Tori Tsui

During the past five years, the term ‘eco-anxiety’ has been popularised to talk about the negative impact of the climate emergency on our wellbeing. In It’s Not Just You, climate activist Tori Tsui reframes eco-anxiety as a mental health crisis that encompasses many injustices, arguing that it is deeply entrenched in societal issues including racism, sexism and ableism, as well as in capitalism. This is the first truly intersectional book to explore the relationship between mental health and the climate crisis. It draws on the wisdom of diverse environmental advocates who have been on the frontlines long before our understandings of eco-anxiety became an issue in the global north. Each chapter features either an excerpt or interview with a marginalised activist including BIPOC, activists from the global south, women, queer activists and disabled activists. As someone who suffers from mental health conditions, Tori argues that fights for intersectional climate justice must incorporate our wellbeing and how this is a direct reflection of our environment. Tackling eco-anxiety requires looking both inwards and outwards, addressing our own mental health while also advocating for the world's most marginalised and the planet.

It's Not Just You

said by Niel Leadon - Black, queer activist

Ultimately, my existence informs my advocacy because I exist at the intersection of several underrepresented communities and, as such, must act constructively to liberate the members who may never have the opportunities that I do.

on overpopulation sympathetics who refer to the carrying capacities of ecosystems and the inherently destructive nature of humans. but Thomas Malthus' concept of overpopulation was founded on deep prejudice - he believed that the poor were a waste of resources.

Malthusian overpopulation has subsequently been used to reinforce systems of classist racial hierarchy and knowledge centred around European belief systems, which lend themselves to the 'argument' that the poorest of the global majority are to blame for the climate crisis.

on why some communities cannot simply describe their feelings as just climate anxiety - instead it is an anxiety that is "deeply connected with collective, gender, economic, racial, intergenerational traumas" (Mexican climate justice activist Maria Reyes)

[...] for many communities experiencing the brunt and long-lasting legacy of colonialism, worrying about the future due to a climate crisis isn't necessarily considered the most important and imminent crisis for marginalised communities around the globe.

frontline communities and activists are literally fighting for their lives. for them, they do not have the luxury of simply being anxious; they are face to face with their own mortality. this isn't eco-anxiety; this is eco-survivalism.

political freedom cannot be prised apart from the realities of climate change, and research has shown that the biggest obstacles to taking direct action relate to the capacity for free speech. one study found that those with eco-anxiety in the global north, in countries such as Finland, were more likely to protest for climate action, as they did not have to contend with the dangers of political censorship and violence.

as climate refugees are framed as a climate security threat, will the climate-anxious recognise their role in displacing people from around the globe? will they be able to see their own fates tied to the fates of the dispossessed? or will they hoard resources, limit the rights of the most affected and seek to save only their own, deluded that this xenophobic strategy will save them?

[...] as Sarah Jaquette Ray asks, could climate change, and the eco-anxiety attached to it, be weaponised as a tool for eco-fascism? after all, anxiety as a precursor for fascism is nothing new historically speaking. with climate denial easier to delegitimise than ever before, many may resort to the repackaging of age-old fascist narratives under the guise of being eco-anxious, climate-concerned citizens. like Betsy Hartmann's concept of the 'greening of hate', climate change can operate like an insidious fascist vehicle with which to police marginalised people, even pushing for anti over-population sentiments under the guise of being 'natural'. it's not unrealistic to assume; after all, fascists have long borrowed scientific terms from the realms of population ecology to social Darwinism to intellectualise their reasoning. these behaviours can act as a means to de-politicise and legitimise evidently politicised eco-fascist agendas.

eco-anxiety is rapidly transforming into climate doomism, whereby doomers are those who occupy the nihilistic perspective that humanity is destined to fail and may suggest extreme measures to counteract climate change. [...] what comes to mind is a rumour I heard circulating in the summer of 2022 that a certain anti-fossil fuel group were plotting to stage a public self-immolation involving young activists. true or not, what have we come to by thinking that there is no choice but for people to burn themselves alive and disappear? what does this say about the value of human life and the capacity for collective change? [...] my fear is that these organisations are perpetuating anxious sentiments, even if they act with the intent of raising the stakes of what it means to live on a burning planet.

I have come across many climate activists who say that climate doomism is an overwhelmingly white phenomenon. could this be in part because the climate crisis is not the first line of struggle that communities of colour have had to face? this brings me back to the work of Rebecca Solnit, who argues that despair, and by extension overly anxious and doomist perspectives, is quite simply a luxury that few can afford. as Mary Heglar states in her open letter, 'you don't fight something like that because you think you will win. you fight it because you have to. because surrendering dooms so much more than yourself, but everything that comes after you.'

It's Not Just You quotes

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