Feeling Climate (in)justice

As fires rage, floods overwhelm, and heatwaves smother, more and more human and non-humans around the world are feeling the impacts of climate change.

These impacts are felt in the body and the mind, manifesting as heat stress, respiratory difficulties, panic attacks, climate anxiety and more. They are also felt by and in-between collectives, as communities grapple with the socio-emotional fall out of compounding crises.

But these impacts are not felt equally, with the most disadvantaged forced to endure the worst consequences of the climate crisis. Yet our approaches to climate justice rarely foreground the affective (lived, emotional, embodied, psychic) experience of climate change. In response to the emotional experience of climate injustice, SEI Postdoctoral Fellow Blanche Verlie’s farewell lecture reflects on the possibilities and challenges of considering climate feelings and climate justice together.

The Sydney Environment Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship Lecture celebrates the contributions and careers of our Postdoctoral Research Fellows during their time with us. In her time with SEI, Dr Blanche Verlie has established herself as a globally recognised expert on both climate anxiety and its crucial intersection with climate (in)justice. This work has helped to build the kind of multidisciplinary engagements and relationships that are at the heart of SEI’s mission – and has done that while being fully immersed in rethinking the very visceral experiences of climate change, from smoke to floods to anxiety.

Speakers

Blanche Verlie, University of Sydney

David Schlosberg (Chair), Sydney Environment Institute