Across the world, climate activists, teachers and psychologists are taking a different approach to the emotional burden of human-caused warming: instead of centering climate messaging on doom, they are building programs that lead with joy, laughter and togetherness while still confronting the reality of climate change.
The Associated Press reports that the shift shows up in the way seminars are structured and in how participants interact—laughter, dancing, hugs and other expressions of happiness are treated as psychological tools, not distractions. AP describes one example from a retreat center in New York’s Hudson Valley, where people running climate-focused groups were known for constant laughter, so much that participants from other groups asked who they were.
Katharine Wilkinson, an activist who led a Hudson Valley seminar, framed the idea directly. In the AP report, Wilkinson said, “I believe that joy is all the more necessary and maybe all the more holy in difficult times,” and she added, “Joy is like, how do we take part in the shimmy and the shimmer even as the world lurches?” The AP story describes Wilkinson’s goal as harnessing happiness to power action against worsening climate change tied to heat-trapping gases from coal, oil and gas.
The AP also ties the emphasis on joy to established climate advocacy calendar moments such as Earth Day, which was founded in 1970 and has become a mix of protest and celebration, according to the groups involved. AP reports that a speech by Wilkinson at American University called power and joy “a really potent portal to the gifts that we want to offer in this time of immense trouble and yet also immense possibility.”
While AP’s report highlights joy as a strategy, it says participants and researchers also insist reality must come first. Christiana Figueres, who served as United Nations climate chief in 2015 and helped shepherd the Paris climate agreement, told AP that people cannot ignore suffering and eco-anxiety. She said, “We cannot turn our back to the suffering and the grief and the eco-anxiety and all that family of emotions because they are very there,” and added that the first step is not to deny the challenges.
Figueres described what she sees as the turning point for turning hard emotions into action. AP reports that Figueres said the approach is to anchor oneself “precisely in the pain and the suffering, embrace the pain, and the suffer” and then convert it into something useful, likening the process to composting—taking “nasty kitchen waste” and converting it into fertilizer for a garden.
Psychologists quoted in the AP report said joy also has practical effects on how people handle stress and sustain engagement. Jiaying Zhao, a professor of psychology and sustainability at the University of British Columbia, said in the report, “Joy is what made our species survive in the first place,” and she added that when joy is reinforced, people continue doing it and spread it to others. AP also quotes Zhao saying “we spill over” and become “contagious,” helping more people get “on board.”
The AP further says laughter has physiological and social benefits in its own right. Julia Kim-Cohen, a clinical psychology professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago, told AP, “Laughter is really one of the best strategies for coping with stress,” adding that research shows it reduces blood pressure and relaxes the nervous system. Kim-Cohen also said sharing laughter helps people’s hearts “open to one another” and described laughter as an evolutionarily wired way to connect.
The report also argues joy-based messaging can affect what audiences do in everyday life. For years, AP says, governments and activists have talked about consuming less—such as energy and meat—to save the planet, but Elizabeth Dunn of the University of British Columbia, quoted in the story, said that approach can undercut climate progress. Dunn said, “If we have to win the fight against climate change by getting people to give up the things they enjoy, I don’t think we’re going to win the fight,” and AP describes her working with Zhao to write “Leave the Lights On.”
Zhao said the book advances an opposite framing to sacrifice. In the AP report, she said, “Instead of asking people to sacrifice the things that bring them joy, our book is making the exact opposite claim: Do more of the stuff that brings you pleasure but also have a low carbon footprint,” and she told AP that “joy is the missing ingredient” for behavior change that people can maintain.
The AP story also includes a personal example from Kim-Cohen’s teaching experience, describing how she said she used to approach climate discussions by constantly bringing up distressing news. In the report, Kim-Cohen said she was known for being a “pooper” who talked about the latest wildfire or floods, and she said people would shut down. She added that after burnout and anger, Wilkinson’s seminar helped change her approach, and Kim-Cohen described coming away with “my heart filled with love.”
Kim-Cohen’s class at the University of Illinois-Chicago now emphasizes climate psychology in a different tone, AP says, and it includes student feedback. AP quotes Leah Glaser, described as a senior, saying she expected a downer class but left feeling “empowered to do something,” adding, “I definitely leave with a smile on my face. It just really uplifts me in ways that other classes really don’t.”
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