Eco-Anxiety Is the New Normal

Tonight, I was sitting and listening to the birds, the sharp chirps of the cardinals, and the longer trills of the Carolina wrens. A group of deer passed by in the woods, undetected by my lounging dog. The sun set behind the trees, and a cool breeze rustled the redbud branches.

These creatures are voiceless and powerless in our anthropocentric world. Who is going to make sure that they can breathe? What is going to happen to our planet if we continue to overuse its precious resources? How do we stop the trajectory of the climate crisis? What kind of world will be here for the living beings of the future? These thoughts come up fast and then sit heavy on my chest. I feel sadness, despair, and hopelessness.

Source: Megan Delaney

The feelings I am having are termed “eco-anxiety,” or the chronic dread of the destruction of the planet. Eco-anxiety can be felt directly or indirectly. I see the direct effect of eco-anxiety in my science colleagues, especially environmentalists, botanists, zoologists, biologists, and climatologists, who are experiencing firsthand in their daily research the devastating effects of climate change. The rest of us might experience eco-anxiety as more of a subconscious feeling of dread or doom, like there is something very wrong, but it seems too large to comprehend. The American Psychological Association (APA) describes 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” (Schreiber, 2021).

Boluda et al. (2022) conducted a cross-sectional analysis of 12 research articles exploring eco-anxiety and health implications and found a relationship between eco-anxiety and adverse mental health outcomes—particularly among younger individuals, women, and populations in lower-income countries of the Global South. Eco-anxiety was associated with functional impairment, symptoms of depression, anxiety, PTSD, stress, and insomnia, as well as lower self-reported mental health and a reluctance to have children.

At the same time, habitual worry about the climate crisis is linked to a pro-ecological worldview, green self-identity, and pro-environmental behaviors. Findings showed that climate activism may help buffer the effects of climate change-related depressive symptoms; however, pro-environmental action does not always succeed in alleviating eco-anxiety, especially when individuals perceive their efforts as insufficient to address the climate crisis. Results should be interpreted with caution, as the methodological quality of the studies was limited. Across studies, a wide range of definitions for eco-anxiety were used, which highlights the need for further research on this topic.

So I ask—when you talk to your clients about or sit with your own anxiety, do you think about climate change or the natural world? Does it occur to us that some of our anxiety may lie in the fear of losing our planetary resources, the animals and plants around us within our own neighborhoods and beyond? I suggest we take a deeper look at the comorbidity of eco-anxiety within anxiety or depression. By addressing this idea, sitting with it, and thinking about it, we can bring the feelings into awareness and move through the helplessness into action.

How can we mitigate this anxiety? Perhaps it is with tangible action. Any healthy relationship requires a reciprocal process. The Earth gives us gifts daily by providing food, water, oxygen, plants, animals, singing birds, our pets, sunrises and sunsets, beautiful beaches that help us relax, and forests that help us restore. Healing our bond with the Earth and developing a reciprocal relationship can help us reconnect to our planet and simultaneously explore ways that we address climate change within our own personal daily actions.

Making eco-anxiety conscious can propel a collective consciousness about how we can care for the living, breathing Earth. For ideas on reciprocity, I encourage you to explore the works of botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer as well as her talks about reciprocity.