The Psychological Impacts of Living in a Time of Environmental Crisis
February 25, 2020, 6 – 7:30 p.m., Ward 6 Council Office
Climate Tucson welcomes Sabrina V. Helm, professor with the UA’s Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences, and a leading voice in the emerging and necessary conversation on the psychological impacts of climate change.
From fires raging in Australia to glaciers collapsing in Antarctica, the news can be numbing. The question is, how are we, as individuals, adapting to a planet in crisis? How does the knowledge of the crisis make us feel: stressed and depressed — or anxious but energized to act on solutions?
Helm will provide insight into her research on the factors that create climate-related anxiety and depression — and explain how stress can also lead to pro-environmental behavior. She will also speak to the impact climate change is having on our buying habits, consumerism in general and our daily choices to live sustainably.
“Climate change is a persistent global stressor,” said Helm, adding that the impact on individuals “needs to be taken very seriously.”
Biography
An associate professor at the Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences, Sabrina V. Helm’s areas of expertise include marketing and climate change, climate change and overconsumption, sustainable consumption and the psychological effects of climate change
Her academic background is traditional marketing, but when she arrived in Arizona in 2008 from her native Germany, Helm began working in the area of sustainability and consumer behavior. “This research interest is now the primary focus of my work,” she writes. “I believe this is a relevant and very worthwhile research endeavor because we live in a time and age where consumers and corporations need to take charge and cannot wait for government to change the way we live and consume. If we do not radically change our consumption patterns, life as we know it will likely cease to exist: what a drastic statement, and what a fantastic challenge for research!”
Website: cals.arizona.edu/fcs/faculty/sabrina_helm
February 25, 2020
6 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Ward 6 Council Office, 3202 E. 1st Street. (Off Country Club one block south of Speedway. Turn left on 1st.)
Please RSVP at: Meetings@climatetucson.com