"The water is rising", "Our house is burning", how to deal with all this bad news in an anxious environment?

More than a week after the release of the latest IPCC report, and despite its low media coverage, if you are concerned by environmental issues, you may feel overwhelmed by all the negative information that is flowing. This feeling of distress about climate change affecting our mental health has a name: eco-anxiety or solastalgia.

THE INJUSTICE OF CLIMATE CHANGE

TIME FOR ACTION

Policies from the past years in term of ecological action, or inaction, clearly reinforced this feeling of anxiety. We see an over-responsibility put on citizens who can feel helpless carrying this weight on their shoulders.

Adapting our behaviors is part of the solution and is complementary to global actions. It helps tackling negative effects of global warming. Like the hummingbird effect, action is always more effective than inaction, denial, or resignation.

Three levers of action exist to adapt:

- Education on climate change for a better understanding, and to have the tools to adapt our lifestyles.

- Enrich scientific research thanks to testimony to gather data and feed the expertise on the topic of global warming.

- To put pressure on public bodies, politicians, and industrials so that they change their legislation or their production processes to fulfil the commitments limiting global warming and its effects.

ECO EMPATHY