What is “weather anxiety” and how can we use it?

“I want you to panic!” With this phrase, Greta Thunberg hits the nail on the head and generates fear in many people. The leader of the movement Fridays for Future It is aimed primarily at those with the “big lever”: politicians and heads of the world’s leading corporations who pump gigantic amounts of CO2, the main greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.

She herself feels this fear every day, she says. Climate anxiety is today an almost collective feeling among youth and all people who see the climate crisis as a serious threat.

What is weather anxiety?

Weather Anxiety, in English climate anxiety, describes the fear of climate change and its consequences. There is no psychiatric diagnosis for this fear. Rather, the term describes a concern about global warming, which is accompanied by a feeling of helplessness.

Climate change was invisible for a long time, but the increase in extreme weather events, for example, has made it more noticeable. Many young people cannot imagine a bright future right now. They fear for themselves, their family and their friends. They are afraid to see only suffering and death around them. They cry when they think about the future.

Pathologizing climate anxiety runs the risk that it becomes the problem to be solved, rather than climate change itself. We will no longer have to face real climate change, but overcome the anxiety it causes us. Regardless of the feelings it provokes in us, climate change is not going to stop being a problematic reality.

For all these reasons, perhaps people who are concerned about the climate it is not convenient for them to exist about the existence of climate anxiety or climate fear. Furthermore, fear can be paralyzing, just the opposite of what is necessary to deal with global warming.

Which person is most affected by weather anxiety?

Only people who perceive the threat They may worry about the consequences of climate change for themselves, for future generations, and for entire ecosystems.

The strange thing is that these people are not the majority. Scientific evidence shows that climate change caused by man will change the conditions of life on the planet. And this problem is accompanied by the loss of biodeversity and the extent of contamination. So the question that arises is: Why are there still so many people who don’t want to acknowledge this threat?

Although we trust science and are very concerned about the consequences of climate change, sometimes it is difficult to make sustainable decisions. This points to the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance: sIf I experience a contradiction between my behavior and my knowledge or my attitudes, an uncomfortable tension arises. This tension can be reduced by justifying the discrepancy. Reducing dissonance by removing iron from climate change becomes a protection mechanism in order not to endanger one’s own well-being.

Climate fear has something positive

It is in the interest of keeping climate anxiety in due course as a concern. Fears and worries are not ‘bad’ per se, if they serve to adapt our behavior to real threats, including complex threats that are not immediately visible, such as climate change.

In addition, the developed democracies that deserve such a name are characterized by deal with challenges and conflicts rationally, consensual and abiding by the decisions of the majority, with respect for minorities. It is not democratic to individualize collective problems, attributing them to supposed personal adaptation disorders, nor, of course, to deny the problem of climate change.

How can you deal with worry about the weather?

It is important to show what you can do. In a democracy we are anything but powerless. The decisions of the governments have a direct influence on the evolution of the climate and the governments are chosen by us.

But in addition to voting with environmental awareness (without being persuaded by the green propaganda of some), our consumption, especially our diet, our habits and our behavior in relation to energy consumption and mobilityd also have a very big impact on the climate.

But be careful, when we act sustainably in some sense, We quickly tend to fall into compensatory justifications: “I always recycle my PET bottles, so I get to fly on a plane from time to time.”

But climate protection is not a sale of indulgences, you cannot balance one of these behaviors with the other, since one has an extremely high climate impact and the other much less.

Looking for people related to our fears is good.It helps to see that many people around the world share this fear and are willing to do something.