2.2 Addressing climate anxiety
It’s important not to medicalise climate anxiety (Sharp and Hickman, 2019). After all, feelings of anxiety are a healthy response to what’s going on in the world. We’re living through an experience unlike anything before, in which people are no longer in control, and we’re rethinking our role in relation to the planet. While climate anxiety can be a barrier to learning and a challenge for educators, it can also be seen as a healthy, adaptive response: a sign that people are taking the situation seriously and appreciating the need for change. A helpful step to take is to reframe the term ‘eco-anxiety’ and think of it as eco-empathy, eco-compassion or eco-caring (Hickman, 2020).
According to Sharp and Hickman (2019), the challenges posed by climate change give our society an opportunity to develop emotional resilience, learning to act out of the emotions that we’ve often repressed in the past and using them to change the world. They suggest that there are three steps to take to address climate anxiety.
- Name: the phenomenon needs to be acknowledged and named, enabling people to understand and empathise with each other.
- Talk: people need to talk about climate anxiety within their own communities, explore the emotions they feel and realise they’re not alone.
- Act: actions need to be both internal and external, with individuals taking action to support their own mental wellbeing but also coming together to take collective action and make their voices heard.
Educators are well placed to support learners in all three steps. It’s important that they happen sequentially and that the actions are not used as a way of pushing aside the feelings. Space needs to be made to name and talk about the feelings first. All too often, climate change education happens without acknowledging learners’ feelings at all. Doing so can make a difference, as Jazz describes here:
The thing about climate change is; it’s scary, but when I was told that it was ok to feel scared I felt better, not un-scared, but being told that it was ok to feel scared stopped me from being scared about being scared if you know what I mean?
The Climate Emotions Wheel [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] is a tool that can be used with learners of all ages to help them name and understand their feelings. Throughout this course, you’ll consider different ways in which educators can support learners to talk and to act, sharing their learning in a way that can bring about positive change.