Eco Anxiety

[Moksha]

I was just listening to a show on Radio 4 about this new phenomena labelled 'eco anxiety'. As you can guess, it's people freaking out about climate change. They spoke to a psychiatrist who'd seen a massive increase in clients with anxiety/panic attacks induced by news reports and articles on global warming. Several even described plans to kill their children then take an overdose if law and order breaks down and we have food riots, etc. Presumably, people with SA are more vulnerable to these kinds of triggers than most. Do things like climate change affect your base level of anxiety?

[Mole58]

I got in a right tizz recently when I realised the very first toothbrush I had is still somewhere in the environment. Probably in a landfill somewhere, but if it is floating in the sea and about to be swallowed by a lovely sea turtle ........... arghh!!!!

[Marco]

Global warming and the catastrophic effects on ecosystems are a huge worry for me too. I think a major underlying problem is human overpopulation, which needs to be addressed in tandem with climate control.

I'm not sure whether SA sufferers are necessarily any more or less prone to added anxiety over global issues like climate than other people though. I see SA as an inward looking type of anxiety.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by Fungus

Yes, it always amazes me how this is almost totally ignored in favour of talking about climate change alone. .

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The explanation is very simple - overpopulation is one of the few things you can't blame on white people. Africa has by far the highest birth rate in the world, while white Europeans are hardly reproducing (I think Germany is barely at replacement level).

Those who care most about the environment tend to be on the liberal-left. To people like that, all the world's problems begin and end with white Western men. Slowing the world's birth rate is the single best thing we could do. But self-hating Western liberals are NEVER going to tell black Africans not to have so many kids!! When climate change causes havoc in Africa, that booming young population is going to head north to Europe (and we will then be criticised for not letting them in). It's already happening , but you ain't seen nothing yet. In turn, that will cause enormous tensions within Europe and probably result in right-wing populist parties gaining power. Terrifying.

(btw, I'm not saying Westerners are blameless! Our greed and high consumption are also a massive problem)

[choirgirl]

It's hard to get people to have few children AND consume very little though, and we need both.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by choirgirl

It's hard to get people to have few children AND consume very little though, and we need both.

Well, we need Africans to have fewer children and Westerners to stop consuming so much. White Westerners are barely reproducing, so they can't be blamed for that, and it's not the Africans who are flying everywhere and having fruit imported from the other side of the world.

This is the terrifying thing about climate change - it's a global problem. Some neurotic young mother in London, who is freaking out about her children's future, can do virtually nothing. She can give up meat, stop flying, recycle her yoghurt pots, etc. Great. But it isn't going to make much difference when Mrs Mumbezi from Nigeria has just had her tenth child and some fat hick in Texas is driving around in a gas-guzzling truck.

[Orwell20]

True- the greens/liberals hardly ever mention overpopulation, yet that is clearly the root of the problem. And as has been pointed out, the reason it never gets mentioned is simple - you cant blame it on white people. David Wallace just published a terrifying new book on climate change. His vision of the near future (I mean the next few decades) is terrifying, ****ing apocalyptic in fact! Among other things, he quotes the UN prediction that Europe will contain at least 200 million climate refugees, mostly African and Muslim (more than the population of Germany and France combined).

Sometimes, I feel depressed and frightened that I am a single 40-something with no kids. But when you look at where we are headed (mass migration, water and food shortages, flooded cities, etc) it is a relief. Wells book, The Uninhabitable Earth, has been a bestseller in the States and was given a frighteningly long review in the Sunday Telegraph (it had clearly freaked out the reviewer). If I had just had a baby then read that review, l would not sleep for a week.

[gregarious_introvert]

No, I don't suffer with eco anxiety; it is true that the world faces (and has faced, since the industrial revolution, even if people weren't aware of it) challenges, but catastrophising won't change anything. I do believe that we are still a long enough way from the tipping point that it will be several generations before these issues become unavoidable; of course, that isn't to say that we shouldn't be doing what we can to slow down or reverse the damage we are doing, but Armageddon is not as imminent as some would have us believe.

I don't believe that the African birth rate is the greatest threat; far more imminent is the worldwide carbon footprint and the resultant acceleration in climate change (let's not forget that climate change is cyclical, so all we are doing is making it happen faster) which threatens to make some parts of the world uninhabitable, either through rising sea levels, weather changes making farming unsustainable or increased frequency of natural disasters. Now, of course, fleeing a natural disaster or uninhabitable territory does not make someone a refugee under the UNHCR convention, but for most countries (although not the United Kingdom after some draconian changes to the Immigration Act over the past thirty years) it would make them worthy of special consideration - so if there is to be mass migration, it is more likely - in the short term - to come from Asia than Africa.

I would be a hypocrite if I were to claim that I am doing all I can to avert any future crisis: I took 30 flights last year and have taken 15 more so far this year (although, in my defence, all those flights were scheduled and would have happened with or without my presence), I do eat meat occasionally (I am lacto-vegetarian at home, but an omnivore when eating out) and I own a car (although I use public transport or walk unless absolutely necessary), but in all other areas I am about as green as I possibly can be. Consumerism fuelled by capitalism remains the greatest threat to the planet, but even if the crisis manifests sooner than I would have predicted, I do have more immediate and personal focus for my anxiety, rather than worrying about something I can't prevent. In the same way, I don't worry about nuclear war between India and Pakistan (although I was reminded of the possibility by recent events in Kashmir), or the fact that Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump both have access to "big red buttons" - if the world ends tomorrow, I'd rather be obliterated with a smile on my face than a frown.

[limey123]

When I saw the recent reports that XYZ many animal species are going extinct every year due to human behaviour, I know we are screwed. It's just a matter of time anyway. From that point of view, anyway, it seems mainly futile to worry about what will happen in the world in the future in political terms.
Not sure what I can personally do about this state of affairs - nothing, most likely. But it is depressing to think that we are being undone by our own success!

[BritishPeace]

Not for me, I don't recycle or anything, I even throw my trash on the floor. The world will end no matter what I do (most scientists think in a few billion years earth will be engulfed by the sun when it expires its energy and grows to a red giant), so I don't see any point. And I'm going to die before that too, and I have no children, and I don't like people telling me what to do.

[Marco]

Originally Posted by gregarious_introvert

No, I don't suffer with eco anxiety; it is true that the world faces (and has faced, since the industrial revolution, even if people weren't aware of it) challenges, but catastrophising won't change anything. I do believe that we are still a long enough way from the tipping point that it will be several generations before these issues become unavoidable; of course, that isn't to say that we shouldn't be doing what we can to slow down or reverse the damage we are doing, but Armageddon is not as imminent as some would have us believe.

I agree with most of what you say, GI, except that I don't share your optimism about the timescale - I think we're talking decades rather than generations if we don't act now.

[Copernicium]

Originally Posted by BritishPeace

Not for me, I don't recycle or anything, I even throw my trash on the floor.

That's just being a slob, which is a personal problem rather than a global warming issue.

[Moksha]

Originally Posted by Jimmy77

Sometimes, I feel depressed and frightened that I am a single 40-something with no kids. But when you look at where we are headed (mass migration, water and food shortages, flooded cities, etc) it is a relief. Wells book, The Uninhabitable Earth, has been a bestseller in the States and was given a frighteningly long review in the Sunday Telegraph (it had clearly freaked out the reviewer). If I had just had a baby then read that review, l would not sleep for a week.

I often used to feel this way as well. I am 42, with no kids and no partner. Sometimes, I look at the future and think "***t, I'm gonna die alone...I'm going to have no one there for me when I get sick, when I'm scared, etc." But now I take obsessive care of my health, so, hopefully, I should live another 40 years. My uncle is 83. If I make it to 83, that will be 2060. By 2060, one of two things will have happened. Either we'll have wrecked our civilization through climate change, nuclear war, overpopulation, mass migration, etc etc, or we won't.

If we do wreck it, I'll be glad not to have kids. I have zero faith in human nature (I have faith in good individuals, but not in humans en mass). My greatest fear is a collapse in law and order. I've seen enough to know how selfish, vicious and generally vile a lot of people truly are. If there was some kind of major collapse in civilization and order, I'd just take an overdose and end it all.

If we don't ***k everything up, if we manage to avert climate catastrophe, bring the birth rate under control, prevent nuclear proliferation, etc, then who knows what life in 2060 will be like? By then, we will certainly have ways of slowing and even reversing physical ageing. There are already pills under development that are believed to slow the ageing of the body, so god knows what we'll have in another 40 years. Plus there will be all kinds of other changes and advances. I'm curious to see what happens.