What is eco-anxiety?

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**Bababam** (1:47)
What is eco-anxiety?
Thanks for asking.
The UN's COP26 summit is due to start this Sunday, and it's pretty clear to most of us that climate change is the most serious threat to our health. Of course, it's a physical threat, especially to the vulnerable, due to extreme weather events like heat waves, storms, and fires, which are increasingly frequent and intense. But we mustn't neglect the mental impact, as fear of the future is eating away at the minds of many. Indeed, climate-related disasters and environmental catastrophes are causing a lot of confusion and worry about the future of the planet. The label eco-anxiety has emerged as the latest addition to a growing vocabulary around climate change, alongside terms like climate depression and solastalgia. A 2017 definition from the American Psychiatric Association calls eco-anxiety a chronic sense of environmental doom. It's not strictly speaking a medical diagnosis, but it can interfere with people's daily lives and personal ambitions.
Is it really that widespread? A 10-country study published in The Lancet last month showed just how desperate the world's young people feel about the future of humanity, given the global climate crisis. 59% of the 10,000 16- to 25-year-olds surveyed said they were either very or extremely worried about climate change. And it does seem to affect young people disproportionately. Activist Greta Thunberg has of course become a symbol of youth environmentalism. Addressing politicians at the World Economic Forum in January 2019, she touched on the idea of eco-anxiety.

**Greta Thunberg** (3:28)
Adults keep saying, We owe it to the young people to give them hope. But I don't want your hope. I don't want you to be hopeful.
I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day.

**Bababam** (3:43)
It's associated with feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, in that climate change seems out of our control. Solving such a huge issue requires governments to take real action, global corporations to take more responsibility for reducing their emissions, and society as a whole to undergo massive change. Furthermore, media coverage of environmental destruction shows the scale of danger we face as a society. Becoming aware of climate change consequences often comes in several stages. First shock, then denial, anger, sadness, and finally acceptance. What's the best way to manage feelings of eco-anxiety?
This generally requires understanding and accepting environmental issues. Of course, there are limits to what individual effort can achieve, but we should still recognize those who try. Human beings are indeed the main problem behind the climate crisis, but we can still be part of the solution if we focus on resilience, stay optimistic, and take action. According to research published in the British Medical Journal, changing unhealthy behavior may be key to hitting net zero emissions by 2050 This could include favoring a plant-based diet and ditching cars, for example.
There you have it, now you know what eco-anxiety is. In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions. This episode is available on all the most popular podcast platforms and up-day. What would you like to know? Use the comments section to send us your questions.