Eco-anxiety: how to find hope in a climate crisis

1. Your feelings are a healthy response to the climate crisis

The hard truth first: the climate crisis is the biggest existential threat humans have ever faced. Human actions are destroying our only home. People in power seem slow to act, undermining our trust in them. And for some communities, loss and damage from climate change is already piling up.

Caroline reminded us that it’s natural to feel a range of emotions when we consciously or unconsciously realise this. Climate change is too big to see all at once. So it’s important to understand that what we feel is a healthy emotional response. We only feel climate-anxiety because we care. It shows that we’re seeing what’s happening and it doesn’t sit well with us. 

2. You’re not alone

It’s a bit of a cliche to say, but you’re really not alone! If we aren’t often around people who accept or understand how we feel, it can seem like we’re the only one experiencing eco-anxiety.

But according to the stats, 84% of young people across the world say they feel worried about it. And 2021’s census reported that 75% of adults in Britain are worried about its impact. So it’s very likely you already know someone who has similar emotions to you.

Learning how to talk to family and friends about climate change and anxiety can help us process it. If you don’t feel able to talk to anyone you know, consider finding other ways to connect with like-minded people – such as at a climate cafe or volunteering for Greenpeace. 

3. We need to learn to ‘dance’ with our eco-anxiety

Forget the language of battle. As Caroline puts it: eco-anxiety is not something to fight with – it’s something we need to learn to ‘dance’ with.

If  we get stuck in difficult emotions, we might find it hard to transform that feeling into action. But like all dances, nobody knows the moves straight away. It takes practice to build up the muscles and moves that you need. 

Dancing with these feelings means being okay with not being okay; learning to accept how we feel; and letting the emotions run their course. We come to understand that even though we’ll see them again, they will pass.

4. Make space for your emotions

It’s tempting to run from your eco-anxiety for fear that it will completely overtake you. Instead, Caroline suggests making space for it. 

So what does this mean practically? It could look like setting aside 30 minutes each day to think about climate change and process how you feel. Writing, drawing, talking and walking are some of the many ways you can do this. Or it could look like getting support from a trained climate therapist, particularly if eco-anxiety is badly impacting your life.

By carving out space for it, we can set ourselves up to better navigate life alongside eco-anxiety.

5. ‘Radical hope’ can help shift eco-anxiety towards action

We cannot hide from the climate crisis, which means learning to transform eco-anxiety into action. Showing up for things we care about means caring for ourselves and each other too. 

Radical hope makes hope into something we do and practise. It makes us active in how we think, feel and act. By choosing to befriend our emotional responses, we can slowly lower our emotional defences and connect with what our feelings are telling us to do. You do not have to like the situation we are in, but we do have to find a way to face it together

Practising radical hope doesn’t have to be complicated. Find big and small ways you can start adding more hope into the world on Greenpeace’s Take Action page.