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Living in the days of climate change means we are living in the era of ecological grief. The emotional phenomenon has inspired funerals for glaciers in Iceland, Oregon, and Switzerland. Scientists have reported feeling shock and loss with each consecutive return to the Great Barrier Reef, as new expanses of coral bleach and desiccate. All across the mining country of Central Appalachia, where mountains have been halved and forests are felled to extract coal, the grief appears in the form of diagnosable mental-health conditions.
You would be less likely to see the term ecological grief applied to a flooded New York City subway station or a heat wave forcing Philadelphia public schools to close early or dangerously scorching playground asphalt in Los Angeles. And yet for most city dwellers, the way we…