NEW YORK — Anxiety, grief, anger, fear, helplessness. The emotional toll of climate change is broad-ranging, especially for young people.
Many worry about what the future holds, and a daily grind of climate anxiety and distress can lead to sleeplessness, an inability to focus and worse. Some young people wonder whether it’s moral to bring children into the world. Many people grieve for the natural world.
Activists, climate psychologists and others in the fight against climate change have a range of ways to build resilience and help manage emotions. Some ideas:
Feeling isolated? Find ways to connect with like-minded people and help nature, said climate psychologist Laura Robinson in Ann Arbor, Michigan. There are many ways to get involved.
Work locally to convince more residents to give up grass lawns and increase biodiversity with native plants, for instance. Help establish new green spaces, join projects to protect water, develop wildlife corridors, or decrease pesticide use to save frogs, insects and birds. Work to get the word out on turning down nighttime lighting to help birds and lightning bugs.
“I see people struggling with these emotions across the age range,” said Robinson. “I have parents who are themselves really struggling with their own feelings and really worried about their children in the future.”
Climate news and the onslaught of disaster and mayhem in general has become heavy and overwhelming for many with the rise of social media and mobile phone use. Try scheduling breaks from notifications on your phone or stepping back from the news cycle in other ways.
Consider the idea of a “positivity sandwich,” where you begin with a good piece of news, followed by a harder tidbit, then finish with a second feel-good story.
Phoebe Yu, 39, gave up a cushy job in health technology to work on an MBA with a focus on sustainability. She started a business selling sponges made from the luffa gourd. And she does it all while raising her 6-year-old son with her husband in Fremont, California.
“I am generally a very happy person and I’m very optimistic. And I’m still that, but sometimes it becomes very difficult to manage. Like, what will happen and thinking about the long term,” she said. “At points, I’ve regretted bringing a child into this world, knowing how things could get much, much worse.”
Part of managing her own emotions is trying to model sustainable behaviors for her son while educating him on the importance of helping the environment. The family drives an electric vehicle. They don’t eat meat and have encouraged extended family to do the same. They recycle, compost and limit travel by air.
“I try to explain things to my son so he can at least have some understanding of how the world and the ecosystem works as a whole,” Yu said. “I do think kids are able to absorb that and turn that into some level of action.”
Britnee Reid teaches middle school science for Gaston Virtual Academy, a K-12 virtual public school based in Gastonia, North Carolina.
Reid participated in a pilot project for a free teacher tool kit on climate put together by the National Environmental Education Foundation and the Climate Mental Health Network, a collective of community advocates working on the emotional impacts of climate change.
The kit is full of ways to help teachers support students’ mental health and manage their own climate-related emotions. One of the exercises involves students documenting their interactions with the natural world in an environmental timeline. Laying it all out often stirs action, Reid said.
“They can be anxious, they can be angry, they can feel fearful, but they’re like these go-getters of, ‘I’m going to make the change in this world.’ There’s kind of two truths at once where they feel scared but they also feel like, you know, I can do something about this,” she said.
“The timelines,” Reid said, “provided some good, rich conversations.”
Psychotherapist Patricia Hasbach, just outside of Eugene, Oregon, has written several books on eco-psychology and eco-therapy and has taught graduate students on those topics.
“We incorporate nature into the healing process,” she said. “And we address a person’s relationship with the natural world. Certainly with climate change, eco-therapy has a huge role to play.”
One of her most important missions is helping people find their words to talk about climate change in pursuit of resilience.
“There have been some studies done that show an increased number of young people reporting concern, like 84% of young people in the U.S. reporting concern about climate change, but only like 59% of them think that other people are as concerned as they are,” Hasbach said.
That, she said, contributes to inaction and feelings of anxiety, depression or isolation.
Climate scientist Kate Marvel, a physicist and author of the new book “Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About our Changing Planet,” urges people to think differently about their place in preserving the environment.
“A lot of times, the anxiety and the hopelessness comes from a feeling of powerlessness. And I don’t think any of us is powerless,” she said.
“I think collectively, we’re incredibly powerful,” Marvel said. “The atmosphere cares about what all of us together are doing, and I think you can have much more impact if you think of yourself as part of the collective.”
