Behind the rise of climate anxiety in children and young people
Climate misinformation campaigns undermine wellbeing in pursuit of political and financial gain
Ritchie’s talk begins with a mention of climate anxiety in children and a particular reference to the work of Carolyn Hickman and colleagues (2021) in The Lancet Planetary Health. Hickman and colleagues, which I will refer to as H2021, found high rates of climate anxiety in an international sample of 10,000 children and young people. Below, I will discuss the study further and some dynamics behind “climate anxiety.”
Ritchie notes that she can relate to the anxiety children feel and that is what moved her into the work of data analysis for sustainability. She found that the story is complicated and there are more successes than we regularly hear about and major challenges ahead.
I can relate, too. I’ve been concerned about the environment since I was at least 9 years old. My concern for climate change got going my senior year of college in conservation biology class. I was distraught about projections of species loss and environmental degradation.
I was moved to join the first class of the Climate and Society program at Columbia University. This was my first introduction to the confluence of science and politics.
I learned through further study that when it comes to science and politics nothing is quite what it seems and the path forward is paved in a kaleidoscope of greys.
That is to say, I grew up.
Climate anxiety according to psychology
Climate anxiety is a popular headline and it is on a lot of people’s minds. Psychological researchers argue that it is on the rise and is of particular concern among children and young people.
The Grist reported dramatic spikes on interest in climate anxiety in the summer of 2021 as revealed through Google searches around the time of the release of the IPCC AR6 WG1 report. According to the American Psychological Association, 67% of Americans were somewhat or extremely anxious about the impact of climate change on the planet in 2020. The finding may be quibbled with depending on metrics of worry versus anxiety. A Yale study in 2022 found far more worry than anxiety.
Climate anxiety is one stream in a broader classification referred to as ecoanxiety. It is popularly argued that the condition is not a syndrome fit for the DSM rather,
eco-anxiety in children and young people should be seen as an emotionally congruent healthy response to the climate and bio-diversity crisis
A 2017 report of the American Psychological Association, in partnership with ecoAmerica, defined ecoanxiety as, “a chronic fear of environmental doom.” (other definitions are out there too)
Much of the discussion on climate anxiety begins with a claim to the appropriateness of the anxiety response to the climate crisis. According to one researcher and co-author to H2021, climate anxiety is
actually a very healthy and normal response to have when one understands the escalating civilizational threat that we’re dealing with when it comes to the climate crisis.
Further, the argument goes, because people are experiencing climate change through disasters and weather extremes, they are also experiencing trauma from climate change and the climate crisis.
According to one article,
Climate change is associated with increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events, and the impacts of discrete events such as natural disasters on mental health has been demonstrated through decades of research showing increased levels of PTSD, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and even domestic violence following the experience of storms
A doctor interviewed in the 2017 APA/ecoAmerica report describes how her training helps her provide care for her patients,
Mental health professionals help people face reality, because we know living in denial can ruin a person’s life. As the climate crisis unfolds, we see people whose anger, anxiety, and depression, caused by the shortcomings of a previous generation, prevent them from leading productive lives themselves. We know about trauma from repeated exposure to horrifying events. We are trained, we are ethically bound, to respond to emergencies.
And one final step: policymakers are at fault for all these sad children.
Here is H2021,
Distress appears to be greater when young people believe that government response is inadequate, which leads us to argue that the failure of governments to adequately reduce, prevent, or mitigate climate change is contributing to psychological distress, moral injury, and injustice.
A coauthor to H2021 has dubbed today’s youth as Gen Dread. She says that policymakers have wronged them by not heeding the message of science to halt fossil fuel production. Climate anxiety is thus
actually a symptom of external sources of danger that affect the whole population, such as still rising carbon emissions and inadequate action from powerholders to do what the science says must be done to keep humans safe and healthy, for instance: halt the expansion of new fossil fuel infrastructure, which has understandably started making millions of people around the world feel chronically insecure.
Adult Ego State
However, the connections: climate change- extreme weather-disasters-crisis, is seriously vexed.
For one, the narrative of crisis and emergency took root with politicians and advocacy journalism.
For another, the science of detecting and attributing a climate change signal in weather extremes is nuanced, to say the least.
In the IPCC’s analysis of the emergence of a climate change signal in physical climate system conditions such as extremes that affect an element of society or ecosystems, the IPCC finds that “in nearly all regions of the world, there is low confidence in changes in hail, ice storms, severe storms, dust storms, heavy snowfall and avalanches” as well as: tropical cyclone (hurricane), drought, fire weather, relative sea level rise, coastal flood, and air pollution weather. An important exception is the case of extreme heat in which there is high confidence of an emerging climate change signal.
Finally, the relationship between extreme weather and disasters is mediated through societal choices. Disasters- the product of the interaction between geophysical extremes and societal vulnerabilities- have social roots. They are the product of social and structural vulnerabilities incorporating factors of history, land use policy, and building codes.
So, while one may have trauma from their disaster experience- a matter that I do not question, it is not self evident to link that physical and mental experience to climate change and the political construct of climate crisis.
But, the media does it constantly. And, so do psychologists and psychology researchers.
Here are some examples from the psych research literature:
“Climate change is happening. We are already seeing the effects in terms of heatwaves, hurricanes, flooding, wildfire, and drought.
“The goal of this paper is to underscore the negative impacts climate change has had on mental health outcomes... Direct effects include increased frequency and/or severity of acute climate-related events such as hurricanes, floods and fires which may serve as exposures to developing disorders such as PTSD, depression and anxiety.”
“The direct impact on emotions evoked by experiencing events associated with climate change, such as major storms, droughts, or land loss, is well documented”
“As severe weather events linked with climate change persist, intensify, and accelerate, it follows that, in the absence of mitigating factors, mental health impacts will follow the same pattern. We are already seeing increased severe climatic events that act as the precipitating and perpetuating factors of psychological distress”
The APA, a professional organization dating back to the late 1800’s, has itself changed its message on the link between weather extremes, climate change, and mental health.
In 2009, an APA Taskforce report provided a more nuanced and accurate view of climate change science,
While a region’s climate and changes in its climate obviously determine its weather patterns, weather events—even extreme ones—are not necessarily diagnostic of changes in the climate. Climate change is a trend in averages and extremes of temperature, precipitation, and other parameters that are embedded in a lot of variability, making it very difficult to identify from personal experience. People often falsely attribute unique events to climate change and also fail to detect changes in climate.
Since then, the APA has aligned with the dominant but scientifically inaccurate political narrative prevalent in the media and broader field:
From record-breaking hurricanes and wildfires to drought and intense heat, the Earth continues to experience dramatic increases in severe weather events as a result of human-inflicted damage to our climate.
Vicarious Politics
Researchers refer to climate anxiety originating through “witnessing the effects of climate change through the media” as a vicarious reaction.
The Potential Energy Coalition (PEC), a political marketing advocacy organization focused on climate change is a joint project of a former marketing executive John Marshall and Harvard geology professor, Dan Schrag. John Marshall’s bio is available through the First Street Foundation website.
The Potential Energy Coalition explains that in order to make people believe that extreme weather is caused by climate change they need to receive “insistent messages” that deliberately makes the connection.
According to PEC, in the summer of 2021 (that is, when google searches on climate anxiety peaked),
we ran hundreds of Facebook tests with over 30 different messages about extreme weather, from charts to stats to provocative images. The ads that generated the most engagement had a blunt message of attribution: This is climate change. (emphasis in original)
They provided some examples from their ScienceMoms campaign.
According to one discussion, ScienceMoms is a front group of PEC. So, this would be their handy work as well,
Some argue that a little anxiety is useful for mobilizing the masses to a chosen cause. And moreover, good people are anxious people.
Say some researchers, “when experienced at the right time and to the right extent, practical eco-anxiety not only reflects well on one’s moral character but can also help advance individual and planetary wellbeing.”
They continue,
a tendency to feel practical eco-anxiety is not just something that makes individuals more sensitive and responsive to environmental threats. It is also the mark of a morally admirable character. Here Greta Thunberg’s eco-anxiety is a case in point: her anxiety about global warming reveals that she is properly attuned to both what is ecologically valuable and the threats that climate change bring.
Some researchers suggest policy advocacy is a useful tool for helping people manage their climate anxiety or more specifically, “engaging in collective action can buffer the effects of climate change anxiety.”
One clinical psychologist is referenced as suggesting that “helping your patient take any action is a positive step…Other individual actions might include eating less meat, using clean energy at home and on their commute, joining public protests, and writing letters to elected officials.”
And so the extent of ecoanxiety in the population and especially children is of great interest to those in the business of advocacy, particularly mass mobilization and protests.
Funding for H2021 was provided by AVAAZ. The rather nondescript statement that literally looks like the below is a reference to “the globe’s largest and most powerful online activist network” according to a Guardian article examining the role of the organization in the escalation of the Syrian Civil War in the spring of 2012.
At that time, AVAAZ co-founder, Ricken Patel, explained of online campaign organizing, “You can raise more money online faster than any other model. You can mobilize people offline in the streets and protests faster." AVAAZ claims to be 100% crowdsourced. In 2021, this earned them a revenue of $26.9M.
Below is an AVAAZ campaign supporting the Global Action Legal Network case involving 6 Portuguese children and young people claiming inaction on climate policy is a human rights violation of which they are victims. Note their credit to the World Weather Attribution.
ecoAmerica, the partner in the 2017 APA report, is an advocacy group that, among other things, mobilizes health professionals towards climate policy advocacy. One of their efforts is Climate for Health which sees health leaders as ripe for shaping patients into climate advocates because Americans “trust health leaders for climate information.” (A sure way to undermine public trust in health institutions, btw).
It appears the health care system is also getting in on the action. A long discussion of climate anxiety in the Vox, is presented by Evernorth, a subsidiary of Cigna and an important part of Cigna’s expansion in behavioral health .
Key Take Away
Climate mis/disinformation campaigns undermine human wellbeing especially among children, and it is done so in pursuit of political and financial gain by special interests.
The 2009 APA Task Force report that had a good read on the science of weather extremes and climate change recommended that the APA, “Help psychologists understand the physical science evidence and data on climate change and the relation between this information and psychological research.”
That was good advice. Should psychologists provide climate information? Probably not. But, the body of literature that they produce about mental health trends in society should be guided by an accurate read on the state of relevant scientific knowledge.
From this standpoint, it is not the experience of climate change through weather extremes that is causing rampant angst among young people but more likely the contemporary methods of politicking that may be directly or indirectly targeting children.
The APA has a lot of work ahead for itself.
When I was a kid (1980s), I was absolutely convinced the world would end soon due to nuclear weapons. Google "time magazine covers ussr nuclear weapons" to see what the media screamed back then.
This is pure gold. Literally yesterday, I have started writing a longer research article on "climate change mitigation" collateral damage, and though I remembered the study from 2021 about climate anxiety in kids, I completely forgot where it was published, and Google doesn't give the best results. It was like you read my mind! This is a great blog, keep up the work.