Researchers develop a way to determine the level of climate change anxiety a person experiences.
Introduction
Feelings of worry or fear characterize anxiety. People often feel anxious about things that are about to happen, or situations that could happen in the future. People feel anxious before giving presentations or before moving to a new place. The feeling of anxiety can help us prepare for what is to come.
Unfortunately, anxiety can become a problem. It can make it difficult to live life the way you want. Sometimes feelings of anxiety can be too strong or last longer than they should or longer than is helpful. These feelings can cause people to avoid situations or make it hard to do things they enjoy. Some types of anxiety can also lead to panic attacks.
There are many types of anxiety. Climate change anxiety, also sometimes called eco-anxiety, is the extreme worry about current and future harm to the environment because of human activities. The dangers of climate change include natural disasters, such as flooding, wildfires, and stronger hurricanes. People also worry about the loss of plants and animals. People who have climate change anxiety may worry about the well-being of:
individuals,
future generations,
life on Earth, and
the planet.
Scientists measure climate change anxiety using the Climate Change Anxiety Scale (CCAS). The CCAS has a list of statements about feelings and behaviors related to climate change. Most researchers use scores on the CCAS to tell if a person has symptoms of climate change anxiety. But they do not have a specific score to diagnose a person with climate change anxiety. We wanted to use data to determine cut-off scores for the CCAS. These cut-off scores could be important for future health care professionals to properly assess and help people with climate change anxiety.
Methods
We used an online survey to collect data from 877 people in Australia. All the people who participated were between the ages of 16 and 25. The survey questions included background information and the CCAS statements. There were 13 climate change statements. You can see some examples in Figure 1. People gave a score about how often the statement was true. They used a five-point scale from 1 (never) to 5 (almost always). Then we calculated their total score by adding up the scores from all statements. A higher score means a person has greater anxiety.
We also had participants take a test related to anxiety, stress, and depression. Then we connected the scores on the CCAS with the scores on this test. First, we determined the sensitivity of the CCAS. The sensitivity is the ability of the test to correctly identify a person with anxiety, stress, and depression symptoms. Then, we determined the specificity of the CCAS. The specificity is the test’s ability to correctly identify a person without anxiety. We analyzed the data to find two cut-off scores. One score identifies people with mild to medium symptoms of climate change anxiety. The second score identifies people with severe climate change anxiety. The cut-off scores were the total scores when the sensitivity and the specificity were the closest together.
Results
We found that a total CCAS score of 21 means a person has mild to moderate symptoms of climate change anxiety. A score of 23 or above means a person has severe symptoms of climate change anxiety (see Fig. 2). Using these scores, about 50 percent of the people surveyed had mild to moderate symptoms. About 44 percent had severe symptoms of climate change anxiety.
Discussion
We found the cut-off scores on the CCAS for mild and severe symptoms of climate change anxiety. Doctors and therapists can use these scores to develop treatment plans. They can also use these scores to test the plans. If treatment plans are effective, scores will decrease below these cut-off scores.
Many young people in Australia have climate change anxiety symptoms. Many scientists think that young people are more affected by climate change anxiety. Having cut-off scores for the CCAS will help governments, too. Governments make policies to address climate change. These policies reduce the activities that cause climate change. Policies that help reduce the effects of climate change could also reduce anxiety. This can give people hope that the situation will improve.
Governments often decide which actions to take based on the economy. But there are also mental health effects caused by climate change. Governments will be able to track the success of their actions using our cut-off scores.
Conclusion
If you feel anxious about climate change, you are not alone. Many young people experience eco-anxiety.
There are some helpful actions you can take if you have climate change anxiety. Sometimes acting to tackle climate change can be one way to cope with anxiety. Here are a few ideas:
Use public transportation.
Reduce, reuse, recycle!
Write to government officials to demand action on climate change.
It’s important that worries about climate change don’t interfere with your everyday life. If you think this is a risk for you, speaking to your friends, family or an adult you trust in your school may be helpful. You could also keep a journal of your thoughts and feelings and try to spend time in Nature. If you do take the CCAS, you should interpret your score with the help of a trained professional.
