Eco-anxiety: how to avoid being paralyzed by the fear of climate change

Climate change affects not only temperatures and weather, but also our state of mind: it’s so overwhelming that it can make us feel helpless, weak and unable to focus our energies on positive and useful behaviors. Or it can make us believe that everything we do is bad for the environment, enveloping us in a sense of negativity. This feeling is like a mental barrier that ends up preventing us from acting on the climate crisis. It is a condition known as eco-anxiety and it can lead to emotional stress and other manifestations of discomfort. Some people end up feeling a sense of guilt, or even shame, when extreme climatic events occur or there are tangible effects on the environment, even in places far from us. Today, younger people, especially, are very aware of the negative consequences of global warming: but precisely because they are young, they often feel powerless and unable to make a difference, and they feel distrustful of institutions. Eco-anxiety can also be linked to a disappointment with technologies that are slow to arrive or that struggle to achieve the desired results. All this despondency over something that seems both imminent but also undefined in time and space – global warming – combined with a sense of rebellion, has emerged especially in recent years with the movement launched by Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Future demonstrations. This is a truly remarkable movement that found approval especially among the young and provided useful ideas for solving complex problems. But in other cases, the difficulty of managing this emotional burden can lead to denialism, which means completely denying that the problem exists only because one feels unable to handle it, thus ending up ignoring it. In short, the discomfort from climate change can generate a vicious circle that is not good for anyone. Virtuous behavior, but without anxiety In this situation, a question arises: what can be done to improve people's daily behavior, tackling climate change without causing the spread of eco-anxiety? The solution, according to experts in sociology and psychology, is to try to encourage socially and environmentally virtuous behavior, using words and messages strategically, persuading people to choose behaviors that are better for themselves and for the community, but without alarming or distressing them. In psychology and behavioral economics, this is known as a “gentle nudge”. In a Stockholm metro station, for example, the stairs were transformed into a giant piano keyboard, enticing people to walk up and down instead of taking the escalators, just for the fun of playing them. The same idea can be applied to almost everything: simplifying the use of bicycles could reduce the environmental impact of transportation, encouraging the purchase of green products in supermarkets promotes physical well-being and the well-being of the planet. In this way, without even realizing it, people can acquire better and better habits and carry out positive actions for themselves, while also feeling useful for the climate and at the same time avoid burdening themselves with unnecessary anxieties. A similar argument applies to the use of renewables and the use of technological innovations: through the “gentle nudge” it is possible to gently convince people that we need to adopt more sustainable ways of thinking and acting, perhaps by incentivizing the construction of domestic photovoltaic systems or by replacing old boilers with much more efficient and environmentally friendly devices.

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Eco-anxiety: how to avoid being paralyzed by the fear of climate change

Eco-anxiety: how to avoid being paralyzed by the fear of climate change

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