What is eco-anxiety and how can we overcome it?

WILDFIRES, floods, droughts – over the past few years, more and more extreme weather events and natural disasters have been attributed to climate change. And things are only predicted to get worse.

Given this apocalyptic outlook, it is hardly surprising that some people feel overwhelmed by anxiety about our prospective future. But how widespread is this eco-anxiety, and what can we do to overcome it?

There is no formal definition of eco-anxiety, also sometimes called climate anxiety. The Climate Psychology Alliance – a collection of therapists and researchers interested in the psychological impact of the climate crisis – describes it as “heightened emotional, mental or somatic [bodily] distress in response to dangerous changes in the climate system”.

It is the anxiety that keeps on giving. “With ordinary anxiety, the expectation is that with some form of intervention, some form of support, you will recover,” says Caroline Hickman, an eco-anxiety specialist at the University of Bath, UK. “But the thing about eco-anxiety is that it is unresolvable, because the eco-crisis is not being resolved.”

Increase in eco-anxiety

The label “anxiety” is overly narrow, says Hickman. “We use it as an umbrella term to describe a range of emotional responses to environmental breakdown, which includes fear, grief, rage, despair, sadness and hopelessness.” For that reason, some have tried to rebrand it as “eco-distress”, but even that seems inadequate, says Hickman. “I think we should call it ‘climate terror’ or ‘climate oh-my-fucking-god’.”

Recent research suggests that…