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Dealing with Climate Anxiety

Climate anxiety is defined as anxiety associated with perceptions about climate change.¹ It can affect anyone who knows about climate change. However, what causes climate anxiety? The short and obvious answer is climate change; however, climate change does not impact everyone equally.

There are two primary effects of climate change in terms of how it impacts mental health: direct effects and indirect effects.² Direct effects are those brought on by occurrences in nature that are made worse by climate change—such as flooding—and have a direct impact on mental health (as well as safety, livelihood, trauma, and other impacts to those who have experienced a natural disaster). Those who are directly affected are most at risk of experiencing climate anxiety. More vulnerable populations, including children, individuals who are elderly or chronically ill, individuals affected by mental illness, individuals who are affected by mobility impairments, and individuals who care deeply about environmental issues, may feel more direct effects, whether they are at risk of climate-change events or not, and therefore identify with events quite strongly even if they aren't directly physically affected.^1,3

Indirect effects of climate change include the worries that people may have about climate change and its impacts on factors of everyday life, such as stressing about a potential future climate disaster or a disruption to one's environment that may negatively impact livelihood.¹ The internet is often a major influence on these indirect effects, since the vast majority of people in the world have access to the internet. In addition to reputable sources, they can be bombarded with a number of sensationalized news stories and misinformation about climate change.

People may feel they know a great deal about climate change and feel strongly about it, because they can easily access information on it without having to experience it head-on. While it serves as a valuable tool for sharing and accessing information, the internet is also a massive platform for sharing subjective experiences and opinions—meaning that the information you are taking in and attaching emotions to may not be factual. Oftentimes, those who are indirectly affected by climate change rely on their social and cultural environments to dictate whether they grasp the reality of it or not and to tell them how to feel about it.¹ While climate change poses an objectively real threat, be wary of opinions from those who haven't experienced it first-hand.

Now that the basics have been covered on how and why climate change can affect you, it's important to discuss how you can deal with it. One of the primary reasons that climate anxiety is so prevalent is because there is so much uncertainty.¹ This uncertainty, coupled with misinformation being so widespread, creates a difficult situation in terms of managing climate anxiety. While it is encouraged that individuals experiencing climate anxiety acknowledge and validate their emotions so they can appropriately manage their responses, it can be difficult to do so with so much social polarization on the issue. Feeling unable to express emotions about climate change with authenticity contributes to feelings of isolation, which can inhibit one's ability to cope with climate anxiety.¹

It's a big topic, just as climate change is a big problem. With climate anxiety becoming a popular topic of research, there will likely be many more suggestions in the near future concerning how individuals can manage their climate anxiety symptoms effectively. Some suggestions include individual counseling, support groups, and engaging in climate change activism efforts. This is not an exhaustive list, in part because the experience of climate anxiety varies so widely that there isn't an end-all, be-all solution, but also because tackling climate anxiety has a lot to do with tackling climate change itself—and that is a very tall order.

Individual efforts can help people to cope and manage the mental health symptoms of climate anxiety; this starts with validating the emotional responses of climate anxiety and finding a supportive network of individuals who acknowledge the reality of climate change.³ This helps people develop emotional coping strategies for an uncertain future.

Community and societal efforts, such as engaging in climate change activism, are aimed at the bigger picture (i.e. tackling the issue itself). Clayton, Silka, Trott, Chapman, and Mancoll (2016) suggest that community action is important to climate change efforts because the effects of climate change vary from location to location, and communities are better capable of assessing their unique needs at a local—rather than national or global—level.⁴ Consider the direct and indirect effects again; these are also related to the area that the people are in. What coping looks like in an area directly affected by climate change can be very different from how it looks in an area populated mostly by those indirectly affected—the environmental, social, and cultural climate can be particularly influential in these. For those looking for a more action-oriented method of managing climate anxiety, consider looking into the local community for efforts that are currently being made to address climate change.

Since experiences and perceptions are different for everyone, climate anxiety symptoms can manifest with varying severity. The severity of an individual's experience may impact the suggested method of managing their symptoms. While many researchers agree that individuals who are experiencing climate anxiety can improve their symptoms by actively participating in efforts to reduce climate change, this is not a one-size-fits-all scenario. For individuals who experience severe symptoms of climate anxiety (e.g. extreme distress and constant, excessive worry), it is suggested that distance from any source of information about the changing climate would be most beneficial.¹

There are many suggested methods to managing climate anxiety symptoms, but the right one for you depends on your own personal experience and needs. Climate anxiety is a natural response to a very real—and very uncertain—threat to your world. If you are experiencing climate anxiety, know that there are resources out there to help you; you are not alone.

References

1. Clayton, S. (2020). Climate anxiety: Psychological responses to climate change. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 74. doi: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2020.102263
2. Clayton, S., Silka, L., Trott, C., Chapman, D., & Mancoll, S. (2016). Building resilient communities in the face of climate change (pp. 1–10). Retrieved May 10, 2022, from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues: https://www.spssi.org
3. Dodds, J. (2021). The psychology of climate anxiety. BJPsych Bulletin, 45(4), 222–226. doi: 10.1192/bjb.2021.18
4. Panu, P. (2020). Anxiety and the ecological crisis: An analysis of eco-anxiety and climate anxiety. Sustainability, 12(19), 7836. doi: 10.3390/su12197836