When I was growing up in the '90s in Johnson County, Kansas, in the suburbs of Kansas City, I had a friend named Kevin Aaron who was a dedicated environmentalist.
To strangers, Kevin appeared to be a laid-back punk rock music fan with a dry and slightly mischievous sense of humor, but those of us who knew him best saw his passion for sustainability blossom during high school.
In his barbeque-obsessed hometown, he became the rare vegetarian, driven by the impact of large-scale meat production on the environment. He eagerly researched and then adopted other individual practices 鈥� like driving a hybrid car 鈥� that he thought might reduce carbon emissions, if only by tiny measures.
What I loved about Kevin was that he believed in the better angels of our nature. Instead of trying to shout down perceived enemies, he tried to convince everyone to be part of the solution to climate change.
In the early 2000s, Kevin was living in the Bay Area and preparing for a career in climate advocacy. He was enrolled in a Master's program in City and Regional Planning at UC Berkley while concurrently studying for a law degree at UC Hastings College of the Law.
But during his graduate studies, he became overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness about the climate. He died by suicide in 2003, at the age of 27.
Kevin's loss remains a shock for me, and the others who cared about him 鈥� especially his mother, Sami Aaron.
As wildfires, floods and other climate disasters unfolded this summer, I found myself thinking about Kevin and his struggles, and wondering what he might have thought about the state of the world today.
Although I hadn't seen his mother, Sami Aaron, in years, I heard through friends that she had become increasingly involved in environmental advocacy. So I called her up, and she invited me for a walk through a native wildflower sanctuary in Olathe, Kansas, called. It's a former Superfund site that a coalition of naturalists and environmentalists helped convert into a flower-filled sanctuary, a home to bees and butterflies.
Sami Aaron often turns to nature for refuge, and she deliberately picked this spot for us to talk about her son. She says that the more deeply Kevin became involved in environmental activism, the more his thinking about the future turned pessimistic 鈥� his mind and mood overtaken by despairing thoughts, like an invasive species.
"There was one little seed that was planted where he couldn't then quit thinking about it," she says.
It was a feeling of doubt that his efforts 鈥� that all the combined environmental struggles 鈥� just wouldn't be enough. It added to the depression he was already struggling with.
"So that seed sprouted a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. And at some point, there was this whole forest of eucalyptus trees in his metaphoric mind 鈥� that it just wasn't going to make a difference."
After Kevin died, Aaron found some solace in yoga and meditation, but continued to see her grief as a private struggle. Until a few years ago, when she met some environmentalists in the Flint Hills of Kansas who also struggled with mental health issues.
Aaron wanted to teach these advocates the coping strategies she had learned following her son's death, so she created the Kansas City-based nonprofit called
The organization's website that Kevin's death occurred "when eco-anxiety (fear about the ecology of the planet) and solastalgia (grief over loss of beloved places in nature) combined with his own inner demons and he took his own life."
The Resilient Activist offers mental health support and classes, community-building programs, consulting, and other psychological resources for the environmental community.
"We need activists who have the resilience to see us through these difficult times," Aaron says. "That's what I wanted to give. It's like, what would have helped him and others like him."
Environmental worries can motivate, but can also overwhelm
Today's climate activists are driven by environmental worries that are increasingly more urgent, and which feel more personal.
Recent polling shows that more than half of adults in the US are. And nearly 40% of Americans in their teens to mid-twenties say.
In eastern Kansas, the college town of Lawrence is a liberal enclave where environmental activism has a strong following, and on August 31st, dozens of protestors gathered before the start of a city meeting, chanting slogans and carrying signs: "Time Is Running Out!"
As the evening rush hour traffic roared past, these activists demanded Lawrence leaders follow through on their sustainability pledges.
Many of the protestors are University of Kansas students, like undergraduate Marc Veloz. He moved here from Texas , where he became concerned about how flooding was disproportionately affecting communities of color in Dallas. He says taking part in local activism helps get him through what he calls "dark days."
"There are those days that I just have to lean on the little wins we've had to keep me going," Veloz says. "Because I know that being in that space of despair and anger and sadness, it isn't sustainable."
Another student, Kai Hamilton, grew up in the Kansas farming town of Hesston. She recalls that even though her neighbors suffered droughts year after year, the words "climate change" were never said out loud.
"I have vivid memories of being alone in my room in high school and just being so overwhelmed and deeply sad about my lack of control over it and also the lack of action in the world," Hamilton said.
Another protestor, Agustina Carvallo Vazquez, came to KU from Paraguay, where she witnessed destructive and exploitative agricultural practices. She planned to study economics and music, but started focusing on environmental activism after she became frustrated by the inaction she found in the United States.
"So we come here thinking, 'OK these are the people who are actually doing something,'" she says. "'These are the people who are going to make the change.'"
"And once I came here, I realized, 'OK, that's not the reality at all. These people have the power. These people have the resources, and these people have the knowledge, but they are not doing anything about it.' So the anger multiples itself."