Climate change = breathing crisis

Breathing is an activity so natural that it does not require our attention: it flows without us paying attention. However, in the world of climate change, breathing can’t be taken for granted. When thinking about wildfires or the high amounts of pollution in urban metropolises, climate change can be thought of as a “breathing crisis”, one that equally affects humans and all the other-than-human beings.

Breathing as a phenomenon connects the levels of body and mind. Critical researchers have brought these dimensions together with research on societal inequalities (e.g. Verlies and Neimanis, 2023). “I can’t breathe”, the phrase famous from the Black Lives Matter movement, concerns a concrete situation of violence, that is, racist police violence directed at a person called George Floyd. On the other hand, as Rousell and colleagues (2023) state, racism can be thought of as something we breathe daily in the society, as an atmosphere that permeates society like the weather.