What is ecological grief and how can we deal with it?

“At the end of the day, water will always do what it wants.” - Stathis Fitsialos.

On the night of 4 September, 2023, Storm Daniel hit western and central storm Greece, later causing devastating floods in Libya. The storm was the deadliest and costliest tropical-like cyclone ever recorded in the Mediterranean. 

CIMA Research Foundation reported that record-breaking rainfall accumulated close to or even higher than the annual yield and 10-to-15 times larger than the September average. It caused damage to over 700 square kilometres in Thessaly, Greece’s central agricultural region.

A New Normal 

"Every 100 years or so, people expect a massive flood event. The major difference with climate change is that these flood events could happen sooner than before," Thanos Giannakakis, Nature-Based Solutions Coordinator at WWF Greece, told FairPlanet.

"I think what happened was unprecedented," said Stathis Fitsialos, a local business owner in the South Pelion seaside village Horto. "Not even the people over the age of 90 or 95 have ever remembered something like this. You cannot get ready for this, not state or community-wise," he told FairPlanet. 

The only thing one can do is not repeat things, Fitsialos explained. "What we can do as a community is set some guidelines. Analyse the schematics to ensure that we are directing the water properly, building legally and clearing waterways. At the end of the day, water will always do what it wants."

"Hopefully, we will learn," Fitsialos said, adding that "a relationship to the place you are living in is so tight, it's impossible to leave even if you do have to rebuild."

Ecological grief

Pelion is a peninsula in Greece between the Pagasetic Gulf and the Aegean Sea, situated in the southeastern region of Thessaly. The area is known for its stunning green landscape, food and olive oil, which rely on a community of farmers, fisherpeople and local business owners. Many of the villages in the area are built on or around rivers. Due to various factors, such as poorly cleared waterways and bad construction management, these villages were severely flooded by Storm Daniel and later by storm Ilias.

Community representative Nikos Anagnostou recounted in conversation with FairPlanet walking through his village South Pelion village Kalamos days after the storm, unable to recognise any of it.

"I was in pain. It was so stressful. I was getting lost in my own village," he shared. "Whether you were on the street, on a road or on the bridge or a field, It looked the same. I remember that amid all of the chaos, I found that very disorienting. It was, emotionally, too much." 

"I feel insecure and vulnerable. It’s like having an enemy that you don't know how to fight," said Tatiana Eftaxia, a worker at the municipality of South Pelion in Argalasti. Tatiana was alone in her home when the storms hit. Being higher up on the mountain above Potistika beach on the Aegean side, her concerns are primarily with wildfires (having already had three near misses), but she empathises with those living near the sea who feel unsafe due to floods.

"You think of your home as the safest place you can be," she said. "It's like when people speak about someone breaking into their house. Even if they didn't steal anything, the house no longer feels the same. And I think it's the same feeling now."

Monique Anagnostou, who is based between Greece and Switzerland and organised clean-ups and volunteers in the aftermath of the storm, told FairPlanet, "I am concerned for those elderly that have lost all of their property in Milina [and other places]. What do you live for? That's a very scary feeling; even with small things, nostalgia exists there."

Seri Komninou and Coby Van Grootveld, who live in Milina in South Pelion, had raised nearly 40,000 euros for the local community in the wake of the storm and aided in cleanups in the area, clearing mud and debris from houses. 

Komninou explained that children face the greatest challenge. "It was 27 hours of lightning and heavy rain; they were terrified. Now, if the weather is bad, they gather their things and put them high up as a reflex. They don’t feel safe on the ground floor." 

"I was crying," Komninou continued, "and a group of tourists took me in their arms and cried with me." 

"There is always fear," but "there is still hope," explained Van Grootveld. "We fall asleep, we wake up, and it was just a bad dream. My husband and I went away, and we almost forgot all about it until we returned."

Climate Psychology 

Climate change has instilled a sense of unease across global populations, uniting us in concern, as experts point out.

"Planetary health and mental health are so inextricably linked," explained climate change and health policy fellow Jessica Newberry Le Vay. Ecological grief, she added, is experienced most intensely by children and land workers who witness first-hand the changes in the landscape around them. 

"It is Solastalgia, the lived experience of the loss of the present, the homesickness of a land lost," Newberry said, highlighting that climate change and mental health are bonded in a vicious cycle; climate change impacts our mental health, which in turn limits our ability to respond to the crisis. 

"Solastalgia is one of several earth-related emotions that are all about moving us collectively beyond the Anthropocene towards a new epoch of human development, which is the Symbiocene, meaning a more balanced, symbiotic relationship with the natural world rather than an anthropogenic, or human-dominated, one," said Dr Patrick Kennedy-Williams, clinical psychologist and co-director at 'Climate Psychologists.'

"The sad and necessary reality is that community awareness and action seem to follow geographically after these kinds of climate catastrophes," he added.

These communities are afflicted by collective trauma, he added, as well as financial impacts, loss of livelihood and the solastalgia of seeing your homeland change.

"We don't just experience grief about things that have already happened; we experience anticipatory grief," he explained. "The risk [in the wake of natural disasters] is that people lean from denialism to doomism." 

However, Dr Kennedy-Williams believes that climate education can reassure people that certain doomsday scenarios are highly unlikely or overexaggerated. 

"There is no social tipping point beyond which we're all screwed. The doomsday message implies a cliff edge that doesn't exist. It's a gradual slope, and every change will make a positive impact on the future," he said. "Hope is a skill, not an emotion; one that can be developed and nurtured within a community."

The first step for affected communities is to establish forums for collective discussion, he advised. This will normalise the emotional journey that the community is experiencing. He added that grappling with questions like 'what are we working towards?' or 'do we feel we can actually achieve it?' can help heal collective trauma and build the necessary resilience for the future.

Adapting to the Inevitable

Thanos Giannakakis from WWF Greece explained that the hydromorphological changes in Thessaly, which began in the 1920s or 1930s due to agricultural interventions, set the stage for recurring climate events. And despite efforts to prevent floods, they are likely to continue occurring in the region. Therefore, he said, it is crucial to learn how to live with them.

Giannakakis believes that instead of focusing solely on flood prevention, the emphasis should be placed on mitigating their impact.

Overlooking his vineyards, Theodoros Karipidis, a winemaker from Argalasti, told FairPlanet that the climate crisis is forcing them to change how they work as farmers. "We feel really vulnerable," he shared.

"How can [we] make ourselves less vulnerable in these situations? We adopt it as a habit, something that you're going to have to get used to because it's here to stay, so adapt to it." 

However, if something goes awry or is out of his control, he explained, "I need to know that there is someone there who has my back." 

The emotions experienced by locals in this South Pelion are becoming increasingly prevalent worldwide, as extreme weather events have become the new norm.

According to Dr Kennedy-Williams, that climate action is a psychological process fraught with many barriers, especially for isolated farming communities like the one in South Pelion. These communities, which are vulnerable to future climate disasters, have a strong bond with their land, and leaving is not an option. To maintain their strength, these communities require support and acknowledgment of past events to implement practical measures effectively.

Image by Francesca Norrington