Feeling the Apocalypse
- Description
- Reviews
- Citation
- Cataloging
- Transcript
From the disappearing wildlife in his hometown Owen Sound to the anxiety he gets from seeing news stories about the melting of Greenland, psychotherapist Anderson Todd tells us how the climate crisis shakes his view of the present and the future. Like many others, he finds it difficult to share this crushing dread and anxiety with others without turning them away.
But even with the collapse of large scale civilization approaching faster than expected, Anderson still wonders if there are parts of humanity that we can be hopeful about. Collapse isn't quick and clear-cut like in the movies. Humans will still be here, and we'll still have meaningful choices to make.
University of California Berkeley | Jed Terrence Lee, Wellness and Environmental Justice Community Engagement Manager
"FEELING THE APOCALYPSE has been a wonderful educational tool for my work in higher education sustainability. From students to professional staff, it has strong resonance with people passionate about environmental issues, and sparks deep and genuine discussion about navigating climate anxiety and eco-grief. I believe FTA has a place in every classroom syllabus focusing on environmentalism and social change."
American Conservation Film Festival | Hilary Lo, Festival Coordinator
"Anderson's commentary addressed real mental health issues and it also offered suggestions as to how to cope [...] We feel this will be validating and useful for many in our audience."
Climate Future Film Festival | Jim Stahl, Founder
"FEELING THE APOCALYPSE, among the 14 Official Selections, speaks most eloquently to the Festival's purpose and theme of our interior response to a possibly grim future."
Citation
Main credits
Yap, Chen Sing (film director)
Osborn, Nicholai (film producer)
Todd, Anderson (narrator)
Other credits
Animation, Rowan Mikolic-O'Rourke, Ruby Davie; cinematography, Tarneem Allati; music, Rebecca Foss, Lea Hidalgo.
Distributor subjects
Climate change,eco anxiety, extinction,societal collapse,overshoot,death awareness,mortality,grassroots disaster response,community-building,building community,anti-capitalismKeywords
00:00:02.961 --> 00:00:06.214
[Trees shedding leaves]
00:00:06.214 --> 00:00:09.718
[Anderson]
There's no easy way to look
around and realize
00:00:09.718 --> 00:00:13.138
that the world as we
know it is dying.
00:00:14.347 --> 00:00:16.266
I experienced very
mixed feelings,
00:00:16.266 --> 00:00:18.852
you know, in the last 10 years,
00:00:18.852 --> 00:00:20.937
when friends have had kids.
00:00:20.937 --> 00:00:23.273
What is this person going
to experience?
00:00:23.273 --> 00:00:25.108
What is their life
going to be like?
00:00:25.108 --> 00:00:26.860
What is the world
they're going to have?
00:00:26.860 --> 00:00:28.111
Sorry, kid.
00:00:28.111 --> 00:00:30.447
We uh,
we ate it.
00:00:30.447 --> 00:00:33.074
Sometimes I see things.
And it's striking,
00:00:33.074 --> 00:00:35.368
because it's something that
shouldn't be happening.
00:00:35.368 --> 00:00:37.454
I would just be reading news
and it would come
00:00:37.454 --> 00:00:39.789
and then it would sort of
pounce out of the bushes.
00:00:39.789 --> 00:00:42.375
But a lot of the time,
it's what's missing.
00:00:42.375 --> 00:00:44.210
The things that are going away.
00:00:45.128 --> 00:00:46.671
There's a breed of salamander,
00:00:46.671 --> 00:00:49.299
that is in my hometown,
that I stopped seeing.
00:00:49.299 --> 00:00:51.468
This field that had
always had fireflies,
00:00:51.468 --> 00:00:52.969
just didn't have them anymore.
00:00:52.969 --> 00:00:54.804
They were just gone.
00:00:54.804 --> 00:00:57.348
It was like nature
was going quiet.
00:00:57.348 --> 00:00:59.517
[Static]
00:00:59.517 --> 00:01:01.352
I, myself am a
psychotherapist.
00:01:01.352 --> 00:01:03.104
And probably in many ways,
00:01:03.104 --> 00:01:05.940
my toolset is actually
much better than most people's
00:01:05.940 --> 00:01:08.151
for processing
this kind of material.
00:01:08.151 --> 00:01:10.653
Don't get me wrong,
I go through frankly
00:01:10.653 --> 00:01:13.156
very deep periods
of climate grief.
00:01:13.156 --> 00:01:16.493
Not every therapist is well
equipped for this either.
00:01:16.493 --> 00:01:18.578
One of the times I was younger,
I went to a therapist.
00:01:18.578 --> 00:01:21.331
I was giving her the litany of
this and this and this.
00:01:21.331 --> 00:01:24.334
And I'm watching as she goes
pale, and I'm thinking, oh, no.
00:01:24.334 --> 00:01:26.086
I came in to get help. And now,
00:01:26.086 --> 00:01:28.505
I've given the therapist
an anxiety disorder.
00:01:28.505 --> 00:01:29.589
(RUSHING WIND)
00:01:30.882 --> 00:01:34.928
Sometime around what must
have been the summer of 2019,
00:01:34.928 --> 00:01:37.138
While I was on
vacation in Hawaii,
00:01:37.138 --> 00:01:40.100
I happened to watch that footage
of Greenland melting.
00:01:41.851 --> 00:01:44.020
It was different than
simply hearing
00:01:44.020 --> 00:01:47.065
figures about how many
gigatons of ice were melting.
00:01:48.066 --> 00:01:51.402
Looking out over something that
had been a frozen ice sheet for
00:01:51.402 --> 00:01:53.279
the entire length
of human history,
00:01:53.279 --> 00:01:55.490
and watching it just
turn into a lake.
00:01:55.949 --> 00:01:59.786
That was, um, just terrifying.
00:02:00.453 --> 00:02:02.580
What I realized for
the first time then was,
00:02:02.580 --> 00:02:05.333
in a sense, the car
was going so fast,
00:02:05.333 --> 00:02:08.419
that even if we could convince
people to slam on the brakes,
00:02:08.419 --> 00:02:10.880
It wasn't going to
stop soon enough
00:02:10.880 --> 00:02:12.841
for us to not
hit the brick wall.
00:02:14.259 --> 00:02:15.718
We're probably looking at the
00:02:15.718 --> 00:02:17.804
imminent collapse
of our civilization.
00:02:18.513 --> 00:02:21.391
My family could see me like,
watching this footage,
00:02:21.391 --> 00:02:22.684
And they were like,
"What's wrong?"
00:02:22.684 --> 00:02:23.977
And I didn't want to tell them.
00:02:23.977 --> 00:02:25.687
Because who wants
to ruin the family vacation
00:02:25.687 --> 00:02:28.398
by saying,
Oh, just the world is ending.
00:02:28.398 --> 00:02:30.150
Anyway, let's have lunch.
00:02:30.859 --> 00:02:33.236
You will rapidly find
that people's ability
00:02:33.236 --> 00:02:35.363
to absorb this material
is quite limited.
00:02:35.363 --> 00:02:38.199
And even people who were close
to me, and who were receptive,
00:02:38.199 --> 00:02:39.576
would often get to a place
00:02:39.576 --> 00:02:40.660
where they were like,
you have to stop.
00:02:40.660 --> 00:02:42.453
I can't hear any more of this.
00:02:43.705 --> 00:02:47.667
People really don't want to deal
with confronting the possibility
00:02:47.667 --> 00:02:49.794
that when they look
out the window,
00:02:49.794 --> 00:02:51.963
everything they're looking
at is temporary.
00:02:51.963 --> 00:02:55.049
But the thing is, this is
not fundamentally different
00:02:55.049 --> 00:02:57.760
than the basic
question of death.
00:02:57.760 --> 00:02:58.845
Right?
00:02:58.845 --> 00:03:01.472
You know, the question is not
ah, is this happening?
00:03:01.472 --> 00:03:04.142
What if it happens?
It's happening now.
00:03:04.142 --> 00:03:06.811
So the question is, what are
you going to do about it?
00:03:07.228 --> 00:03:09.397
And so one of the decisions I've
made in the last two years
00:03:09.397 --> 00:03:12.942
is that I take time every now
and then to look at it full on.
00:03:12.942 --> 00:03:15.612
I did one of these
this past July.
00:03:15.612 --> 00:03:21.075
I knew it was going to cause me
to experience extreme distress.
00:03:21.075 --> 00:03:22.202
[LOUD STATIC]
00:03:22.202 --> 00:03:24.078
Global warming, greenhouse
gases, climate change,
00:03:24.078 --> 00:03:26.456
floods, biodiversity loss,
crop failures, microplastics,
00:03:26.456 --> 00:03:28.166
faster than expected,
methane outventing,
00:03:28.166 --> 00:03:31.044
[OVERLAPPING VOICES]
and on and on and
on and on and on.
00:03:31.044 --> 00:03:33.463
And I try to,
00:03:33.463 --> 00:03:34.797
absorb it.
00:03:34.797 --> 00:03:37.592
[LOW STATIC]
00:03:37.592 --> 00:03:40.094
Because there is something
after just anxiety.
00:03:40.094 --> 00:03:44.891
[STATIC FADES]
00:03:44.891 --> 00:03:47.602
When you actually look
at how people
00:03:47.602 --> 00:03:50.647
respond as a community
under stress,
00:03:50.647 --> 00:03:52.190
Whether it's a war zone,
00:03:52.190 --> 00:03:54.442
or it's a natural
disaster situation.
00:03:54.442 --> 00:03:59.072
In fact, people engage in huge
amounts of mutual support.
00:03:59.072 --> 00:04:01.241
People typically refer to
these periods as being
00:04:01.241 --> 00:04:04.369
the most meaningful
periods of their life.
00:04:04.369 --> 00:04:07.497
In London during the Blitz,
during World War Two,
00:04:07.497 --> 00:04:10.625
There was a sharp drop in the
reports of mental illness.
00:04:10.625 --> 00:04:12.252
And many people
who were previously
00:04:12.252 --> 00:04:15.046
considered to be
institutionalizable,
00:04:15.046 --> 00:04:17.298
instead took jobs
of various kinds.
00:04:17.298 --> 00:04:19.425
Running courier messages,
working in hospitals,
00:04:19.425 --> 00:04:20.760
delivering food.
00:04:20.760 --> 00:04:23.221
There is something about this
kind of pressure
00:04:23.221 --> 00:04:25.056
that actually tends to
00:04:25.056 --> 00:04:28.351
cause people to form community
ties and band together.
00:04:28.351 --> 00:04:30.520
The idea that people are
going to stick it out
00:04:30.520 --> 00:04:33.147
in an apocalypse bunker
with ten AR-15s
00:04:33.147 --> 00:04:35.233
and a bunch of
Mountain House food,
00:04:35.233 --> 00:04:37.694
is a mirage. We make it
through with community.
00:04:37.694 --> 00:04:39.320
Small scale community.
00:04:41.739 --> 00:04:44.993
The conflation that people
sometimes engage in,
00:04:44.993 --> 00:04:48.121
is to believe that the
collapse of civilization
00:04:48.121 --> 00:04:49.789
is the end of the world.
00:04:49.789 --> 00:04:51.374
And that's not true.
00:04:52.583 --> 00:04:56.212
It is quite likely that our
current technologically driven,
00:04:56.212 --> 00:04:59.215
globally distributed,
consumer capitalist culture,
00:04:59.215 --> 00:05:00.967
is not going to make it.
00:05:01.843 --> 00:05:04.595
But that doesn't mean that
humans aren't going to make it.
00:05:05.263 --> 00:05:09.809
Everything except for people and
nature is just sideshow.
00:05:10.810 --> 00:05:13.271
That's what actually matters.
00:05:15.440 --> 00:05:16.899
[Trees shedding leaves]
00:05:16.899 --> 00:05:18.484
It's grieving.
00:05:18.484 --> 00:05:21.321
There is no easy way to do it.
00:05:21.321 --> 00:05:24.157
And the processing won't destroy
you, it will make you stronger.
00:05:24.157 --> 00:05:27.744
But you need to set the time and
let yourself feel your feelings.
00:05:28.202 --> 00:05:30.038
Let yourself feel your sadness.
00:05:30.038 --> 00:05:31.289
Let yourself feel your fear.
00:05:31.289 --> 00:05:32.707
Let yourself feel
your disappointment.
00:05:32.707 --> 00:05:34.334
Let yourself feel your anger.
00:05:34.334 --> 00:05:36.794
Right? These are
strong feelings.
00:05:36.794 --> 00:05:38.379
but they're valid feelings.
00:05:38.379 --> 00:05:40.673
Because you're really not alone.
00:05:40.673 --> 00:05:42.675
Lots of people are
experiencing this.
00:05:42.675 --> 00:05:44.010
Lots of people.
00:05:45.345 --> 00:05:48.473
[Trees shedding leaves]
00:05:59.609 --> 00:06:03.154
[Propulsive solo piano music]
