the perfect storm

What did you and your students find in studying climate anxiety?

There have been troubling increases in rates of anxiety about climate change, especially with young people. This ranges from general existential fears to specific obsessions about one’s own role and responsibility. Through our research effort, collecting data online from hundreds of people, we found that climate anxiety is associated with other kinds of internalizing symptoms, such as depression, anxiety, and stress. And it’s also related to a tendency to catastrophize, or always focus on worst-case scenarios, intolerance of uncertainty, and sensitivity to guilt, which can then snowball, leading to worse and worse feelings.

Climate change is the perfect storm. It pulls for so many things that maintain anxiety. The stakes are so high, there’s so much uncertainty and unpredictability, and the degree to which an individual’s behavior can influence and/or remediate the problem is extremely limited. It’s fertile ground for a big mush of catastrophizing, uncertainty, and maladaptive thinking.

In what ways does climate anxiety stand apart?

Climate anxiety is an instance of anxiety, so it’s not surprising that it’s associated with some of the usual cognitive vulnerabilities to anxiety. However, we also found that it’s related to some factors that normally predict greater well-being. If you view climate change as an existential crisis, there’s naturally a focus on the well-being of future generations, leaving a legacy, and leaving the world better for your children and grandchildren. Usually, such concerns (“generativity”) are associated with greater well-being and less anxiety, but they predict more climate anxiety after accounting for other symptoms.

And then there are complicating factors. Is religion a good reason not to worry as much about existential threats, because there’s a God who’s taking care of stuff, or is religion a reason to care deeply about stewardship over God’s gift to humanity, and making sure that you leave it well?

With climate change being so politicized and polarized, especially in the U.S., many view the issue as a mark of moral standing. That introduces another set of high stakes: What kind of person are you? And with morality on the line, some people can set rigid and inflexible standards for things that they worry make them good or bad.

Is a certain amount of climate anxiety good? Where do you draw the line?

From a public-health standpoint, we want people to have some amount of anxiety about this. It’s potentially a huge problem, and we need people to find ways to do something about it. There’s probably a sweet spot, where more is better up to a point, but where too much anxiety becomes paralyzing. You don’t want people to basically see climate change as hopeless and give up. But if they have no anxiety about it, then they’re not motivated at all.

What do Swarthmore students add to this type of research?

They’re so talented and engaged and thoughtful. A lot of our students are doing research at levels that you’d see from grad students at big research institutions. My students have routinely thought outside the box in ways that are very helpful.