Balancing climate anxiety with hope: learning from collective climate activism

The climate emergency continues to progress with relentless severity.1 Every day brings news of further environmental disasters, with the most economically and geographically vulnerable countries bearing the heaviest toll. The rapidity with which global warming is translating into climate extremes, and the scale of environmental disasters,2 surpass early scientific predictions, compelling experts to warn that climatic breakdown may be inevitable. Scientists now predict the 1.5C threshold will be breached by 2027.While advances in attribution science have rapidly improved the accuracy of estimates of the impact that the climate emergency has on physical health, the mental health impacts of the climate emergency have received comparatively less attention.3 Climate emergency-related events—from flooding and wildfires, to drought and resulting food insecurity—are associated with a wide spectrum of mental health impacts, including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, extreme psychological stress and distress, substance use, and suicidality.4As the climate emergency accelerates, and to avoid a…
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