Climate anxiety on the rise as heat, disasters provoke fear
Story at a glance
- About a quarter of Americans believe climate change is an “urgent threat.”
- As awareness about the impacts of climate change have gone up, so have feelings of anxiety and fear surrounding it.
- About 10 percent of people report feeling “nervous, anxious or on edge” about climate change at least several days of the week, one study found.
Britt Wray’s fears about a warming planet came to a head in 2017 when she and her partner first talked about having a baby.
Wray worked as a science communicator at the time and was bombarded with scientific reports on climate change “day in and day out," as well as reading several bombshell articles on the subject that came out that year.
“It was really this question of do I sit with the uncertainty of how bad this all might get and how nations will respond and powerholders will potentially act responsibly at some point,” said Wray, who now works as an instructor on climate and mental health at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
“Do I feel okay bringing a child into this situation? With disasters piling up and so on so forth ... that really unleashed my own climate distress volcano.”
Wray, who ended up writing a book on climate anxiety, is not alone in her feelings.
Climate distress, or eco-anxiety, is growing among Americans. Since 2012, the number of Americans who report feeling climate change is an “urgent threat” has more than doubled, jumping from 12 to 26 percent, according to research from The Yale Program on Climate Change.
The share of people who are frequently distressed by climate change is also going up: About 10 percent of Americans now feel nervous, anxious or on edge about global warming at least several days of the week, according to a 2022 report from the research center.
“Mental health professionals are increasingly reporting that their patients are talking about it,” said Susan Clayton, a psychology and environmental studies professor at the College of Wooster.
While anyone can suffer from climate distress, children and young adults are more likely to worry about the effects of climate change than older people.
One 2021 study on climate anxiety, which Wray help conduct, surveyed 10,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 25 in 10 different countries, including United States, on their feelings about climate change.
The survey found that respondents in all countries were worried about it. Nearly 60 percent said they were very or extremely worried, while an even larger majority of 84 percent said they were at least moderately worried.
Over half of the young people who were surveyed said they felt sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless and guilty in relation to climate change. More than 45 percent said their feelings about it negatively impacted their daily life.
A 2020 survey of child psychiatrists in England found that 57 percent were seeing children and young people who felt distressed about climate change and the state of the environment.
Wray and other climate experts agree that climate distress will likely continue to increase as the consequences of rising global temperatures become more frequent and visible.
So far in 2023, there have been 15 extreme weather and climate disaster events in the United States alone, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — and climate change promises to keep making such disasters more likely, and more intense.
What does climate anxiety look like?
There are different levels of climate distress. Those who have gone through a climate disaster are the most likely to suffer from the most extreme eco-anxiety, according to Wray.
The lowest level, meanwhile, is a “heightened” worry about how climate change is happening and that although it's unclear what the outcomes will be, they will certainly not be good, according to Clayton.
She describes that anxiety as “completely natural and probably a good thing,” since some concern helps motivate people to try to do something to stop climate change.
More extreme climate distress can lead to rumination and non-stop thoughts about climate change to the point that a person loses sleep or has trouble concentrating on tasks, Clayton said.
“They might not be able to engage in normal life activities like enjoying themselves and socializing and spending time with friends and family,” she said.
In her book “Generation Dread,” Wray lays out four levels of climate distress: mild, medium, significant and severe.
Those that suffer from mild eco-anxiety have some feelings of upset, but they “are not constant and can be distracted from.” These people also often believe that “others” have an answer to the climate crises, which helps assuage their concerns.
People with a “medium” level of eco-anxiety feel upset about climate change more often than those with the mild version and have some doubts about what solutions “others” might have to the climate crisis.
Those with “significant” eco-anxiety are upset daily by feelings of “guilt, grief or fear” over climate change and the possibility of social collapse as the result of it, according to the book.
And like Clayton, Wray describes people with “severe” eco-anxiety as suffering from “intrusive thoughts, poor sleep, and preoccupation with the climate emergency” that prevents them from enjoying life.
Only about 3 percent of the total U.S. population is estimated to suffer from such an extreme level of climate anxiety, according to Yale Program on Climate Change Communication data.
Younger people and people of color are more likely to fall within that group, according to Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the program.
And about half of those with that severe eco-anxiety already exhibit “more standard anxiety or depression,” he added.
How to manage climate distress
For those experiencing extreme climate anxiety, Clayton recommends figuring out what triggers those feelings of panic, despair or fear and learning when to withdraw from those situations.
“Maybe step away from the news,” she said, and instead go for a walk in nature or take a few minutes to do a deep-breathing exercise.
Wray told The Hill finding support is crucial — for those experiencing any level of climate distress.
“Find other people who get it and can validate the concerns, that can legitimize the pain a person might be going through and say, 'Yeah, I’m worried too,'” she said.
There are a growing number of resources out there to help people manage their climate distress. The Good Grief Network, a nonprofit organization that runs support groups for eco-distress, even offers a 10-step program to help those overwhelmed by eco-anxiety learn how to cope.
Another way to manage climate distress is by doing something to help mitigate the effects of climate change, Clayton said, from figuring out how to use less fossil fuels to joining a local environmental activism group.
“That, too, will help people feel like they are less like passive victims and more like they have agency,” she said.