Doom and Bloom: The Growing Millennial Obsession with Houseplants
Young adults are turning into plant parents as a manifestation of deep mourning over the planet they are inheriting
The droughts were so bad that Western Australia’s vast Wheatbelt region was blowing away. This wasn’t a fluke; it was the new norm. By 2014, the area’s winter rainfall had declined 20% since the 1960s. Dry periods had grown increasingly severe — the winds, unrelenting and erosive.
Neville Ellis, a local environmental psychology researcher, set out to gauge the changing climate’s impact on regional farmers, criss-crossing withered croplands with parched terrain billowing underfoot. As expected, he found landowners experiencing total financial panic. He also encountered a far deeper sorrow. Separate from the hardship of economic losses, farmers were reporting similar patterns of what could only be described as ecological mourning: intense sadness and a lost sense of place in their ruined surroundings. A deterioration of personal identity, and a shattered illusion of safety.
Multiple subjects told Ellis that the climate upheaval in their midst felt “worse than the death of a family member.” Another said it “almost physically hurts.”
