Adam Levy: 00:02
Hello, I’m Adam Levy, and this is Mind Matters: Academia’s Mental Health Crisis, a podcast from Nature Careers. In this episode: researching environmental destruction.
My background is in climate science. I did my doctorate in atmospheric physics, and throughout my journey in academia and now in journalism, I’ve been struck by how researchers are impacted by what they understand, how our planet is changing, and the mismatch between our scientific understanding and political action.
In this episode, we’ll hear from three researchers about the impacts of climate research on their mental health, and their different ways for finding support and comfort.
The first is Ruth Cerezo-Mota of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, who we heard from briefly at the end of last week’s episode.
For Ruth, the human reality of climate change hit her all at once when she was working for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, a body that pulls together all the latest climate research into authoritative reports.
At this point, she’d already been researching for a number of years. So we started out by discussing what her research focuses on.
Ruth Cerezo-Mota: 01:25
I have worked for many, many years with extreme events of rainfall and droughts. I started to work with extreme, like heatwaves, because when you live in Yucatan, you can experience what hot weather really means
Adam Levy 01:40
Now, just taking a step back to when you started working on questions around climate change, how did it feel in those days to work on climate?
Ruth Cerezo-Mota: 01:50
So I really was, like, fascinated by that topic, and I love to, you know, like, see clouds and stuff like that. So I was very much aware of the societal impacts that they will have.
But my work ends in understanding why that extreme event happened there, and that’s it. So I really have never until recently think about of the impacts. I mean, not necessarily. It’s not that I’m not aware that they happen, but it’s not really in my mind.
Adam Levy: 02:19
So then what started to change recently, to shift that feeling and that relationship with the subject matter you’re studying?
Ruth Cerezo-Mota 02:27
Well, I was part of the IPCC, and when I started to be part of the IPCC, you start to read so much about climate change and how much is changing everywhere, so many things.
And then at some point, we have a meeting with the three group, working groups. So I was selected to go to that meeting in Singapore.
And then there we have to interact with colleagues for other groups. So you start to listen.
All the impacts that those changes that your study are having in the society, in agricultural economy, health.
Something like, I don’t know, I know that it’s very stupid that I haven’t realized that before. But that was, I think, the point when I finally connect everything, the things that I was studying, have the impacts in is creating all this destruction, or these people has to migrate.
So you start to see, like, the whole picture that I probably I didn’t see it before. Everything make click. And I started to get more worried about climate change and what we were doing or not doing to avoid the impacts.
Adam Levy: 03:30
And what was the actual impact of that on you? How did it affect your mental health?
Ruth Cerezo-Mota: 03:35
Well, I didn’t at that point, but I get depressed. I don’t I think it’s not that obvious that you are not well.
Few months after, there was COVID everywhere, and we started to do home office. I was already like in a really dark place. I was unable to really work, so I was sort of in automatic mood.
So just, I will go to this virtual meeting, but will not participate, will not be able to do anything, everything caused me like panic attacks. I’d never have a panic attack.
So the first time that I have one, I thought I was having a heart attack. And then, because I didn’t die, I realized, okay, it’s not a heart attack, it’s a panic attack.
I was getting stressed about everything. I was not even able to open my computer, because I knew that I will have to check my emails.
I knew I will have to read more about how bad we are doing as humanity. So I was, like, super stressed, super worried.
So, yeah, it was not a good time.
Adam Levy: 04:34
Well, how did you begin to move past that time and to be able to work more productively in spite of everything you understood and understand about climate change?
Ruth Cerezo-Mota: 04:45
Among those emails, the last ones were from three of my colleagues of my chapter in the IPCC, and the subject was something like, we just want to know that you are okay.
So I feel like, really bad. I feel like it’s not fair for some other people that already are worried, because many other things. That on top of that they had to worry about me.
So I talked to them. We chat. And one of the girls that was in my chapter, she’s like, really, like a smiley person, and you can feel like really at at ease with her.
So I started to talk with her, and then she said, I understand what you are going through. I experienced something similar, like, not that bad, but something similar.
And then she told me that she realized that by us doing this, the report of the IPCC, was our way to actually contribute, to be part of the solution.
And then, like, yeah, I mean, she’s right.
So we have to do this. We have to do it. Because governments are still saying that they didn’t knew that these things might happen. So now they cannot say that, because it’s there. We already do the hard work to read all these 200 papers and to produce this small document of 40 pages for policymakers.
So it’s not excuse anymore for them. So by us, scientific, doing these reports is our way to contribute and to be part of the solution, and to try to do something to avoid the worst of the scenarios.
Adam Levy: 06:13
Apart from understanding yourself as part of the solution, are there other steps that you’ve taken to try and protect your mental health? Have you sought any mental health support, for example?
Ruth Cerezo-Mota: 06:24
Yeah, I went to a few sessions with a psychologist. It helped a lot that we were not anymore on COVID.
So I was able to, for example, start to run again, because I like to run, which has helped, helped me a lot. I do yoga
Talking about this with so many people, it has helped a lot as well to realize that it’s not that you are weird. Because actually, when I realized that I was like, depressed, I thought like, I have to be a very weak person, because I’m not the only one on the IPCC, and in my chapter, we have 14 of us, and nobody got depression.
So I have to be like a weak person to be unable to resist all this pressure, and knowing the things that we know. That was like, on top of that you feel like still worse, because you feel, like, weak.
And then talking with so many people and that they may not got to a really dark place like myself, but they were not doing as well and they were feeling overwhelmed.
Many people is suffering and passing through the same then, like, okay, it’s not that I’m weak. It’s maybe I didn’t have the tools, or maybe was waylaid too much, and that if I start to feel like I’m going to the dark side, I can, I can feel it, so I can do something to avoid to actually getting in the dark side.
I think, to be honest, one of the things that has helped me the most is not only talking about mental health, but actually, I have been very lucky, and I have been given so many platforms to talk about climate change. I have talked with many people, and they want to be informed.
They want to know how to prevent the worst, they are activists, the environmentalists. And I have been invited to some of the groups to talk with them. So to see people actually taking action. I mean, actually, I think that’s the thing that has helped me the most, because then we might be able to avoid the worst of the scenarios if more people get informed.
I think I became quite effective to communicate the messages for the IPCC and to bring down the information for like, more local, like for Mexico, for example. That has been a little bit like therapeutic, to do that, and to see people engage and to want to do a change.
Adam Levy: 08:37
There’s that line, right: action is the antidote to despair.
Ruth Cerezo-Mota: 08:41
Exactly. So to give a talk about climate change is a little bit depressive, to be honest, because we are not in a good situation.
But I definitely, I always close, or try to close, with hope. So I understand you might feel like some sort of grief like? But then you have to take an action, because doing nothing is not going to help us. So yeah, action is the key.
Adam Levy: 09:03
Do you have any advice for other researchers who are trying to balance all this as well, trying to balance that understanding of climate change and dealing with these impacts of being outspoken about climate change?
Ruth Cerezo-Mota: 09:16
I wish that I had advice so I can take that advice. Sometimes you need to sort of unplug yourself, like for example, for me, it’s like reading a book, like drinking wine. I like wine.
I also, I’m familial. So talking about something different for a change. You know, enjoying being at home with my cats. So do not find your happy place. For me, my happy place is my home, wine, book cuts. And if it’s really bad, it’s getting a little bit darker than usual.
So invite some friends, and you know, to talk about things that is not climate change, just for a change.
And guess that for each person is different, that happy place, but try to find that happy place and to try to keep it. You know that, it does not get polluted.
Adam Levy: 10:01
What do you think our institutions, our universities, ought to be doing better to protect and support researchers working on these kinds of topics?
Ruth Cerezo-Mota: 10:11
I think the system has to change, not only for climate researchers, but you know, you have to write papers and you have to do your projects, and you have to teach, and you have to do all that.
And then, if you are part, for example, myself, of the IPCC, they were like, super happy. And they, you know, they show off, you know, in Twitter or Instagram, like, yeah, ”Ruth, she’s our researcher, and she’s part of the IPCC clap clap well, for her.
And then behind that is like, ”Well, yeah, well, but you don’t have enough papers.” So I think there has to be the system, how they evaluate your work has to change in general.
And I don’t think there is enough empathy from the superiors on the toll that it might take this sort of research topics. Or the fact that you want to be like outspoken, because you have to. What’s the point of me writing 100 papers if no one is going to read those papers?
So I would rather focus on communicate these kind of messages and try to engage with people, and try to engage with policymakers whenever I have the opportunity, because I think that’s what is going to make the difference.
And I don’t know why, the fact that I’m engaging when the community is not good enough to be considered as part of my job as academic, as a researcher, regardless of the topic that I’m working with.
Adam Levy: 11:33
That was Ruth Cerezo-Mota. In the third episode of this series, we heard from Dave Reay, a climate scientist at the University of Edinburgh in the UK.
Dave spoke about his mental health struggles as an early career researcher and how they inform his approach as an established academic and lab head.
But I was also curious whether the topic of his research also impacted his wellbeing.
Dave Reay: 11:59
What the regular thing that happens is throughout the year, is we, as scientists, we comment on where we are on climate action around the world, and it’s always not enough, and it’s often worse than we were the year before, certainly in terms of more warming, more impacts. That can that can really get me down.
The coping mechanism for that, the key one for me, is similar to dealing with my depression back when I was doing a PhD, is about talking to people.
And for me, it’s talking often to other climate researchers, and actually looking for the positives. And there are positives in terms of where we are on climate change now compared to the mid 90s when I started working on it.
Adam Levy: 12:41
Are there times, working on climate change for you, where you feel, I suppose, hopeless, just really despondent about the state of things?
Dave Reay: 12:49
Yeah, there are. Part of being a climate scientist is, I think you’re hooked in a lot to what’s happening policy-wise.
And there have been occasions, like Copenhagen. I remember going there for the Conference of the Parties, to the big climate conference, and being just absolutely gutted actually, about the lack of a substantive outcome from the nations on climate change.
Because as scientists, you know, we know, we knew back then, you know, and we had all the evidence to say, ”Look, this is, this is absolutely an existential threat to our society, our economy, all of our futures.”
But, yeah, that was really hard to take.
But what made the conference, it gave it a kind of a positive, we took a large delegation of our students, and they were just brilliant.
And they they took on board that Copenhagen hadn’t delivered the political will that was required.
But actually, as individuals, in a group, they learnt so much, and their main mantra was, ”Well, we’re going to do better next time.”
And we’re going to go on. I mean, they, you know, they all go on to do great things, And they are part of making sure that we did eventually get something like the Paris Agreement. That made me feel at least that I wasn’t completely without any impact.
Adam Levy: 14:07
Dave describes a feeling of helplessness that many climate scientists I’ve spoken with share.
And our next interviewee spoke to me about how they transform this feeling into the motivation for their work.
Daniel Gilford is based in Orlando, Florida, where they work as a climate scientist for the organization Climate Central.
Daniel Gilford: 14:28
We are trying to put together information to allow people to understand how climate change is affecting people where they live right now.
So really, we’re trying to make information clear and local to where people are at. So they can understand what climate change means for them.
Adam Levy: 14:44
As Daniel has learned more about the climate system, it’s weighed on them heavily, but climate disasters have always been a part of their life.
Daniel Gilford: 14:53
So I grew up in central Florida, and I was moved very early on when I was about 16, by experience, seeing hurricanes.
There were many hurricanes that came through in 2004 and especially Hurricane Jean dropped a tree on my house, and growing up.
And everyone was safe, thankfully, but it was a pretty intense experience, and I was just moved by the power and the intensity of the storm.
And I said, I want to understand that better. I want to know what’s going on with that, and I want to tell people about it, because it obviously matters for people’s lives.
But then when I moved into my graduate school period, I looked at the data myself, and that really changed me a lot, because I understood the data, the evidence in the world is showing me the climate system is changing.
This is dramatic, and we need to do something about it as quickly as possible. I think as a young scientist, it was just an exciting and interesting problem to look at. I didn’t have that emotional connection.
But as time went on and I started to understand my own story and how I had been affected by storms, and how I had been affected by the climate system, I started to really understand and feel moved by this problem.
I think it is one of the most important problems in the world to work on. It’s the reason I work on it today.
I feel a lot of empathy for wanting people to understand how the climate system is changing.
It’s also an extremely heavy topic.
A lot of times, when you’re a climate scientist, you know you’re putting out a prognosis of bad news, and that is a heavy thing to have to explain on a day-to-day basis, as many people who are first responders, or on the front lines, would understand. It is a hard thing to be someone who is constantly having to look at bad news, think about bad news, and then communicate bad news.
As a young scientist, I was coming to grips with this idea that climate change is not only one of the most important problems in the world, it’s also a very heavy problem.
Adam Levy:16:48
And as your career has progressed, how has that heaviness, well, I suppose, how has that heaviness weighed you down? How has it affected you?
Adam Levy: 16:56
Yeah, it’s it’s been a challenge. You know, one of the things that was very important in my life is I had an interaction with a family member who was very conservative, thought that the work that I did was not valuable.
And that’s a really hard thing to hear from someone you care about, is that they think what you’re doing is not valuable.
I had someone in my family curse me out for the work that I was doing. That was a very heavy and hard thing to handle, and I spent a lot of time talking with my therapist, meditating, spending time talking with people in my community, trying to build up some strength there.
There’s been a lot of hard things I’ve had to deal with.
Backlash from my faith community when I was a part of one. There’s challenges associated with this work, because it can become political.
Adam Levy: 17:43
You talk about the mental health toll of the politicization of the topic there. I’m wondering whether the subject matter itself, the heaviness of the subject matter itself, also had a mental health toll for you?
Daniel Gilford: 17:58
Absolutely. Working on climate change is a lot like staring at an oncoming train and sitting on the tracks.And I think about this as the train is coming.
It’s rolling towards me very slowly, and I’m on the tracks, and I can see it coming with all of its weight and heaviness, and I’m screaming at the top of my lungs, ”Stop. Stop the train. Stop the train.”
And the people with the hands on the lever of the train is humanity.
But humanity is not only the people with the lever on the train. Humanity is also behind me on the train tracks. Sometimes it feels like they’re pulling the lever down faster than making the train go faster. And that that can be a heavy and hard thing. So I think about this metaphor, and it’s really a lot of how I feel.
You know, this train is bearing down on us, and all I can do is scream. At the same time, by screaming, by saying what is happening, by naming the problem and telling people about it, I think that that can become a solution as well.
You know, without working on it, there would be no solution. And so that’s why I continue to work on it.
Adam Levy: 19:00
Given that it can be so challenging to work on, has this mental health impact impacted your ability to do this work at all?
Daniel Gilford: 19:10
It can be a blocker. You know, it can especially. My anxiety can be debilitating at times. I have to take a step back and recognize that each day is its own challenge, and today my job is to meet the challenges of the day, and I’ll let tomorrow worry about itself.
It’s really important that we put this information into the world, so I’m going to continue to do that. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t days where it’s really challenging to work on.
There’s days where I feel discouraged, there’s days when I feel like I can’t easily get up out of bed to go do the work, because the work is heavy, especially in the current political climate that we’ve moved into.
There are some heavy challenges associated with that, and it weighs on me terribly.
But that doesn’t mean that I’m not going to get up today, and Monday, and continue to do the work.
Adam Levy: 19:58
I’m wondering how unusual, at least you felt these feelings were as you progressed through your career, whether you were aware of other researchers who were going through similar emotional journeys?
Daniel Gilford: 20:12
I wasn’t at first. You know at first you feel very isolated and alone, but when I started to recognize in myself these challenges, not only did I seek out mental health care in the form of a therapist, which I still meet with regularly, but I also had colleagues that when I talked with them, they would share that they had similar feelings, and that was huge.
Community, and building up a network of peers that have similar experiences to you and feel similar feelings is so validating and so empowering.
We can also share tips. And you know what is, what is helping us feel better this week, we can commiserate when, when there are bad times going on, there’s just so much that community can bring.
And I think a big part of that is just being open and willing the very first time to say, ”I am having trouble. I am struggling. I need help and support.”
And oftentimes I found that when I raised my hand and said that I found other people around me in this similar situation, and we were able to form community together.
Adam Levy 21:13
Do have any recommendations or insights for other researchers who are going through a similar journey to the journey you describe here?
Daniel Gilford: 21:21
I think one of the one of the challenges is you can oftentimes feel like you’re completely alone in this work. But that is just absolutely not true.
You know, we are together working on this problem. And we are together facing a lot of the same challenges.
So I think one of the things that I really have taken a lot of encouragement from is Katherine Hayhoe’s quote. Katherine Hayhoe, a researcher out of Texas says:
”We can’t give into despair. We have to go out and actively look for the hope that we need that will inspire us to act, and that hope begins with a conversation today.”
So I think one of the most important things you can do is talk, talk with the people in your life, talk with the people that you’re working with, talk with members of a peer community.
Find a peer community, at least from my personal experience, in my corner of this space, a lot of people are feeling a lot of the same things, but not as many people are talking about it. And so I think having continued conversation is one of the most powerful things we can do, both as a community, but also as individuals. I think it’s incredibly valuable.
Adam Levy: 22:25
So that’s in terms of what individuals and communities of individuals can do to better safeguard themselves, but what should our institutions be doing to safeguard the researchers that work within them?
Daniel Gilford: 22:38
So I think one of the most important things is just recognition, recognition that this is a critical problem that we’re going to be dealing with for the long term.
It’s really important that there be support, sort of at an institutional level, for things like meditation practices.
For instance, we have at Climate Central, a really fantastic mindfulness program where people can regularly, as part of their work, engage in a mindfulness practice that is supported by the organization.
I feel really grateful to be a part of something like that. And I think more organizations need to be taking on the responsibility of protecting and safeguarding their people from these intense effects, because we know that climate change is impactful, and we know that it will affect people on a day-to-day basis.
Not only in terms of the weather that we experience that is already being influenced by climate change, but also the heaviness of the emotions of working in a subject like this.
They should promote education, train people to respect mental health and wellbeing.
We are going to be living with the effects of climate change for the rest of our lives, for the rest of our grandchildren’s lives. Climate change is here to stay, and those people working on it are going to need to continue to safeguard their mental health.
Adam Levy: 23:53
Daniel Gilford there. Safeguarding mental health has been a topic throughout this series. And for our last two episodes, we’ll look at what can be done to promote wellbeing.
That action can come from institutions, the topic of our final episode. Or from individuals, which we’ll discuss next week.
Unkown source quote: 24:12
And what we want is to achieve this state of mindfulness, but that exercises to practice this presence and being present in in the moment, in the now.
Adam Levy 24:24
Until then, this has been Mind Matters: Academia’s Mental Health Crisis. A podcast from Nature Careers. Thanks for listening. I’m Adam Levy.
