How to deal with ‘doomism’ when it feels like the world is ending

Fire clouds over France. Wildfires sweeping across Spain. Flooding and typhoons in Asia. And warnings of another European heatwave on the horizon. Right now the headlines are teeming with news of climate disaster – wherever you look, you’re greeted by yet another apocalyptic image of a burning planet.

Against this febrile backdrop, it can be hard to stop your mind from spiralling into frightening territory. What will the world look like in a decade’s time? How will our lives change? Have we left it far too late to take action – and how are we supposed to go about our daily lives with such a catastrophic backdrop?

These feelings of eco-anxiety are on the rise. It’s an umbrella term that describes “the fear, distress and uncertainty people experience in response to climate change and its anticipated consequences”, explains Mark Vahrmeyer, a psychotherapist and spokesperson for the UK Council for Psychotherapy.

What is particularly striking is that anxiety typically tends to be based “upon an exaggerated or imaginary threat”, Vahrmeyer says – but “climate change is real, and anxiety is an understandable response to recognising that something fundamental about the environment on which we depend is changing”.

Last year, in a survey from the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy, 57 per cent of respondents said that their mental health is impacted by the climate crisis, with this rising up to 63 per cent in 16- to 24-year-olds.

Indeed, it is young people that seem most acutely affected – perhaps inevitably, as they are “inheriting the problem”, as Caroline Hickman, a researcher and psychotherapist specialising in climate anxiety, puts it. A study she co-authored in 2021, published in The Lancet, surveyed 10,000 young people from around the world, aged between 16 and 25. More than 45 per cent reported that these feelings “negatively affected their daily life and functioning”. Another study for Greenpeace, published last year, showed that almost four out of five primary school-aged children were worried about climate change.

For Hickman, the issue is twofold. Yes, she says, “watching wildfires and flooding, and observing our changing climate and biodiversity crisis will make us anxious”, but there is another layer to the worry – the “feeling that no one in charge knows what they are doing, and is looking at this long term”. So, she says, in a sense it is also a form of “politician anxiety”, because it is also about our awareness of “the failure of people in power to take action”.

There are “different degrees” of climate anxiety, Hickman explains. More mild worries tend to “respond really well to reassurance”, she says, but some people find that once they start to “learn more about what is going on”, it can be more difficult to believe in vague promises. “The more educated you are around it, the more anxious you can get,” she says.

Severe climate distress is still relatively rare, but it can “dominate everything”, Hickman adds. “It takes over your life and it overwhelms you, and you don’t want to get out of bed,” she says, and it can lead to thoughts of futility and powerlessness. “You don’t want to get in the car, you don’t want to go to work, you think ‘what’s the point?’”

Ray Hopkinson, founder of PR and talent agency Swayed Studio, works in climate communications, so she is “constantly immersed in climate science, policy and news, so there are periods where it feels impossible to switch off”, she says. “Like many forms of stress”, she adds, her sense of climate-related anxiety “doesn’t just stay in my mind, my body keeps the score too”.

She sometimes finds herself thinking “about what life will feel like in 20 or 30 years’ time”, wondering “what summers will feel like when temperatures are regularly pushing 40 or even 45 degrees”. And while major events like the wildfires and heatwaves can be “triggering”, it is not just about these large-scale crises – seemingly smaller moments can be painful too. “Sitting in the park and noticing that the grass is brown instead of green can suddenly fill me with grief,” she says. “It’s those everyday reminders that climate change isn’t some distant future problem that often hit me the hardest.”

Those “everyday reminders” are also a pretty powerful example of a phenomenon known as “solastalgia”, a concept that often crops up in discussions around eco-anxiety. It’s a term that was coined by the philosopher Glenn Albrecht in the early Noughties, and describes the existential distress we might feel when our local environment changes, often as a result of transformations wrought by global warming. It is, essentially, the feeling of being homesick when you are at home, when a once familiar landscape starts to feel alien.

Hopkinson has “always wanted children”, she says, as “caring for people and caring for the planet have always felt deeply connected to me”. But, she says, climate change has made her question that future.

Indeed, among my millennial peers, fears about the climate crisis have had a huge impact on how we’re approaching this big life decision. It’s a consideration that often gets reduced to a side note in discussions about the declining birth rate, but for many of us it looms large.

These thoughts, Hopkinson says, “can become quite intrusive” – but she is trying to remain hopeful. “I always come back to the same conclusion – if the people who care most about the future decide not to have children because they’re afraid, we risk losing a generation of people who are deeply invested in creating a better world.”

Climate anxiety, notes BACP-accredited psychotherapist Georgina Sturmer, “seems to cut across different sections of the population in different ways, but it’s generally about our fear for the future”. So while for young people, she adds, “it’s about the world that they are growing up into”, for older generations, “it might be worries about their children, or the younger generations more generally”.

Rachael Martin, journalist and author of The Book Lover’s Guide to Venice, has two sons, and says she worries “about the world my children are going to inherit – everything is so unstable and climate change plays a huge part in this”.

She is based in northern Italy, about 20 miles from Milan, and with the pre-Alpine foothills practically on her doorstep, she can see the impact of global warming. “We know the glaciers are melting, and if you look at photos of how far down the glaciers used to go, it really hits home.” Another heatwave is due in the next few days, and the anticipation, she adds, “really wears you out”.

It’s important to note that climate anxiety is not an officially recognised diagnosis. This, Vahrmeyer explains, is because it is a term that “describes the focus and context of somebody’s distress, rather than a distinct mental disorder with a clearly defined set of diagnostic criteria”.

Indeed, some researchers reckon it is in fact a good thing that it hasn’t been formalised. “Feeling worried about climate change does not mean that somebody is mentally unwell,” Vahrmeyer adds. “Indeed, a degree of anxiety may indicate that they are paying attention.”

The important question is “whether the response remains proportionate and manageable or whether it has become so pervasive that the person can no longer function or live fully”.

For those who tend to become caught up in the spiral of bad news, Vahrmeyer recommends deciding upon a couple of reliable sources to check at set times of day, and avoiding seeking out climate-related news immediately before going to sleep. Staying informed is important, yes, but there is a difference, he cautions, between doing so and “being emotionally flooded” – “once somebody has understood the essential facts of a situation, consuming another 20 accounts of the same disaster may add little knowledge while greatly increasing distress”.

He also suggests trying to find “reporting that covers responses, adaptation and credible solutions as well as disasters”, a strategy that is “not about manufacturing false optimism but about receiving a more complete picture”.

Hickman, meanwhile, says it is important to build up our emotional resilience so that we can tackle these difficult topics rather than becoming overwhelmed by them (and getting stuck in inaction). She suggests that we “practice talking about uncomfortable things a bit at a time”.

This doesn’t necessarily mean speaking to a therapist, she says, although that can be helpful. “There are climate cafés you can go to, [groups] where you sit and talk with other people about this,” she suggests, or even talking to a friend could help. It doesn’t mean that you need to remove all the joy or escapism from your life either – it’s about striking a balance. You can still, she says, “consciously take a night off, sit on the sofa, eat pizza. Remember to enjoy life today as well”.

Ultimately, Vahrmeyer says, we need to avoid falling into the traps of denying what is happening in front of us, and of “doomism”, the belief that climate change is already too far gone and that nothing humans do can prevent its ravaging effects. “The healthier position lies between them,” he adds, “taking the threat seriously without surrendering the whole of our lives or our capacity to influence what happens next”.