Allison Su

“It’s important to realize that if we have this mindset that everything is doomed, that’s really counterproductive, because that contributes to the whole business-as-usual mindset. In order to be able to act on climate, you have to believe that there is a positive future on the other end.” 

Allison Su is a recent graduate of Barnard College who participated in a climate mental health panel during Climate Week and wrote her senior thesis on youth inclusion in urban climate resilience planning. 

Allison Su 

She/her 

Senior at Barnard College studying Sustainability and Psychology 

Morningside Heights 

Q&A

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How did you become involved in climate mental health, which deals with the emotional impacts of the climate crisis?

Climate mental health is something that I've been getting involved in more recently because I connected with the Climate Mental Health Network, which is an organization that focuses on promoting climate mental health and climate emotions in youth. The person who founded this organization is actually a Barnard alum, and she invited me to this panel during climate week where I spoke about my thesis research. My thesis is on youth inclusion in urban climate resilience planning, which was inspired when over the summer last year, I was part of the Barnard Summer Research Institute, and I was analyzing resilience plans from New York City. I noticed that my mentor talked a lot about long-term planning, and I was thinking about how youth should be involved in this planning process, because it will have such a large impact on future generations as well as current youth who will become adults in that future. So I wanted to involve high schoolers from the city in a workshop where they could plan for the future of the city, while considering potential climate impacts. 

Do you have any connections to or personal experience with mental health and the climate crisis? 

 One of the things that really inspired me over the past few years is an anthology of climate essays and poems, and this one particular essay called “Under the Weather” talks a lot about climate emotions and kind of this feeling of how things still go on like they always have been, or business as usual continues, despite the need for change in order to fully address the climate crisis. Some of my own emotions have been around feeling disillusioned or feeling like not enough is being done, which I'm sure a lot of people in the climate space can relate to. Something that I wanted to speak a lot on during the panel I was in was the importance of hope and avoiding a sense of climate doomism, which I think can be really hard, especially now after the election, and thinking about what that means for the future of climate work.

What originally drew you to the climate sphere? 

I grew up in the suburbs and had a giant backyard at home so I have always kind of been connected to nature and paying attention to environmental issues throughout elementary school, middle school, and high school. What really kind of made me want to study sustainability is in high school when the global youth climate protest was becoming very big – like Greta Thunberg and many other activists who were mobilizing around the world really inspired me to pursue sustainability because it's such a big issue that I couldn't really imagine doing anything else. 

What scares you most about the climate crisis? 

What scares me most is the Paris Agreement and COP and how all of the countries pledges to reduce emissions are falling behind. Also seeing a ton of climate impacts just in 2024, such as the wildfires in the Northeast right now, or the devastating hurricanes in the South. Thinking about how all these different environmental events will be happening before people are ready to address them, which is why resilience is also so important because it helps us to deal with these environmental disasters better and come out the other end stronger. Mitigation is so important to prevent even worse disasters and I don’t think it’s happening at the pace it needs to be happening, so I’m worried people will not be prepared.

What do you love about the work and research you're doing, and what do you find challenging?

I like thinking about how things can be different and be better, especially with how big cities can be more resilient to climate change. And in terms of challenges, I like doing things that feel actionable but I still don’t feel like I’m doing enough. A constant thing I contemplate is whether the actions I take will be impactful enough and if I should do something else that might make change happen on a larger scale, or faster. That internal struggle is something I need to take the time to reflect on, but I do realize that I am still doing important work. Because I'm always working on climate-related stuff, I don't often get bogged down by negative climate emotions because I turn climate anxiety into action.

What message do you have for people who don't know how to get started in addressing the climate crisis, and for sustaining hope?

Whatever you're good at doing, that can help combat the climate crisis. Any skill can be applied to climate. it's totally possible to work on climate without giving up things that are important to you because the climate is related to everything. Everything is related to climate, so there is space for anyone. We need a lot of people to help address the climate crisis.

Especially with your work on urban climate resilience, what role has living in New York City played? 

A lot of my research has been NYC-focused because there is a lot of climate resilience work being done in the NYC government, but also community-based organizations. That has been really eye-opening for me – thinking about the role of community and making sure that climate resilience plans are working for the people. For example, I also did research with the Resilient Coastal Communities Project with the Columbia Climate School last year and they do a lot of work with community organizations working on climate resilience. Involving communities is so important to making sure climate resilience addresses community needs and is effective. 

Who are your mentors and inspirations? 

My research mentor has been so helpful. Her name is Dr. Elizabeth Cook, and she’s a professor in the Environmental Science department at Barnard. Her research focuses on urban ecology and urban resilience, so I've been doing a lot of my resilience research under her. The Resilient Coastal Communities Project, which I just mentioned, is run by Paul Gallay and Dr. Jacqueline Klopp. Dr. Jacqueline Klopp is also my thesis advisor. Another person I want to bring up is my professor when I studied abroad, who taught Sustainable Development in Northern Europe. His name is Carlos and I really loved his class, honestly, it was life changing. He promoted a message of hope and pushing for a better climate future, which I found really inspiring. The last person I’ll mention is Greta Thunberg just because she was a big inspiration for me going full on sustainability in high school and has really helped propel youth climate activism.