The COP26 on climate, which ended yesterday, gave rise to demonstrations by young people. And a recent study, carried out among 10,000 young people, from 10 different countries shows that more than 50% of them say they have eco-anxiety, that is to say very affected by the threats weighing on the environment.
franceinfo: From what How can we help people with this eco-anxiety, and especially the young people who suffer from it?
Claude Halmos: More than 50% of the young people questioned in this study, say that environmental threats sadden them, distress them, make them feel powerless. But also angry with those who do not act; and even guilty of not doing enough themselves. They feel confronted with a frightening future, and with a total impossibility to flee (since the whole world is impacted); and therefore trapped. And this goes a long way, since some even say that humanity being doomed, they will give up having children.
Should we consider these young people as sick?
Some of them, especially in adolescence, can of course use the situation to, without realizing it, justify a feeling of hopelessness, and a lack of faith in the future, which are due to their personal history. And, even without a heavy personal story, we know that fantasies around death are very present in adolescence.
But, apart from these particular cases, eco-anxiety is not born out of illness, because the situation which worries these young people is not imaginary. It is very real. Global warming is not a fantasy. Eco-anxiety is therefore not a disease but, we can see, that it can really prevent people from living.
How then, to help these young people?
When we have anxieties about things we imagine, in order to chase them away, we must work to understand what causes them. But when, like with eco-anxiety, the things you fear are real, the only solution is to take action to change them. This also helps to fight against the feeling of helplessness.
It is therefore important that these young people can speak with their parents, and be helped, depending on their age, to act. Adolescents can get involved in associations, but the little ones can learn to plant plants, to save water, to collect waste, to recycle.
And it would also be important to reflect, at the level of families and authorities, on how we talk about the dangers that threaten the planet. That is to say to ask how one can make understand the gravity of the situation, without giving the idea, terrifying, that all is lost; and to hold a speech which does not lead to death but which opens, on the contrary, to combat, and to life.
This is essential caution because adolescents often reason in terms of all or nothing, they do not relativize. And despairing them will not advance the essential cause of the climate.