Eco-Anxiety and Planetary Hope

This timely volume examines the conflict between human individual life and larger forces that are not controllable. Drawing on recent literature in phenomenological and existential psychology it calls for a more nuanced understanding of the human predicament.  Focusing on the co-occurring crises of climate change and the COVID-19 epidemic, it explores the nature of widespread anxiety and the long-term human consequences.  It calls for an expansion of current research that would include the arts and humanities for critical insights into how this essential conflict between humanity and nature may be reconciled.

Douglas A. Vakoch, PhD, is president of METI International and professor emeritus of clinical psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He has edited or co-edited more than twenty books covering environmental studies, psychology, and the search for life beyond Earth, including Ecopsychology, Phenomenology, and the Environment: The Experience of Nature (Springer, 2014), The Routledge Handbook of Ecofeminism and Literature (Routledge, 2023), and Eco-Anxiety and Pandemic Distress: Psychological Perspectives on Resilience and Interconnectedness (Oxford University Press, 2023). Dr. Vakoch is the founding editor of Springer's Space and Society book series, and he serves as the general editor of Lexington Books' Ecocritical Theory and Practice book series. His work has been featured in such publications as The New York Times, The Economist, Nature, and Science, and he has been interviewed for numerous radio and television programs, including those broadcast on the BBC, The Science Channel, and The Discovery Channel. He is also director of Green Psychotherapy, PC, a private practice serving individuals who are experiencing eco-anxiety.

Sam Mickey, PhD, is an Adjunct Professor in the Theology and Religious Studies department and the Environmental Studies program at the University of San Francisco. He is also a Research Associate for the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology. He is the author of several books on ecological thought, including  Coexistentialism and the Unbearable Intimacy of Ecological Emergency (Lexington Books, 2016) and On the Verge of a Planetary Civilization: A Philosophy of Integral Ecology (Rowman & Littlefield, 2014). With Mary Evelyn Tucker and Grim, he co-edited Living Earth Community: Multiple Ways of Being and Knowing (Open Book Publishers, 2020). He also edited Integrating Ecology and Justice in a Changing Climate (University of San Francisco Press, 2020), and he has co-edited several volumes with Douglas Vakoch, Eco-Anxiety and Pandemic Distress: Psychological Perspectives on Resilience and Interconnectedness (Oxford University Press, 2022) and Literature and Ecofeminism: Intersectional and International Voices (Routledge, 2018). Dr. Mickey is the Reviews Editor for the journal Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology.