Welcome to Section 1: Introduction to Climate Change and Mental Health!

In this section, you will learn:

• The relationship between climate change and mental health and how environmental changes can influence emotional well-being, psychological distress, resilience, and the overall health and well-being of communities.
• An overview of climate change and its widespread impacts on ecosystems, the environment, human societies, and health.
• Key aspects of planetary health and how it contributes to understanding climate change as an interconnected ecological, health and societal challenge.
• Major frameworks including the biomedical, biopsychosocial, social-ecological, cultural and Indigenous perspectives which relate to health and well-being
• Key examples of Indigenous frameworks and knowledge systems, connections with health and well-being, and some of the many ways Indigenous Peoples are leading stewardship, regeneration, and protection of lands, waters, plants, animals, and climate well-being.
• Understand ways in which climate change distinctly impacts the diverse Indigenous Peoples within Canada and the historical and ongoing colonial impacts that contribute to the disproportionate impacts of climate change for Indigenous communities.

Understanding the relationship between climate change and mental health is crucial for developing effective strategies to support individuals and communities facing environmental challenges. Climate change not only alters our physical surroundings but also profoundly affects our psychological well-being, influencing how we perceive and respond to the changing world around us. This module explores the importance of recognizing and addressing the mental health impacts of climate change, highlighting why this understanding is essential for fostering resilient and thriving communities. It also invites us to consider how meaningful mental health responses must go beyond individual coping to address social, political, and structural conditions influencing climate distress while fostering hope, connection and care for one another and the planet.

Why a Mental Health Approach to Climate Change Must Go Beyond the Individual

A systems-focused perspective helps to explain how broader social, political, and environmental systems impact climate-related distress. Climate grief or anxiety reflects structural conditions including fossil fuel dependence, social inequity, and colonial histories, and cannot be “treated away” without addressing their root causes. The following points build on this concept with additional reasons why a mental health approach to climate change must go beyond the individual.

• Communities Hold Solutions: Collective practices such as mutual aid, ecological restoration groups, climate justice organizing, and community-led adaptation may be more adaptable and scalable psychosocial solutions to address mental health consequences of climate change.
• Healing is Relational: Trauma healing involves rebuilding trust, safety, agency, and connection—conditions that are inherently social and political.
• Empowerment Reduces Distress: Participatory, justice-oriented climate action helps transform passive fear into active agency, reducing helplessness and supporting psychological resilience.
• Mental Health Requires Structural Transformation: Policies ensuring climate justice, equitable resource distribution, and community empowerment are themselves mental health interventions.

A mental health response to climate change emphasizes:

• Building collective capacity and solidarity
• Acknowledging shared ecological and social trauma
• Transforming structural conditions of harm
• Fostering active engagement in climate justice movements

Thus, mental health practice must not only help individuals cope with climate impacts but also support them in changing the conditions that cause distress, recognizing that healing and political transformation are interdependent.

Climate change is undeniably one of the most urgent challenges facing our planet today and it is having profound, interconnected and widespread effects on ecosystems, the environment, human societies, economies, and health. Climate change is defined as long-term alterations in temperature, precipitation, and other atmospheric conditions. These changes can be natural, but since the 1800s have primarily been driven by human activities such as burning fossil fuels which release greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions into the atmosphere. These emissions cause heat from the sun to become trapped and cause warming. This warming then contributes to global changes in weather patterns, sea ice, ocean currents, and other impacts that can have broad ripple effects, some of which are explored more below.

Planetary Health

There are many fields and disciplines working together to better understand and respond to climate change, ranging from earth sciences like climatology, natural sciences like ecology, as well as social and behavioural sciences like psychology.

Planetary health is a framework that bridges many disciplines together; it is both a hopeful emerging field and social movement that emphasizes the relationship between human well-being and the environment. Since the mid-2010s, planetary health has grown as a field and movement. However, it is important to understand that it builds upon understandings of the connections between human and ecological health that communities, particularly Indigenous communities, have shared for centuries.

The aim of planetary health is to assess and respond to the way that human activity is influencing Earth systems, human health, and all living things. When natural systems are compromised, it harms ecosystems and influences the building blocks of human health, including clean air, safe water, healthy food, and stable living conditions. Planetary health seeks to protect health by ensuring that the Earth system remains within a safe operating space for life on Earth.

Understanding planetary health helps us see how environmental changes directly affect physical, mental, and emotional well-being. It also frames a holistic view of climate change as not only an environmental issue, but a broader societal and public health challenge.

The planetary boundaries framework is a related framework that can act as a global health check by dividing the Earth system into nine critical boundaries that need to be maintained in order to ensure our planet remains a stable and safe home for humanity.

• Climate change
• Changes in biosphere integrity (biodiversity loss and species extinction)
• Stratospheric ozone depletion
• Ocean acidification
• Biogeochemical flows (phosphorus and nitrogen cycles)
• Land-system change (for example deforestation)
• Freshwater use
• Atmospheric aerosol loading (microscopic particles in the atmosphere that affect climate and living organisms)
• Introduction of novel entities

The 2025 Update to the Planetary Boundary

Note: From Azote for Stockholm Resilience Centre, based on Sakschewski and Caesar et al. (2025).

Several of these boundaries are currently being exceeded as presented in the visual above, highlighting the urgent need for collective action to bring human activities back within the safe zone. If you are interested in learning more about planetary boundaries and what they mean, you can check out the Stockholm Resilience Centre page.

Climate change profoundly impacts people around the world on physical, mental, emotional, social, cultural, and spiritual levels. Individuals are experiencing heightened levels of anxiety, depression, and stress due to factors such as extreme weather events, loss of livelihoods, and displacement. Feelings like uncertainty and fear about the future are contributing to widespread mental health challenges that are affecting people in most communities This module explores the major psychological effects of climate change, providing a foundation for understanding how environmental changes influence mental well-being.

Climate Emotions and the “Polycrisis”

We are living in an era where multiple crises—economic inequality, social and political unrest, global health challenges, and climate change—overlap and intensify one another. This convergence of crises is often referred to as a polycrisis: a dynamic in which seemingly separate threats interact in ways that deepen vulnerabilities and amplify the overall impact. When communities are already grappling with pressures like systemic injustice or fragile health systems, the added stress of climate-related disasters can push them from crisis management into crisis overload.

Climate change acts as a powerful risk multiplier within this polycrisis landscape. In other words, it amplifies existing risks and accelerates new ones. Extreme weather events like wildfires, atmospheric rivers, flooding, droughts, heatwaves, hurricanes, and more disproportionately affect communities that are already on the edge—economically or socially—leading to greater displacement, resource insecurity, and psychological strain. Such compounding pressures can make it much harder for people to cope emotionally, and anxiety, despair, and a sense of powerlessness may set in or intensify when one crisis arrives on the heels of another.

These emotional responses are not happening in a vacuum; they are deeply intertwined with global interlocking challenges. While climate distress, grief, and eco-anxiety can originate with environmental concerns, these emotions are inevitably influenced by broader social, economic, and political realities. Understanding the polycrisis context is therefore essential to grasp why climate emotions can be so intense—and why effective mental health responses must address these interrelated factors, recognizing climate change and climate distress as a systemic and societal issue rather than focusing on individual impacts in isolation.

Across the world, there are over 5,000 groups of Indigenous Peoples spanning many languages, territories, and cultures. Through the remaining territories under their stewardship and control, Indigenous Peoples safeguard 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity and sustain worldviews that weave ecological, spiritual, social, and mental well-being into one continuum. Many Indigenous Peoples and communities maintain strong relationships with place, culture, and the land. These relationships are guided by deep care, reciprocity and respect for plants, animals, waters and the natural world. Climate change is having a profound effect on these connections in many ways.

Within Canada, there are three constitutionally defined Indigenous Peoples: First Nations, Métis, and Inuit. These groups are distinct from one another and have unique experiences, cultural practices, and stories. For instance, in British Columbia alone, there is incredible diversity among Indigenous Peoples with over 200 distinct First Nations speaking 35 different languages, in addition to Métis communities, Inuit Peoples, and individuals from other First Nations who are living outside of their traditional territories. Throughout this curriculum, we often use the term Indigenous to refer to these groups together. However, it is important to recognize the immense diversity of Indigenous Peoples.

The impacts of climate change affect the lives and well-being of Indigenous Peoples on physical, mental, emotional, cultural, and spiritual levels. Factors such as colonialism, racism, displacement, and resource extraction continue to influence and exacerbate the systemic inequities that Indigenous Peoples experience. For instance, Indigenous communities are often geographically more at risk of climate extremes, climate disasters, and the ripple effects of climate change. This is due to being located in rural, remote, or Northern locations, largely because of forced relocation from traditional lands. Climate change has also shown to deeply impact Indigenous cultural and ceremonial practices, traditional food sources, and relationships to land.

Indigenous Peoples are key leaders in climate change and health. They have long been, and continue to be, leaders in climate justice and in connecting climate with well-being and health. First Nations, Métis, and Inuit hold important knowledge, ways of knowing, and offer unique perspectives on resilience, climate action, adaptation, and place-specific changes and solutions. Understanding and centering Indigenous knowledge systems and ways of knowing are therefore indispensable to any policy or practice that aims to address climate-related distress and promote collective resilience.

Key Indigenous Frameworks for Climate‑Mental‑Health Integration

Indigenous communities have long cultivated interconnected knowledge systems that offer guidance for understanding and responding to environmental and emotional change. These frameworks are living systems of relational ethics, healing, and land stewardship. In the context of climate-related distress and ecological grief, Indigenous models can offer powerful, holistic alternatives to narrow or medicalized views of mental health.

This section outlines some of the key frameworks that can inform integrative, culturally grounded responses to the climate crisis. These frameworks, knowledge systems, and approaches vary across Nations, cultures, and communities and are presented here as a small example of the many diverse teachings and practices that exist.

It is important to note that when using these frameworks and ways of knowing, the process should be led by Indigenous partners and approached from a place of humility, openness and respect.

Etuaptmumk / Two-Eyed Seeing

Two-eyed seeing was first conceptualized as a guiding principle by Mi’kmaw Elder Albert Marshall in the early 2000’s when working on a collaborative project with Cape Breton University in Nova Scotia about Integrative Science.

• Core Teachings
  Elder Albert describes two-eyed seeing as “learning to see from one eye with the strengths of Indigenous knowledges and ways of knowing, and from the other eye with the strengths of Western knowledges and ways of knowing, and to using both these eyes together, for the benefit of all”.
• Strength‑Based Contribution to Climate and Mental Health

  Two-eyed seeing fosters respectful co‑learning, avoids the ranking or comparison of knowledge systems, and increases cultural safety of mental‑health programmes.

• Illustrative Policy/Practice Application

  Co‑develop climate‑distress services that pair clinical therapy with Elder‑led land walks.

Watch

Watch the video Albert Marshall - Reconciliation With the Earth | Allison Bernard Memorial High School (9:33 minutes) to hear Elder Albert describe the concept of Two-Eyed Seeing.

Ethical Space

The concept of ethical space has been developed and shared by Indigenous scholars such as Dr. Willie Ermine from the Sturgeon Lake First Nation in the north-central part of Saskatchewan, and Elder Dr. Reg Crowshoe of Piikani Nation in Southern Alberta through their writings and teachings.

• Core Teachings

  In Dr. Ermine’s work, he states that “[t]he ethical space is formed when two societies with disparate worldviews are poised to engage with each other”. Ethical space is grounded in respect, relationality, humility, and responsibility, supporting meaningful collaboration between Indigenous and Western knowledge systems. Many elements of this framework align with two-eyed seeing.

• Strength‑Based Contribution to Climate and Mental Health

  Ethical space centers on understanding and finding connections with different perspectives or views of the world. It focuses on connecting these views in a way that is uplifting and does not take away from either. This approach can transform the way that Western and Indigenous Peoples work together in climate and mental health.

• Illustrative Policy/Practice Application

  Co-developing policies through shared decision-making tables where Indigenous voices lead, not just consult.

Watch

Watch the video Willie Ermine: What is Ethical Space? | Different Knowings (7:18 minutes) to understand how Dr. Willie Ermine conceptualized the idea of ethical space while doing research for his thesis surrounding the ethics of research when working with Indigenous Peoples.

Medicine Wheel Teachings

The Medicine Wheel is a sacred symbol in many Indigenous cultures, originating from ancient stone structures that were used for guidance and ceremony. Contemporarily, the term Medicine Wheel is used by many Nations and Peoples in different contexts to explore diverse and distinct ways of knowing grounded original teachings adapted to modern contexts and conditions.

• Core Teachings

  It is divided into four quadrants, and reflects cycles such as the seasons, stages of life, elements in nature and aspects of wellness. The design and interpretation of the Medicine Wheel can vary across Indigenous communities.

• Strength‑Based Contribution to Climate and Mental Health

  Can provide a holistic healing map for climate grief, eco‑anxiety, and moral injury.

• Illustrative Policy/Practice Application

  Embedding Medicine‑Wheel check‑ins in community climate‑adaptation workshops to track multi‑dimensional well-being.

Learn More

• Watch What is the Medicine Wheel? Teachings by Jeff Ward | The Preservation Project (4:47 minutes), where Jeff Ward, a Mi'kmaw leader, cultural educator, and storyteller from Membertou First Nation shares lessons about the medicine wheel.
• Read Medicine Wheel for the Planet A Journey Toward Personal and Ecological Healing by Dr. Jennifer Grenz which is a memoir and ecological analysis that weaves Indigenous and Western knowledge systems to explore healing, relationality, and more holistic approaches to restoring human–land connections and addressing ecological crises.
• Read Two-eyed perspectives on mental health interventions for climate change distress: An integrative scoping review by the MHCCA, which synthesizes Indigenous perspectives on climate-related distress, highlighting the interconnected impacts of climate change on wellbeing, culture, and land, alongside Indigenous and Western approaches to supporting mental health.

Medicine Wheel adaptation by Fox Mori, Julia Lukacs, Shona Adams, Valarie Nichoslon, Dawn Hoogeveen, Kalysha Closson, Arden Henley, Gina Martin, Maya Gislason, and Kiffer Card for Understanding and Responding to Climate Distress.

Land-Based Frameworks

Land-based approaches broadly refer to educational, community, and healing practices that take place on and with the land, recognizing the land as a teacher.

• Core Teachings

  Health arises from active stewardship and relationship with the land through practices like fire‑keeping, harvesting, and ceremony, rather than passive “access” to green space.

• Strength‑Based Contribution to Climate and Mental Health

  The use of land-based frameworks can provide many benefits. For example, it has been documented to lower psychological distress and strengthen identity following disasters.

• Illustrative Policy/Practice Application

  Funding Indigenous‑led ranger or guardian programs as dual climate‑adaptation and mental‑health strategies.

Learn More

• Read about On-the-Land camps being planned and facilitated across the North West Territories to bring together Indigenous teachings, traditional languages, and scientific tools to support learning and connection to the land.
• View The Benefits Associated with Caring for Country Literature Review by Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) which explores how stewardship initiatives and ranger programs can support well-being and strengthen resilience following bushfires and drought.
• Learn more about Indigenous Guardians through Indigenous Leadership Initiative, which supports Indigenous-led land stewardship and governance initiatives across Canada.

Acimowin (Storytelling, Oral History and Ceremony)

Acimowin comes from the Cree language and means story or to tell a story. Storytelling is foundational in many Indigenous cultures and is used to transmit language, cultural practices and intergenerational knowledge.

• Core Teachings

  Stories encode ecological memory, ethical duties, and coping skills; ceremonies re‑align relationships among people, non‑human relatives, and ancestors.

• Strength‑Based Contribution to Climate and Mental Health

  Strengthens communal meaning‑making, counters trauma, and transforms grief into purposeful action.

• Illustrative Policy/Practice Application

  Integrate seasonal storytelling circles into school curricula on climate emotions.

Learn More

Read The power of Acimowin (Storytelling) for climate change policy written by Indigenous author and educator Sandra Lamouche, which highlights storytelling as a relational knowledge system that carries ecological, cultural, and intergenerational teachings and can inform approaches to climate policy and climate-related distress.

Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK)

Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is living knowledge, practices and observations passed through generations from time out of time and guided by relationships with land, water, and all living beings. It is practiced across Canada and in Indigenous communities in many other parts of the world, but can vary greatly based on place, culture, and each community.

• Core Teachings

  TEK is not just information but a way of knowing, grounded in respect and responsibility. It holds insights not only about environmental stewardship, but about health and healing.

• Strength‑Based Contribution to Climate and Mental Health

  TEK contributes valuable lessons and practices in climate adaptation, mitigation and sustainability as well as holistic well-being.

• Illustrative Policy/Practice Application

  Supporting land-based healing programs that combine climate adaptation (e.g., reforestation) with Indigenous mental wellness practices.

Learn More

• To explore TEK in practice, Traditional Ecological Knowledge: The Cornerstone of Indigenous Climate Adaptation in Canada by Indigenous Climate Hub provides several examples of TEK being used in a Canadian context.
• Ecopsychepedia also offers an overview on Indigenous knowledges and highlights how TEK and related Indigenous knowledge and principles can serve as a guide in the climate crisis and inform responses for both human and ecological well-being.
• Explore the video series Celebrating Traditional Ecological Knowledge by PBS Terra, which offers a collection of videos of TEK in practice such as through the restoration of buffalo populations in Texas, deep connections with redwood forests in the Pacific Northwest, and sustainable farming practices in North Carolina.

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Indigenous Knowledge and Leadership at the Intersection of Climate Change and Health

Across Canada, First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Peoples are responding to climate change and mental health with leadership, self-determination and meaningful action. Below are a few examples of action plans, frameworks and strategies that have been developed to guide and inspire this work. The provincial and Nation specific examples presented are based in British Columbia, and we encourage you to explore other Indigenous-led resources, climate-strategies, and leadership initiatives in your own region or areas of interest.

National Level

The Métis Nation Climate Change Strategy: A Guide for Métis-Led Solutions to Climate Change by Métis National Council outlines five priority areas for action—nature stewardship, sustainable energy and infrastructure, emergency management and climate resilience, health and well-being, and economic development and prosperity—centred on Métis-led approaches to climate action.

The National Climate Strategy by Assembly of First Nations, is a First Nations-led framework focused on climate action, environmental stewardship, and Indigenous rights and governance. For additional information, explore the AFN's Environmental Protection and Climate Action webpage, which highlights the First Nations climate lens and broader climate leadership initiatives.

The National Inuit Climate Change Strategy by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, focuses on Inuit-driven climate solutions in five priority areas: knowledge and capacity; health, well-being and the environment; food systems; infrastructure; and energy.

Provincial Level (B.C. Specific)

The BC First Nations Spiritual Knowledge Keepers Gathering on Climate Change, captures the 2023 gathering and ceremony of First Nations Knowledge keepers in B.C., held in response to the climate crisis.

The BC First Nations Climate Strategy and Action Plan, represents First Nations across British Columbia and proposes recommendations for climate action and First-Nations led solutions.

The Métis Nation BC’s Climate Change Priority Paper, aligns with national Métis climate leadership efforts and outlines climate change strategies and priorities specific to the Métis Nation of British Columbia.

Nation Specific

The Squamish Nation Climate Action Legacy report, outlines Squamish Nation’s four key pillars for climate response: low-carbon infrastructure, land and water, green economy, and people and community, each with associated goals and proposed actions.

The Tsleil-Waututh Nation Climate Change and Community Health Action Plan - Summary Report, explores possible health impacts of climate change on Tsleil-Waututh Peoples and proposes community-led actions.

The T'eqt''aqtn'mux (Kanaka Bar) Community Resilience Plan, outlines a comprehensive, community-led approach to climate adaptation, including wildfire preparedness, water security, food systems, energy, and emergency resilience.

NAGWEDIẐK’AN GWANEŜ GANGU CH’INIDẐED GANEXWILAGH: The Fires Awakened Us: Tsilhqot’in Report on the 2017 Wildfires represents holistic planning as well as mindful resource usage and land stewardship by the Tsilhqot’in communities following 2017 wildfires.

Historical and Structural Context

To fully understand the mental health impacts of climate change for Indigenous Peoples, it is important to situate them within broader histories of colonialism, violence, and displacement. These are not just background conditions, they are active determinants that shape the capacity of communities to respond to climate threats. However, despite profound harms, Indigenous Nations have used cultural restoration and regeneration, legal advocacy, and community-led adaptation to respond to ongoing forms of injustice.

• Colonization and Colonial Violence: Disease, forced removals, government neglect and mismanagement, residential schools, and the Sixties Scoop fractured family systems, disrupted land-based practices, and produced intergenerational trauma that amplifies climate distress today.
  
• Systemic Cultural Suppression: Legal bans on cultural expression and language attempted to erase Indigenous cultures and knowledge‐production, yet communities preserved it through clandestine practices and resurgence movements.
  
• Displacement and Environmental Racism: Extractive projects and relocation policies have intensified exposure to industrial and climate hazards and eroded adaptive infrastructure.

Despite these assaults, Indigenous Nations have continuously regenerated governance systems, languages, and healing modalities, offering time-tested models of resilience and relational accountability that the broader climate-mental-health field urgently needs.

Common Challenges

Despite the growing recognition of Indigenous knowledge systems in climate and mental health discourse, significant challenges persist. From tokenistic inclusion in policy-making to epistemic injustice in research and education, systemic barriers continue to marginalize Indigenous voices and frameworks. Moreover, the fragmentation of governance and funding structures often prevents the kind of holistic, relational approaches that these frameworks require. This section identifies some of the most persistent obstacles to equitable integration and outlines why they must be addressed with care and commitment.

• Epistemic Injustice and Tokenism – Indigenous participation without authority perpetuates harm.
  
• Policy Silos – Mental-health, environment, and Indigenous-relations portfolios rarely collaborate, undermining holistic responses.
  
• Knowledge Appropriation – Extracting Indigenous concepts without community control erodes trust and efficacy.

Strategies for Equitable Integration

Integrating Indigenous knowledge systems into climate-emotion policy and practice must be done ethically, relationally, and with Indigenous leadership at the centre. This requires more than symbolic inclusion—it calls for genuine shifts in power, governance, and accountability. This section outlines concrete strategies to support equitable collaboration, honour Indigenous data sovereignty, and sustain land- and culture-based mental health interventions in the face of climate disruption.

• Indigenous-Led Governance: Embed decision-making authority (not just consultation) in climate and health funding structures.
  
• Ethical Knowledge Co-Production: Use Two-Eyed Seeing protocols—explicitly negotiated goals, data sovereignty, and capacity sharing.
  
• Land Back and Stewardship Rights: Legal recognition that returning land improves both ecological integrity and community well-being.
  
• Trauma- and Strength-Informed Services: Pair Medicine-Wheel assessments with culturally grounded therapies and, where desired, Western clinical care.
  
• Sustainable Funding: Long-term support for land-based youth programmes shown to reduce distress and suicide risk.

Relevance to Climate Emotions and Mental Health

For Indigenous communities, the mental health impacts of climate change are often intensified by deep cultural and spiritual relationships with land, water, and non-human relatives. At the same time, Indigenous frameworks offer unique strengths for addressing climate emotions in culturally safer and transformative ways. This final section explores how Indigenous knowledge systems help us better understand and respond to eco-anxiety, grief, and trauma, while fostering resilience and a renewed sense of purpose.

• Agency and Belonging – Land-based actions turn helplessness into purpose.
  
• Collective Coping – Storytelling and ceremony transform individual grief into shared resilience rituals.
  
• Intergenerational Healing – Revitalising language and practices disrupts trauma transmission, improving baseline mental health ahead of climate disasters.
  
• Policy Effectiveness – Interventions co-designed with Indigenous frameworks show higher uptake and durability, benefiting whole societies.

Introduction to Well-being

Before exploring the specific emotions that arise in relation to climate change, it is important to step back and consider what we mean by health and well-being more broadly. These concepts have evolved considerably over time, across disciplines, and across cultures. Understanding this broader landscape helps explain why this curriculum focuses on emotions rather than clinical diagnoses, and why that framing matters.

• The Evolution of Health and Well-being Concepts
  • For much of modern Western medical history, health was understood primarily as the absence of disease. The biomedical model, which rose to dominance in the 19th and early 20th centuries, focused on identifying and treating specific pathologies in the body. While this approach produced enormous advances in treating infectious diseases and acute illness, it largely excluded mental, social, and spiritual dimensions of human experience from the concept of health.
  • A major turning point came in 1948, when the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted its constitution, defining health as:
    • "A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity."
  • This definition, while sometimes critiqued for its absolutism, was revolutionary for Western medicine in recognizing that health encompasses far more than bodily function. It opened the door to broader, more integrative models. This view helps us recognize that well-being can still be present even when someone has physical health challenges. For instance, a person with a chronic condition may continue to enjoy strong social relationships and experience a meaningful, high-quality life.

• Indigenous and Holistic Frameworks of Well-being
  • While Western frameworks have progressively expanded their definitions of health, it is important to recognize that Indigenous Peoples around the world have long held holistic understandings of well-being that predate and often challenge the assumptions embedded in biomedical and psychological models. These knowledge systems are not historical artifacts; they are living, practiced frameworks that continue to guide health and healing in communities worldwide.
  • Several common principles and frameworks characterize many Indigenous approaches to well-being, though it is important to note that Indigenous cultures are enormously diverse and should not be homogenized:

• These Indigenous frameworks share a recognition that the separation of mind, body, spirit, and environment is itself a product of particular cultural assumptions rather than a universal truth. They offer essential perspectives for understanding why emotional responses to environmental destruction run so deep, and why healing must attend to relationships and connections, not just individual symptoms.

• Emotions Within the Broader Well-being Framework
  • Understanding this broader landscape of health and well-being concepts helps explain the approach taken in this curriculum. Across both Western and Indigenous frameworks, emotions emerge as a central and multidimensional aspect of human well-being:

Why this Curriculum Focuses on Emotions Rather Than Pathology

A deliberate and important choice has been made in this curriculum to focus on emotions rather than on diagnosable mental health conditions. This framing reflects several key considerations:

1. Climate emotions are usually proportionate responses. The emotional responses most people experience in relation to climate change, including grief, anxiety, anger, guilt, and fear, are, in the majority of cases, rational and proportionate responses to a genuine and escalating threat. Feeling anxious about rising sea levels when you live in a coastal community is not a disorder; it is a reasonable appraisal of risk.

2. Pathologizing healthy responses can be harmful. A growing body of scholarship cautions against medicalizing what are fundamentally healthy human responses to extraordinary circumstances. When we label climate grief or eco-anxiety as pathological, we risk implying that the problem lies within the individual rather than in the systems and conditions producing the threat. This can discourage people from engaging with their emotions and can obscure the need for systemic change.

3. An emotions framework is more inclusive. Not everyone experiencing climate-related distress meets criteria for a clinical diagnosis, yet their experiences are real and significant. Focusing on emotions allows us to acknowledge and validate the full spectrum of human responses to climate change, from mild unease to profound grief, without requiring a clinical threshold.

4. This approach aligns with holistic well-being models. As we have seen, both Indigenous knowledge systems and expanded Western models understand emotions as integral to overall well-being, not as isolated symptoms to be treated. An emotions-focused framework respects this integration and encourages holistic responses.

5. Acknowledging when clinical support is needed. Focusing on emotions does not mean ignoring mental health. Later in this curriculum, we will explore the important distinction between emotional responses and clinical mental health conditions. The point is not to dismiss clinical needs, but to avoid treating all climate-related emotional distress as inherently pathological and recognize that a spectrum of experiences exist which require a variety of supports. Some individuals do develop clinical levels of distress in response to climate change, and recognizing when professional support is needed remains essential.

Looking Ahead

With this holistic understanding of well-being as a foundation, the modules that follow will explore specific theories of emotion, how emotions are categorized, how they differ from clinical mental health conditions, and the range of specific climate emotions that researchers and communities have identified. It is also important to note that much of the emotion-focused categorization and theoretical framing presented in the following sections is primarily drawn from Western academic and psychological scholarship, which represents only one way of understanding emotional experiences.

Throughout, we encourage you to keep this broader framing in mind: emotions are not separate from our physical, social, spiritual, and ecological lives. Attending to them, understanding them, and learning to work with them, is an essential dimension of maintaining well-being in a changing climate.

Congratulations on completing Section 1 of this curriculum!

Now let’s see what you've learned so far!