Can Psychedelics Treat Climate Grief?
ASKS COVERING CLIMATE NOW FOUNDER MARK HERTSGAARD IN THE NATION :
In his best-selling book How to Change Your Mind, journalist Michael Pollan reports that 80 percent of terminally ill patients... felt less anxiety and depression after taking psychedelic drugs.
Mark Hertsgaard, environment correspondent for The Nation... interviewed Pollan
Mark Hertsgaard:
Let’s be clear—in those clinical trials, terminally ill patients took psychedelic drugs... the results sound remarkable... Do those experiences and your other research suggest that psychedelic drugs can be an antidote to climate grief?
MP:
The first person I talked to about this was Rachael Petersen, an environmentalist... developing software... to watch fires around the world in real-time This was incredibly depressing work... and as a result entered into a serious depression. She received psychedelic therapy, and while it was not a panacea, she felt it helped her, allowed her to reset and continue to do this difficult work.
MH: But climate grief is different in important ways from an individual facing a terminal diagnosis. Climate grief is not necessarily about your own death but more about the death of the world around you—a kind of collective, civilizational death.
MP: Yeah, and here’s what the parallels break down a little bit because part of what psychedelic therapy seems to do for individuals is reconcile them to death. And that sort of acceptance is the last thing you want in a climate activist!
MH: Are psychedelics relevant to climate grief in any other ways?
MP: Yes...
MH: You’re a parent. I’m a parent; my daughter just turned 15. A big part of my climate grief relates to the future she’s going to inherit. And not just her but the countless other kids around the world in her generation. Can psychedelics be helpful to parents dealing with climate grief?
MP: I think potentially [it can], to the extent that many years of doing this work has dug a certain groove in your mind... Think of psychedelics as a fresh snowfall that fills all the grooves, allowing you to take a new path down the hill.
MH: I’ve covered climate change as a journalist for 30 years, and when people ask, I always say that the only solution to climate grief for me is taking action—doing something to make me feel I’m having an effect on this. Taking action is clearly a climate solution. Are psychedelic drugs, in a different way, also a climate solution?
MP: No,
ASKS COVERING CLIMATE NOW FOUNDER MARK HERTSGAARD IN THE NATION :
In his best-selling book How to Change Your Mind, journalist Michael Pollan reports that 80 percent of terminally ill patients... felt less anxiety and depression after taking psychedelic drugs.
Mark Hertsgaard, environment correspondent for The Nation... interviewed Pollan
Mark Hertsgaard:
Let’s be clear—in those clinical trials, terminally ill patients took psychedelic drugs... the results sound remarkable... Do those experiences and your other research suggest that psychedelic drugs can be an antidote to climate grief?
MP:
The first person I talked to about this was Rachael Petersen, an environmentalist... developing software... to watch fires around the world in real-time This was incredibly depressing work... and as a result entered into a serious depression. She received psychedelic therapy, and while it was not a panacea, she felt it helped her, allowed her to reset and continue to do this difficult work.
MH: But climate grief is different in important ways from an individual facing a terminal diagnosis. Climate grief is not necessarily about your own death but more about the death of the world around you—a kind of collective, civilizational death.
MP: Yeah, and here’s what the parallels break down a little bit because part of what psychedelic therapy seems to do for individuals is reconcile them to death. And that sort of acceptance is the last thing you want in a climate activist!
MH: Are psychedelics relevant to climate grief in any other ways?
MP: Yes...
MH: You’re a parent. I’m a parent; my daughter just turned 15. A big part of my climate grief relates to the future she’s going to inherit. And not just her but the countless other kids around the world in her generation. Can psychedelics be helpful to parents dealing with climate grief?
MP: I think potentially [it can], to the extent that many years of doing this work has dug a certain groove in your mind... Think of psychedelics as a fresh snowfall that fills all the grooves, allowing you to take a new path down the hill.
MH: I’ve covered climate change as a journalist for 30 years, and when people ask, I always say that the only solution to climate grief for me is taking action—doing something to make me feel I’m having an effect on this. Taking action is clearly a climate solution. Are psychedelic drugs, in a different way, also a climate solution?
MP: No,
