Climate Anxiety

5min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Climate anxiety is an emotionally healthy response to the reality of what's going on. The fact that people don't seem to be responding quickly enough which makes that anxiety worse. Eight out of ten children and young people felt that climate change was threatening people in the planet. Only 27% thought that governments were taking their concerns seriously.

The impacts of the climate crisis are undeniably here. Heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and flooding are causing devastation around the world. And yet, we still aren’t seeing the drastic action that’s required to avert climate disaster. As things get worse, it’s easy to give up hope – but ‘climate doomism’ is just as dangerous as climate denial. Anand Jagatia speaks to psychotherapist Caroline Hickman about her research on climate anxiety, and how we can turn feelings of doom into positive action. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod