Anxiety about climate change has a name: eco-anxiety. In France, it concerns nearly 80% of young people and a large number of adults. How not to be devoured by this worry? So as not to panic while watching the burning Amazon rainforest and the dying Australian koalas on Instagram? How not to sink into depression when things are not moving fast enough?
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In this episode of “Human Heat”, broadcast on June 21 on the website of World, Nabil Wakim discusses with Laelia Benoit, child psychiatrist, researcher at Yale University (United States) and Inserm. She is currently conducting a large study on the impact of climate change on the mental health of children and adolescents.
In 2017, professionals defined eco-anxiety as “emotional, mental or physical distress in the face of the climate crisis”. There is also talk of “chronic fear” of environmental disasters. Is this a new pathology?
Let us agree from the outset that all the professional associations dealing with eco-anxiety, in particular the American Psychological Association and the Alliance for Climate Psychology, consider that it is not a sickness. They agree that anxiety is an inevitable, and even healthy, response to the ecological threats we face. So it’s not eco-anxious people that need to be cured, but climate change that needs to be stopped!
When a teenager comes to see you, can’t you prescribe medication?
If we medicalized, we would individualize the problem and, logically, we would concentrate our efforts on the search for a miracle drug. However, we do not currently have the time to waste decades of effort and money on this point instead of focusing on the climate crisis. The equation is actually quite clear: no climate change, no eco-anxiety.
You have interviewed several hundred young people for the studies you are conducting. What do they say ?
With the exception of some children in Brazil, who come from extremely disadvantaged backgrounds and who really have no concept of climate change, all are worried when they have a minimum of information. They say they would like to find solutions. Often, they have a lot of enthusiasm to engage in activities, to do their part. They also say that they would like to know more, that they collect their information either from the Internet or from the families, from the families that speak. In families where this subject is not discussed – especially underprivileged families – the children are informed through school. So I think we shouldn’t underestimate the role of school in what they learn.
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