Climate anxiety: a type of mental distress linked to climate change

Without diving too deep into the psychology behind it, I put together a short explanation of what climate anxiety is, how it can be dealt with, and how it relates to my master's thesis.

What is the definition of climate anxiety?

Though the term climate anxiety is gaining in popularity, a number of terms have been used to describe negative emotions associated with climate change. Some of these include eco-anxiety, ecological grief, or climate change distress. This has resulted in a lack of conceptual clarity around climate anxiety and discredited its real impacts on human mental health.

The concept is closely related to that of solastalgia, coined by philosopher Glenn Albrecht. He describes solastalgia as a kind of “homesickness we feel while still at home”, as we realize the world around us is changing. This is a feeling he observed among indigenous populations who had lost their cultural traditions and land.

It was only in recent years that climate anxiety gained recognition in psychological literature. The American Psychology Association defines eco-anxiety as “the chronic fear of environmental cataclysm that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one's future and that of next generations”. Eco-anxiety is not yet regarded as a disease, at least not in a clinical sense. However, there is a growing concern due to the psychological disorders it might cause in individuals with chronic and serious forms of climate change induced anxiety.

The share of the global population which experiences climate anxiety may also increase in the coming years as the impacts of climate change become more obvious. Evidently, advancements in communication technology and the emergence of mass media also play a role in this. A person who sees planet Earth as his home can be negatively affected by images of forest fires, as was the case during the 2022-2023 Australian bushfire season. Hence, climate anxiety may be triggered though indirect exposure to cataclysmic events.

Is climate anxiety real?

The existing research suggests that this type of distress is rather widespread, especially among younger adults. This type of distress can have an impact on one’s ability to operate efficiently as they go about their daily life, such as in work for example. A study conducted in 2020 in the United States found that 25% of the 200 participants reported that climate change makes it difficult for them to function more than ‘sometimes’.

That being said, climate anxiety can vary greatly in terms of the behavioral response it causes in individuals who experience it. Climate-related distress can range from negative emotions to maladaptive behaviors, such as the avoidance of climate issues, a common coping mechanism. However, the research also suggests that controlled levels of climate anxiety can actually lead to an adaptive behavioral response – that is, a behavior that helps people cope with the reality of climate change. Thus, the long-term correlation between climate anxiety and climate action is still unclear.

In a 2022 study conducted by the University of Yale, it was found that Americans who had experienced at least one feature of climate distress were much more likely to say they had taken different forms of climate action, compared to those who had not experienced distress. For instance, there was a stark difference between the two groups in terms of the percentages of individuals who had volunteered at an organization working on global warming (19% vs. 2%).

How to deal with climate anxiety?

The results mentionned above have strong implications for the fight against climate change. They encourage us to come up with creative new ways of enabling individuals to manage their climate distress, while also empowering them to become actors of social change. In that respect, social media can help in finding a community of like-minded individuals who share the same concerns… so long as it does not give way to doom-scrolling, a browsing habit with detrimental effects on mental health.

Dealing with this emotional burden individually should not drive one away from collective action. Taking action alongside others might just be the best coping mechanism as it can help build social connections and bring back positive sentiments of hopefulness and a sense of agency. This is important because climate anxiety is often the result of a growing frustration that stems from not being able to alter the course of carbon emissions.

Emotion sharing, interactive maps, and climate change adaptation

From the above, we see that there is a fine line between a climate anxiety that is paralyzing and one that encourages action. The answer probably lies in finding a balance in this range. For this to occur, new tools could be created to help those with extreme anxiety regulate their emotions.

This was the departing point for my master’s thesis within the Digital Interactions lab at the University of Amsterdam. The objective of the study was to derive a set of requirements for the design of an interactive world map that enables users to share feelings about climate change.

There were a few research findings that motivated this research project:

• Studies point to the fact that emotions do not live in a vaccum. Rather, they can spread within a community and contribute to the overall adaptation of the group, where the strength of the emotional ties usually increases with physical proximity.
• Art projects, like the installation RisingEmotions, have sought to foster awareness and engagement around climate change through the public display of emotions shared within certains communities. Additionally, digital tools are great to collect vasts amount of qualitative data from the public.
• Finally, interactive maps are increasingly used as tools for climate adaptation. However, these usually show the impacts of climate change as part of a wider climate change adaptation strategy, rather than data inputted by users. Typically, these target expert users and are not that intuitive to use.

The final study, titled “Design and Evaluation of an Interactive World Map to Share Climate Change Sentiments”, involves a user survey and a user study with quantitative and qualitative data analysis to assess the prototype.

I should probably add that this was a very explorative study, hence the findings should be taken with a grain of salt and the discussion read carefully. I take the liberty of sharing this study here in case it might be of interest to those who came across this article.

I hope that this short summary and description of my research project were successful in piquing your curiosity on the concept of climate anxiety.