Insights from a 3 year project on climate anxiety
The project Terra-Pi has for three years worked at supporting young people dealing with climate and eco related emotions. Here's what we've learnt.
Welcome back to Climate Psyched, the newsletter where we explore all things psychological, behavioral and emotional related to the climate and ecosystem crises.
A few weeks ago my colleagues and I had the opportunity to meet with Panu Pihkala, a Finnish environmental theologist and eco emotion researcher, for a lovely (and, admittedly, quite nerdy) chat about climate and eco emotions, our shared experiences of working with groups and individuals on dealing with, well, how to live in this world of parallell ongoing crises. Panu recently published a new interesting article about ecological sorrow, exploring different forms of grief and loss and how these are related to the ecological crises.
Part of what we had time to discuss were some insights from our three year project Terra-Pi that we’re wrapping up at the end of March. This is also the main topic of this month’s post.
Situation
Several studies and surveys from recent years are showing a substantial prevalence of climate related distress amongst young people, showing that these emotions range beyond “just” climate anxiety and include e.g. fear, worry, rage, sadness, disappointment, frustration, grief, shame and guilt. It’s also becoming more apparent that the emotional distress young people experience related to the eco and climate crises are affected by whether the adult world, particularly people in power, take sufficient climate action or not.
A recent survey done by the Swedish division of Our Kids’s Climate showed that the number of 12-18 year olds who feel hopeful about future solutions to the climate crisis has decreased from 51% in 2020 to 38% now. Only 3% feel very hopeful. The same survey also shows that the number of young people who feel that they are able to influence the climate and eco crises has decreased from 65% to 48%, at the same time as the number who feel that politicians have the largest responsibility for mitigating the climate crisis has increased from 34% in 2020 to 48% today.
This perfect storm of politicians not taking their responsibility and young people feeling powerless whilst carrying a range of heavy emotions is what we’ve been focusing on in the three year long project Terra-Pi: how do we best support young people dealing with climate related distress? And how do we best support adults who regularly meet these young people?
Throughout the project, whose primary target group has been 12-25 year olds, we’ve been hosting support groups, holding lectures and numerous workshops out in schools and various other settings. We’ve developed methods, exercises and materials that we’ve continuously tested and revised. We’ve read through research, talked to researchers, had a researcher evaluate the effect of our support groups (not yet published though, so let’s save that for a later post!) We’ve built up a network of volunteers who’ve extended the opportunities to share support well beyond what our small project group would’ve been capable of. We’ve also developed lesson plans, and study materials for teachers and others who work with young people. It’s been a lot, we’ve done a lot (we’ve hosted 160 workshops and trainings, and have reached thousands of people!), and while we may not have reached any perfect answers, we’ve learnt enough to share some key insights.
We will also be hosting an online presentation of the project on the 20th of March, open for anyone who’s interested in the field of climate emotions, who’s working with supporting young people, who are working in education, and anyone in the research field. More information and link to sign up here.
Explanation
Should we call it climate anxiety or climate emotions?
The discussion of what term best describes the emotional experience triggered by the climate and ecosystem crises is ongoing, and has not yet reached a clear consensus. In the public debate we’ve found that the most commonly used term is “climate anxiety”, which is clear in the sense that it instantly communicates that the emotions felt are related to climate and difficult to deal with. Anxiety is, however, not a clear term in the sense that what people are feeling extends well beyond it, and quite often doesn’t include (clinically significant) anxiety at all. While letting the semantic discussion continue on, in Terra-Pi we’ve continuously used the term “climate emotions”, “climate related emotions”, and sometimes “eco emotions”, to better include the full range of emotions that can be experienced. Something that we think should be explored further is whether climate emotions are that different from other future- or crisis related emotions, or if a more inclusive, yet specific enough, term could be “umwelt emotions” or “surrounding world emotions”.
Keeping it close between research and reality
In a crisis that’s emerging in real time, and in a field where we continue to learn more and more every day, it’s been a navigation between what we read in the growing research literature and what we experience first hand when doing our practical work. Sometimes it’s an amazing experience to see how the research matches what we observe in our work, and sometimes it’s equally frustrating when it doesn’t. We’ve been lucky enough in Terra-Pi to have a researcher evaluate the effect of our support groups, as well as having had the possibilities of having many conversations and other collaborations with researchers throughout the project. We think that this is the way to move forward, with that close connection between research and applied work.
How we look at the cause of the climate crisis will influence how we deal with the emotional aspect of it
When working with climate emotions it soon becomes apparent that how we deal with the emotional aspects of the climate crisis is closely connected to how we view the causes and upholders of the crisis.
Part of why so many young people feel unable to influence the climate crisis and their own futures, is connected to the heavy individual focus when “doing something for the climate”. This individual focus has been apparent in various projects focusing on consumer behaviors, picking up litter and recycling cans. All environmentally friendly things, but with the major flaws that they 1. don’t make that much of a difference on a larger scale, 2. don’t nurture any sense of community or support. We’ve time and again seen a sense of hopelessness emerge in people highly dedicated to picking up every last piece of litter, or recycling every piece of trash, whilst watching the surrounding world carry on as usual. Few things trigger more loneliness than that.
A foundational part of Terra-Pi has from the start been that dealing with the climate crisis require structural change, that individual consumer behaviors are insufficient as a solution, and that community is essential both to making an impact and to coping with feelings of hopelessness and loneliness.
A model for dealing with climate emotions in a long term sustainable way
Coming from a background of behavioral psychology, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Compassion Focused Therapy and the critical perspectives from the field of human ecology and political ecology, Terra-Pi has from the start had a few foundational perspectives:
all emotions are valid, sometimes they’re painful, but emotions carry important information about what’s going on in the world and what’s important to us.
it’s the climate crisis, not how we feel about it, that’s the real problem.
because the climate crisis is real, we need to act. Taking action also changes how we feel about things.
we can’t solve a huge crisis individually, practicing collective action and collaboration not only increases our chances of making a difference, it also nurtures important social ties and collective resilience.
when dealing with a huge crisis it’s not sustainable to always be in action mode, we also need to tend to our emotions.
From these foundational assumptions we’ve continuously worked with two parallell tracks: increasing skills to cope with emotions and facilitating collective action (we’ve previously written about this , as well as about Pihkalas related process model).
Throughout the project we’ve refined these two tracks into the model shown below, that we (at a lack for a more clever term) call “the ice cream model”. In this newer model we differentiate between emotional coping and pausing, and let the three “ice cream scoops" rest in a bowl of social support.
A key insight from the project is that an essential thing to live in a world parallell crises is to find a reasonable balance between taking action, emotional coping and pausing. And that all of that becomes easier if we have a good support of others, spaces where we can be amongst others who also care and take climate action.
Examples of coping with emotions can be to allow one’s feelings to be felt without judging them, or to talk about them with someone you trust. Taking collective action can be to join a climate group, or to collaborate with classmates to get your school to become more sustainable. Pausing, on the other hand, is time spent not focusing on the climate crisis: resting, working out, having a laugh with friends, watching a series or something that reminds us of all that which makes this world worth fighting for. The bowl of social support serves as a reminder that we’re not in this alone, and that most things become easier if we do them together, if we can offer as well as receive support to and from each other. The three parts need to be balanced for many reasons, one important being that the climate crisis is a marathon, which we will have to deal with for years and years to come. When talking about dealing with our climate related emotions, we need to apply a long term perspective, which means that we can’t always be in action mode.
Are young people really that worried, do they not care or have they already given up?
Multiple studies and surveys on the prevalence of climate worry show that young people are worried. Very worried. The majority of them.
At the beginning of Terra-Pi we thought that young people would rush to our five session long support groups. They did not. On the contrary, it’s been hard to recruit not only the non-engaged (or yet-not-engaged) youth, but also the highly engaged climate activists. This has been an issue we’ve been pondering upon over these years: are young people perhaps not in that much need of dealing with these emotions? Are we offering the wrong kind of support? Are young people perhaps not that worried after all?
Probably, several things are true at the same time here:
Young people are worried about climate change and other ongoing crises that are affecting their present and future
Young people are busy, there are a lot of different things fighting for their attention. (Even many climate activists are so busy taking action that it’s not a given to prioritize the long term coping of climate emotions).
It’s easier to reach groups when coming in to their existing settings (e.g. schools) than trying to get them to join a new setting (e.g. an external support group)
Those who’ve participated in Terra-Pi’s workshops, trainings and support groups have more often than not expressed how helpful it’s been to learn more about emotional coping and to understand how emotions and action affect each other. And not the least to have a setting that gives space to talk openly about what we’re feeling. The challenge has not been how to deal when people (and their emotions) are present, the issue has been to figure out what would get more people to join in the first place.
Many teachers express concern that a lot of young people seem to not care about the climate at all. But what may look as passivity and indifference on the surface, might actually be an expression of hopelessness and powerlessness. If you don’t feel like you have any power to make a difference, why even bother?
This last point is something that we’ve observed in a variety of groups, both amongst those who are more climate aware and those who identify as more “anti-environment”. This relates to those high numbers in the surveys, showing that there’s a lot of hopelessness combined with powerlessness amongst the youth. Restoring some faith in this group, increasing a sense of empowerment and offer possibilities for social support and action taking that actually make a difference is an acute challenge that the adult world needs to take on and take seriously.
Adults need support too!
Perhaps the biggest change we’ve needed to make in the focus of the project, compared to the initial plan, has been a more extensive focus on adults, especially teachers, and supporting them in supporting the young people they meet in their daily jobs (which of course includes supporting them in dealing with their own climate emotions). One thing that has come up multiple times is how teachers are struggling to address the emotional aspects of the climate issues, which often leads to avoidance of it, with the hopes of not “trigger any anxiety” - which on the contrary increases the risk of students feeling invalidated and let down by the adult world. Another aspect of this is the lack of support from colleagues and school boards many climate aware teachers experience. And a third aspect is, probably for lack of resources and support, a heavy focus on taking individual action.
Teachers need appropriate resources, as well as support to address all aspects of the climate issue when they teach, including knowledge about climate emotions and how emotional coping relates to taking collective action.
With these needs becoming apparent we’ve been able to develop and try out study circle materials directed at teachers, lesson plans that can be directly used, and perhaps most excitingly developed a card game called “The big climate crisis”, that can be played together with high school students (so far only available in Swedish). These materials are also suitable for other adults working with young people.
Action
Emotions are an essential part of being human, and they’re unavoidable in a time of crisis. Rather than trying to get rid of our difficult we can learn how to use them as a source to help guide us in difficult times, to help us take action and strengthen community resilience. Remember the ice cream-bowl: Cope with emotions, take collective action, pause and lean on the support of others.
It’s easy to get stuck in theorizing and talking (and it’s definitely something Terra-Pi partly has focused too much on), but we do believe that practical action makes a difference, not the least for coping with ones emotions.
Learning how to take collective action takes practice, and it’s a practice that not the least the adult world needs to take more seriously. Part of dealing with climate emotions is about learning how to look at the bigger picture and trying to find our own place in making a difference together with other people.
All of Terra-Pi’s materials, exercises and methods, that includes study circle materials, lesson plans, guided audio files, a support group manual, emotion coping exercises and much more is now being finalized and will within the next month be published on the web page of Klimatpsykologerna (click the icon that says Terra-Pi and it will sooooon be there). Quite a bit of this material will be translated into English, and everything will be open and free to use and share.
Online presentation
If you feel like you want to hear more about it, and about how to apply Terra-Pi’s materials in other settings, you’re very welcome to join our online presentation on March 20th at 12-1 PM (Central European Time). It’s open for anyone who’s interested in the field of climate emotions, who’s working with supporting young people, who are working in education, and anyone in the research field. More information and link to sign up here.
Thank you for reading through this long and wordy post - as you notice, there’s much to be said about this incredibly important issue, and I’m certain we’ll come back to insights from this project many more times.
As always, share this post with anyone you think might be interested, click the like button to help us know if you enjoyed reading this, and feel very welcome to leave a comment with your reflections and thoughts!
See you next month!