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Climate Emotions Wheel © 2023 by Anya Kamenetz, Panu Pikhala, Sarah Newman, Megan Slade, JulieSouza, Ryleigh Corrigan is licensed under CC BY-SA4.0 | Resource at ClimateMentalHealth.Net. Based on research by Panu Pihkala at the University of Helsinki and particularly his 2022 paper:“Toward a Taxonomy of Climate Emotions“ | Featured in NYC Times Square Hope Hydration Hydrostation. Season 3, Episode 5: The Climate Emotions WheelThomas interviewed Panu about his recent climate emotions research and the Climate Emotions Wheel created by the Climate Mental Health Network based on Panu’s work. LinksClimate Emotions WheelClimate and Mental Health NetworkPanu Pihkala 2022 Toward a Taxonomy of Climate EmotionsGen Dread: Climate emotions aren’t all “negative”TranscriptTranscript edited for clarity and brevity. Thomas Doherty: Please support the climate change and happiness podcast. See the donate page at climatechangeandhappiness.com.[music: “CC&H theme music”]Doherty: Hi, this is Thomas Doherty … Panu Pihkala: And I am Panu Pihkala. Doherty: And welcome to Climate Change and Happiness. This is our podcast. Panu and I have been working on this podcast for a couple of years now. It came from our own personal dialogues, and we thought we'd open this up and share this with the public and with our, you know, bringing in our colleagues. This is a podcast for people around the globe who are thinking, and most importantly, feeling a lot of interesting, deep things about climate change and other environmental issues. And so in this particular podcast, we talk about the emotional aspects. Panu has been doing a lot of research and writing on this. I'm working with people on this and also doing my own writing and work. And so this is a place for the emotions, all emotions all the time. The emotions are in our bodies, they're physiological, we can measure those, the feelings, of course, are infinite, because it's our language and our words and all around the world are all kinds of different feelings words we use to describe our emotions. So, Panu, speaking of emotions, I know you've been working on this for years now, recently, someone adapted some of your work into an emotions wheel. A Wheel of different kinds of emotions that think about in terms of climate change. And I thought we would touch in on that, see what you see what you think about that, and how that how that flows out of your work. And we'll go from there.Pihkala: Yes, thanks, Thomas. This climate emotion wheel has now been shared pretty heavily in social media. And the visualization and the selection of the words was made by the organization, the Climate and Mental Health Network. And they asked me to comment on the project also. So, I did some of some of that. And there's been interesting developments. For example, it's been on a Times Square advertisement in New York for him for a while. And so it really seems to resonate with many, many people. And myself, when I started to dig deeper into emotion studies, I remember that visualizations were very helpful—in addition to all this text that we have about emotions. Robert Plutchik has this famous emotions wheel and there are several versions available online. And as you Thomas well know, emotion researchers have debates between them as all researchers do. So there's no standard emotion wheel that would be accepted by everyone, I really think that these are practically useful. But of course, they also have their limits. And there are always simplifying things. So there's pros and cons in using this. But I'm very happy that my work has been useful in the creation of this wheel.Doherty: Yes! You can go on Amazon and find a climate emotions wheel pillow and a climate emotions wheel … therapists use these in their work. And there's posters. And any mental health person will be familiar with this stuff. It's helpful to have some sort of guide to all different kinds of emotions. So there's two things that we're talking about in this podcast for people in the know. For researchers, there's all the backstory of how people empirically study this. And it's quite interesting. And then there's just our own need of it. Because we cannot be alive without having emotions, all living things have some sort of emotional response to the environment. And then of course, as humans, we have these nuanced, potentially nuanced feelings. So it's nice to have, like anything else, a guide, a taxonomy, as you say, a list of words. And the wheel is just putting that into a graphic form. And so I think it's helpful. Do you think, you know, as someone who gets deep into this. Obviously, I believe you think it's helpful for people to look at these kinds of wheels and I'm so impressed that it's in Times Square, I didn't know that. I think that's great. Is there any downsides of putting this onto a wheel? Pihkala: Well, there's all always potential dangers. And also in relation to the old emotion wheels, people have been wary of the possibility that folks would think that the emotions in the middle somehow are really the most important and primary ones. That's a big debate in emotion research, whether there are sort of basic emotions or universal emotions shared by people worldwide. [Yeah.] So that's one possible misconception is that, you know, these four, emotional words in the middle, that they would be the only real overall candidate categories. But then then again, that is not what know what the wheel and the people are saying. So, the makers of the climate emotion wheel, they didn't intend that this would have all the relevant emotion words, they just wanted to provide many useful emotion words, so that people can think about what they may be feeling and what others may be feeling. So this may be validating both for people themselves and in relation to others. And we know from science, that if we have names for emotions, even roughly pointing to the right direction, then it's easier for us to engage with that, with those emotional energies. And I know Thomas that this is a very commonplace thing for you as a therapist, you know, helping people to name and recognize what they are actually feeling. But this brings us to a very important another point, which is that there's lots of different emotional energies often in our body-mind, by body-mind I mean that our body and mind are connected, and I liked the word even though it's a bit technical. And that's also something which sometimes doesn't come up in climate emotions research or public discussions. For example, people may sort of have the presupposition, that, you know, should I feel just anger? Or is somebody just feeling anxiety or sadness or just hope? And it's not so, people are feeling many kinds of emotions and feelings and sometimes there can be interesting clusters of emotions, or interlaced emotions, you know, emotions which are somehow tied to each other in the person's experience or the group's experience. And that's something I think Thomas we haven't talked about yet in the podcast, even though we have been talking a lot about climate emotions. But I'm interested about these emotions that go together for some people in certain situations.Doherty: Yeah. When I see the climate wheel (and we'll put a link to this—you can google “climate emotions wheel” and you'll find this and you'll find other famous wheel models of emotion.) I think of the color wheel, you know, when people are doing art and design, when we're mixing colors to get different shades. I haven't seen that, you might have seen that talked about, but you know, these primary colors, you know, primary emotions. Obviously, humans like to categorize things so we're always sort of seeing what box and so they categorize emotions they're always looking for, for more simpler sets of emotions. But the color wheel I think is a helpful analogy. Because feeling blue, whichever emotion you want to categorize for blue, and then of course, feeling yellow emotions, you know, creates green emotions. So we can run with that metaphorically. People who are feeling sad about the environment and also love and curiosity might lead them to some deeper connection with the environment. You know, I don't know. So, I love playing with the metaphors. But yes, and just for the public. I mean, we're … we've, you know, read too many pieces and too much stuff about climate emotions. We're kind of deep into this. But just keeping in mind like Panu was saying, people have researched emotions for forever going back to you know, Aristotle or whatever, and tried to make different categories and different things. And there's some famous researchers out there that have studied people's facial expressions and how emotions are physical things in our bodies and we have the physical posture or facial expression that causes us to feel certain things. So the bi-directional aspect. Psychologist used to be a debate about what came first—a thought or a feeling you know—which was faster? That's an interesting area and, of course, more recently, people have been like yourself, talking about climate emotions and really trying to figure out what people are feeling about all these issues. And that's, that's newer. And that's really interesting. And then we have different even different views on that, right? We know people use regular emotions words like loneliness or loss. You know, Glenn Albrecht is a thinker that has created a whole special vocabulary of climate words to kind of, I think, give justice to these unique kind of … and I think that speaks a little bit to those special feeling mixes that you're talking about. But, you know, “solastalgia” is a well-known word that that a lot of people have heard that was came out of that work, this combination of being nostalgic, but feeling lost for an area that you're actually haven't left, it's idea that the world is leaving you versus you leaving the world. And we're, that's a very interesting, nuanced emotion that's really touched a chord for people. But it's important for people not to get confused about this. These are just diverse, interesting ways, you know, that people are talking about emotions. Right? Is that a fair statement, Panu?Pihkala: Yes, I think definitely, so. And I love the color metaphor that you are using Thomas and I have sometimes been thinking about shapes and colors. So if a person, like many Finns are, is feeling, climate, guilt, and sadness, and hope, at the same time, or next to each other, what kind of form and color a visualization could depict that? And this is something of course, which can sometimes be done in self-reflection or in workshops for it, for example. And it's not scientific, but it's helpful. And that's the most important thing. And Glenn Albrecht work has been highly influential for my own book and solastalgia for example, is in this taxonomy of climate emotions paper. It didn't end up in the wheel, but it's, it's there, broadly. Earth emotions, as Glenn calls them. There's lots of very important shades that are coming out. Two big things that are also related here is one that you hinted at Thomas, which is sort of the length or intensity of emotion. So there may be sort of short-lived emotions or feelings and tentatively, maybe longer time, affective phenomena, for example, mood. And this is something which is important in relation to climate emotions, also. And I know that many people have generally a bit like sad moods and you know, then hopefulness may pop up at times. And if you have a tendency towards sad mood, that doesn't mean that you wouldn't ever experience joy, for example. And this is one of the richnesses of our emotional lives. And especially when they are healthy, when we are able to feel these different emotions, then our capacity to feel all kinds of emotions is larger. And this is a long road for any of us. I know that personally, for example, it's a continuous learning process to be open to various emotional energies. Of course, one needs to also do some regulation about it. And in social situations, we can't just always let all emotion out. That would be very problematic. But it's also very problematic if we do too much suppression or repression. And finally, before, I want to ask what you think about this issue, the “about-ness” of emotions, so climate emotions, some of them are about climate change in general, but then some are about certain aspects of it. And for example, joy, it's very difficult to feel joy about the existence of the climate crisis. But it's very often that I feel joy because of the large number of climate activists, for example. Doherty: I was thinking about some of the research, but the last … What was the last part about climate activists? So I didn't quite follow that piece. The last part of your statement there.Pihkala: Yeah. Well, what I mean, is that some of the so-called positive emotions, may be much easier to feel in relation to, for example, climate action. Yes. Yeah. Then to climate change in general?Doherty: Yes, exactly! I was watching some film recording of the recent climate march in New York City. And I saw a little bit of the speech of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, you know, and it was very uplifting and it was, you know, you could … I could sense the energy of the crowd there. And so I think that's one of the one of the aspects, one of the many is like, we don't feel them [emotions] only in isolation, they're social, you know, social things that happen within groups of people. So that's, that's one angle here. And what is, there's a saying, you might know it, I think it's a Swedish saying about being together cuts our grief and half, but it doubles our joy, you know, something like that. So, being together with people is both helpful for sad feelings. It helps to bear the weight of sad feelings, we're sharing them, but like, being together and sharing them positively kind of multiplies, … I mean, we could do a whole podcast on emotions. We do! But we could do a whole other podcast just on the science of emotion. And the social aspect and the neuropsychological, brain aspect of it, and the philosophical, social justice aspects of this kind of stuff. It's just fascinating.Pihkala: Yeah, I think that's a great, great point Thomas and very relevant for climate emotions. Because some of them are so heavily intertwined with our social relations. And that's why, for example, I didn't just apply any theory of basic or universal emotions, because those are more related to, you know, “what did we get in evolution type of thing,” and what sort of emotional energies we need, for example, if we live in a forest or jungle, but then amidst other members of our tribes, and also contemporarily, there's all these dynamics about guilt, and honor, for example, social approval or disapproval, and feelings related to sharing life, but also social hierarchies and so on. So many of our climate emotions, are heavily moderated by the social dynamics. And that's, I think, an important aspect.Doherty: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So there's a saying, you know, all models are wrong, some are useful. So all these different models are limited in some way. They, they obscure something. And that's why we have different thinkers. And that's why I have people with different models, because they show things that that are lost. So a wheel image captures some things, but a list captures another process. You know, I mean, one way to moderate our climate emotions, and is go to d…
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