Climate Anxiety: Our Internal Fuel to Climate Activism
Fall is my favorite season. The scents of pumpkin and nutmeg make their autumnal appearance, and the trees turn into kaleidoscopes of reds, oranges and yellows. With summer as hot and disappointing as it was, I have been impatiently awaiting the arrival of the end of 2020.
While walking through campus with a friend three weeks ago, I noticed my outfit — mom jeans and a cotton t-shirt — may not have been the best choice for what turned out to be an annoyingly warm evening. Autumn weather is supposed to be below 70 degrees with soft breezes and crisp air, yet I stood in stagnant, humid, 90-degree air.
While I continuously complained about the unseasonably warm weather, I was brutally reminded of the burning planet I have no choice but to inherit.
There is a comfort and a disappointment in knowing I am not the only one who feels a plethora of emotions, among them anxiety, grief and anger, when thinking about the climate crisis.
Charlie Mura, a studio art freshman at UT-Austin, said he feels we are living in a hopeless situation that only worsens while individuals are blamed for the actions of others.
“I’m just angry there’s nothing I can do as an individual to create change, and I’m frustrated I have to deal with this all,” Mura said.
Similarly, Isabella Gomez, a psychology freshman at UT-San Antonio, said her efforts to live more sustainably sometimes feel insignificant and ineffective.
“We can all be environmentally conscious, but ultimately, as individuals, we can’t necessarily do anything to stop big corporations,” Gomez said.
Among the youth, there is a great deal of hopelessness, anger and helplessness regarding climate change, according to a poll taken by the Kaiser Family and The Washington Post. We’re hopeless because we have little authority over others’ actions and the people in power. We’re enraged witnessing those who are apathetic or failed to act when they had the time and knowledge. We feel abandoned because when those responsible for this dying planet lie in the ground they exploited, we will bear the burden of fixing a problem we did not create.
Caroline Hickman, a professor at the University of Bath who serves on the executive committee for the Climate Psychology Alliance, said witnessing the consequences of our rapidly changing climate can bring rise to feelings of anxiety.
“As soon as you wake up to reality, you feel terrified,” Hickman said. “You’re facing the mass extinction of animals, plants, and fish, the degradation of the oceans, worsening air pollution, and the number of people who will die from all of that.”
Hickman said it is difficult to understand the true magnitude of the climate crisis, and when people make any attempt to wrap their heads around it, they get anxious. But these feelings, as overwhelming as they may be, are a valid response.
“Having an emotionally healthy response to a frightening external reality is a measure of mental health,” Hickman said. “I would worry about people who don’t have eco-anxiety at the moment.”
So, how do we deal with these feelings?
Hickman said people should look at climate anxiety through a wide lens. While treatment for clinical anxiety focuses on the individual, dealing with climate anxiety requires us to see the interconnectedness of our individual and communal interactions with the environment. Our anxieties come from not only our own existence and actions, but those of others. We can do our part to mitigate the climate crisis, but pivotal change happens when we come together as a community to act.
Hickman stressed the importance of building emotional intelligence. While feeling anything other than happiness and excitement is not ideal, experiencing emotions like anger and frustration are part of what it means to be human — those are the emotions that determine action.
“These feelings are essential,” Hickman said. “They fuel my activism. They inform my compassion, my empathy.”
Andrew Bryant, a clinical social worker and psychotherapist based in Seattle, Washington, said there are four steps to coping with the reality of what is happening to our planet.
The first step is to feel. In other words, accepting how we feel without trying to suppress our emotions will help us make decisions that reflect the thoughts inside our head.
The next step is to talk. This step allows us to verbalize our feelings and talk to others about our experiences.
Following this step is to unite, which encourages us to join people who are having similar experiences and feelings regarding the climate crisis.
The final step is to act. This step inspires us to create a plan of action aligning with who we are, what we feel and what we are capable of doing.
Together, these four steps create a path to accepting our emotions and establishing a concrete goal within a community.
Bryant created a website called Climate & Mind, a resource for understanding and finding support for climate change anxiety through books, articles, art, videos, podcasts and other resources. Climate anxiety is complicated, but with platforms such as Climate & Mind and Climate Psychology Alliance, coping with our emotions can become a bit more bearable.
I understand the difficulty of accepting our terrifying future. As bleak as it looks, hope exists. Though our individual actions do little to combat the greatest consequences of climate change, things seem less impossible together. Many of history’s greatest movements were started by people who came together. Rather than sitting back to watch the world crumble, we can make an effort to piece the world back together.
“We may go down a cliff, but we’ll go down fighting,” Hickman said. “Get up, get out there, and keep fighting, because it’s worth it.”
Art by Carissa Georgelos