Eco-anxiety has been described as a source of stress when people watch "the slow and seemingly irrevocable impacts of climate change unfold, and worrying about the future for oneself, children, and later generations… affected by feelings of loss, helplessness, and frustration due to their inability to feel like they are making a difference” (American Psychological Society, 2017) and there would seem to be an increasing amount about.
A recent Guardian article [Overwhelming and terrifying’: the rise of climate anxiety ] dealt with young people's' climate anxiety which, the article explained, can occur in surprisingly young children. Dr Patrick Kennedy-Williams was quoted saying that tackling climate anxiety and tackling the climate crisis are intrinsically linked:
“The positive thing from our perspective as psychologists is that we soon realised the cure to climate anxiety is the same as the cure for climate change – action. It is about getting out and doing something that helps. Record and celebrate the changes you make. Nobody is too small. Make connections with other people and at the same time realise that you are not going to cure this problem on your own. This isn’t all on you ... .”
The article also featured Elizabeth Wathuti, a climate activist from Kenya. Her experience of climate anxiety is not so much about the future but what is happening now. She said:
“People in African countries experience eco-anxiety differently because climate change for us is about the impacts that we are already experiencing now and the possibilities of the situation getting worse."
She works with young people through the Green Generation Initiative she founded and sees the effects of eco-anxiety first-hand. A common worry she hears among students is: “We won’t die of old age, we’ll die from climate change.”
– 1 – Remember that you do not need to be a climate expert. It’s OK to explore learning together. If your child asks a question you can’t answer immediately, respond by saying: “What a great question. Let me look into that so I can answer it properly.”
This depends on the question. The answers to these the following ones are quite different in nature: "Which is the more potent greenhouse gas, methane or CO2?" and "Will we have to change the way we heat our home? The first is a question of fact which you can look up. The other is contingent on a range of factors some of which are conjectural. There are a lot of questions of both kinds out there. Then there are questions of value such as "How should we live in order to safeguard the biosphere? which are hard to answer "properly".
Respond