Generation Dread, Generation…Purpose: a book review and a found poem

Ahead of Youth Climate Action in Toronto‘s upcoming “Finding Purpose, Nourishment and Solidarity in the Age of Climate Crisis” event, which will include the launch of the paperback version of Britt Wray’s book Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Eco-Anxiety, I present my book review and related found poem from my reading of the hardcover edition published in 2022.

Below is a series of five images highlighting quotes from my review of Generation Dread, followed by the full text of the review. My thanks again to Devour: Art & Lit Canada for publishing my review this past August 2023. Finally, I present the found poem I created based on my book review. It was my pleasure to read this found poem at the Scarborough Poetry Club‘s “Poetry for a Warming World” public reading event at Agincourt Library in Scarborough, ON, this past September 2023.

GENERATION DREAD: IMAGES WITH QUOTES FROM MY BOOK REVIEW

The first image below features my concluding sentiments about this vitally relevant and empowering book. The second image is about how it is normal to experience emotional “toggling” on our climate journey. The third image is about the help we can find in communities of care. I express my gratitude to Gen Dread, Talk Climate To Me, Carbon Conversations Toronto and Climate Change and Happiness podcast. The fourth image features quotes about de-colonization and reconciliation and a photo showing support for Grassy Narrows solidarity. The last image is about how we all have a role to play in climate justice work. I acknowledge that, at times, I feel that aspects of my own Embodied Climate Justice Fitness (ECJF) project work are “a bit weird”, but “I remind myself that it is because of weird weather (to put it simply) that we need all kinds of efforts for engaging everyone.” What is yours to do?

GENERATION DREAD: FULL TEXT OF MY BOOK REVIEW

Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis by Britt Wray, PhD. Alfred A. Knopf Canada. ISBN: 9780735280724 (hardcover). 287 pages. 2022.

Review by Anna Nieminen. First published in Devour: Art & Lit Canada, Issue 017 Summer 2023, Pages 20-21. Wet Inc Books.

Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis by Britt Wray is, deservedly, a much reviewed and acclaimed book. In the spirit of the many anecdotes that bring Wray’s research to life, this review takes a personal approach to discussing the help and “robust hope” that can be found in its pages for those of us who are feeling climate distress.

Generation Dread is an unsettling, fascinating and compelling read that invites us to engage with our emotions to gain insights into the “psychological underpinnings and outcomes of the planetary health crisis, as well as its various dimensions of injustice.” It has introduced me to research and stories about the power of denial, including defences like numbing and disavowal, which is helping me to moderate my sometimes frantic sense of urgency with something more like patient persistence. As a creative climate communicator and activist, I have felt energized and deflated, compassionate and infuriated, hopeful and fearful. It is reassuring to understand that this “toggling” is part of developing “existential resilience”.

I have learned about how psychosocial factors intersect with system-level “bubbles”, extractive mindsets and ways of living promoted by neoliberal policies that obscure the harms caused by unsustainable consumption. I feel heartened that eco-anxiety “works like an antidote to the culture of uncare” when it is attended to, contained, and processed with community support. I feel resourced by climate cafes, workshops, webinars and podcasts hosted by some of the authors and practitioners Wray references. The Gen Dread newsletter on Substack has been an enriching community space for coping and inspiration.

Generation Dread, interestingly, uses the metaphor of the potential power of billions of people understanding their “eco-distress as super-fuel” for shaping a future beyond our dependency on fossil fuels and entanglement in systems of oppression including colonialism and racism. Already on a journey of reckoning with my privileges as a white settler on Indigenous lands, I was primed for learning about “what communities that have long lived under existential threat know about surviving dark times.” I deeply appreciate Wray’s cautionary reminder about de-colonization and reconciliation as a Canadian myself: “Partnership evokes allyship and should be approached thoughtfully and with care if it is not to be just another form of extraction.”

Generation Dread begins with Wray’s gripping story of reckoning with her eco-emotions as she and her husband faced a dilemma: would they bring a child into the climate crisis? Book and baby gestated and were birthed in tandem. Wray, whose first book Rise of the Necrofauna (Greystone Books, 2017) dealt with de-extinction, refocused her research on the rise of eco-anxiety including distress about the sixth mass extinction. I have been reinventing myself as a climate-aware facilitator since the deadly BC heat dome of summer 2021. When I worry that some of my project work is a bit weird, I remind myself that it is because of weird weather (to put it simply) that we need all kinds of efforts for engaging everyone.

Wray has this advice for those who don’t identify with climate distress: “As you read the following chapters, see if there is anything stirring beneath the veneer of calm. If it makes a sound, get down low and bring your ear to its mouth. We need you to hear what it is saying.” Generation Dread is a vitally relevant and empowering book that takes you on a visceral journey with “some mixture of stomach and heart” to guide your way to finding your place in the life-protecting work that is “all of ours to do” in our warming world.

GENERATION…PURPOSE: A FOUND POEM