--- title: Don't Ignore Your Climate Anxiety description: Wildfires, record-breaking heat waves, and dangerous air quality are causing increased climate anxiety. We must own it, writes Susan Clayton. canonical: https://time.com/6298051/climate-anxiety-essay/ author: Susan Clayton article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-07-26T16:07:33.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:51:04.060Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Don't Ignore Your Climate Anxiety og:description: Column: Wildfires, record-breaking heat waves, and dangerous air quality are causing increased climate anxiety. og:url: https://time.com/6298051/climate-anxiety-essay/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4f1ad6aa991ec8ff/698a3f05457a526badd67cfa/Heat-Wave-Arizone-2023.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Heat-Wave-Arizona-2023 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Don't Ignore Your Climate Anxiety twitter:description: Column: Wildfires, record-breaking heat waves, and dangerous air quality are causing increased climate anxiety. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4f1ad6aa991ec8ff/698a3f05457a526badd67cfa/Heat-Wave-Arizone-2023.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- # Don't Ignore Your Climate Anxiety > Sponsored content. 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A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-inside-2026q3/newsletters?i=359fd1ac-0110-4055-9b5e-ddf0f4063ee0&cr=time-nl-inside-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Setting Boundaries: Johan Rockström's Quest for a Healthy Planet [Watch (HLS stream): Setting Boundaries: Johan Rockström's Quest for a Healthy Planet](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/ZJVfj7hC.m3u8) (6:28)  _Published 2023-04-20. In the climate science world, Johan Rockström is known as a bit of a... rockstar. He's on the 2023 TIME100 list. He has a viral TED Talk. He stars in a Netflix documentary. And when people talk about the practical steps needed to slow climate change, they talk about his work._ Jul 26, 2023 4:07 PM UTC  People gather and watch the sunset from South Mountain Park amid the city's worst heat wave on record on July 25, 2023 in Phoenix, Ariz. While Phoenix endures periods of extreme heat every year, today marked the 26th straight day of temperatures reaching 110 degrees or higher, a new record amid a long duration heat wave in the Southwest. Extreme heat kills more people than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined in an average year in the U.S. People gather and watch the sunset from South Mountain Park amid the city's worst heat wave on record on July 25, 2023 in Phoenix, Ariz. While Phoenix endures periods of extreme heat every year, today marked the 26th straight day of temperatures reaching 110 degrees or higher, a new record amid a long duration heat wave in the Southwest. Extreme heat kills more people than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined in an average year in the U.S. Mario Tama—Getty Images by [Susan Clayton](https://time.com/author/susan-clayton/) ## Susan Clayton Jul 26, 2023 4:07 PM UTC [Wildfires](https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/16/weather/canada-wildfires-us-air-quality-alerts-sunday/index.html). [Record-breaking temperatures](https://time.com/6297377/heat-waves-climate-change-july-2023/). [Dangerous air quality](https://time.com/6285326/wildfire-smoke-air-quality-health-impacts/). [Apocalyptic headlines](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/03/arts/climate-change-doomsday-culture.html). This summer has highlighted the impacts of climate change, and even those who were feeling relatively safe are facing a new reality: Climate change is already happening, and it is going to affect all of us. In addition to all the minor annoyances and inconveniences (Canceled flights! Uncomfortable commutes! Restrictions on outdoor exercise!), these climate change events present real and serious threats not only to physical health and safety, but also to mental health. In the face of these conditions, people are feeling a wide range of negative emotions—sad, scared, overwhelmed, anxious—that are leading to new terms like [eco-grief,](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7830022/) [climate anxiety,](https://time.com/6112146/climate-anxiety-resources/) and [solastalgia](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18027145/#:~:text=As%20opposed%20to%20nostalgia%2D%2D,connected%20to%20their%20home%20environment.). As a conservation psychologist, I have observed this through personal conversations and anecdotal reports, as well as multiple research studies on how our changing climate affects our mental wellbeing. Substantial survey data, such as a [2023 report](https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/climate-change-in-the-american-mind-beliefs-attitudes-spring-2023/) from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, show high levels of worry about the personal impacts of climate change. Research also supports a link between experiences and emotions. For example, a [2022 study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667278222000050) showed that the [2021 heat dome](https://time.com/6279678/pacific-northwest-heat-advisory/) (a weather event in which a high-pressure system traps hot air over an area, leading to extended and often record-breaking temperatures) in Canada was associated with a significant increase in climate change-linked anxiety. These emotional responses are complex. People are not only feeling sad and anxious—young people feel betrayed by the inadequacy of governmental response; people who have contributed very little to climate change are angry that they are experiencing more than their share of the consequences; many feel frustrated by the responses of others, or guilty about their own individual or collective involvement. We might feel all these emotions at once, or cycle through them in the course of the day. These feelings are hard to cope with—but we should own them. ### More From TIME **_Read More:_** [_How Psychology Can Help Fight Climate Change—And Climate Anxiety_](https://time.com/6204083/climate-change-mental-heath-psychology/) Although it is appropriate to be worried about climate change, at extreme levels, climate anxiety can threaten one’s ability to function, making it hard to sleep, work, or even have fun with family or friends. And since people don’t like to feel negative emotions, we have developed a number of strategies to cope with them—denying there’s a problem, avoiding thinking about it, or maintaining an unrealistic optimism that everything will work out. This makes some sense as a way to protect our mental health, but in reality, it is not very effective. Denying emotional responses does not make them go away. In fact, attempts to suppress them tend to be [associated with worse mental health](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2012.03.019). Therapists can offer an alternative [toolbox](https://adaa.org/tips) of ways to deal with this feeling of overwhelm. For people who are feeling overly sad or worried, it might be worthwhile to step away from the news, and focus on sources of happiness or gratitude. Taking a long walk, ideally in a park or in the woods, can also help reduce stress and tension. We need to look after our own emotional state before tackling the rest of the world. Nevertheless, we should allow ourselves to feel our negative emotions. Emotions don’t come out of nowhere; they reflect our understanding and interpretation of events. With some exceptions, we feel sad because something we value has been damaged or lost. We feel anxious because something we value is threatened. Avoiding these emotional responses would require us to reinterpret the event, and try to believe that there is no threat, or that it’s not something we care about. Importantly, our emotions don’t only affect our own understanding; they communicate particular interpretations to other people. If I tell my friends that the wildfires make me anxious, I’m also saying that they _should_ make people anxious, because my health, or my children’s health, or a place that I love, is at risk. Alternatively, if I don’t express any grief, I’m saying it wasn’t such a big deal. If I don’t express anxiety to my friends—or to elected officials, or industry leaders—I indicate that there’s nothing to be anxious about. The result is a kind of collective or [pluralistic ignorance](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9399177/), as most people believe that their peers or people within their communities are not anxious. (Remember, this is not true.) [Social psychological research](https://www.jstor.org/stable/27828530) has shown that even in potentially dangerous circumstances, we look to others to help us interpret the situation, and if no one else does anything, we are likely to assume no action is needed. In an era in which there is a lot of disagreement about facts, truth, and objective reality, emotions contain their own kind of truth. We _are_ sad. We _are_ worried. By expressing these feelings, we legitimize them and allow other people to feel them, as well. But these negative emotions can (and should) also co-exist with positive emotions. We need to hold on to hope. Hope is based on a belief that positive outcomes are possible, though not necessarily likely. Hope can be hard because it requires us to do something—whereas hopelessness lets us off the hook by saying that action and behavioral change are pointless. Hope allows us to envision a future in which people and societies can continue, thrive, and even experience positive transformation. Without grief and anxiety, we will not be motivated to change. Without hope, we won’t think change is possible. As journalists and scientists and policymakers try to inform people about climate risks, they should find ways to communicate that allow people to feel this multifaceted emotional response. Emotions are important not only to wellbeing, but also to action. ## Transcript I've always been important but it's more important than ever. We're putting the stability and health of the entire Earth system. At-risk day is a reminder that we not have to become what I called stewards of Guardian of the stability of the entire planet. In the climate Science World Johan. Rockstrom is known as a bit of a rock star. He's on the 2023 time 100 list, he has a viral tedtalk, he stars in the Netflix documentary and when people talk about the Practical steps needed to slow climate change, they talk about his work, he's best known as one of the scientist who developed something called the planetary boundaries framework. It's sometimes called the PBS and it's a way for everyone from scientists to politicians, to Business Leaders to evaluate 9 system that regulate Earth as a livable planet, each system, or PB has a boundary that humans can't afford to cross if we want to keep living on Earth. In the latest assessment. Six of the nine boundaries are outside of the safe space D6, our climate by diversity freshwater. Nitrogen phosphorus air, pollutants and chemical overloading depressing news report about climate change from the United Nations, which showed that the planet is warming at a rate that pretty much guarantees things like catastrophic drought, flooding, and species Extinction. So what should we focus on right now? Large Transformations. We need to urgently accomplished to come back with an amount as well, plan the future. I wouldn't plan to boundary is the energy transition soap to phase out, fossil fuels oil, coal and gas, cutting emissions by half every decade of a Nazi World economy by 2050, and the food system transition, it is about feeding Humanity without expanding into the remaining 60%. Land areas that are still intact nature and to produce food, and why is that do not destroy water, continue building carbon and do not, pollute are an old environment around it. Even in the face of these formidable challenges Rostrum is still hopeful. He points to Green shoot signs of Hope like the fact that renewable energy is increasing exponentially. We're seeing you know on average something like 10% of global electricity coming from solar and wind. If we continue on the pace we are today we would have over half 50% of the real Christie coming from wind and solar. Just buy 20, 30, second place, he sees green shoots is in changing ways of food production. Practices that have been around for decades with car to Coffee nature as much as possible to let routing systems and carbon and soil. Biology, be much more than a healthy State. We can Sequester carbon but also have more water holding capacity better routing depth, more resilient crops combine that with eating more healthy food, having diets that are more diverse. Can only give us a better healthy life but also contribute significantly to A Healthy Planet and we manage the planet. The simple answer is yes. We've done it before. In the late 1970s early 1980s, when were destroying the stratospheric, ozone layer with a big ozone hole caused by chemicals that we used for air conditioners on an ant spray and then different shampoo, products, science, identify the hole in the ozone. Layer policy responded with the Montreal protocol of 1987 and industries that stuff. An Innovative and delivered solution that were scalable. That could take us off those Planet damaging chemicals. We can't today conclude that the ozone hole is closing in and we've been able to protect life on Earth. As we know it, we can do the same for climate understands that word, we is complicated. The fact that is powered by fossil fuel energy. Systems is not something that any individual can solve on his or her own, but we can all vote with with outfeed. Keep the dialogue alive engage in in the passwords towards us. share those stories with your friends because if everyone has a buzz, if create a momentum, which is, I think what the world really needs right now, Rocks from teachers for a living. He works with young people, so he knows how worried and angry they are about the state of the planet. In fact, he's been a mentor of sorts to Greta thunberg, a relationship that began as she was found in Friday's for future, my fellow colleagues. Over the years, we've been kind of wondering, where are they use? Because it is in a way unacceptable, what, what we're doing to planet Earth? And I, we are at risk of handing, over a planet to the Next Generation Which is less and less livable before the game. And then all her fellow Fighters and future. Use roles in the 2018 took off in the first Global demonstration to try to Future was held in Berlin who spent the day together as much as we can as supporting use woman. They have such a cute message, listen to science and act accordingly. What? Right? Do we have to hand over less livable world to our children than the planet where we were born on? Waiting for jumpy ride, more droughts and floods, heatwaves challenges, melting ice or we can at least they're all from the most disastrous and unmanageable outcomes. The window for that is still open and we have the solutions. 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