An Essay on Eco-Anxiety

 Although this blog's main focus is on the "unique species of the world" and the effects of human-caused problems on ecosystems and wildlife, there's something else I feel the need to address, and that is the effects of such problems on the mental health of teens like me. So, here it is, an essay on eco-anxiety by yours truly. 

The Weight of the World on Gen Z’s Shoulders

Since the time of elementary school, parents, teachers, presidents, and any of the other role models of a ten-year-old have emphasized the same message over and over again to my generation: the future is in your hands. This message, meant to be one of inspiration and motivation, encouraged us to take charge of our lives. It stressed that we were the ones who could shape our destiny. We were the ones who could create the life of our dreams for ourselves. Nothing and no one else could determine our path.

But in a world where environmental problems have worsened to a point where even the possibility of a future is uncertain, this saying becomes less and less true every day. Issues like climate change and pollution have been around for decades, but recently, these issues have blown up due to the rapid growth of the human population. Every year in the last decade, thousands of species were declared extinct, 14 million tons of plastic were thrown away, two billion tons of waste were generated, and over 43 billion tons of CO2 were emitted into the atmosphere (“The Biggest Environmental Problems”). As these statistics have grown, problems like deforestation, biodiversity loss, and climate change have as well. 

Climate change, in particular, is quickly becoming one of the most imminent dangers to the earth. Researchers from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently released a report predicting the effects of climate change on the earth will become irreversible if we can’t find a way to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees celsius in 12 years. By 2040, the earth will feel the full effects of climate change as currently rare disasters such as hurricanes and floods become common occurrences (Turrentine 2). By 2050, 55% of the human population will be “exposed to lethal heat conditions, beyond the threshold of human survivability” (Specktor 6).

Whether this report is accurate or not, whether climate change is already irreversible or isn’t even a threat at all, the truth is that earth’s ecosystems are crumbling by the second right now. As if there was an hourglass embedded in me, I can feel the time slipping away every day as I read about melting ice caps, watch wildfires ravaging landscapes on my tv, and experience the effects of air pollution firsthand. Although the world is taking more action than ever to save our planet, environmental issues are still happening at record numbers. Saving the earth isn’t so much about restoring the environment anymore; it’s turned into a battle to salvage our future, and as I’ve grasped the gravity of the situation I’m in, I can only feel panic and something in between hopelessness and anger. There are people I can blame and be resentful towards; there are people who don’t care about the environment, and there are people who have magnified the earth’s problems with their ignorance. But my frustration is aimed at something else; this situation I’m in where my future isn’t in my own hands anymore. It seems to have been already decided by the path the earth is tumbling down— a path littered with dying ecosystems and destructive environmental disasters. 

Knowing this is possibly the fate that awaits me and billions of others is the source of the anxiety that quietly bites away in the back of my mind. From watching plastic piling up on Lake Michigan’s shoreline in the summer to observing the woods in my backyard thin out every winter to not being able to glimpse the stars shine through the endless night sky anymore, I can see the life around me becoming more polluted every day—and it absolutely terrifies me. 

But I’m not the only one who feels this way. As awareness of issues like climate change, deforestation, and biodiversity loss has grown, so has concern over them, and one generation, in particular, seems to feel the stress from environmental decay more than others. A recent survey conducted by Bath University highlights the depth of stress and anxiety Generation Z teens feel from climate change and other ecological threats. The specifics showed that over two-thirds of the students reported feeling “sad, afraid, and anxious”, and over 75% agreed that “the future is frightening” (Harrabin 20). A majority also agreed that “humanity is doomed”. But it’s the conclusion of the report I find the most distressing; a majority of students stated they don’t believe they have a future anymore and “that humanity is doomed” (Harrabin 7). 

Of all the unsure aspects of a teenager’s life, whether it’s school, relationships, or the prospect of adulthood, there has always been a constant, something that is sometimes the only factor that pushes us through whatever troubles we have in life. It’s the idea that the present will get better, that we won’t be forever stuck in our current situation because we have the future to look forward to. We have the opportunity to choose a new path to follow. But without the hope of having the future to escape to, where do we go from here? Equally important, how do we deal with the prospect of no future or trying to survive in one troubled with life-threatening environmental problems? 

Living in a reality where ecological threats plague all aspects of life is the cause of an emotional strain that usually comes unacknowledged. Although many people recognize the physical harm environmental degradation inflicts, few consider the impacts of the environmental crises on mental health, especially that of teenagers. 

Levels of stress vary from person to person, but for some, the fear of having an unstable future dominated by pollution, wildfires, and floods has completely overwhelmed their lives. Eco-anxiety isn’t considered to be a clinical condition, and it isn’t diagnosable, but it also doesn’t have a cure or definite solution. According to the Climate Psychology Alliance, anger, grief, depression, and feelings of helplessness, numbness, and restlessness are the main symptoms of eco-anxiety (5). These serious psychological reactions are leading both medical experts and researchers to notice this rife trend and to recognize the consequential effects it has on young people, acknowledging that “environmental fears are profoundly affecting huge numbers of young people" (Harrabin 8).

Elizabeth Marks, a psychologist who co-conducted the largest scientific eco-anxiety survey to date, explains that “we feel sadness and grief when we lose things, and we've already lost things because of climate change. We feel fear and anxiety when we're under threat, and there isn't a clear way to avoid or stop what's happening with climate change. That's what climate anxiety looks like” (Chapman 3). 

But eco-anxiety isn’t limited to just climate change. And there really isn’t one picture of what it “looks like”. Perhaps this is why eco-anxiety seems to be undiagnosable; there’s such a variety in how people react to stress in general that trying to identify specific elements of eco-anxiety is almost impossible. It’s simply different for everyone. 

Cases range from psychologists witnessing their young patients “weeping about their fear of never having a family” to teachers hearing how “students talk about panic attacks when wildfires break out," (Plautz 6). The most severe cases include children reporting suicidal thoughts because of their eco-anxiety, and reports even describe a 17-year old student who dehydrated himself to the point of hospitalization during a drought because he was afraid he would worsen the situation by drinking any water (Plautz 11). In a more nuanced way, a student from Alabama explains how conversations with her friends simply glide between “I have a calculus test tomorrow” and “polar bears are dying, and it feels like there is nothing we can do,” demonstrating how eco-anxiety has manifested into her life (Plautz 12). 

My own views and fears are a product of the media, how I was raised, and my understanding from years of learning about the human impact on the earth. Personally, I don’t think about climate change, fires and floods, or plastic pollution 24/7. But once my thoughts land on the topic, I fall into a dark rabbit hole that takes me from worry after worry. These thoughts are a ball and chain on my mind; I can only walk away from them for so long before I’m pulled back and forced to face the facts. As I’ve said, anxiety isn’t front and center in my daily life; it’s more of an ominous shadow of dreaded anticipation, like the kind one may have if they were walking around with a noose around their neck, not knowing if or when it would be pulled. 

Underlying all of the different ways teens experience eco-anxiety is a common worry: the future, or more specifically, the fear of what it may bring. There isn’t confirmed evidence proving teens are affected by eco-anxiety more than adults, but with the future being the overarching concern, it makes sense that Generation Z is impacted the most. We simply have the most invested in the future as we’ll be the ones living it. 

An anonymous student encapsulates this saying, “It’s different for young people; for us, the destruction of the earth is personal” (Chapman 5). My peers and I were born into a world where the devastating effects of environmental problems have reigned as one of the top threats to humanity for years. We grew up listening to reports of increasing temperatures, dying forests, and other problems that were all highlighted by the media, culture, and education of our childhoods. We’ve never known a reality where the health of our planet had no need for concern, but we’re being told that the reality we do live in is heading towards its end. Yet, it seems like nothing has been done to prevent that end.

World leaders have promised to find and fund creative solutions to the multitude of earth’s problems, specific to their nation and to all of us. In an interview concerning climate change, President Joe Biden promised billions to lower carbon emissions. “It’s the number one issue facing humanity. And it’s the number one issue for me... I will make massive, urgent investments at home that put the United States on track to have a clean energy economy with net-zero emissions by 2050." (Newburger 2). Other such promises have been made, but people are impatient, worried about what the future will bring, and want to see real change happen now. I want to see change right now.

Emma Lawrence, a researcher and peer of Elizabeth Marks, underscores the connection between the prominence of eco-anxiety in Generation Z and the role that governments and adults play in stopping the environmental crises. “There is this kind of generational gap that I think can exacerbate, understandably, their feelings of distress,” she explains (Chapman 12). Adults have emphasized the problems of the earth to the youth, yet they have done little to stop them (or at least, not enough). Feelings of hypocrisy and broken promises only intensify the despair and anxiety already existing in the minds of teens. It seems to me that the environmental policies and pledges governments have made, whether out of public pressure or genuine concern, are cleaning up the consciences of politicians more than the actual environment, and it’s clear that there isn’t a plan on how to guide the earth off of this path it’s on that’s leading us to its end.  

From all of this arises a pattern, or more so, a problem. Society provides us with alarming news and predictions of environmental troubles, which engenders fear and stress from younger generations. But with no answers and a lack of solutions to combat these issues, eco-anxiety metamorphoses into hopelessness and depression. It’s a vicious cycle that can’t be broken until earth’s ecological threats are solved, an unlikely miracle considering the minimal positive change governments have made. 

And so we’re stuck. Stuck in a dark, anxiety-ridden space that is taxing on our mental health and has little hope or comfort to give. Teens don’t have a definite way to cope with this mindset, so as ecological threats have grown over the years, stress and anxiety have grown alongside it, making Generation Z the most depressed generation in history. Award-winning journalist Jason Plautz emphasizes this fact as he explains that anxiety diagnoses in children ages 6 to 17 have increased by 20% in five years (13). Of course, there’s a combination of factors that contribute to this statistic, but with environmental issues showing no sign of slowing down, eco-anxiety will likely spread, which begs a new question, one that Plautz himself is exploring.   

With ecological disasters and a media climate that spotlights these threats at every turn, how do teens like me live with the mindset we’ve been forced into and grow up to be inspired, fulfilled adults to lead the way into the future? Or as Plautz articulates it, how can Generation Z be raised to look toward the future with hope when all around us is a message of apparent hopelessness (8)? 

And this brings up yet another point; what will future generations grow up to be if climate change, pollution, and all the other problems of the earth magnify to levels worse than now? If each generation becomes more depressed than the last, then perhaps it’s the destruction of our mental health, not the earth, that will lead to the end of humanity.  

The eco-anxiety movement is significant to the future, and considering the failure of preventing damage from being inflicted on the earth, one of our only other options to restore mental health may be to prevent the exposure of alarming environmental news to the youth. At first thought, I think it’s crazy and illogical because the news has always been a source of information and education for the public, and students wouldn’t be sheltered from the reality of the world forever either. However, the media climate is affecting teens, and the extent to which it does is consequential enough to evaluate how we decide to educate younger generations. There doesn’t seem to be a way to overcome eco-anxiety, so instead, is the solution to preventing eco-anxiety from arising in the first place limiting youth exposure to potentially harmful news and media? 

CTV journalist, Jonathan Forani, discusses this question with several registered psychologists, including Christine Korol, who acknowledges, “There’s so much grim news out there, and it feels pretty hopeless”; she continues explaining from her experience that most reactions from her patients range from denial to “we’re all going to die” with very little in between (1). These concerning responses have led some parents to rally together online, protesting that too much exposure to activism and fear could be harmful to their children. Forani even draws an example from HBO Max’s Big Little Lies to illustrate parental worries over educating children on environmental troubles. Laura Dern’s character on the show is shown “railing at her daughter’s teacher and school principal after the girl passes out during a climate change lesson” (Forani 5). 

Kaitlin Kramer and Katie Tahuahua, writers for the Texas Public Policy Foundation, also side with the mom role of Laura Dern in Big Little Lies, demonstrating how certain media outlets promote attention-grabbing headlines instead of fact-based news in one of their recent articles. In 2019, Congresswoman Cortez famously claimed: “the world is going to end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change”, and Kramer and Tahuahua argue that “these apocalyptic statements” are based on “inaccurate and oversimplified” facts of climate science, which leads to an unnecessary and negative impact on mental health (2). Cortez’s claim did end up being refuted by The Associated Press, and the two writers conclude that exaggerated statements like these are causing some teenagers to be more “concerned about the environment than going to school or taking care of themselves, which is incredibly damaging to a child’s development” (10). 

Yet some believe teenage concern about the environment may be the key to saving the earth. College student, Dalia Maeroff, believes our generation’s eco-anxiety is the factor that will push governments and the world to enact meaningful change, and to some extent, I agree (5). Research has suggested that emotional distress kicks the nervous systems into gear and can lead to “important political work” (“Ecological Existence Dread”). With no sense of urgency, there’s no catalyst to making change, but with the anxiety of Generation Z, we are pushing ourselves to be the face of the movement to save the earth. Clover Hogan, a twenty-year-old from Australia, founded Force of Nature, an initiative encouraging young people to realize their potential for creating change, out of her panic attacks from hearing about the summer wildfires of Australia (Murray and Taylor 15). And in Denver, Colorado, grade school students have protested to their city about climate change, skipping school and holding signs saying, “Why Should I Study for a Future I won’t have?” (Plautz 1). 

Ironically, others are making a difference in another way: education, a direct factor in growing eco-anxiety. Scarlett Westbrook is a student who helped create Teach the Future, a new class designed to educate young people on climate change and other ecological threats (Bundock 4). She argues that education is necessary to prepare for the “post-climate world” and that students suffer from eco-anxiety because of a lack of quality education that calms their concerns and fears (Bundock 7). Adam Waters, another student, advocates for more environmental education in classrooms, asserting that teachers don’t explain the consequences of climate change “and that just leaves us in ignorance about the actual practical problems of climate change," (Bundock 9). 

Interestingly, it seems that teens want more education and exposure to environmental problems than adults want for them, many of which are trying to shelter them from it. This isn’t a surprise to me; again, we were born into this world crumbling under the weight of all kinds of environmental problems, none of which were caused by us. But we’re here, and we have to figure out how to grow up in this world, how to save this world for our future, and the way to do that is to take action ourselves. In order to take action, we need to be educated on what we’re facing. Perhaps the answer isn’t to limit education or even exposure to exaggerated news stories; let the next generations learn about climate change, wildfires, and coral reef degradation so we can fix these problems and utilize our eco-anxiety to promote positive change in the world. 

But although teen eco-anxiety could incentivize society to focus more on environmental threats, I can’t help but think of the depression and mental torture that some of my peers go through because of it. It’s not right, and it’s definitely not fair, to sentence so many people to that dark, hopeless mind space.

I do believe that censoring the news, media, and the reality of what is truly happening isn’t the solution to preventing eco-anxiety, but over-education is a real danger, and we’ll have to be careful to find a way to walk the balance beam of beneficial education and not fall to either side of sheltering and causing excessive fear. Knowledge has always been the key to power, and we need power to save the earth and our futures. 

Young people are already starting on this herculean task, pushing past whatever panic and worries they have; it’s why middle schoolers are petitioning their governments for plastic bag bans, high schoolers suing governments for using fossil fuels, and all kinds of teens organizing protests to protect the environment (O’Brien 5). Generation Z is taking action now because it doesn’t seem like anyone else is. The task of saving the earth has fallen to me and the millions of others who had the chance of being born in the 21st century, and with it comes anxiety, stress, fear, and a sense of injustice from having to fight for our future, a right everyone else has been freely given. 

The future is in your hands seems now seems to take on a whole new meaning. What it really implies is that we, the next generation of the world, are the ones responsible for fixing the environmental disasters that afflict the earth. We’re responsible for setting the new path the earth will rise up to, and we’re responsible for all the futures that come after us. It’s another source of stress and pressure that’s placed on Generation Z, but we have no choice but to carry the burden. To expect us to complete the almost insurmountable task of saving the planet is like asking us to support the sky on our backs for those who couldn’t; it’s the real-life modern version of the gods of Olympus condemning Atlas to carry the weight of the world. It’s a sad and unfair truth, but I’ve learned that Generation Z is resilient, willing to make a difference, and ready to take on the world. The next generations couldn’t have their futures placed in better hands. 

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