By CALEIGH WELLS, Associated Press
Every autumn, news feeds get flooded with stories about climate change. That’s because around this time each year, global leaders gather to discuss collective efforts to limit our emissions of planet-warming gases, released primarily from oil, gas and coal.
Some of the information coming out of the COP30 conference is bleak. But it’s not just COP. Climate stories can be difficult to consume year-round, whether it’s about natural disasters, victims of heat waves or sea level rise or new studies about global warming impacts.
“When you throw a ton of scary facts and information at people, their nervous system shuts down. It’s a coping mechanism,” said Sarah Newman, founder and executive director of the Climate Mental Health Network.
That sense of dread, doom, fear or hopelessness gets lumped into a single term: climate anxiety. Surveys from the American Psychiatric Association have repeatedly shown that a significant amount of Americans experience climate anxiety.
Dealing with it, just like dealing with climate change, is an ongoing process. Here’s how to get started.
Climate anxiety different from general anxiety
Imagine you leave the house in the morning, and realize you left the stove on. There’s a fire hazard at home, and you’re feeling anxious about it. So you turn around and switch it off. The problem is solved, and so is your anxiety.
Climate change doesn’t work that way.
It activates different parts of the brain, according to a study published by the National Institutes of Health. While Generalized Anxiety Disorder often involves the part of the brain that handles fear, threat and emotion, climate anxiety activates parts of the brain that help with high cognition, willpower and tenacity.
“It’s an ongoing larger problem that I need to attend to over time and that is largely out of my control,” climate psychologist Thomas Doherty said. ”I can’t just flip a switch around climate change.”
The anxiety is more complex than a stove left on, because climate change is a more complex problem. The threat is indefinite, it’s largely out of each person’s control and addressing it requires repeated and variable action.
Doherty, who wrote a book about coping with climate anxiety, said that it isn’t inherently negative. It’s a natural reaction to a threat, and it’s the first step in a cyclical relationship with climate change.
“The rest of the cycle is ultimately taking some action to resolve the threat as best that we can,” he said.
First, cope and connect
Newman said that one of the most effective ways to combat climate anxiety is to find other people who are experiencing it too, and to talk about it.
Every year, New York City hosts something called Climate Week. Folks from all over descend upon Manhattan for hundreds of events and panels on energy, the environment and climate change.
Between 15 and 20 people showed up to one event about finding connection and hope in the face of climate change. It was intimate, but so is confiding feelings of dread and isolation with a room full of strangers.
“How many of you wake up in the morning with feelings of despair or hopelessness?” asked the leader at the front of the room.
Just about every hand sheepishly went up.
“Not just in the morning!” said a man in the front row. And an awkward chuckle of understanding swept through the room.
That group was addressing what Doherty said is one of the greatest risks of climate anxiety: isolation.
“Just like working on any problem, any issue, once you have a team around you, then you feel better. You’re not alone. You feel stronger,” he said.
Meetups such as Climate Cafes or groups like Climate Psychology Alliance have online and in-person events where people can share experiences and build resilience together.
Much of Newman’s work with the Climate Mental Health Network is about bringing people together to combat that feeling of isolation.
“When people start to recognize that, they’re not alone with what they’re feeling,” she said. “There’s an opportunity for people to move from that helpless state to one of empowerment.”
Many general anxiety treatments relate to calming the body and clearing the head, and Doherty said that all of those work with climate anxiety.
“It’s our same body. Our same brain, our same heart rate, blood pressure, our same ways of thinking,” he said.
Immediate grounding exercises include the 3-3-3 technique, where you name three things you see, three you hear and three parts of your body that you can move. Another one is the 5-4-3-2-1 technique, where you identify five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell and one thing you can taste.
Doherty also recommends prioritizing rest and exercise, going outside in nature and focusing on the present moment. He calls all of those practices basic mental hygiene.
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Then, find a purpose
Doherty recommended channeling climate concern into something controllable, such as the impacts of climate change in your neighborhood, or even in your home.
“Take care of my own garden so to speak, before I try to plant a garden somewhere else,” he said.
That starts with something Doherty calls ceremonial actions. They don’t meaningfully change the world, but they’re easy, they can be repeated, they align with a person’s values and make them feel better, like picking up litter or bringing reusable bags to the grocery store.
Then those ceremonial actions fuel the desire and resilience needed for something larger, like getting rid of the gas appliances in the house, which could take years to afford and invest in. The U.N. lists 10 actions to reduce a person’s impact on the planet.
Climate anxiety is cyclical, because the sources of anxiety keep coming, and so does the need for coping mechanisms and actions. Newman said that there isn’t an easy switch between climate anxiety and climate optimism.
“I still carry those emotions and I still have the worry and I have the anger and I have the sadness, but I’m able to live with them in a different way,” she said.
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
