How do you define ‘eco-anxiety’?
Eco-anxiety is an emotional response to the environmental crisis, and in addition to anxiety it includes other challenging emotions such as grief, anger, sadness, fear and depression. This phenomenon is showing up in a wide variety of people who are particularly impacted by the crisis. This includes those on the front lines of weather disasters, who are already experiencing these hazards and fear what will come next; people whose work focuses on the crisis, from environmental journalists to scientists and anyone else who has their eyes open to the implications of the science day in and day out; and young people around world, whose futures will be deeply affected. Many young people feel abandoned by adults, who in their view are not doing enough to slow down a climate catastrophe. Despite the data, a global emergency has yet to be declared, and that is what is needed to create the infrastructure, investments and focus to safeguard the climate and maintain peoples’ well-being.
Nearly half of young people reported that eco-anxiety is negatively impacting their ability to function on a daily
