Solastalgia

Naming the Grief of Living Through Environmental Losses

Ever felt grief for a place while still living in it? The fire-scorched hills you once hiked. The shoreline where your children played, now swallowed by the tide. The reef you dove on, now bleached and barren. That experience has a name: solastalgia.

Fires burning through Lahaina Town, Maui Island, Hawaii, in August of 2023.

What is Solastalgia?

The term was coined in 2003 by Australian environmental philosopher Glenn Albrecht. It blends solace + desolation + nostalgia to capture a specific kind of pain: the distress caused by environmental change happening right where you live.

Unlike nostalgia, where longing is directed backward toward a lost past, solastalgia is heartbreak in the present. You’re not homesick for a place left behind. You’re homesick while still at home, as the place you love changes before your eyes.

The Origins of the Term

Albrecht first developed the concept while studying rural Australian communities whose homes were transformed by coal mining. Though people remained physically in place, they experienced profound emotional displacement. The land was technically still there, but the meaning, beauty, and sense of belonging were erased.

His 2007 paper in Australasian Psychiatry framed solastalgia as a mental health response to environmental degradation. A way to name what so many were already feeling but had no words for.

Solastalgia in a Changing World

What was once a neologism has become a vital lens for understanding today’s crises:

• Wildfires in Lahaina, California, and Australia that erase towns and habitats.

• Floods that ravage communities in Texas, Pakistan, and beyond.

• Rising seas swallowing the shores of Tuvalu and Miami alike.

• Hurricanes reshaping the Gulf Coast again and again.

• Resource extraction hollowing out the lands of Appalachia or the boreal forests.

These are not abstract losses. They are deeply personal wounds. Disasters once considered “once-in-a-lifetime” now arrive like unwelcome seasons—grief, on repeat.

Beyond Sadness: The Texture of Solastalgia

Solastalgia is more than sorrow. It encompasses:

• 🧠 Loss of control over one’s environment

• 🌿 Grief for ecosystems that once flourished

• ⚠️ Climate anxiety about what comes next

• 😔 Powerlessness in the face of destruction

It is intensely individual, yet shared across the globe. Farmers, fishers, Indigenous leaders, urban residents: all grapple with solastalgia when place-based ties are fractured.

In the Arctic, Inuit leaders describe solastalgia as sea ice vanishes. In Australia, fire survivors mourn altered homelands. In coastal towns everywhere, each flooding tide carries memories out to sea.

Naming Grief, Validating Experience

Solastalgia isn’t weakness. It’s a rational response to real loss. Dr. Ashlee Cunsolo and colleagues have framed it as “ecological grief,” an honest accounting of what it means to love and lose places central to identity and belonging.

Naming the hurt matters. Solastalgia has become not just academic jargon but a tool in mental health research, legal testimony, and climate policy debates. Language validates experience. It makes private anguish public and political.

Why Solastalgia Matters for Ocean Conservation

So what does this have to do with Ocean Hoptimism? Everything.

Solastalgia reminds us that place, identity, and emotion are inseparable. Ocean conservation isn’t about abstract “resources.” It’s about the beaches where families gather, the bays where fishers work, the reefs where communities root their culture.

It also explains why “just move” is no solution. Home is not interchangeable real estate. Home is meaning, memory, and identity. Loss without leaving is still displacement.

That’s why Ocean Hoptimism insists on telling stories of recovery and resilience, so people see that beloved places can remain livable and lovable. We can’t erase solastalgia, but we can respond to it with solidarity, action, and care.

Grief and Hope Are Not Opposites

Here lies the paradox and the promise. Solastalgia and ocean optimism are not at odds. Grief shows that we cared. Hope shows that we still do.

By naming solastalgia, we legitimize the emotional costs of environmental loss. By practicing resilient optimism, we remind ourselves that caring can be fuel for action.

Together, grief and hope can weave people back into the places they love. That’s the bridge we’re building: from solastalgia’s ache to the joyful, stubborn work of keeping our coasts and oceans home.

From Solastalgia to Action: What We Can Do

Solastalgia can feel overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to leave us stuck. If grief shows that we cared, action shows that we still do. Here are ways individuals and communities can move through solastalgia toward hopeful action:

1. Name It, Share It

   Talk openly about solastalgia. Put language to the loss. Share stories with neighbors, family, or community groups. Naming grief helps normalize it and reduces isolation.

2. Reclaim Connection

   Spend time in the places you love, even if they’re changing. Walk the shoreline, watch the tides, plant trees, or dive reefs. Continued presence affirms belonging and strengthens bonds.

3. Create Collective Rituals

   Ceremonies, beach cleanups, memorial plantings, or community art can honor what’s been lost while affirming commitment to protect what remains.

4. Transform Grief Into Advocacy

   Channel solastalgia into civic action: write to representatives, vote for coastal protection, support Indigenous land rights, or join campaigns against destructive extraction.

5. Build Micro-Actions Into Daily Life

   Reduce single-use plastics, eat lower on the food chain, support local conservation groups. Small actions build agency and resilience, especially when done together.

6. Push for Structural Change

   Advocate for policies that make sustainable choices easier: public transit to coastal areas, equitable access to green spaces, and funding for restoration. Solastalgia won’t lift without systems that enable hope.

Ocean Hoptimism's Role

At Ocean Hoptimism, we see solastalgia not as a dead end but as a starting point. Our mission is to bridge hope to action: to connect people’s grief for beloved places with pathways to protect and restore them.

Every event, every story, every gathering is designed to help people:

• Recognize their feelings as valid.

• Reconnect with community.

• Take small but meaningful steps toward action.

• See that they are not alone in the work or the hope.

Because grief and hope belong together. They remind us that we loved, we care, and we still have work to do.