Turning climate anxiety into action (13 min)
Turning anxiety into action resources
The Climate Action Handbook
A visual guide to 100 climate solutions for everyone.
Saving Us
A climate scientist's case for hope and healing in a divided world.
Climate Optimism
Celebrating systemic change around the world
All We Can Save
An anthology of essays by women at the forefront of the climate crisis.
The Future We Choose
The stubborn optimist's guide to the climate crisis.
Documentaries - will require campus login
Psychology of climate change
Anyone who engages with the issue of climate change, in or out of the classroom, will encounter those who would
prefer to ignore the topic entirely. Paul Hoggett writes in the preface to Climate Psychology: On Indifference to Disaster :
Our collective equanimity in the face of this unprecedented risk is perhaps the greatest mystery of our age.
The short answer to this mystery, according to psychologists, is that climate change is not the kind of threat that our brain evolved to recognize.
Robert Gifford explains in “The Dragons of Inaction: Psychological Barriers That Limit Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation”:
The human brain has not evolved much in thousands of years. At the time it reached its current physical development, before the development of agriculture, our ancestors were mainly concerned with their immediate band, immediate dangers, exploitable resources, and the present time…. None of these are naturally consistent with being concerned, in the 21st century, about global climate change, which is slow, usually distant, and unrelated to the present welfare of ourselves and our significant others. (p. 291)
The cognitive biases and defense mechanisms that create resistance to engaging with distressing topics like climate change have been well documented by psychologists and other social scientists. Read more about these important topics from the links below.
Articles
- Psychology and Climate Change. Four page article by Susan Clayton providing an excellent summary
of the psychological research about how humans perceive and respond to the risk of climate change.
Published in Current Biology, 2019.
- The Dragons of inaction: psychological barriers that limit climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Academic article by Robert Gifford in the journal American Psychologist, 2011.
- How brain biases prevent climate action
BBC article, 2019
- The Psychology of Climate Change Communication
"A Guide for Scientists, Journalists, Educators, Political Aides, and the Interested Public" from the Center
for Research on Environmental Decisions, Columbia University. 54 page pdf. - Train Your Brain
"We know what we need to do for the climate, so why don’t we just do it? A neurosurgeon explains." By Somini
Sengupta in the New York Times, Nov. 2022.
This short video with Dr Anna Seth covering some basic aspects of looking after our mental health in response to climate
change. It was recorded as part of a project undertaken by Chloe McCann and other Tasmanian students involved in the
School Strike for Climate Action in September 2020, when it was shown in classrooms around the state.
Psychology of climate change
- Psychology and Climate Change
Four page article by Susan Clayton providing an excellent summary of the psychological research about how humans perceive and respond to the risk of climate change. Published in Current Biology, 2019.
- The Dragons of inaction: psychological barriers that limit climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Academic article by Robert Gifford in the journal American Psychologist, 2011.
- How brain biases prevent climate action
BBC article, 2019
- The Psychology of Climate Change Communication
"A Guide for Scientists, Journalists, Educators, Political Aides, and the Interested Public" from the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, Columbia University. 54 page pdf.
- Train Your Brain
"We know what we need to do for the climate, so why don’t we just do it? A neurosurgeon explains." By Somini Sengupta in the New York Times, Nov. 2022