Climate Anxiety in Make-Believe Mirrors Real Time

It “is a load of bullsh*t,” pioneering climate scientist James Hansen recently told the Guardian.

He was referring to the story the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells the public that the world can still avoid a 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) temperature rise above pre-industrial levels. The reality, said Hansen, is that “the 1.5 C global warming ceiling has been passed for all practical purposes because the large planetary energy imbalance assures that global temperature is heading still higher.”

Hansen’s message should send shivers through all of us. Throughout his long, distinguished career, the former NASA scientist’s assessments have almost always been spot-on. Even if global temperature does not permanently overshoot the 1.5 C threshold for a few more years, it is now imminent.

Every small increase in temperatures will generate more harm. However, a rise in global average surface temperatures by more than 1.5 C over an extended period is expected to activate relentless and possibly irreversible damage to many aspects of the earth’s climate system, ecological systems, and biodiversity, and thus human society.

That’s why the Paris Agreement adopted at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in 2015 agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions to "hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2° C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5° C above pre-industrial levels."

Despite the Paris Agreement, and the decades of scientific warnings that proceeded and followed it about the dangers of rising global temperatures, we continue to sleepwalk into this civilization-altering event.

The response by many government officials, corporate leaders, and members of the public reminds me of the 2021 movie "Don’t Look Up." Leonardo DiCaprio plays an astronomer and Jennifer Lawrence plays his young graduate student who identify and then try to warn humanity of a giant comet racing toward them that will destroy the planet. The comet is an allegory for the climate-ecosystem-biodiversity (C-E-B) catastrophe, and the film satirizes society’s response to it.

Jonah Hill plays the clueless chief-of-staff to the U.S. president who, like many public officials today, dismisses the threat and insists on maintaining business as usual. The president, played by Meryl Streep, also initially discounts the comet, then promotes mass denial of the pending catastrophe with a nationwide campaign telling people, “Don’t look up.”

This is a parody of the long campaign by the fossil fuel and other industries, and the elected officials they influence, to convince the public that the C-E-B catastrophe is a fake conspiracy led by scientists, so-called liberals, and anyone else who challenges them.

The young graduate student is scared to death about the consequences of the comet and becomes furious at the media and elected officials because of their unwillingness to deal with the threat. She screams at them on national TV, gets booted from her position, and ends up working as a convenience store clerk.

The president finally decides to take action, but then aborts the effort at the direction of a corporate billionaire, played by Mark Rylance, who claims he has a new technology that can create more wealth (mostly for him) by extracting valuable materials from the comet, and then destroy it. This is a caricature of the numerous government officials today who make decisions based on the desires of corporate executives and the uber-rich.

Although the script is sometimes a bit over-the-top, the film accurately portrays where things stand today regarding the C-E-B catastrophe. Just as the movie lampoons, a significant portion of the public, as well as business leaders and public officials, obstinately go all-out to deny what is happening and maintain business as usual.

Mirroring the distress felt by the movie’s graduate student, many young people today feel significant angst about the C-E-B catastrophe, leading to what is called "climate anxiety" (or "climate grief"). A report published in Lancet Planetary Health in 2021 found that almost 60 percent of the people ages 16 to 25 living in ten countries, including the U.S., reported being very or extremely worried about climate change, and nearly half said it affects their daily functioning. They fear for their future, mourn what they will lose, and suffer emotionally as a result.

Climate anxiety, however, is by no means limited to youth. My wife and I experience this in late summer every year now when we worry about whether a drought-induced wildfire will torch our neighborhood.

We experienced significant trepidation again this past week when an ice storm covered our entire area with an inch of ice. This was not just another winter storm. Temperatures remained well below freezing for days, our power was out for almost a week, and we had no heat. Large limbs and entire trees fell all over our property and some blocked our ice-covered driveway, which made it impossible to get out if we needed help.

A number of scientists say that a disrupted climate system can play a role in the type of icy cold blast we experienced because warming in the Arctic increases the chances that that freezing cold polar air can be pushed southward by the jet stream.

Luckily, our house was not damaged, and my wife and I had prepared for power outages, so we got through the disaster OK. As we wrapped ourselves in blankets to stay warm, we talked about our fears for the future.

This was the third time in the past six years we had been marooned for days by a major winter storm. These events followed summer after summer of record droughts, heatwaves, wildfires, and hazardous wildfire smoke events. We both shared deep concern about what the coming years will mean for us, our family, and our community. We also talked about how sad we were about the difficulties young people will experience.

Climate anxiety is ever-present in our home, and I’m sure countless other adults feel it as well.

One of the ways we dealt with the distress of the ice storm was by regularly checking in with friends and neighbors to see if all was well. Our group texted jokes and humorous pictures back and forth to make everyone laugh. This kept our spirits up (most of the time). It also provided an important sense of purpose to our interactions that gave them meaning.

In addition, we regularly practiced deep breathing and cracked jokes to keep ourselves calm. We focused on practical things we could control, such as keeping our portable generator running and refreshing flashlight batteries. Through these and similar actions, we avoided feeling overwhelmed by the stresses we felt.

Also uplifting were stories we heard on our battery-powered radio about how community residents were checking in with and assisting others, including strangers and people who were homeless and living on the street. This is common and often called the “community cohesion” (or honeymoon) phase of a disaster.

During and immediately after a disaster, local residents typically come together to assist others, including people they don’t know, or usually don’t even want to be around. This creates a sense of safety and support, and many people find meaning and purpose in difficult times by helping others. After a few weeks or months, however, most people return to their everyday lives and the cohesion phase ends.

This highlights what will be needed to address climate anxiety and the many other social, psychological, emotional struggles, and physical challenges, generated by ongoing C-E-B catastrophe-generated stresses, emergencies, and disasters.

We need to find ways to continually sustain the community cohesion phase that normally ends after a disaster. This will require the creation of a broad and diverse social infrastructure in neighborhoods and communities that can be called a Resilience Coordinating Network. These networks can enable residents to stay connected, provide practical assistance and emotional support to others, engage in pro-social activities that give their lives meaning, purpose, and hope, and in other ways help everyone remain mentally and physically healthy and resilient during ongoing adversities, and recover when they are traumatized.

Indeed, communities are the medicine we will need during the long C-E-B catastrophe.