Doing something about eco-anxiety

Everywhere you go, you seem to run into something about the environment. Sometimes it’s good news - like the fact that more and more of our electricity is coming from renewables.  More often it feels like bad news - yes, the weather really is changing, and yes, it really is to do with us. Sometimes it can make you feel helpless, or hopeless or angry - or all of the above. Especially perhaps when you can see the worry in our children’s faces.

Dealing with this eco-anxiety is going to be part of our lives so we’d better get used to it. There are no easy answers of course, but it does help to actually do something. It doesn’t matter what – a bit more recycling, or walking  instead of using the car. Or come and join one of HEAT’s groups planting trees, researching the river (see picture)  or thinking about how Hadleigh could be greener.

HEAT’s goal is to help people and organisations in Hadleigh to always take climate change and the resilience of the natural world into account when they make decisions. It is about all of us doing what we can. But it is also about thinking about how we are a community that extends beyond us humans. As global warming progresses, we are beginning to understand just how much our life depends on the world that surrounds us. The river and the fields, the swifts and the insects, are important, not just because they are nice – though they are – but because we humans cannot live alone in our little boxes. We depend on the rest of life to provide us with clean air, reliable water, a stable climate and food. Now is the time to work with the beautiful world that surrounds and supports us.