Solastalgia

We do not simply know the natural world in which we live. We also feel it and engage with it intimately through sight, touch, sound and smell. We may note the significance of our sense relations with this world to understanding how climate-related loss (loss of landscape, species, stable weather patterns, traditional ways of life, etc.) elicits sadness, grief and symptoms of ‘solastalgia’. This chapter assesses research documenting how the Anthropocene provokes a wounding of the mind, as much of the body of the living subject and considers the significance of these conditions in triggering moments of resonance (Rosa (2019) Resonance: a sociology of our relationship to the world. Polity, Cambridge) when the emotional energies opened up by the adverse conditions of an overheating planet provoke a critical ‘thinking beyond’ (Adorno (2001) Metaphysics: concepts and problems (trans: Jephcott E F N). Stanford University Press, Stanford.) damaged life and a desire to create better possibilities.