Hello, I'm Rob. I'm 50 years of age and I'm really worried about what's going on with our climate.

Maybe it's time for a few more of us to say how we feel about the climate crisis.

I read an interesting piece in the Guardian this morning by Roger Harrabin, former BBC environment analyst, exploring how some climate scientists are starting to change how they communicate with the public about the climate crisis.

One quote, from Prof Piers Forster, from the University of Leeds, struck me:

“I have tried to change the way I communicate to make it more personal and emotional. Extreme impacts are bad now and going to get a whole lot worse. But then you need to give people hope, and ourselves, as scientists hope. We can slow the rate of warming immediately if we act now.”

The article explores how many scientists are finding themselves increasingly concerned by how - even in just the last couple of years - it is becoming more common to see real extremes in our weather patterns.

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The 2022 heatwave

I wrote about this last year - in an otherwise positive post telling the story of what our family has learnt from several years of trying to take the train more and fly less.

Family holidays with more trains & fewer planes — here are a few things I’ve learnt along the way

It was July 2022 - and I’d got back two days before from a two week holiday in France and Spain.

The last few days were, to be frank, a bit of a nightmare as we found ourselves right in the middle of a heatwave in Bilbao.

And then we traveled home through France, right into a week of the highest temperatures ever recorded in the UK.

I’ll never forget sitting in my kitchen, writing that post, with a duvet cover hanging on the outside of the patio doors, to try to give extra cover from the intense heat.

I didn’t think I’d ever experience anything so extreme in this country.

Or maybe it’s more honest to say I never thought I’d witness such extremes - until I started putting the effort in to understand the climate crisis.

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Acknowledging my emotions - and reflecting on how to work with them

I am happy to admit that at times I get really anxious about the climate crisis.

Climate anxiety is very much a thing. And I think it’s important to acknowledge it - and then try to work out how to manage it.

Things that work for me include exercise - and getting outdoors into nature as much as I can.

Teaming up with others to do stuff that responds to the climate crisis is important too - as I explored in more detail in this post.

From apocalypse fatigue to effective climate action

And I suppose another thing that I try to do - particularly as someone who’s got a bit of a platform and fairly decent online and offline networks - is to be open about this stuff.

I want people to know how I feel about the climate crisis.

How this informs the actions I take. The opinions I have. The work I choose to do.

I want people to understand how this matters to me.

And I suppose my hope is that this might encourage some people to reflect, or take action.

I don’t want to channel my emotions into guilt-tripping people, or making them feel bad about themselves. That’ll get us nowhere.

But maybe if a few more people get to hear about my fears, my concerns and my motivations, then maybe that could lead to some productive conversations.

Maybe even in the gym.

Challenging conversations

So if climate scientists are starting to become more comfortable with sharing their feelings, alongside all the science, I’m all for that. And I’ll aim to get more comfortable doing the same myself.

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