Is climate burnout a thing?

Climate burnout and how I'm finding the strength to carry on.

I found myself Googling ‘climate burnout’ recently–which felt like the most 21st-century, middle-class, Gen Z thing I’ve ever done–and it turns out: it’s a real thing! (an exclamation mark of both excitement to be recognised, but exasperation that the term exists).

“Usually [climate burnout] begins with prolonged stress (as in typical burnout) which is caused by feelings of helplessness around the climate situation. For some individuals, coming to terms with how urgent and severe world problems are more widely is overwhelming.” Fun.

The overwhelm, for me, stems less from the urgency of the issue, but more from the wider world’s complete lack of ability to handle the problem. In just one day I read articles discussing the research into robotic bees to replace the pollinators threatened by biodiversity loss, the potential for a giant space ‘umbrella’ to protect us from solar radiation, and genetically engineered supertrees created to suck up more carbon. Nor did I have to go looking for these articles either, they floated across my social media feeds or were sent to me by my peers to laugh at the absurdity. 

My friends and family are entrenched so deep into the myth of modernity, in the idea that these issues are something that other people will sort out. I find myself in awe of their unshakeable trust in the system. I sit in the quiet for a while and try to embody what this would feel like, but I can never bring myself to believe as they do…

My niece is born and as I look at pictures of her wrapped in the newborn blanket, I try to figure out how old she will be in 2050. I think about what kind of world will be waiting for her when she grows up…

My boyfriend excitedly researches the skiing holiday we’ve been asked if we’d like to join. I might have saved up for years to go on this holiday, but can I do it knowing the environmental effects? My conscience summersaults around whether this trip is even ethical to go on. I wonder whether if I don’t go skiing now, will the snowcapped mountains even exist for me to ski on in the near future...

My climate burnout doesn’t come from the fear of the planetary crisis–that's what my climate doom is for–it comes from the constant mental arithmetic of what's okay to do and what isn’t. Where I should spend my money and where I shouldn’t. What solutions have promise and what are thinly veiled attempts to carry on our pillaging of the Earth without the threat of climate change? Always ending the thoughts by chasting myself that people are suffering right now, that my shaky morals are such a privilege to have–and the cycle continues again.

I’m tired of the crazy technological solutions we’re creating to hang onto a broken planet. Even if we managed to block the sun’s rays, cut our carbon emissions, and create robot pollinators, we’re still facing a whole host of problems that we need to figure out. 

It’s always the fight against climate change, the fight for our planet, the war on climate change. I am so war-weary. The new horrors don’t stimulate me anymore, they make me tired, they make me burn out. 

If the fight against climate change is a war, it’s clear who is winning. I believe it can no longer be a fight. In fact, I’m throwing my hands up and dropping my weapons. This isn’t to withdraw from action, I just don’t believe we’re fighting against the elements to save the Earth, I believe we need to re-orient our efforts to work with it.

I wrote previously that I believe that it’s important to try not to think about the climate crisis all the time. That we are fleshy little monkey-brained creatures and we are not built to constantly consider humanity’s potential doom, and it’s okay to go a few days without reading the news, without doing activism, without worrying about the climate crisis. Though I still stand by this, sometimes I find it incredibly difficult to do so, as so many minor choices thorough my day trigger a climate spiral. 

At times like this, I think back to the advice outlined in the book At Work In The Ruins, we’re taught through capitalist ideologies that we always must strive to be better, and feel better, but maybe if I can sit with the discomfort and the unknown, if I can keep my eyes open to the dark for long enough they will adjust and I’ll discover something new. Something that will give me fresh strength to work through the crisis, and help others do the same. 

P.S. If you enjoy my writing, you can buy me a coffee to fuel my work.