Climate Anxiety

Climate anxiety describes chronic anxiety and worry about climate change. Climate anxiety is not a pathological disease or mental disorder; it is a natural human response to drastic and threatening changes in our climate and the lack of action against them.

Ecological anxiety, or eco-anxiety, describes anxiety and worry about environmental changes, in general. For example, biodiversity, land transformations, and pollution are ecological trends that are not typically included in the scope of climate change. Anxiety is just one of the emotions that one may feel due to climate change. Climate distress describes the co-occurring, challenging emotions towards climate change and its impacts, including anxiety, grief, sadness, panic, terror, guilt, shame, hopelessness, pessimism, and powerlessness.

Climate distress, including climate anxiety, is disproportionately felt by youth. According to a November 2024 survey, with 15,793 individuals aged 16-24 in the U.S.:

85% were at least moderately worried about climate change.
57% were very or extremely worried about climate change.
38% were negatively affected in their daily life due to feelings about climate change.
42% of individuals’ self-reported mental health was impacted by climate change.
14% indicated that they believed the U.S. Government was trustworthy.
21% indicated that the U.S. Government’s actions on climate change made them feel reassured.

How are we trying to combat anxiety?

In a world where millions are fighting for a sustainable future, and billions more are affected by climate change or climate anxiety, few people know how much progress the world has actually made against climate change. Demonstrating climate progress is more important now than ever before. These are some reasons:

Studies show a key strategy in managing anxiety is using facts and information to challenge distorted or unhelpful thought patterns. At a time when many people, especially youths, are distressed about it, it’s more important than ever to have access to facts.
Although millions of people work to fight climate change, very few know how much their work has accomplished. Not only will demonstrating climate progress fight climate anxiety with facts, but it will encourage those who have invested countless hours into combatting the climate crisis.
People are constantly bombarded with news about climate change, both positive and negative. It’s hard to know what is true, and hard to reconcile that maybe both sides are true at the same time. Boiling climate progress into one number provides a helpful perspective
Studies on fighting climate change find that the “success of global agreements depends on the ability to monitor progress toward goals.” How will we solve the climate crisis if we don’t have context for where we’re at?

The whole world is fighting climate change. Hundreds of countries. Thousands of cities. Millions of activists, scientists, policymakers, leaders, and citizens. The climate crisis is on the minds of billions of people, daily. Yet, few people know how much progress the world has made on fighting climate change. Do you?

Written by Allison Oh

Crystal Springs Uplands School (2027)

and

Aiden Miao

Palo Alto High School (2027)