Climate change is not only having a significant impact on the physical environment around the world, but also on the mental health of the people living in it.
Amanda Christensen
How often do you think about the future? Do you constantly fantasize about that cushy corner office, the two-and-a-half children you might have and your crusty little white dog, or does the idea of life a year from now fill you with dread?
The past two years have been full of life-changing experiences for many in the United States — including the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, humanitarian crises across the globe and continuous changes in climate — to the point where even the phrase “uncertain times” has become a catch-all term for advertisers to sell us more products and governments to take advantage of our trauma.
Climate anxiety is a prominent stressor in the lives of younger generations and has a heavy impact on their mental health when understanding how climate change will affect their futures. With such emphasis on individual efforts for climate justice from recycling to using reusable straws, young people have come to feel that these efforts don’t truly solve anything because experts continue to release bad news — so why bother?
Timothy Springer, a psychotherapist and member of the North American Climate Psychology Alliance, provides support for people experiencing climate anxiety in Minnesota.
“People are worried about their quality of life in the future, natural disasters, air quality and changes in the food system,” Springer said. “Some people are stressing about if they should have children or not. Others are worried about the disproportionate impact climate change will have on vulnerable communities.”
With all these compounding concerns, people are also constantly bombarded with various messages about what they should consider important. Dan Phillippon, an associate professor of English at the University of Minnesota who teaches environmental studies-related courses, emphasizes the need for people to form their own opinions on these issues.
“My goal is not to spread a particular message, but rather to inform people about our environmental challenges, specifically biodiversity loss and climate change, and to have them see the complexity of these issues,” Phillippon said.
Phillippon noted that emphasizing these different possible scenarios helps to acknowledge that the fight isn’t over — there isn’t one right answer that will solve the global climate crisis and there’s still plenty of work to do in order to find solutions.
“This constant flurry of scientific reports is one of the drivers of climate anxiety,” Phillipon said. “In terms of non-scientists, people see this information and it’s easy for us to quickly enter into despair with regard to our climate futures.”
Much of the anxiety young people are feeling in terms of the ongoing climate crisis comes from the feeling that nothing they do individually will actually help in the fight for climate justice.
Phillippon emphasized that while there are many possible paths we could go down in the fight against climate change, there is one thing that is for certain: it needs to be collective, from local communities to the global population as a whole. This is not a problem that can be solved by individuals alone.
“To address climate change will require more than individual action. One of the sentences I like very much comes from the climate activist Bill McKibben, and McKibben says: ‘The best thing you can do as an individual to address climate change is to be less of an individual,’” Phillippon said.
These dramatic changes to the environment are being felt worldwide, and here in Minnesota, the locals are not excluded from experiencing the effects of it. With many in power being several generations older than those who they’re making decisions for, it’s these young people whose futures depend on the policies that those in power make in terms of climate justice — or lack thereof.
Holly Gilvary, a senior at the University of Minnesota studying journalism, is one of those young people.
“There’s definitely just so much going on. Updates on climate and things happening because of climate change, a pandemic that’s killed millions of people and then there’s this whole Russia-Ukraine thing — it’s a lot.”
Holly Gilvary
In the past two years, Minnesota has experienced extreme smog and smoke from wildfires in Canada near the Boundary Waters and the western U.S. In 2021, increasing global temperatures impacted wildlife, agriculture and everyday Minnesotan life, affecting our normal seasonal activities, like being able to go on a bike ride on city trails without overheating. In particular, rising temperatures have drastically affected our winter months, confusing our cold climate wildlife and making staple wintertime activities, like ice fishing or snowboarding, sometimes impossible.
Climate anxiety has increased in young people as experts announce more and more bad news. 75 percent of young people worldwide said they see the future in terms of the climate as frightening and unstable, according to a survey and peer-reviewed study published by Lancet Planetary Health, a journal about sustainable human civilizations in the modern era.
The survey also discusses how climate change is affecting young people’s plans for the future, such as deciding on a career or whether or not to have children. Survey respondents attributed these effects to the fear that they will lack the same opportunities as their parents and the government’s continued dismissal of the climate crisis.
Gilvary said that these concerns are only a few of many that she’s contemplating as she reaches the end of her undergraduate career. When making major life decisions post-graduation, Gilvary feels she has to take climate risk into consideration — and with plans to move to Spain for a year to teach English, researching climate change has been an important factor in planning her trip.
“I know places in the United States that are safer in terms of climate change, but if I move to another continent, I feel like I need to research how likely [a place like] Spain could be affected,” Gilvary explained.
The difficulty of accessing and comprehending this information is also a contributing factor to climate anxiety. It’s very likely that many people simply don’t understand what’s going on in the world of climate change.
Gilvary noted that a big problem for her is being able to parse through all of the scientific jargon. “I just don’t know what’s going to happen — I don’t have the background to really know how much time we actually have to come up with strong solutions,” Gilvary said.
Trevor Cobb, the communications coordinator for Climate Generation — a nonprofit pushing for climate change education in the Twin Cities — said that the current climate crisis may not be something some people care or know about. He hopes an increase in the educational materials available online might help them understand it better.
“I think young people especially are feeling the effects of climate change more deeply and more intimately because it’s really their futures that are on the line.”
Trevor Cobb
Access to useful information on climate change is only one tool of many in the fight for climate justice and being informed will strengthen people’s understanding of it in order to manage their fear and anxiety.
Cobb hopes that Climate Generation’s push for better education on climate change will not only help to inform people, but also provide insight on how to handle the research published by scientists, whether it’s “good” or “bad,” and build hope for the future.
“For young people’s whole lives, the dangers of climate change have been known about and minimal action has been done to address these dangers,” Springer said. “I think having a lack of hope about the future has a lot to do with this. They see the science and the dangers that are to come. They also see the world’s struggles to solve problems that have been clear their whole lives.”
Bel Moran contributed to this article