What is eco-anxiety? Thanks for asking!

The UN’s COP26 summit is due to start this Sunday, and it’s pretty clear to most of us that climate change is the most serious threat to our health. Of course it’s a physical threat, especially to the vulnerable, due to extreme weather events like heatwaves, storms and fires, which are increasingly frequent and intense. 

But we mustn’t neglect the mental impact, as fear of the future is eating away at the minds of many. Indeed, climate-related disasters and environmental catastrophes are causing a lot of confusion and worry about the future of the planet.

The label eco-anxiety has emerged as the latest addition to a growing vocabulary around climate change, alongside terms like climate depression and solastalgia.

A 2017 definition from the American Psychiatric Association calls eco-anxiety a “chronic sense of environmental doom”. It’s not strictly speaking a medical diagnosis, but it can interfere with people’s daily lives and personal ambitions.

Is it really that widespread? What’s the best way to manage feelings of eco-anxiety? In under 3 minutes, we answer your questions!

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