This is echoed in the words of psychologists from the group Climate Psychologists, who note:
“As psychologists, we are noting the rise in the presentation of eco, or climate anxiety. It can be a crippling worry that can manifest in the forms of difficulty in concentrating, difficulty in being present, panic attacks, depression, low mood, burnout. This can leave us feeling overwhelmed, detached, hopeless, grieving, angry and paralysed, all of which are emotions that inhibit us from taking necessary action to mobilise against the climate crisis.”
Psychologists also make the important distinction between anxiety and eco-anxiety; that eco-anxiety is not a clinical disorder. In an interview for Vice, psychologist Rafael Dupré clarified that while anxiety is often formed around an unlikely or irrational fear or danger, eco-anxiety “is based on a danger that is very real, it exists and is proven to be a threat to human life.” In this way, one psychologist argues that “for most people, eco-anxiety is a healthy response to the climate crisis.”
Navigating eco-anxiety among youth
According to research, unsurprisingly youth are experiencing high levels of eco-anxiety. A 2019 study found that 57% of US teenagers responded that climate change made them feel scared.
Indeed, it is youth that stand to be some of the most impacted by the climate crisis. As they learn about the crisis and how small the window is for radical action, it is their futures that are the most at threat by governments’ climate inaction. For many young people climate change feels like the end of the world. We see this in the messaging and posters of the youth climate strike movement- part of the rationale for striking from school is why get an education for a future that won’t exist.
I remember experiencing this kind of deep anxiety and paralysis when I was first learning about the impacts of climate change in great detail during my undergrad degree. There was so much cognitive dissonance between the messages I was hearing that everything needs to change, and that people are already suffering because of this crisis, but then seeing and experiencing everything seemingly staying the same. And for young people today, they are having to navigate and contend with the challenge of growing up and trying to build their lives and futures under the great uncertainty that the climate crisis means for that future.