Eco-anxiety: Salvation Through Terror
29th May 2023
The American Psychological Association (APA) does not yet consider it a pathology per se, although it is affecting more and more people; but it has already provided a definition: “Fear that can occur chronically from environmental cataclysm or from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change.” This is ‘eco-anxiety,’ a psychological condition related to the climate emergency.
Awareness of a hypothetical climate apocalypse is reportedly causing more and more individuals to fall into grief and despair, suffer panic attacks, and give up life projects, such as having children, because they see the planet’s overpopulation and a high quality of life as incompatible. And “if adults are extraordinarily worried, children are terrified,” warns Danish environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg.
To address this condition, in addition to recommending that politicians, media, and activists should stop incessantly trumpeting that we are on the brink of extinction, it would make sense to recommend cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to eco-anxious people, in order to re-establish the balance between their perceptions and reality. However, many experts seem to believe that the problem lies not with the eco-afflicted but with the indolence of those who are immune to climate terror.