Since climate change became the left’s new favorite topic, “climate anxiety” has also become a term and phenomenon that allegedly affects more and more people. It is also something that researchers are becoming increasingly interested in, and at Lund University, you can find answers on how to deal with your doomsday feelings.

For a long time, the left’s favorite topic was alleged racism. When that eventually lost momentum, and the ravages of multiculturalism became more apparent to most, the focus shifted to climate change, led by Greta Thunberg.

Marlis Wullenkord is a researcher in environmental psychology at Lund University and has shown an interest in the so-called anxiety some feel about the alleged climate crisis. In 2021, she presented a dissertation on the psychological causes of another contemporary term: “climate denial”—that is, those who do not believe the world is about to end.

– We also live in the shadow of war, pandemic risk, and a decline in democracy. What makes climate change particularly interesting is its existential nature. Despite the fact that the threat is well-known, extensive, and concerns all of humanity, collective action proportional to the problem is lacking, she says.

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Today, she is involved in several projects on the same theme. One of these aims to find out whether close ties to nature can be a way to manage climate worry. Normally, a close relationship with nature is good for a person’s mental well-being, but when it comes to climate change, the same protective effect is not seen.

For people with a strong connection to nature, spending time in nature is actually said to evoke climate-related grief and anxiety, as the changes become more tangible and the losses more concrete.

Widespread Climate Panic

Reference is made to surveys that are said to show that about 75 percent of the Swedish population are fairly or very worried about the alleged effects of climate change and want to see faster action. At the same time, other surveys reportedly show a widespread belief that one’s own climate engagement is greater than others’—something called pluralistic ignorance.

According to Wullenkord, this phenomenon risks leading to a dissonance between one’s own thoughts and the public conversation.

Rational Concern

The criticism that climate anxiety is an expression of excessive sensitivity is unfounded, she says.

– It is rational to feel worry or even anxiety over the real threat that climate change represents. There is sometimes an underlying notion that rationality and emotions are detached from each other, even though it is usually the opposite. It would be reasonable to allow more space for emotions and collective emotional regulation in the public conversation.

Tips and Advice

To cope with doomsday feelings, she has some advice. One is called meaning-focused coping—daring to stay with the difficult and uncomfortable, while trying to find meaning in the situation.

Another point is to validate feelings, where climate anxiety should not be seen as something to cure but as an adaptive response to a real threat.

Finally, it is important to understand oneself and to act, for example by joining a climate network.

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