Fear of climate change is normal, it’s not a sickness

Climate change is arguably the greatest challenge and opportunity facing humanity and requires urgent action. This reality causes us substantial distress, which signals us to engage in activities that can help us effectively meet this challenge, by using the problem solving and co-operative skills that we know how to apply, should we choose to do so.

Unfortunately, these climate challenges have arisen during a time when cultural memes have been identifying usual existential experiences as psychopathologies.

In addition, concept creep (psychology) and diagnostic creep (psychiatry) have extended diagnostic classification of mental disorder so widely as to have Dr. Allan Francis — who chaired the diagnostic task force responsible for codification of mental disorders — to write “Saving Normal,” a call to stop labelling existential experiences as sickness and providing unnecessary treatments for what are normal and necessary human responses to life realities.

A recent example of this phenomenon is the creation and widespread dissemination of the psychopathological construct “eco-anxiety” to describe the well-founded worries that many experience when faced with our climate challenge and our less than effective response to it.

Labelling normal human emotions arising in response to a substantial existential challenge as mental pathology is not only scientifically problematic, it’s potentially harmful. It may slow down or even stop the actions necessary to confront the underlying issues.

This is not to diminish the importance of psychological impacts of climate change but to question the use of language that frames them as an individual’s mental disorder instead of a signal that collective action is necessary.

Cognitive/emotional phenomenon, such as worry, distress, anger, concern, disappointment, dismay and apprehension, along with physical experiences such as sleep difficulties and physiological hyperarousal, are legitimate, normal and healthy responses to our climate change reality.

The purpose of these phenomena is to galvanize us to act. Anxiety on the other hand is a pathological state that is usually expressed in avoidance behaviour leading to functional impairment.

In the public arena calling these phenomena eco-anxiety can drive individuals to unnecessary treatment instead of toward effective action.

If we call it eco-anxiety we avoid, if we name it an eco-challenge, we encourage action. We need to stop using language of illness and start using the language of courage. Climate change is the major confronting issue of our time and requires action to deal with it, not avoidance.

What we need now is robust, effective collective action. A focus on personal therapy for “eco-anxiety” or reliance on relatively simple individual gestures with the hope that by themselves these will solve complex global catastrophes will not achieve the transformational changes that are necessary — in Canada, and globally.

There are numerous actions we can take.

First, we need to stop calling our existential emotional responses to the challenge of climate change “anxiety” — these phenomena are not psychopathology, they are a call to action;

Second, we need to properly inform ourselves, not by falling down rabbit holes with climate change deniers and conspiracy theorists, but by educating ourselves using the best available science;

Third, parents and educators should teach that climate change is both a challenge and an opportunity that requires courage and action, and also model that courage and action;

Fourth, it is essential that we move quickly to the decarbonization of energy utilization and make the substantial investments needed in the innovative technologies that will replace our reliance on fossil fuels.

The real cure for the difficult emotions generated by climate change is to acknowledge them for what they are, a signal that something must be done, and come together in effective action.

Indeed, this is the opportunity provided by the climate challenge: we can use this distress signal to unite in ways we never have before. Feeling concerned about the climate in 2020? Don’t go shopping for therapy; get involved, reach out to others and work together to create a better world for everyone.