Eco-Melancholy

To convey the exploration of my keyword, eco-melancholy, I’m choosing a community that doesn’t show up in surveys or institutional reports, but I know they’re out there and in quiet abundance. These are late-career professionals, like me, who’ve spent decades inside systems that promised impact and rewarded optimism, but never made space for grief. They’ve done the work: environmental activism, carbon reduction, endless pivots toward “solutions.” And now, they’re sitting with the reality that insight didn’t equal change. That the climate crisis isn’t just a problem to solve, but something to mourn.

This group isn’t tied together by job titles or sectors. What connects them is emotional clarity, ecological sorrow, and a kind of intellectual exhaustion. They’ve seen too much, hoped too hard, and now they want honesty. Not urgency. Not persuasion. Just recognition. That’s what I’m trying to offer with my work on eco-melancholy. It is not a rallying cry, but a mirror. A way to say - You’re not imagining it. You’re not alone.

Compared to an academic audience, this group doesn’t go looking for peer-reviewed journals or public symposiums. They’ve lived through too many cycles of deferred action to trust those formats. They read emotionally. They interpret data through experience. And they’re skeptical because they’ve seen the same promises repeated for decades. They don’t need another plan, just emotional truth. Something that doesn’t try to fix them or convince them. Just sees them.

Academic scholarship often assumes it has to engage the public by offering solutions or sparking debate. But I think there’s another way. Scholarship can just acknowledge someone. It can just say “I see you.” That’s what I’m trying to do. Not make an impact. Just resonate with people like me.

I’m leveraging an ArcGIS StoryMap because my audience isn’t looking to be dazzled. They’re not here for spectacle or persuasion. They’re tired - emotionally tuned-in but mentally worn out from years of being told to stay hopeful while grief got pushed aside. These are people who’ve spent careers being rewarded for resilience, not honesty. So I am using a format that doesn’t shout, doesn’t sell, and doesn’t fix. Just holds space. It let's them look at the images, reflect on the passages, process the data, and sit in quiet solitude while knowing. 

The ArcGIS StoryMap works because it’s quiet. It lets you move through things slowly, at your own pace. You get satellite images, maps, photos, bits of text, maybe some data, but none of it is trying to win you over. It’s just there. You can sit with it, or not. You can click through or stay on one image for ten minutes. It’s built for reflection, not reaction.

I’m using it to talk about eco-melancholy and not as a theory, but as something lived. The kind of grief that comes from watching landscapes disappear, knowing they won’t come back and why, and realizing there’s no real outlet for that feeling. The StoryMap will include places that have been clear-cut, dried up, or drowned. It’ll show the contrast between what used to be and what’s left. And it’ll pair that with language that doesn’t sugarcoat anything. No calls to action. No “we can still fix this.” It just says - This happened. It hurts. You’re not alone.

This format respects solitude. It doesn’t rush you. It doesn’t pretend things are okay. It’s not despairing, but it’s not hopeful either. It’s just honest. And that’s what my audience of late-career professionals needs. As Carolyn Miller says, genre is where intention meets effect—and my intention is to give people a place to grieve without being told to cheer up. StoryMap lets me do that. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best tool I’ve found to hold complexity without flattening it.

Public Facing Statement

What does it mean to grieve a forest or to mourn the loss of salmon? This project explores the emotional dimensions of ecological loss through a journey across five North American landscapes marked by environmental degradation and climate vulnerability. From the Douglas Fir canopies in Washington’s Mount Baker - Snoqualmie National Forest to the vast, fire-scarred Canadian Boreal, each location is chosen not only for its ecological significance but for its emotional resonance. These are places where environmental change is not abstract, but visceral and it is felt in the soil, the water, and the stories of those who remain connected to the land.

At the heart of this work is the concept of eco-melancholy - a sustained, reflective sorrow in response to environmental decline. Unlike eco-anxiety or eco-grief, which often seek resolution or action, eco-melancholy invites us to dwell in the ache of loss. It is not a condition to be solved, but a way of being in a world that is always changing. This project traces how environmental degradation reverberates across generations and identities, and how emotional engagement can deepen public understanding of ecological crises. 

This project speaks to late-career individuals reckoning with legacy, stewardship, and the limits of change. Through an ArcGIS StoryMap blending personal reflection, geospatial data, jarring images and evocative storytelling, it offers space for grief and introspection. The multimodal format invites quiet engagement with environmental degradation and the sorrow it leaves behind.