Is the climate crisis making you anxious? You could be suffering from solastalgia

This column exists to suggest individual steps we can take to alleviate climate change and the sense of helplessness we feel about it, and so, after 34 weeks of presenting ecological problems, it’s about time we address the helplessness that is at the root of so much eco-anxiety.

The issue has become so prevalent that the American Psychological Association has released a 69-page climate-change guide to advise mental healthcare providers on how to deal with it. It has led to the coining of a new word, solastalgia: the distress induced by environmental change and the degradation of one's home place.

Being ecologically conscious is like living in a world of wounds, and it’s important we learn to cope with them, lest we fall into a cycle of despair: continually chastising ourselves for every gram of carbon we emit, and becoming intolerant of the emissions of others. Such thinking just leads to misanthropy and a gloom that makes us unfit to continue the vital work of implementing the personal changes that can help make a difference.

The key is to make these changes from an optimistic, proactive sense of possibility, rather than a quagmire of doom. Ideally, they ought to appear attractive and engaging to others, so that we don’t come across as judgmental or proselytising, but instead are subtle examples of a different way of being in the world.

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Of course, a certain sense of “environmental melancholia” is bound to arise on seeing images of seabirds choking on plastic, burning forests, or flooded cities. After all, climate change is an existential threat that, if we don’t get a handle on, could lead to our demise.

An ideal way of coping with this is to turn our attention towards the one thing that we have ignored for so long, nature. The natural world has an uncanny ability to heal, not only itself, but us too. The more we spend time engaging with it the easier this whole ordeal will become – going for walks, tending a garden, kayaking, rock-climbing, embarking on year-round swimming (not just in the sea, but in lakes too) can calm anxiety and provide perspective like nothing else.

Another, more dramatic step, is to actually start confronting our own mortality. By even suggesting this I’m exceeding the parameters of this column, and yet it was this acknowledgment of the inevitability of death that helped spark the massive system change that occurred during the second World War. Both home and abroad people came to terms with the frailty of existence and it changed everything. So much of our consumerism and constant need for capital growth, novel sensations, new travel experiences, and superficial levels of health and fitness, arise from our profound fear of confronting the fickle, transitory nature of human existence.

Acknowledging this can have a profound impact on our appreciation of daily life, and therefore on our mental stability. It can help wean ourselves off our current addiction to distractions, treats and stimulants. Personally, I believe the climate crisis will be overcome. Gradually, humans will return to working in harmony with nature, and the societal change that brings this about will ultimately make life better, healthier and more meaningful for all.

That said, the next few decades will inevitably be tumultuous, and the more grounded we are within ourselves and to the natural biosphere that regulates this planet and nourishes us, the easier it will be.