Dealing with uncertainty: the eco-anxiety edition

Dandelion: (Taraxacum officinale) a symbol of overcoming hardship — Dandelion: *(Taraxacum officinale)* a symbol of overcoming hardship

by Jade Sterling

(Language warning)

Anxiety UK defines anticipatory anxiety as increased levels of anxiety by thinking about an event or situation in the future. It’s not necessarily a specific disorder in its own right, but a symptom commonly found in a number of anxiety-related conditions.

For me, it’s the future in general that’s terrifying. Does no-one else feel this way? We’re facing climate change, unprecedented and unregulated developments in technology, wealth inequality, plastic in our oceans, food and lungs, global authoritarian resurgence—I could go on, but I’m getting a bit breathless.

We live in the most prosperous and peaceful time in human history—sure doesn’t feel like that!—but doesn’t anyone else think we’re barrelling towards a future of change and turbulence unlike anything we’ve ever experienced?

Concern about the carbon trapped under the permafrost in the Arctic is nothing new.

Some of this is eco-anxiety, I get that. Articles like ‘The Arctic may have crossed key threshold, emitting billions of tons of carbon into the air, in a long-dreaded climate feedback,’ make my pulse skyrocket.

‘The Arctic is undergoing a profound, rapid and unmitigated shift into a new climate state, one that is greener, features far less ice, and emits greenhouse gas emissions from melting permafrost,’ reports the Washington Post. ‘The consequences of these climate shifts will be felt far outside the Arctic in the form of altered weather patterns, increased greenhouse gas emissions, and rising sea levels from the melting Greenland ice sheet and mountain glaciers.’

These findings come from the 2019 Arctic Report Card, a major federal assessment of climate change trends and impacts in the region. Concern about the carbon trapped under the permafrost in the Arctic is nothing new. There’s around 1,600 billion metric tons of organic carbon under there—almost twice as much as is in our atmosphere. And now that permafrost is melting… fast.

While the report notes there is still ‘considerable uncertainty about carbon emissions estimates given the relatively limited observational measurements’, it also warns that the Arctic region—which is warming at more than twice the rate of the rest of the world—may already have become the global warming accelerator many have feared.

Certainly, the climate crisis isn’t going unanswered. There are efforts underway to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and plastics and all those other modern things contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, and there are people making a stand.

And yet.

She’s lambasted for her blunt way of speaking, but Greta’s not wrong.

Greta Thunberg literally just wants to make the world a better place. But when someone as erudite and laser-focused as Greta is vilified and subjected to vitriol that stands out in a world already overwhelmingly venomous, how is anyone supposed to feel like things could get better?

Dismissing her with ferocity helps dismiss eco-anxiety as a pathology rather than a rational response. Everyone knows climate change is a real threat, but to those who benefit from denial, shooting the messenger is an excellent response. Distract the world from the message and continue to reap the profits as the planet barrels towards its tipping point.

She’s lambasted for her blunt way of speaking, but Greta’s not wrong: ‘I don’t want you to be hopeful, I want you to panic.’ We absolutely should be concerned about the state of our planet and our future, but eco-anxiety can be overwhelming and paralysing. There are nights I can’t sleep for my worries and feelings of powerlessness.

Fears about the planet’s future permeate my thoughts about my own future: I don’t want children because how could I bring more people into a world that already can’t support our population, and how could I leave my children on the planet to endure the future hellscape to which I’m contributing? If things don’t change immediately, my children would die from the effects of climate change, and that’s horrifying.

The American Psychological Association describes eco-anxiety as ‘a chronic fear of environmental doom’ and that’s exactly how I feel: doomed. We are fucked. And deservedly so!

I feel guilty for the state we’re leaving our planet in; I am livid at myself for continuing to contribute and always choosing an easy life; I’m furious at the people who dismiss my concerns or turn a blind eye to the very real scientific facts of our impending doom. I’m terrified—I don’t want to starve or go to war over water.

If Greta wants me to panic, she’d be delighted to hear that I am indeed panicking. I am overwhelmed by the magnitude of the issue and the fact that I’m a single person on a planet of seven billion, all of us adding to the problem one water bottle, plastic straw, totally unnecessary recreational flight at a time. I feel helpless and I feel frightened.

We’ve got to reduce global carbon emissions by 45 percent in just 10 years or we’re not just fucked—we’re catastrophically fucked. How is anyone supposed to sleep knowing that?

I’m not a person in charge. I’m not a political leader or running a big business, which means the bulk of the responsibility to change does not rest on my shoulders, and I think that makes it worse. Much like I’m always uncomfortable in the passenger seat when I could be controlling the vehicle, I am not happy about having to trust other people to keep me safe.

I can refuse plastic straws and cutlery; take reusable bags whenever I go shopping; walk more and cancel my holiday plans. I can make climate change considerations a factor in all my life decisions: what I eat, how I travel, what I buy, who I support. I’m voting Green too.

But ultimately, all I can do is raise my voice and lend it to sharing the message: we have to do the right thing for the planet and we have to do it now. In the year since Greta inspired a global youth movement against climate change, she has stared down politicians with that penetrating gaze of hers and confronted them with their lack of action.

The American Psychological Association describes eco-anxiety as ‘a chronic fear of environmental doom.’

In the 2000s, I remember wondering where our promised future was—flying cars and smart homes—and wishing it would hurry up already. And now, I sit here at the close of the 2010s, wishing it would slow the fuck down. Because it’s not going to be okay; we can’t keep telling ourselves that. We have to confront this uncertainty. We’re already out of time.

‘You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I’m one of the lucky ones,’ Greta famously told the UN’s Climate Action Summit in September. ‘People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!’

I’m frightened. And there’s nothing from which to take any comfort. Except…

Despite the vitriol, despite the hatred and the denial and the sheer magnitude of the task, people like Greta Thunberg aren’t going away. And I need to remember that.

‘We will not let you get away with this,’ she said, closing her address to the UN. ‘Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not.’ ■