5 Stages of Climate Change Grief

Faye Baker
11 min readSep 27, 2022

Which stage are you at?

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

You have probably heard of the 5 stages of grief (or 7 in some psychology books) and it feels like we are all living through those stages when it comes to climate change, to some degree or another. Like grief, some of us have been more affected than others and some people are at different stages in the process; whether it is denial, anger, bargaining, depression, or acceptance. Let’s see where you are in all this.

Denial

This is where people are blatantly convinced that man-made climate change isn’t real and there is no evidence that will persuade them otherwise. You know, people like those running the fossil fuel industry who have been suppressing the science for decades. It also includes those that refuse to admit to climate change because it will mean changing their lifestyle. The one’s who will keep having steaks on their charcoal fired BBQ, fetched from the store in their enormous truck or SUV and paid for by dividends on their investments in oil and gas. For these people it is much easier to deny the problem than confront it and do something about it. The very thought of giving up meat or buying an electric car fills them with a dread of having to change, of having to do something new and scary, of moving out of their comfort zone. All you have to do is cling on to some vague scientific…

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Faye Baker

Writer, thinker and inveterate maker. Part-time Cognitive scientist. Retired technical author and software developer. Avid reader about climate and ecosystems.