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Earlier this year, the town of Avon created its first staff position dedicated to helping the town reach its sustainability goals. Charlotte Lin became the inaugural sustainability coordinator for the town in March, and though she has a scientific background in ecological research, it was her understanding of teaching methods and positive psychology that the Town Council believes will help drive the behavior changes needed to fulfill its Climate Action Plan.

Lin has an intimate understanding of the role that human psychology plays in climate action because of her own experience dealing with climate anxiety and disillusionment early in her career. The sense of powerlessness that she felt working up close to the climate crisis led her away from climate action for many years, as it often does for people who feel their actions are insignificant against such a big problem.

Now, Lin is using the lessons learned from finding her place in the fight against climate change to help the Avon community overcome the mental barriers that inhibit collective action.

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Experiencing eco-anxiety

Lin鈥檚 journey began in the Canadian arctic, north of Quebec, where she thought she had landed her dream job as an ecologist studying how trees were spreading into subarctic snow patches in response to warming temperatures. 

She had been preparing for this research position throughout her undergraduate studies, but once in the field, she experienced an acute sense of helplessness in the face of daily, growing evidence of the warming climate. 

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鈥淵ou just feel like you’re so small in this vast landscape, and I was feeling like whatever I was doing, it’s not really going to make a difference. I’m just collecting records and so, what’s next?鈥� Lin said. 鈥淚 was kind of left to deal with all of these emotions by myself, and not even sure if what I was feeling was valid. Now, 10 years on, I鈥檝e realized what I was feeling you can put under the category of climate anxiety.鈥�

Climate anxiety is a relatively new concept that falls under the emerging discipline of climate psychology, which studies the impact of climate change on the human psyche. 鈥淓co-anxiety,鈥� a term coined to describe anxiety about climate change and its effects, is growing in prevalence in the U.S., with The American Psychological Association finding that over two-thirds of Americans experience some form of eco-anxiety.

That rate is, understandably, much higher in children and young people. A 2021 study by medical journal The Lancet found that across 10 different countries, 84% of children and young adults ages 16 to 25 are at least moderately worried about climate change and 59% are very or extremely worried.

While anxiety is a natural reaction to a physical threat, it amplifies the sense that the magnitude and complexity of the warming climate is an impossibly high mountain to climb, leading many to helplessness rather than spurring action.

Lin said that when she experienced climate anxiety in the arctic a decade ago, she didn鈥檛 have the resources to work through her fears or shift her perspective on the work she was doing. Instead, the days of evidence and isolation caused her to become depressed, and she ended up leaving the research team after her first field study. 

鈥淲hen you’re faced with the reality of climate change, a bunch of different emotions come up to make you feel all kinds of things about not wanting to do it, like, 鈥業 never want to touch this again because it’s so scary and overwhelming,鈥欌�� Lin said. 鈥淎nd that’s what comes across as climate inaction. People are just denying it or delaying it because it’s so hard to process.鈥�

From the Arctic to Avon

Over the next decade, Lin pivoted to working first as a professional photographer and then as a linguistics professor at a university in Japan. It was when she started career counseling with students at the university that she rediscovered a path to climate action that resonated with her. 

Someone told her that they wanted a job that did something to help the climate crisis, but they didn鈥檛 have the right qualifications to be in the environmental field. That is when she created Green Growth Coaching, a career counseling service focused specifically on helping people build careers that have a positive impact on sustainability.

鈥淓cology left me in a state of inaction for almost 10 years, but I have never felt more empowered towards my activism thanks to coaching,鈥� Lin said. 鈥淧eople recognize that it’s not just a scientist鈥檚 job anymore. In order to change society, we need every job in the society to also shift 鈥� every job is a climate job, if you think about it, and that means everybody who wants to contribute can do it. That is the overarching message that I carry with me in my work.鈥�

When she moved to Avon from Japan last year with her husband, who is originally from Colorado, she sought more opportunities to spread this message. The sustainability coordinator position gave her the opportunity to combine her work as educator, coach and scientist to help guide a whole town along the path to action and engagement, and to help others move from delay and denial to action.

Lin has since contributed to a book called 鈥淐limate Change Coaching: The power of connection to create climate action鈥� and is now coming up with ways to bring positive psychology practices into a town-wide education campaign that can help people become 鈥渦nstuck鈥� in their own climate action goals.

鈥淭he main thing I was really stuck on is that I didn’t believe I was powerful,鈥� Lin said. 鈥淚 want those types of prompts and thinking to be just in the general people’s knowledge and awareness, to say 鈥業f I’m finding myself being stuck, I don’t know something, why am I not trying to find out more about it?鈥� Then they can do some of these things that we are providing to help them get out of that.鈥�

One of Lin鈥檚 big projects in the upcoming year is to implement Avon鈥檚 new universal recycling ordinance, which goes into effect in November 2023. Information and education will be the most important pillars of this initiative, and she encourages people to be active in their engagement with the program and to voice their reservations so that she can help everyone move forward on the initiative together.

As for her personal journey, Lin said she has never felt so empowered in the climate fight as she does in her current role, and looks forward to helping others reach a similar state of mind. 

鈥淚 feel unstoppable right now about my climate work,鈥� Lin said. 鈥淚’m looking at all this bad news, and I’m looking at my huge to-do list and the fact that the climate crisis is not resolved 鈥� I can look at all this stuff right now and not feel like I want to run away 鈥� if someone else who’s in that sort of sad state about the world comes to talk to me, I’m not going to be affected by their mood, and in fact I can help bring them out of that. It鈥檚 pretty amazing.鈥�