This interdisciplinary day will close the CIREQ-CIRANO-RRECQ Workshops on Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, organized by Geir B. Asheim (Oslo University), Hassan Benchekroun (McGill University), Sophie Bernard (Polytechnique Montréal, CIRANO), Etienne Billette de Villemeur (Université de Lille, UQAM), Robert Cairns (McGill University), Justin Leroux (HEC Montréal, CIRANO), and Charles Séguin (UQAM, CIRANO).

The day will welcome Karel Mayrand, President and CEO at Foundation of Greater Montreal, Nessa Ghassemi-Bakhtiari, PhD candidate at UQAM, Laura Sims (University of Saint-Boniface), Peter Graham, multidisciplinary researcher at Concordia University.

• Karel Mayrand, President and CEO at Foundation of Greater Montreal
  Changer le système, pas le climat : un antidote à l’écoanxiété

Abstract

Ecoanxiety arises from the growing gap between the actions that are being taken, and those that should be taken, to combat the destruction of the natural systems (climate, biodiversity, others) that ensure the present and future living conditions of humankind. As time passes and the ecological crisis worsens, this gap widens, highlighting the inability of our political systems to respond to the emergency. Ecoanxiety is the psychological result of this acceleration towards collapse. As young people will face exponentially more severe impacts than their elders - with their future literally compromised - it is predictable and understandable that they will be more affected by ecoanxiety. But beyond the symptoms, we need to look at the causes of ecoanxiety and get to the root of the problem: what are the political and economic blockages that have prevented decisive action in the face of the ecological crisis? The conference proposes to revisit some of them, to stop acting on the surface of the problem.

• Nessa Ghassemi-Bakhtiari, PhD candidate at UQAM
  L’action environnementale : « remède » de l’éco-anxiété ?

Abstract

Environmental action is often presented as the solution or “cure” for eco-anxiety. But is this always the case? Is it even desirable to want to “cure” it? The presentation will include an overview of the literature on eco-anxiety and climate distress, as well as on the notion of psychosocial adaptation to climate and environmental change. Drawing on scientific studies, emphasis will be placed on the definition and operationalization of concepts as well as methods deployed in the context of psychological research. Finally, preliminary results from a Quebec study on the determinants of climate distress among adolescents will be presented.

• Laura Sims (Université de Saint-Boniface)
  Environmental and sustainability education, participatory approaches to governance, eco-anxiety: exploring strategies considered beneficial for supporting humans' and the earth's well-being

Abstract

This workshop will focus on sharing specific environmental and sustainability pedagogies that help support humans' and the earth's well-being, including supporting emotional resilience, that are praxis-oriented and that prepare learners to face the environmental crisis. Explicit links will be made between these pedagogical approaches to similar approaches used to facilitate meaningful public participation in resource and environmental management decision-making processes. Examples of what these approaches look like in practice in different contexts (i.e., post-secondary education, international development project management) will be provided. A brief discussion about eco-anxiety, including a description of proposed coping strategies recommended to deal with eco anxiety along with examples, will follow. How many of these aforementioned pedagogical approaches and coping strategies are mutually complementary will be highlighted. Participants in the workshop will be asked to reflect upon, and discuss, how these concepts might be applicable, or not, to their professional responsibilities/personal lives. This workshop will be participatory, interactive, and experiential.

• Peter Graham, multidisciplinary scholar at Concordia University
  ​​​​​​​Is ecoanxiety a misdiagnosis? An extended mind perspective
   

Abstract
Drawing on research from the fields of cognitive archeology, developmental psychology, and ecological history, this presentation suggests that many common implicit assumptions about the nature of ecoanxiety may be symptomatic of a bigger problem: a social mind practicing an objectivist ontology. The individual person, in other words, is not the container where ecoanxiety is located. Although ecoanxiety is increasingly becoming one salient aspect of modern and globalized personhoods, so is the casual cruelty of organized climate change denial. Both these damaged minds must be understood as mediated, embodied, extended, distributed and dynamic. By then considering fear as an important driver of disorganized attachment, we can gain new insights by examining the historical collective experience of fear. Through expanding and applying a theory of disorganized (social mind) attachment that is focused not on a single dyad but instead on much broader webs of relations, our understandings and diagnoses of ecoanxiety can also be radically expanded to a macro scale with important mental health policy implications.

This event will be in English.

This workshop is supported by the Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en analyse des organisations (CIRANO), the Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative (CIREQ), the Réseau de recherche en économie circulaire du Québec (RRECQ), and the Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQ).