Issue 10: Climate change is coming for our homelands.
How do we save our pasts?
Last winter, my mom returned to Karachi, Pakistan, for the first time since her father passed away 25 years ago. She and her former medical school classmates were hosting a reunion party for students from three graduating classes, all of whom were robbed of their commencement ceremony, largely due to street riots back in the day. My mom led the effort to reserve navy blue gowns and mortarboards for all attendees.
We FaceTimed every day, multiple times a day. I wanted to know everything. Was she having fun? How was the food? What were her friends like? But there was only one thing on her mind.
"It's just not the Pakistan I remember."
The entrance to her school was unrecognizable, she says. When she arrived on site, she thought she'd given the driver the wrong address. The trees were gone. There was barely any pavement. The dense air had always been troublesome, but the pollution felt thicker on her skin, in her eyes.
I tried to change the subject, get her out of a funk I wasn't used to seeing her in.
"But you're with friends! How are they? Do you have plans tonight?"
I realize now how little time I gave her to grieve the loss of a memory, and I wonder how often she thinks about the land she once knew, how her kids may never get the chance to really grasp the magic of it.
The conversation with my mom kept playing in my head as I read about 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who was making her way by boat from the United Kingdom to New York just in time for the United Nations Climate Summit.
A year ago, Thunberg began striking from school each Friday to protest global climate inaction. This month, she addressed world leaders at the UN.
"How dare you? You have stolen my dreams and my childhood," she reprimanded the so-called grownups.
Thunberg's gusto and unrelenting frustrations inspired massive protests around the world, including in Pakistan, which has been listed as the seventh most vulnerable country to be affected by climate change.
Last fall, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the world must act quickly to adjust energy, transportation and other systems and hold warming below an increase of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.
Why? Well, for anyone who's been out of the loop, NASA has a breakdown of several potential implications of warming, many of which are already impossible to overlook: more heat waves, stronger hurricanes, rising sea levels, compromised ecosystems, lack of drinkable water, massive human displacement and so on.
"The axis along which almost all climate change anxiety orients is, by necessity, pointed toward the future," Omar El Akkad, who grew up in Qatar and returned to find its landscape transformed, wrote for LitHub. "We have framed climate change as a crisis of the future because its worst ramifications are still to come, and because the future is something we feel we can still control."
But have we thought about how climate change will upend our pasts?
"In the great undoing that is climate change, there is born an entirely new means by which one dispossessed generation can say to the next: your home used to be here and it was taken from you unjustly," El Akkad writes. "It was the sea or the storm or the drought that buried it but it was something else that killed it—its killer was a system, an institutionalized greed, an infinitesimally small bump upwards in the wealth of the already wealthy.
"We must create new ways to think about what comes next, but also about what came before," he adds. But how?
El Akkad admits some of this work to become conservationists of memory will fall on historians and researchers, but, more than ever, the burden is on artists, on the world's storytellers.
"We have an obligation to document and preserve this compendium of fiction, these stories we tell ourselves. And we have an obligation to do it now, meticulously, because the stories and the empathy they engender might save us still, might move people to act."
As someone who didn't grow up in a home of sustainability ethics, as someone who never thought twice about buying plastics and taking unspeakably long showers, a good story is exactly what it took for me to reassess my own daily habits and drive me to outrage. For me, climate anxiety was debilitating before it became constructive.
But what's been propelling me has, admittedly, been the upending of the future. Not once have I considered the potential loss of culture, of history, of documented truth.
I don't know what it's like to return to the past and find it unrecognizable, largely because I'm not sure I'll ever have the kind of connection to a land or town the way my mom and other immigrants who fled their homelands at a later age have. I'm also highly aware that the grounds I've called home for most of my life now are causing the bulk of the globe's problems, yet we will be among the last to reap the worst.
What could this potential loss of our past mean for my generation and for future immigrants? How might the transforming landscape, the growing physical disconnect from our original roots influence our sense of identity, our sense of appreciation for heritage?
Is it on us—the immigrants and children of immigrants of today—to keep a closer eye on our descendants' lands and histories, to appreciate and document it all before the world inevitably metamorphoses?
Deep breaths.
Climate change and mental health: What's the connection?
So.
In general, disasters related to extreme weather can cause significant stress and distress. Extreme heat has been linked to increased alcoholism, domestic violence and suicide deaths. And those with mental health disorders are disproportionately impacted by the consequences of climate change. (APA)
In this study, researchers at the University of Newcastle in Australia found that more and more people who haven't yet directly experienced the impacts climate change are also suffering; they're getting anxious about the effects of global warming and governmental inaction.
While there’s no clinical definition for this phenomenon, it’s often referred to as climate/eco-anxiety or solastalgia, “the distress that is produced by environmental change impacting on people while they are directly connected to their home environment.”
Those with solastalgia or eco-anxiety often experience psychological responses similar to patients with general anxiety disorder, such as conflict avoidance, fatalism, fear, helplessness and resignation. Eco-anxiety can also be coupled with survivor’s guilt, which we addressed in .
Eco-anxiety x immigrants: From “climate apartheid” to potential ethnocide
One of the gravest effects of climate change is on human mobility and migration. Regions at highest risk of displacement—sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America—face concerns over their survival and security. Experts warn this unequal distribution of climate change impacts puts the world at risk of a “climate apartheid,” in which “the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger, and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer.”
Regional cultural identities are also under threat.
What happens if we lose our tongues and cultures?
There are the tangible cultural losses of extreme weather: buildings, monuments or burial sites, for example. And there’s the intangible, like oral traditions and languages. According to the Linguistic Society of America, while approximately 7,000 languages are spoken in the world today, only about half are expected to survive this century, primarily due to globalization, persecution of minority groups, and, yes, even climate change.
The loss of a language can impact the “health and vitality of a community for generations to come,” according to Canadian linguist Anastasia Riehl. “It is a loss of knowledge about the world as well, as when descriptive names for plants or practices — still unknown outside a local area — are forgotten.”
A progressive or sudden loss of cultural norms (like languages), religious customs, or social support systems all heavily influence rates of mental illness.
This kind of cultural bereavement, which involves reactions similar to grief, has been associated with psychotic, anxiety and mood disorders. If migration is a result of forced displacement or trauma, you’re also dealing with increased risk of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Maintaining or building a sense of new identity, scientists say, is another compounding factor among migrants reeling the potential loss of their culture or home. The pressure to acculturate (or adapt) in a new region may lead to low self-esteem. Deculturation, or the complete loss of cultural identity, can amplify feelings of isolation and depression. It can also ultimately result in ethnocide, or the systematic destruction of an entire group.
Have you read a study that debunks or perpetuates some of the experiences you've read in this issue? Send to 4nbodies@gmail.com!
How can we preserve culture as climate change uproots our communities?
Ultimately, the vanishing or transfiguration of our homelands, whether due to globalization, war or climate disaster, feels inevitable. And for many of us, the landscapes of our pasts have already dramatically distorted. How do we keep our cultures from fading away?
I can’t say I have an overarching answer to this massive question, but the more I think about potentially disconnecting from my geographic origin or culture, the more I want to make sure I document my family’s history in excruciating detail. I want to book my trips to India and Pakistan and inhale what’s left of my parents’ memories. I want to learn how to read and write in Urdu and Gujarati and even Arabic and eventually learn how to cook the perfect roti from scratch.
In general, if you’re dealing with mental distress or paralysis over climate change, consider speaking with a professional + find ways to take action, big or small.
Any kind of proactive move can help ease anxiety, according to Susan Clayton of the American Psychological Association. That might mean getting involved with environmental groups, protesting, adopting a predominantly plant-based diet, advocating for more green space in your neighborhood, writing your representatives or running for office yourself.
For the politically inclined, Victoria Herrmann of the Arctic Institute suggests pushing for the inclusion of cultural heritage into your city’s climate change policies:
"City climate change policies can allocate resources to document with dignity the historic sites, traditions, and cultural assets damaged or left behind by newly arrived climate migrants,” she wrote in June. “This can take the form of small to medium grants for documentation of cultural assets to local museums, nonprofit groups, universities, and art centers in cities. Such a low-cost migrant heritage grant program embedded within climate change policy creates a number of co-benefits beyond the preservation of important cultural practices and assets of migrants. The creation of oral histories, exhibits, and other forms of documentation can simultaneously educate on climate change, build social connections between city institutions and migrants, and foster a sense of inclusivity and belonging in their new home.”
Want some #inspo? Check out these innovative preservation strategies already playing out (via Christian Science Monitor):
In Syrian refugee camps in Jordan, "residents are being helped to plant gardens to help them settle in – and being given seeds specifically of the familiar herbs they used to grow at home."
"In Iraq, ancient buildings threatened by Islamic State extremists have been preserved digitally with 3D scanning equipment that can help project or reproduce an exact model of a building. This technology could also 'save' important buildings threatened by erosion, flooding or other climate impacts."
Peruse the UN’s “Preserving intangible culture for future generations” page for more creative approaches from around the globe.
Do you have any tips or resources you’d like to share? Send to 4nbodies@gmail.com.
DOES THIS ISSUE SPEAK TO YOUR SOUL?
Sorry for the all caps lol but I'm looking to speak with immigrants who identify as climate activists (either professionally or personally) + immigrants who worry about the implications of climate change on their home countries and cultures for an upcoming news feature.
Respond to this email or reach out to 4nbodies@gmail.com to chat! - Fiza
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For LitHub, Qatari journalist and author Omar El Akkad wrote this wrenching personal narrative on returning to the vacant lot where he snuck his first kiss and finding it unrecognizable. He wrestles with the realization that within the next century and possibly within his lifetime, Qatar’s landscape itself become uninhabitable. Read here.
Activist and scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s 2017 book, As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance, could teach us a thing or two about how indigenous peoples have persevered in the face of “continual ecosystem and species collapse since the early days of colonial occupation,” writes Malcolm Harris for Pacific Standard. In an ideal world, perhaps the text would empower an anti-colonial approach to limited territory. Read here.
“Brazil’s indigenous Manoki have been watching fires tear through their ancestral land for weeks, fearing the devastating damage to their forests may mean the end of their cultural heritage as well,” Vice reporter Sarah Sax wrote in September. According to tribe member Giovani Tapura, only eight of the remaining 400 Manoki still speak the native language. Read here.
In Greenland, up to 70% of organic material in Viking-era Norse settlements is at high risk of melting away by 2100. “When we lose certain kinds of materials, and especially the organics, we actually erase the experience of certain kinds of people,” says archaeologist Douglas Bolender. Similar losses are occurring in Russia, Canada and Alaska. “Among Arctic archaeologists, there is already a sense of mourning,” writes Stephanie Pappas. Read here.
“Many indigenous cultures worldwide have spiritual beliefs, ethical values and/or traditional practices that are directly linked to the environment,” according to D.K. Pandey of India’s Central Agricultural University. His research, reports Monga Bay’s Sahana Ghosh, adds to a growing body of work linking biodiversity and mental well-being. Read here.
“Inuit are people of the sea ice. If there is no more sea ice, how can we be people of the sea ice?” In this 36-minute documentary titled “Lament for the Land,” five communities of Nunatsiavut (Canada) acknowledge a crisis of culture and identity amid ecological loss. Watch here.
Foreign Bodies is a monthly e-mail newsletter dedicated to the unique experiences of immigrants and refugees as they relate to coping with mental illness and wellness. It’s written and curated by Atlanta-based writer Fiza Pirani with copyediting and fact-checking help from New Jersey-based independent journalist Hanaa’ Tameez. Want to contribute your time or share your own #ForeignBodies story? Send an email to 4nbodies@gmail.com or say hi on Twitter @4nbodies. Special shout-out to Carter Fellow and friend Rory Linnane for the adorable animated logo!
If you're thinking about suicide or worried about someone who might be, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text 741741 to connect to a crisis counselor. You can also find a wealth of culture- or language-specific recommended resources on our site, foreignbodies.net.
