Climate change is increasingly affecting the mental health of young people worldwide, with more than half of individuals aged 16-25 reporting negative emotions like sadness and anxiety. Studies show that eco-anxiety, defined as emotional distress related to environmental issues, is on the rise.
In an Interview with the Wire’s Vanessa Gatica, Dr. Samantha Stanley from UNSW Sydney highlights the significant impact of eco-anxiety on youth and calls for a better understanding of its effects and how it can potentially drive climate action.
Also available in Spanish.
Vanessa Gatica: Climate change is increasingly affecting the mental health of young people worldwide, with more than half of individuals aged 16 to 25 reporting negative emotions like sadness and anxiety. Studies show that eco anxiety, defined as emotional distress related to environmental issues, is on the rise. In an interview with The Wire’s Vanessa Gatica, Dr. Samantha Stanley from UNSW Sydney highlights the significant impact of eco anxiety on youth and calls for a better understanding of its effects and how it can potentially drive climate action. Could you elaborate on your research regarding climate anxiety?
Dr. Samantha Stanley: So far we’ve found a link so people who are experiencing more climate anxiety. They also report experiencing more severe symptoms of both depression, anxiety, stress and lower wellbeing. And what we’ve found is that it’s especially strong when people are experiencing affective and behavioral symptoms. So basically, people who are feeling on edge worried and anxious about climate change to the point where it’s affecting their social life and their home life. And those people tend to be at most risk of reporting higher depression and anxiety as well.
Vanessa Gatica: What are some of the key findings about how climate anxiety manifests in individuals?
Dr. Samantha Stanley: So often when people are talking about climate anxiety, um, they’ll be measuring it in quite a simple way. So they might just be asking in a survey, do you feel anxious about climate change? So when you read reports that say, for example, that 75% of people are worried about climate change, it could be that they’ve measured it in that way. So 75%, for example, have said yes in that survey with our measure, because we’re we’re asking about sort of more intense symptoms of climate anxiety. The most common response is that people aren’t really experiencing those symptoms. So our averages are quite low. What we do find, though, is that people who score higher in one dimension. So for example, they’re feeling, um, more rumination about their climate anxiety. They tend to also report higher symptoms, um, on the other aspects. So for example, they’re also, um, experiencing affective symptoms.
Vanessa Gatica: What demographic groups are most affected by climate anxiety and why do you think this is the case?
Dr. Samantha Stanley: Yeah, that’s a good question. And we’re still learning that. So so far, um, one of the most robust findings that lots of people are finding the same result on is that younger age is related to more climate anxiety. So younger people tend to be saying that they’re feeling more anxious about climate change. Sometimes we find that women report more climate anxiety than men. Um, and we also recently found that people who are experiencing financial stress, so they’re struggling to pay their bills. They also tend to report more climate anxiety. In terms of the reasons, I would say there’s not really enough research to tell you definitively what the causes are, but there are quite a few different possible explanations. So one of them is that we know that these groups are more vulnerable to climate change itself. And so that could be why they’re also more vulnerable to experiencing climate anxiety. For young people in particular, another explanation is you’ll often hear them saying that their concerns aren’t being listened to. They’re feeling like they’re not being heard and that they’re not able to, um, have agency and addressing climate change could potentially explain that relationship. Um, and another possibility is that some people could just be more open to expressing how they’re feeling, which could show up in different levels of climate anxiety.
Vanessa Gatica: Those experiencing climate anxiety motivate individuals to engage in more sustainable practices.
Dr. Samantha Stanley: It seems like it does, yes. So I’ve read some research that’s found that over time, climate anxiety predicts an increase in pro-environmental behavior. But it does seem that feeling those, um, those concerns about climate change can flow into behavioral changes.
Vanessa Gatica: Can you explain the relationship between climate anxiety and pro-environmental behavior?
Dr. Samantha Stanley: I think it’s important to remember that one of the functions of our emotions is to help us respond to danger. So a negative emotion might feel bad, but it could also be helpful for escaping a situation or doing something to address a problem. So it’s like that flight or fight or flight response. And we’ve previously found that feeling angry about climate change has quite a strong relationship with behavior and with our measure of climate anxiety. We’ve also found that people are higher in climate anxiety tend to take more action. So that’s um, we found that across personal changes in your life. So things like reducing meat consumption, um, and also collective action behaviours. So things like going out and protesting. And one thing that’s important to note is that we’ve found that relationship is stronger for experiencing personal impact, anxiety and rumination. The relationship often goes away, um, when you control for those variables and look at the relationship with affective and behavioral symptoms. So it seems like those feelings of, um, really intense anxiety and nervousness and also the behavioral symptoms or effects on your daily life, uh, they seem to have less of a role in pro-environmental behavior.
Vanessa Gatica: I am Vanessa Gatica for The Wire, speaking with Doctor Samantha Stanley, scientist from the UNSW, Sydney.