This is the most 1st World Problems of 1st World Problems. People who generally have good lives, aren’t really worried about where their food, shelter, and clothes are coming from, are able to travel around thanks to fossil fuels, have fits when they can’t get social media on their smartphones, and have easy access to health care, clean water, and good food, so they have to invent something to cause strife in their lives
‘Overwhelming and terrifying’: the rise of climate anxiety
Over the past few weeks Clover Hogan has found herself crying during the day and waking up at night gripped by panic. The 20-year-old, who now lives in London, grew up in Queensland, Australia, cheekbyjowl with the country’s wildlife, fishing frogs out of the toilet and dodging snakes hanging from the ceiling.
The bushfires ravaging her homeland over the past few weeks have taken their toll. “I’ve found myself bursting into tears … just seeing the absolutely harrowing images of what’s happening in Australia – it is overwhelming and terrifying.â€
Hogan said her lowest point came when she heard about the death of half a billion animals incinerated as the fires swept through the bush. “That was the moment where I felt my heart cleave into two pieces. I felt absolutely distraught.â€
The physical impact of the climate crisis is impossible to ignore, but experts are becoming increasingly concerned about another, less obvious consequence of the escalating emergency – the strain it is putting on people’s mental wellbeing, especially the young.
If she wants to be upset, perhaps she could be mad at all the people who set the fires, intentionally or unintentionally, because a tiny increase in the global temperature had nothing to do with it. And maybe she could be mad at the environweenies who refuse to allow things like fire breaks, clearing the underbrush, and controlled burns.
Psychologists warn that the impact can be debilitating for the growing number of people overwhelmed by the scientific reality of ecological breakdown and for those who have lived through traumatic climate events, often on the climate frontline in the global south..
People freaking over a scam, and then making themselves more freaked out as they are told more about the scam by hysterics.
When Kennedy-Williams began focusing on young people he assumed most would be older teenagers or at least have started secondary school. But he soon discovered worrying levels of environment-related stress and anxiety in much younger children.
“What I was most surprised by is how young the awareness and anxiety starts. My own daughter was just six when she came to me and said: ‘Daddy, are we winning the war against climate change?’ and I was just flummoxed by that question in the moment. It really showed me the importance as a parent of being prepared for the conversation, so we can respond in a helpful way.â€
Things that didn’t happen.
Until two years ago Dr Patrick Kennedy-Williams, a clinical psychologist from Oxford, had spent his career treating common mental health difficulties including anxiety, depression and trauma. Then something new started to happen. Climate scientists and researchers working in Oxford began to approach him asking for help. (snip)
A key moment for Kennedy-Williams came with the realisation that tackling “climate anxiety†and tackling the climate crisis were intrinsically linked.
“The positive thing from our perspective as psychologists is that we soon realised the cure to climate anxiety is the same as the cure for climate change – action. It is about getting out and doing something that helps.
Surprise! Climalunatics can solve their climalunacy by forcing Other People to pay taxes and have their lives controlled by Government.
