CLIMATE CHANGE
Anxiety
Zoe, age 16, shudders a bit when she describes to me that day last year, when, checking Facebook, she saw a headline in her newsfeed that sent chills down her spine: “We Have 12 Years to Limit Climate Change Catastrophe.”
Ben has adopted a different strategy from Zoe to help him deal with his climate anxiety: “I just try not to think about it.” But then he adds, shrugging again, “that seems like a bit of a copout, I know.”
“I thought maybe it was clickbait,” she said, “but I started reading it and it referenced all these scientists. There were links to other articles. And they all said the same thing. Basically, we’ve made a mess of the planet, and the time to fix it in any meaningful way is running out.”
Ben’s response isn’t unusual, either. When we feel like we don’t have control over a situation that disturbs us, we tend to feel really anxious. But not everyone becomes obsessive and full of worries when anxious. Many of us will shut down, and avoid thinking about the things causing anxiety, or even try to rationalise the information we’re hearing.
Zoe tells me that in the following weeks she had trouble sleeping and wasn’t able to focus on her schoolwork. She was angry at her parents, for not being as upset as she thought they should be - “my dad just bought an SUV last summer! He’s part of the problem - we all are! And nobody seems to care.” Zoe couldn’t stop thinking about the suffering planet. “Every day a new worry would come up for me. Like one day, I found myself wondering if I still wanted to have kids one day. I mean, is there even a point?”
The truth is, worrying and constant despair aren’t productive, and neither is avoidance. So what can youth who are feeling anxious about the state of the planet to do with their unsettled feelings?
Zoe is part of a growing population of young people who are emotionally affected by global warming. Reports show that more and more children and youth are experiencing high levels of worry and feelings of helplessness over the dire state of the planet, a term unofficially referred to as “climate anxiety.” The Amercian Psychological Association released a report in 2017 suggesting that worrying about climate change is having an effect on our mental health, making us more depressed and anxious. “I feel like because of my age, I’m helpless,” 14 year old Ben says with a shrug. “It’s not that I don’t care, because I do. But I can’t vote, I can’t change the decisions that leaders across the world are making. I can’t even grocery shop!”
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