Dwelling in the Dark in a Time of Climate Despair

This essay treats the growing phenomenon of climate-related despair. It examines the emotional landscape of climate anxiety, grief, guilt, and paralysis as reported by both scholars and practitioners, and suggests that the Christian apophatic tradition can help us understand and process such strong climate-related emotions. Drawing on the work of Constance FitzGerald, Jonathan Lear, and certain Christian mystics, it likens climate despair to the experience of the via negativa , considering the “dark night of the planet” as potentially a site of creative possibilities we are not yet able to imagine.