Climate One At The Commonwealth Club

Can we still find happiness in our daily lives without ignoring the dark reality of climate chaos? Author and meditation teacher Mark Coleman recalls experiencing just that juxtaposition of joy and sadness working on an article on a ridgetop north of San Francisco during the wildfires of late 2018. “It was just such a poignant moment of going into nature for refuge and solace and at the same time being reminded of the fires and the climate crisis,” Coleman says, noting the irony that he the article he’d been asked to write was about meditation and nature. Love and grief are at the center of Coleman’s practice for coping with climate anxiety. “We love this planet, we love this Earth, we love all of the abundance and the beauty and the diversity and complexity,” he explains, “[and] because we love, we feel the pain we feel the grief. The grief is a natural, healthy immune system response to a problem.” Mica Estrada, a professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Califor