about various possible reactions to climate guilt is needed, and the tricky issue of individual responsibility is fundamental. Given that there are major corporations and societal structures that produce large amounts of climate emissions, what exactly should the individual responsibility be? Environmental ethicists and theologians have written much on this topic, pointing out that while individual responsibility is needed, the major thrust should be the effort to change structures and to put limits on large subjects of climate emissions (e.g., Jenkins 2013). However, on a grassroots level, it is often difficult to negotiate with levels of climate guilt, and there are usages of power here, too. Jensen describes how fossil fuel companies, such as British Petroleum, have intentionally created public relations campaigns where they have tried to increase individual climate guilt in order to draw attention away from their own shortcomings (Jensen 2019). Individuals often feel torn about climate guilt in various ways, sometimes aspiring to be “pure” of it and sometimes trying to disavow the whole responsibility (for discussion, see Shotwell 2016).

Jensen discusses two further social phenomena around the complications of eco-guilt, and religious leaders should be aware of these. First, there is a “double bind” in relation to pro-environmental behavior. This concept comes from Gregory Bateson and refers to an offered solution to a problem that eventually maintains the problem (Jensen 2019). In the environmental context, the very means that are usually offered in contemporary societies to solve environmental problems, namely individualistic consumption and lifestyle choices, end up perpetuating the problems, because consumer choices are fundamentally not enough to change the economic structures, which have major flaws. This does not mean that these choices are meaninglessness, but they are not adequate, either. As a result, people find themselves experiencing more eco-guilt some time after the correcting deed, because the root causes have not been affected, and a kind of vicious circle ensues. Scholar McFarland Taylor (S. M. Taylor 2019) draws attention to “eco-piety”: ways in which people try to follow environmental guidelines akin to how a religious person practices piety. The double bind discussed above can trap practitioners of eco-piety into cycles of guilt and individualistic actions.

Second, there is a problem referred to as “the hypocrite’s trap” by Jensen (Jensen 2019), closely related to the “hippie-hypocrite-paradox” named by Berglund (Berglund 2019). The hypocrite’s trap means dynamics where the credibility of an environmentally active person is criticized because he/she is still taking part in contemporary society where there are inevitably environmental impacts. If, however, the person chooses to radically differ from the other society, he/she is often called a “hippie” who supposedly cannot understand the conditions of others because he/she has left the normal society: “Damned if you do and damned if you don’t,” as the American saying goes. Closely related to this kind of usage of power are the dynamics of “scapegoat ecology” (Schmitt 2019; Mkono et al. 2020), where people try to alleviate moral distress about a complicated matter by putting the blame on some individual. Since religions have strong historical connections with scapegoat dynamics, religious communities should be places where the ecological versions of that can be critically discussed.

There is a need for careful and critical observation of various religious dynamics around ecological guilt and shame. To put it simply, religious people may resort to religion in either ethically positive or negative ways in relation to ecological guilt and shame. Some religious interpretations lead to disavowal or denial of climate guilt and responsibility.9 For example, people can transfer all responsibility to divine powers (e.g., Ananthamohan 2020). Or, they can keep environmental matters away from the sphere of religiously important topics, for example, by focusing on anthropocentric issues and/or the salvation of a soul (Santmire 1985). On the other end of the scale are people who are so deeply troubled by ecological guilt and shame that they feel that divine powers are punishing them for their wrongdoings (see the observations in Malcolm 2020b).

Because of all these complications around ecological guilt and shame, religious leaders have profound challenges and possibilities in engaging with ecological guilt (e.g., LaMothe 2019). In addition, since non-religious people also react to issues of environmental culpability and guilt in dynamics that have functional similarities with religion, religious leaders could have an impact on the wider public, based on their experience. For example, environmental compensation, especially carbon offsetting of flight emissions, is often referred to as indulgences (e.g., Conniff 2008), and religious leaders could warn of the misuse of indulgences and emphasize the need for deeper collective transformation (as in the call for “ecological conversion” in Francis 2015). As several environmental writers and scholars have emphasized, purity dynamics are dangerous in relation to environmental issues (Shotwell 2016; Grover 2021). It would be imperative to both admit one’s responsibility and situate that in the context of the ambiguities of structural problems.

Religious leaders could provide opportunities for collective confession of climate guilt and/or shame and do that in the context of a collective momentum towards ethical transformation (e.g., Conradie 2010). Collective identification with climate guilt could help in resisting the temptation to practice scapegoat ecology. Religious communities often form strong in-groups, and it is a real risk for negative issues to be projected to out-groups (Cairns et al. 2006).

Other climate emotions and engagement with them can help in working with various possible problems around climate guilt. An overemphasis on personal eco-guilt and shame can depress people and maintain unjust structures (T. Johnson 2018; Ray 2020); the help of climate anger is needed. In addition, in other instances, privileged members of communities may need incentives and opportunities to overcome their disavowal and denial of their guilt and responsibility (H. Jones 2020; Blower 2020); an ability to mourn is needed (Jones et al. 2020; Nicholsen 2002).10

The challenges and dynamics discussed above shape the tasks and skills related to climate guilt and shame.

4.2. Tasks and Skills of Engaging with Climate Guilt and Shame

4.2.1. Working with One’s Own Climate Guilt and Shame

First, there is a need for the leaders to practice self-exploration in relation to their own attitudes and feelings regarding climate guilt and/or shame. Since there can be many kinds of unconscious dynamics around guilt and shame, having a safe peer group—perhaps a couple of religious leaders and, if possible, psychologists—would be highly useful. Questions for reflection include the following:

• How do I personally evaluate climate guilt? Do I think that it is useful? Are there differences between the usefulness of it in various situations? Are some forms of climate guilt more constructive than others?
• What about climate shame and these same questions?
• Do I personally feel ecological guilt and/or climate guilt? If so, when and in what forms?
• How do I react to ecological guilt and/or climate guilt? And how do I react to guilt-provoking situations in general?
• What coping methods do I personally prefer in relation to climate guilt and shame? How do my preferences for these methods affect my views about how others should respond to climate guilt and/or shame?

4.2.2. Exploring the Various Forms of Climate Guilt and Shame

Questions for reflection include the following:

• What kinds of issues evoke climate guilt and/or shame in the members of my community? And what levels of intensities do these various feelings have? How do people generally react to them?
• Are there people in my community who do not feel any climate guilt even if they should? Are there people who practice climate disavowal or even denial, and what could be the relation of dynamics of guilt and shame to that?
• Are there people in my community who are feeling overly strong burdens of eco-guilt or shame? How much do these people over-individualize structural problems? What are the psychological and spiritual needs generated by this?

4.2.3. Contextualizing Climate Guilt and Shame

Telling the wider stories of climate guilt and shame can aid in moving away from overly individualizing interpretations. Questions for reflection include the following:

• What kinds of factors impact the various forms of climate guilt and shame in the community and people’s reactions to these feelings? For example, how are different backgrounds and professions related to this?
• When analyzed from the point of view of ethics and socio-political analysis, how much climate guilt and/or shame is relevant to be felt by the various members of my community?
• What needs do people have behind their climate emotions, and how could these be engaged with?

4.2.4. Supporting Constructive Engagement with Climate Guilt and Shame

The potential methods that religious leaders can utilize in providing constructive responses to eco-guilt and eco-shame are numerous, ranging from rituals to discussion groups and from spiritual care to emotionally wise activism. Many of these methods will be further discussed below, because sadness and anger are intertwined with guilt dynamics.

• Speaking about the complexities of climate guilt, culpability, and responsibility (for guidelines, see Bryan 2024; Oziewicz 2024). Simply speaking from the heart about this complexity and implicity can help (see the reflections in Ward 2020). Naturally, in the long run, actions of reparation are needed too. Talking directly about psychosocial phenomena such as “the double bind of sustainable consumption,” “the hippie-hypocrite paradox,” and “scapegoat ecology” can help people to react to them more constructively.
• Providing opportunities for confessing climate guilt (cf. “ecological sins”), but avoiding problematic uses of the word “we” (Oziewicz 2024; Mihai and Thaler 2023). Religious communities often use a very universalizing “we” in ecological confessions: a typical example is “we have laid waste the good earth you have made” (The Anglican Church of Australia n.d.). Who exactly is this “we” when it is known that 71 percent of the climate emissions since 1988 have been produced by only 100 companies? (Riley 2017) Confessions should use language that recognizes culpability but also situates it in the global context (Malcolm 2020b).
• Using symbolic, material objects to help people engage with climate guilt and shame. Powell (Powell 2019) has analyzed an interesting example of this. The California-based Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministries employs ecological shame and climate shame creatively in its spiritual practice and leadership. The leaders of this organization make these feelings manifest materially: for example, they have used as an altar a burned tree stump from wildfires made more intense by climate change. They also explicitly link climate shame with the whole collective, including the leaders. Powell argues that these kinds of methods help the members of the community both to encounter difficult emotions and to increase their moral motivation for ecological action.
• Bringing out the connections between climate grief and guilt (see also Prade-Weiss 2021); talking about how guilt and shame can prevent grieving; pointing out that ecological confessions can include both guilt and grief—grieving the wrongdoings; and discussing the reasons for moral outrage in climate matters, in addition to guilt and grief.
• Many of the things above are, to use terms from Greenspan, “ways of non-action.” Ecological guilt and shame can be engaged with by various kinds of action, either implicitly or explicitly. The motivation to engage in public witness can be linked with counteremotions of climate guilt and shame: pointing out that it is honorable to do our part.

5. Climate Grief and Religious Communities

5.1. Principles of Environmental Commemoration

Vignettes of climate grief and sadness:

Ivan looks at the river where he used to fish for decades. Now the salmon are gone, due to warming of the waters because of climate change. He feels a deep loss, which extends to his identity. He sometimes cries alone after drinking alcohol but hides his tears from others because he has been taught that grown-up men do not cry in public.

Juanita watches her 7-year-old son fall asleep in his bed. Her heart is filled with both gratitude for his existence and a profound sorrow. She knows that the climate crisis will grow more intense as her son grows up, and she feels anticipatory grief and maturational loss. Searching online, she luckily finds a climate grief discussion group offered by a nearby spiritual community and is able to voice her sorrow, finding peer support for it.

On one hand, engaging constructively with climate grief might seem like a much easier task for religious communities than climate guilt and shame. After all, most religious communities have lots of experience working with grief, and climate grief is not as controversial as issues of climate responsibility and guilt are. However, there are certain features that also make climate sadness and grief difficult: their weight, their multiple forms, and the commonality of disenfranchised grief in relation to them (Pihkala 2024d; Comtesse et al. 2021). For brevity, the wording climate grief is used here to refer to many kinds of sadness and grief about climate change.

There is much emerging literature about climate grief (e.g., Gelderman 2022; Amoak et al. 2023; Pihkala 2024a, 2024b). In this article, the focus will be on interconnections between climate grief and the other chosen climate emotions and on the application of the aforementioned four tasks and skills to the topic. Recent work on environmental commemoration is found to be helpful for this.

Scholars Mihai and Thaler (Mihai and Thaler 2023) have provided five principles that should guide what they call environmental commemoration: public engagement with ecological losses. Their discussion includes significant observations about the interconnections of ecological guilt and grief. These five principles are an important and helpful framework for religious communities in engaging with climate emotions and especially grief (see

Table 3. Five principles for environmental commemoration (Mihai and Thaler 2023).

Multispecies Justice

Responsibility

Pluralism

Dynamism

Anticlosure

).

Multispecies justice refers to the ethical need to also pay attention to losses experienced by more-than-humans (see also DeMello 2016; Brooks Pribac 2021; Radomska 2023). Mihai and Thaler argue that the aim should be to move forward from anthropocentrism. This is a major challenge for many religious communities, because they have traditionally held strongly anthropocentric attitudes and values (e.g., B. R. Taylor 2016). There are deep layers of disenfranchised grief here: grief experienced by those who mourn the suffering caused by humans to more-than-humans and the sorrows of the more-than-humans themselves.

In relation to responsibility, Mihai and Thaler emphasize the need to recognize that some suffer more than others and some have caused more damage than others. Environmental commemoration can, and in their view should, manifest regret and empathy.

Pluralism refers to the need to utilize and appreciate various methods: “Not only material (monuments, memorials, museum exhibitions, artworks), but also intangible commemorative institutions (oral traditions of remembrance, performances, ceremonies, rituals, and official holidays) provide valuable opportunities, whether publicly or privately staged, so long as they facilitate processes of taking responsibility, of learning from one another, and of imagining and acting otherwise” (Mihai and Thaler 2023, pp. 5–6).

Dynamism refers to the need to be open to new, changing, and emerging forms of environmental loss. Mihai and Thaler connect anticlosure with Haraway’s notion of “staying with the trouble” (Haraway 2016), and this can resist the tendency of rituals to produce closure.

With these principles, community leaders can work with climate grief and guilt simultaneously. There may be various kinds of resistance to grieving (Barnett 2021, 2022), and religious leaders have opportunities to work against this downplaying or disenfranchisement (see also Mark and Di Battista 2017).

5.2. Tasks and Skills of Engaging with Climate Grief

5.2.1. Working with One’s Own Climate Grief

Questions for reflection include the following:

• What is my general attitude towards grief and sadness?
• Have I experienced sadness or grief in relation to environmental changes? If so, what kind?
• Am I using coping methods in relation to climate grief or sadness? If so, what kind? Are there benefits and challenges in the usage of these methods?

5.2.2. Exploring the Various Forms of Climate Sadness and Grief

It is important to learn more about various losses and forms of grief that people can experience in relation to climate change. Figure 2 shows many of these.

There can be profound intangible losses related to climate change (Tschakert et al. 2019), and these are not easily discerned. Sometimes there is tangible loss, which includes various intangible losses for different people. For example, losing a feature of the ecosystem may result in different kinds of loss and sadness for different members of the (religious) community (e.g., Douglas-Huriwai 2020). If these situations are not engaged with carefully, there is a danger that some important aspects will become disenfranchised grief (Pihkala 2024a, 2024b).

Texts and testimonies can aid in better understanding the climate grief experiences of various people (e.g., Malcolm 2020b; Jamail 2019; Sherrell 2021; Ward 2020; for critical analysis, Mihai 2024). However, sometimes there is psychological or existential difficulty in facing climate losses and griefs: for example, it can feel horrible to face the shattered dreams of young people caused by the climate crisis (for discussions, see Hickman 2023; Miller 2023; Tsui 2023; Pihkala 2020b). A lot of safety, grounding, and containment are needed for engaging with these difficult issues (Anderson et al. 2024; Atkinson and Ray 2024).

Questions for reflection include the following:

• What kinds of climate change-related loss and grief do people in my religious community experience?
• What forms of loss and grief are difficult for me to encounter and why? Do I have some special strengths in encountering some of them?
• Are there spiritual losses interconnected with ecological losses?

5.2.3. Contextualizing Climate Grief and Sadness

Questions for reflection include the following:

• What are the wider stories behind climate grief and sadness of the members of the community?
• What kinds of factors shape people’s feelings and their reactions to these feelings?

A very important thing is that there can be intersectional justice issues at play here. For example, for indigenous peoples, climate change brings an additional layer to a long history of suffering many kinds of losses due to colonization. Long before there were any concepts for environmental grief, indigenous peoples felt that grief when colonizers destroyed ecosystems, non-human animals, plants, and relations between people and all these others (e.g., Whyte 2017; Meloche 2018).

Broadly, experiences of ecological grief, including climate grief, are shaped by people’s socio-economic status, their values and environmental identities, and a profound array of psychological, social, cultural, and political factors (for a review, see Benham and Hoerst 2024). Dynamics around gender and race should also be considered (e.g., Sasser 2023).

5.2.4. Supporting Constructive Engagement with Climate Sadness and Grief

For discussions about possible methods, see, e.g., Menning (2017); Johnson (2017); Macy and Brown (2014); and Adams (2020). Various options include the following:

• Helping the religious community to develop a grief-positive attitude (Greenspan 2004): understanding the important functions of grief and being aware of possible depression and “complicated grief” (Pihkala 2024d; Comtesse et al. 2021).
• Framing climate grief as a religious issue (e.g., Malcolm 2020a) and understanding its spiritual dimensions (e.g., Weller 2015).
• Providing help in naming and recognizing various forms of climate grief and sadness.
• Exploring various terms that might help people of different ages to engage with climate loss and grief. For example, older people may find concepts such as “climate grief” unfamiliar, even when they feel related loss (Dennis and Stock 2023).
• Helping people to observe dynamics of their loss and grief experiences and providing information about how to engage with these dynamics. For example, observing possible dynamics of ambiguous loss and engaging with counseling literature about how to deal with ambiguous loss (e.g., Boss 2022).
• Providing psychoeducation about the need for grieving, rest, and action in the context of climate grief (see the process model offered by Pihkala 2022b). If action is the only channel for grieving, there is a significant risk for complications in the long run (e.g., Hickman 2023).
• Engaging with both past and anticipated losses with spiritual practices such as liturgy, laments, prayers, and memorials (e.g., Hessel-Robinson 2012; Lambelet 2020; Bauman 2014). Furthermore, it would be marvelous if transitional losses (Pihkala 2024d; Rosemary Randall 2009) could also be engaged with.
• Exploring possible rituals for climate grief with “ritual creativity” (for the idea, see Grimes 2013; for applying it to ecological grief, see Weller 2015; T. Johnson 2017).
• In rituals: paying tribute to what has been, perhaps by letting go of something, and orienting towards something new. The frameworks of re-learning the world (Attig 2015) and meaning reconstruction (Neimeyer 2019; Neimeyer and Burke 2015; Neimeyer 2016, 2022) offer insights for this.
• Offering at least information about peer groups and facilitated sessions where climate grief and sadness can be safely discussed, such as The Good Grief Network (Schmidt 2023; Good Grief Network 2021) and The Work that Reconnects (Macy and Brown 2014; Work That Reconnects Network 2024). Consider organizing “Climate Cafés,” “Climate circles,” or other safe spaces for this (Broad 2024).
• Way of action: channeling climate grief into climate action with the help of climate anger or determination (Salamon 2020; Kelsey 2020). Please note, however, that it may not be safe to be vulnerable with climate grief in a public space, and safe spaces for climate mourning are needed in addition to integrations of grief and action (for discussion, see Skrimshire 2019; Brewster 2020; de Massol de Rebetz 2020).

6. Climate Anger and Religious Communities

6.1. Varieties of Climate Anger

Vignettes of climate anger:

• Lisa watches in astonishment as the prime minister of her country disavows climate change in his speech. She is filled with moral outrage and enrolls in an Extinction Rebellion street blockade next week.
• Max is a member at a church council meeting where energy options are discussed. He feels growing annoyance and anger when listening to another member who speaks on behalf of continuing to use coal instead of investing in renewables. Max almost lashes out at the man in his own speech but manages to practice mindfulness and tones his message into non-violent communication, searching for ways to make a better decision together. His anger keeps burning in the form of determination inside him.

Climate anger and climate rage are very new topics for nuanced discussion (Gregersen et al. 2023; Antadze 2020; Bergman 2023). Indeed, the lack of scholarly attention to them seems to testify to structural problems in contemporary societies about recognizing the importance of anger and the various potentials of it. Feminist scholars of affect studies have done especially valorous work in raising up the issues related to anger, and recently this has begun to spread into climate matters. Scholar Antadze (Antadze 2020) applies philosopher Srinavasan’s concept of the aptness of anger into climate matters, arguing that moral outrage because of climate injustices is very much needed. Researchers of religion, affect, and climate have also started to grapple with these issues (e.g., O’Dell-Chaib 2019), and the pioneering ecotheologian Rosemary Radford Ruether discussed the importance of anger in the early 1970s (Shin 2020; for Ruether, see e.g., Bouma-Prediger 1995). They point out that anger is not necessarily always a vice but can also be a virtue (see also Cherry and Flanagan 2018).

Scholar Bergman (Bergman 2023) draws from Myisha Cherry’s work on anger (Cherry 2021) and provides further distinctions about varieties of anger. Named after the activist and author Audre Lorde, “Lordean rage” is proposed as an anti-racist type of climate anger. The materials provided by the MindWorks organization about types of anger, including the climate change context, also draw from Cherry’s work. These materials name constructive anger as the best kind of anger. Under the category of “futile anger,” they include restrained anger and narcissistic anger. In the category of “toxic anger,” they differentiate supremacy anger, vengeful anger, and rogue anger (Flothmann 2023). Supremacy anger is connected with defending one’s status. Vengeful anger has risks of violence, as well as the unpredictable rogue anger (see also the discussion of “berserker rage” in Cherry and Flanagan 2018). Figure 3 shows these.

Empirical work by Gregersen and colleagues (Gregersen et al. 2023) studied varieties of climate anger among Norwegians, and the results resonate with many of the aforementioned categories. Ten percent of the respondents manifested what these scholars call “contrarian anger,” resisting progressive climate politics, but most of the respondents were at least somewhat angry about climate injustices (see also the preprint of climate anger research in Australia by Stanley et al. 2023).

Furthermore, it is clear that some people have even more reason to be angry about climate injustices because they already have to suffer so heavily from them (Jafry 2019). Many of these people live in the Global South, but this applies also to oppressed or vulnerable populations in the Global North. Some of these people express their anger, while others have reacted more with numbness or depressed moods (e.g., Du Bray et al. 2019; Amoak et al. 2023).

For leaders of any communities, including religious communities, there is thus an important task of trying to understand anger dynamics around climate change. Leaders of religious communities can be in very different positions in relation to climate anger. For some, it is a normal part of the emotional landscape in their communities, usually in an intersectional way: people are angry and morally outraged by various injustices that are intertwined (Jafry 2019). For others, the general affective tone is more oriented towards complex combinations of guilt and benevolence (see the observations in Malcolm 2020b). These kind of affective differences also came out in a study about climate activists in both Global South and North: the scholars observed that the major emotion for activists from the North was guilt, and for those from the South, it was anger (Kleres and Wettergren 2017). However, there has also been increasing moral outrage about climate change among activists from the North (e.g., Pickard 2021; Coppola and Pihkala 2023).

While it is evident that privileged people from the Global North should take responsibility for their choices, it is also true that even they are partly victims of the circumstances. The societies around them have influenced them in developing a lifestyle that is environmentally problematic, and major decisions causing environmental damage have been made without their consent, partly in history and partly in the present (for discussion, see Bryan 2024; Oziewicz 2024). They have reason for guilt but also reason for anger. Traditionally, they have had difficulties in feeling that anger for complex reasons that are related to cultural politics of emotion (Ahmed 2004). However, the new climate movements of recent years have been a means for many to become aware of the climate injustices and to channel the newly found moral outrage into nonviolent climate action (e.g., Martiskainen et al. 2020). As a result, there are notable differences between people who have engaged with climate issues and climate anger and those who have not.

Thus, for some religious leaders, the task is to help the members of their communities to connect with anger, while for others, the task may be to navigate amidst much anger. Overall, a key task might be the one that is mapped by scholars Hattam and Zembylas (Hattam and Zembylas 2010): in every context, to seek a balance between resignation from all anger and resignation to anger. Drawing from case examples about long-standing conflicts in certain societies, Hattam and Zembylas argue that it is problematic to perpetuate angry affective economies, since this does not help in providing reconciliation between conflicting parties. They also warn about the tendencies of especially the privileged to try to silence the anger of the oppressed (see also Srinivasan 2018; Cherry and Flanagan 2018), drawing partly from Zembylas’ earlier work where she emphasizes the need to educate people to feel their anger and to realize its status as a political emotion (e.g., Zembylas 2007, see also Zembylas 2021). Hattam and Zembylas argue for the need for critical self-reflection by both parties of the conflict and efforts towards transformation. They link this with the concept of conviviality (Nowicka and Vertovec 2014), an ability to live together despite differences.

The climate crisis provides in many ways a different situation compared to the case examples of Hattam and Zembylas: the conflicting parties are not as clear. However, many dynamics do seem to be similar. Anger has emerged between groups of people, for example, between young climate activists and those older decision-makers who do not engage in progressive climate politics (Pickard 2021; Knops 2021; Diffey et al. 2022). While it is clear that the climate activists are engaging in a righteous cause, activists also need abilities for critical self-reflection, and all parties need determination to reach out for conviviality. Thus, the task of both appreciating anger and restricting its problematic forms remains.

6.2. Tasks and Skills of Engaging with Climate Anger

6.2.1. Working with One’s Own Climate Anger

Leaders of religious communities are first called to self-reflection about their own attitudes towards anger and about their own feelings. Questions for reflection include the following:

• How do I evaluate anger and rage in general? Do I think of them mainly as vices, or do I see some virtue in them?
• How do my own personal history and my temperament affect my views about anger and its varieties?
• Have I personally felt moral outrage in relation to climate change? If so, when? Where did these feelings lead me?
• How do I react to various forms of eco-anger or climate rage among people I encounter?
• How does my religious and cultural background affect my attitude towards (climate) anger?

6.2.2. Exploring the Various Forms of Climate Anger

Questions for reflection include the following:

• Which kinds of eco-anger or climate rage exist in my community? What are the objects and intensities? You can consult the MindWorks anger guide (Flothmann 2023) (Figure 3) for quick reference. Are there people who suffer from restricted anger?
• How do people in my community usually react to (climate) anger? Do they differentiate between various kinds of anger and anger responses? Are there people who react to climate issues with problematic or even toxic forms of anger?
• How do I react to the various kinds of anger and anger reactions that people express, and why? What could be constructive ways forward?

6.2.3. Contextualizing Climate Anger

Some of the reflection questions mentioned above refer to factors that can influence forms of, views towards, and attitudes about (climate) anger. It is important to contextualize the various kinds of anger, including climate anger, in the (religious) community. Intersectional justice issues should be explored and recognized. The needs behind emotions should be considered.

6.2.4. Supporting Constructive Engagement with Climate Anger

Religious leaders can help the members of their communities to understand various forms of climate anger and rage, and they can develop means to channel these emotions in constructive ways. They can advance both conviviality and action based on moral indignation. They can help individuals to develop emotion skills for dealing constructively with their anger; for some, this means reconnecting with one’s anger, and for others, it means learning skills to tolerate and moderate anger. Leaders can remind people of the connections between climate anger, anxiety, guilt, shame, and grief. Many practical activities such as climate action or lament may help people to engage in some extent with all these emotions, but there would be a need for activities that are especially designed to engage with anger issues.

Possibilities include the following:

• Psychoeducation about various types of (climate) anger. The MindWorks Anger Guide and the Climate Emotion Wheel can be helpful in this (Figure 1 and Figure 3).
• Providing a religious framing of anger as a virtue and not just a vice, while warning about the unethical potentials in anger: in other words, raising up the importance of constructive anger or “Lordean rage” (Bergman 2023; Cherry 2021). There are resources in various religions for these interpretations. For example, in a Christian context, Chase (Chase 2011a, 2011b) connects the story of Jesus getting angry in the temple with the need for moral outrage in relation to environmental issues (for Buddhist resources, see McRae 2018).
• Practicing lament, which can include both grief, guilt, and/or moral outrage. Many ancient laments speak on behalf of the oppressed, asking how long they have to suffer. Climate lament offers powerful possibilities to engage with many climate emotions at the same time (e.g., Brocker 2016; Malcolm 2020b).
• The simplest way to provide events that help channel climate anger is the way of action. This connection can and perhaps should be voiced: working for structural change and against injustices is a way of manifesting constructive climate anger (e.g., Moe-Lobeda 2013; A. E. Johnson and Wilkinson 2020). For example, demonstrations offer possibilities to vent anger out somatically (e.g., Landmann and Naumann 2024). As regards the way of non-action and rituals, it is worth asking the following: Could there be ritualistic, symbolic events that help in engaging constructively with anger? It is easy to think of such events and practices for guilt and grief, but what could they be like for anger? (For discussion, see Rebecca Randall 2023).

7. Conclusions

This article has explored the possibilities and potential ethical demands of engaging with three major climate emotions, especially in religious communities. Earlier research has been reviewed and discussed. Special emphasis was given to the manifold possible complications of climate guilt and shame. The need for a critical approach to individual, collective, and corporate responsibility was argued for. The difficulties in many religious groups around anger were discussed, and ways to engage with constructive climate anger were probed.

A new adaptation of four tasks and skills related to engaging with these emotions was given, and, in relation to these four, questions for reflection and ideas for practices were offered for each of the three emotions. Further research is called for in relation to empirical testing of the ideas and in relation to deeper inquiry. Some complex dynamics, such as engaging in practice with climate guilt and shame, would definitely require more nuance than has been possible to give here.

A novelty in this article has been the discussion of how the chosen three climate emotions could be used together, and in various combinations, for constructive means. A practical skill that could ensue is the ability to think about which emotion might help in cases where there is too much or too little of a certain emotion, from an ethical standpoint. It can naturally be tricky to evaluate this “too-much” or “too-little,” but there are factors upon which one can build here, such as the level of functionality and the level of constructive climate action. For example, if there is an inability to mourn, that prevents engagement with both grief and guilt and increases the possibility of reacting with toxic anger. On the other hand, if there is excessive and paralyzing climate guilt and/or shame, up-regulating climate anger would be important. The same applies to some instances of climate grief: the mourner needs the energy of thymos to step forward (Weber 2020).

Overall, this article testifies to the importance of engaging with the energies in different climate emotions. This requires interest towards emotions and psychology, and thus any work that increases such interest supports the proposals in this article. All kinds of emotions can have important messages and energies, and they should be observed in communities; this article has focused on religious communities, but many of the tasks and dynamics are relevant for any community.