👋 Hi, everybody! Today, we are thrilled to share the first column in our new special series: Ask a Climate Therapist. Over the past month, you and your fellow readers have submitted some really thoughtful — and challenging — questions about the emotional side of living through climate change. Leading climate-aware therapist Leslie Davenport is here to answer them. Today, she digs into the question of what to do when your climate convictions aren’t shared by the people closest to you.

But first, I’d like to make a request. Can you think of a friend or two who does share your climate values, who might appreciate this column (as well as the rest of the hopeful and practical climate stories we cover here in Looking Forward)? Please take one sec to share this column with them, and encourage them to subscribe to the newsletter to get more like it.

We’d love your help to spread the word, so more climate-concerned readers can benefit from Leslie’s advice.

This week, we’ve also got our typical solutions news roundup for y’all — including stories about plant-based protein, climate legislation, and resilience programs — and a poem from a reader. And now, without further ado, I’ll hand the mic over to Leslie. 

This post originally appeared in Grist’s weekly solutions newsletter, Looking Forward. Not on our list yet? Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Friday.  

Ask a Climate Therapist: How do I deal with friends and family who won’t stop polluting?

Collage of person looking upset with plane in background

Grist / Getty Images

Dear Leslie,

How do I deal with the frustration and anger that comes with having family members and friends who continue to fly and pursue other behaviors that worsen the climate crisis? They know better, yet they don’t act differently.

— Frustrated Climate Activist

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Dear Frustrated Climate Activist,

Your anger and frustration are deeply relatable — and they’re happening for good reason. Your values and relationships are colliding, creating a painful rupture where you most long for shared ground. And your anger may be compounded by grief for the loss of species, cultures, and futures you know could be better protected if more people, like your loved ones, would take action.

That gap also creates a lopsided moral load. You’re actively confronting the difficult realities of our warming world and responding with care, while you perceive some of the people you’re most connected to turning away from that responsibility.

Living with that tension doesn’t just hurt — it eventually exhausts the nervous system and erodes our capacity to stay connected.

Before we go further, it may help to widen the perspective. It’s possible your family and friends hold a different view of what personal climate responsibility looks like. All of us participate in some activities that worsen the climate crisis, even if we’re trying to mitigate our impact (or create a positive impact) in other ways. It sounds like people in your life have decided they can’t give up flying right now, but maybe for them, positive action looks like voting for climate-forward policies, reducing consumption, or supporting initiatives you don’t see. Or maybe they care about the climate crisis but haven’t yet figured out what meaningful action looks like for them. Begin with curiosity about where they are and how they understand their responsibility. 

But let’s say your family and friends claim to care, but truly are not engaging in any way — you see them strolling past the most critical issues with eyes averted. In that case, their failure to take any form of action may feel like a personal betrayal.

Here’s the hard truth: You can’t carry both the planet and your loved ones on your back. What’s appropriate in the relationships you’re talking about — people you want to stay close with — is emotional detachment without emotional withdrawal. That means choosing where your responsibility for others ends and your boundaries begin. You can continue to love imperfect people while also sustaining a fierce allegiance to caring for the climate. 

You’re not required to be the climate conscience of every encounter and every conversation. 

Try selective honesty. When you’re moved to speak, you might say something like this: “I struggle with [name the specific behavior], because it hurts to see people I love act like climate impacts don’t matter.” Then step back and let the silence do the work. You may not get the response you hope for, but you’ll know you spoke up for what matters most to you, and it’s up to you to understand when that’s enough. 

People aren’t always moved to change immediately. Your words may land more deeply than you realize in the moment. 

Letting go of the constant urge to convince isn’t giving up. It’s choosing to invest your energy where it can be amplified — for instance, in a like-minded community, an action group, or connections with other people who do share your priorities.

This is our work: staying human in a burning world without burning ourselves out. Try to find places where your clarity and commitment are shared — that in turn will make it easier to engage in other places where they are not. Let your love for the living world be fed by relationships that give your nervous system a place to rest. 

Holding this with you,

Leslie

If you have a question of your own you’d like to ask Leslie for a future column, please submit it here.

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In other news

And finally, looking forward to …

… poetry! Thank you to Looking Forward reader Adriene Nicastro, who sent in this lovely little poem that uses fermentation as a metaphor for transforming a gnarly situation into something nourishing.    

🪲🪲🪲

good bugs 

the locusts came screaming
and echoed through my mind
a rabbit caught
trapped low and black and wide 

clouds on the horizon
sun-dressed ebony tides
and i can’t turn on the news
or read headlines
without vomiting
out my insides 

the world forever swirls
swallowed sour milk
stomachs churn
rotting
clotting
raging fires burn 

but i know even sour milk
can make something new
wholesome bugs added
strawberry hope blooms
something edible
healing to chew 

night rises and falls
and i pray for change
opportunity without waste
coating
soothing
don’t let it slip
disappear
be erased 

i look for good bugs
making sure to be one
listening beyond sharp
screeches and clicks
holding patience
and faith  

boiling
culturing peace
under a cloud-riddled sun  

— a poem by Adriene Nicastro

🪲🪲🪲

A drabble is a 100-word piece of fiction — in this case, offering a tiny glimpse of what a clean, green, just future might look like. Want to try writing your own (and see it featured in a future newsletter)? We would love to hear from you! Please send us your visions for our climate future, in drabble form, at lookingforward@grist.org

👋 See you next week!