Season 2, Episode 8: Climate Feelings in East and West Africa with Charles Ogunbode

Panu and Thomas were joined by Charles Ogunbode, a psychology researcher at the University of Nottingham in the UK, in a dialogue about anxiety and other eco-emotions around the world. Charles shared insights from his widely reported paper “Climate anxiety, wellbeing and pro-environmental action: Correlates of negative emotional responses to climate change in 32 countries.” His study found that while climate anxiety is hurting people’s mental health around the world, from Brazil to Uganda, Portugal to the Philippines, people’s ability to speak out and take action is curtailed by lack of free speech and ability to demonstrate in many countries. Charles described his early interest in wildlife protection in Nigeria and his formative discoveries of research on conservation psychology and unconscious aspects of emotions like the melancholy that we can feel in relation to widespread destruction of the natural world. He described how his current projects create nuanced portraits of how Africans perceive the harms posed by climate change that move beyond simplistic stereotypes. Thomas, Panu and Charles reflected on unique environmental emotions and coping responses of citizens of East and West Africa that, given their shared colonial histories, feature both resignation about climate threats and also a deep resilience.