How To Deal With Climate Grief And Eco-Anxiety

As Hurricane Helene and H urricane Milton have recently showed, climate chaos is happening now in places long thought safe and far from coastal storms, like western North Carolina . Watching in shock as people lose everything in a matter of seconds stirs up new waves of climate grief in those touched by the catastrophe as well as those far away.

Feelings of utter hopelessness and despair are understandable. When they become constant and affect your daily life, it’s time to adopt healthy ways to deal with climate grief. Here are three suggestions:

Gen Z and climate grief

Results of an August 2024 digital survey by the Institute for Sustainability & Social Justice of 2,000 Americans aged 15-29 revealed that 55% are experiencing eco-anxiety—another term for climate grief—and it’s affecting their daily lives. The majority feel powerless to curb the climate crisis through individual action although they sincerely feel they should, especially because they’re worried that climate change will make their lives difficult.

“If you feel this really high level or high responsibility to take action, but you have a very poor opinion of the effect of your actions, that would seem to me to lead to kind of an internal conflict that could provoke anxiety,” Kirk Bartholomew , development director for the Institute said.

Survey respondents were concerned about how climate change will affect society (79%), their own quality of life (77%), and future generations (82%).

Another contributing factor to Gen Z’s climate distress is the generational inequity they sense from government and business leaders. When they don’t observe current leaders taking meaningful and effective climate action, youth feel a responsibility to fix a problem they had no part in creating.

“This offloading of responsibility—without adequate partnership from the older and more powerful contingents among us—can make burdensome climate anxiety and distress much worse,” said Britt Wray , director of Stanford Medicine’s Special Initiative on Climate Change and Mental Health.

Mental health and climate change

Ongoing research is exposing direct associations between mental health and climate change, none of which are positive. Here are a few:

• Extreme heat is associated with increased incidence of self-harm and violence.
• Wildfires can lead to PTSD or depression for survivors suffering from “fire brain.”
• Drought increases suicide rates in farmers.
• Extreme weather events cause workers to experience chronic stress, anxiety, and depression.

Marginalized communities , including BIPOC, with no or limited financial resources are feeling these negative emotions even more acutely because they lack money to withstand adversity and rebuild. It’s especially challenging when they’re victims of recurring or chronic climatic events since they have little time to recover.

Healthy Ways to Deal with Climate Grief

If you’re distressed about the climate emergency, reach out to others to share your feelings. Consider one or more of the following suggestions as a coping mechanism. Seek out professional help if you experience no improvement.

1. Spend time in nature to end climate grief

It’s tragic to think that our planet-home is being destroyed by human activity. Besides climate assaults, other activities, such as deforestation and industrial agriculture, are wreaking further havoc on nature resulting in biodiversity loss .

So while there’s some nature left, get outside and enjoy it. Forest bathing isn’t literally about personal cleanliness. But it is about allowing a forest’s sights, sounds, and smells to wash over you, alleviating stress and negativity while fostering feelings of renewal.

If you’re not near a forest, practicing mindfulness under a backyard tree provides similar benefits.

2. Build community to end climate grief

No one knows when they will experience a climate emergency. So, it’s critical that you build a local community whose members will help each other when that day arrives.

Starting a community garden or urban farm is crucial for food security. Learning about edible wild plants will boost your food supply. If feasible, raising livestock may be worthwhile. Learning how to can or dehydrate vegetables or smoke meats will have long-term survival value.

Community members may already possess life-saving skills such as performing emergency medical procedures when equipment or supplies are limited, setting up off-grid solar, or repairing small engines. Collectively deciding which members will become specialists in these critical tasks will strengthen your community to withstand climate crises.

3. Engage in climate activism to end climate grief

Joining or forming a climate action group engaged in some form of nonviolent direct action is another way to channel your energy and dispel feelings of powerlessness.

There are many ways to be a climate activist. Relentlessly pursuing either a local or global climate goal allows many people to find meaning for their lives while reducing climate grief.

Overcoming decades of a multi-billion dollar disinformation campaign by the fossil fuel industry to sow doubt about their products being the cause of the climate crisis is a monumental endeavor. Yet, recent research shows climate activism does have a positive effect in changing public perception and encouraging eco-friendly behaviors and attitudes.

In their 2024 review of 53 studies titled The Impacts of Climate Activism , Laura Thomas-Walters and colleagues concluded they have “strong evidence that climate activism shifts public opinion and media coverage in a pro-climate direction…We have more moderate evidence that activism can pressure policymakers to communicate more about climate change, encourage voters to vote in a more pro-climate direction, and financially pressure carbon-intensive companies…”

By incorporating one or more of these strategies into your life, you can reduce the psychological burden of climate grief, promote healthy lifestyle changes in others, or cause politicians to act on climate change.

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