It is worth making a personal symptom check when more and more people wake up at night and catch themselves experiencing massive semblance of depression, anxiety, PTSD, stress, insomnia, lower self-rated mental health, and reluctance to have children, because of climate doom. A ’fear for the future’ literature review might shed some light on all of this.
The existential threats posed by the irreversible effects of climate change on the survival of species, including but not limited to humans, triggers a myriad of emotions which stretch between depression and anger. This post aims to focus on a novel phenomenon, documented globally as a peculiar set of symptoms in the realm of anxiety.
Albeit not catalogued as a medical disorder per se, consensus is emerging around a rampant form of anxiety: ’eco-anxiety’, a complex response to climate related fears, with social, psychological and emotional implications, that amount to functional impairment in performing basic day to day tasks.
Conceptual fuzziness aside, eco-anxiety is even more paralysing than eco-depression, presenting as the least adaptive response for mental health. The pervasive experiences of dread, grief, worry and despair that ensue from it exist at the opposite end of resilience and empowerment.
’The future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed’ (William Gibson)
The most counterintuitive aspect is that eco-anxiety manifests not only as a direct effect, experienced by victims of catastrophic weather events, but mostly indirectly, experienced globally in relation to imminent threats of harm to our heating future, and life on Earth regardless of where we live.
An EU group working on policy challenges from eco-anxiety quotes an extremely worrisome global trend pinpointing at young people as the key category who suffers disproportionately, with fear, sadness, anger, and pessimistic worldviews about Earth’s future, starting from late childhood.
Their findings point out a need to complement the dominant medical lens in response to this phenomenon with a ’social identity model of pro-environmental action’ (SIMPEA), to match the scale of the challenge with a social perspective, bridging the gap from individuals to collectives.
To that end, they also advise enabling a sense of agency by preserving the environment as much as the wellbeing of students, encouraging them to voice their concerns even when challenging the status quo, and fostering a community of promise, around realistic hope towards solutions.
Eco-anxiety as ’fear for the future’
’Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever did’. For social sciences enthusiasts, Margaret Mead’s words not only rang true, but functioned as a mobilisation catalyst in an age marked by ‘the tragedy of the commons’.
Before the cumulative pressures from multiple overstepped planetary boundaries skewed the needed emissions reductions curves into missed deadlines, the mantra of following the privileged few in their efforts to act on knowledge that eluded present consequences seemed to pay off. It pertained to universal truths one could only address in present tense, to capture its permanence! Like water boils at one hundred degrees. However, is this still the case? When a future of extreme weather events infringes increasingly on the present, climate change becomes everyone’s business.
When our shared roof is on fire despite science having predicted it for decades and decision-makers not rising to the challenge for about as long, waiting for further instructions from elites seems ludicrous. And yet solving a collective crisis also eludes individual one (wo)men saviors’ talk.
The underpinning emotions behind pro and antisocial behaviour
Hardly any solution-oriented organization is shouting ’follow the leader’ these days. Instead, the Zeitgeist revolves around finding one’s place, building boundaries, working through coping mechanisms, and remaining resilient in an age of mass movements driving us from what if to what next.
Since the same organizations have been around for as long as the issues themselves and struggled to deliver change at scale amid apocalyptic cries, they seem to have lost appeal under sustained pressure from opportunistic traders of redemption promises across the political spectrum.
And yet, one’s impact only increases when it elicits opportunity, affiliation (happiness, contentment, and hope), appreciation and self-transcendence (gratitude, compassion, awe, and elevation), as emotional underpinnings of prosocial behaviors are proven to foster both resilience and empowerment.
That holds true even when emotional underpinnings of antisocial behavior, such as distress and supplication (sadness, disappointment, fear, and anxiety), dominance and status assertion (anger, disgust, contempt, envy, and pride) are still overstimulated, despite having proven their limits.
Looking forward
To increase the odds of overcoming individual eco-anxiety, everyone may start with finding their personal best in the collective climate action puzzle.
For anyone looking into reliably curated and science-endorsed starting points, Project Drawdown put together a solutions library spanning across ‘currently available, growing in scale, financially viable, able to have a positive impact and quantifiable under the different scenarios’.
In a nutshell, while pro-environmental behavior and climate activism restore the paralysed sense of agency, it is paramount to start with picking those pieces of the puzzle that speak to one’s own strengths, to avoid further straining personal wellbeing by conjuring unrealistic action paths.
Yes, Planet Earth is depleted beyond full repair, yet individual skill sets must inform collective strategies. Our future is rigged, yet to succeed in mitigating the irreversible, we must harness our differences for the better, stay true to ourselves, be sane, and stop pouring from an empty cup.
It is important to practice boundaries to fuel personal resilience without letting any bully put a person into guilt for it. It takes global training and dedication the size of a Guinness Book marathon to walk any saving-the-world-talk.
