Tori Tsui: It's Not Just You

The term ‘eco-anxiety’ has been popularised as a way to talk about the negative impact of the climate emergency on our wellbeing. In It’s Not Just You, activist Tori Tsui reframes eco-anxiety as the urgent mental health crisis it clearly is.

Drawing on the wisdom of environmental advocates from around the globe, Tori looks to those on the frontlines of eco-activism to demonstrate that the current climate-related mental health struggle goes beyond the climate itself. Instead, it is a struggle that encompasses many injustices and is deeply entrenched in systems such as racism, sexism, ableism and, above all, capitalism.

Because of this, climate injustice disproportionately affects most marginalised communities, who are often excluded from narratives on mental health. Tori argues that we can only begin to tackle both the climate and mental health crisis by diversifying our perspectives and prioritising community-led practices. In essence, reminding us that It’s Not Just You.

Tackling this increasingly urgent crisis requires looking both inwards and outwards, embracing individuality over individualism and championing climate justice. Only then can we start to build better futures for both people and the planet.

Tori Tsui is an intersectional climate activist and mental health advocate from Hong Kong but based in the UK. She was named one of Stella McCartney's agents of change her Fall/Winter 2019 campaign written by author and activist Jonathan Safran Foer and narrated by primatologist Dame Jane Goodall. Stella subsequently sponsored Tori to sail across the Atlantic Ocean to the UN climate conference, COP25. After working on this project, she lived in Colombia working with Latin American and Caribbean youth on a project called Sail For Climate Action, which aimed to amplify the voices of environmentalists from the global south. She has spoken at the International Hay Festival and Stella McCartney's roundtable at Paris Fashion week, COP26, Glasgow 2021. In Nov 2021, Tori was invited by actor Emma Watson to speak at The New York Times Climate Hub, alongside youth climate leaders such as Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai (Malala Fund) to discuss the need for collective, coalition-led leadership to accomplish intersectional thinking that the climate challenge requires. She runs a collective called Bad Activist which aims to shed the guise of perfection in climate activism. It's Not Just You is Tori's first book.