Eco-anxiety: the great discomfort of ecological youth
published: 19/03/21, 15:19
Information overload, fake news, dramatization, ecological news has received particular attention from the media in recent years. Drowned in a deluge of information, ecology continues to unleash passions and create strong anxiety, to the point that it begins to develop in many young people, symptoms of eco-anxiety.
The media battles on subjects which affect the future of humanity are obvious. Whether it is a question of politics, economy, education, social inequalities and especially ecology, the media have been, for a long time but even more today, real levers of various intellectual productions. Several postures are expressed by often distilling more bias of understanding than clarification in the ordinary citizen. This reality, coupled with the strong will to act among young people, in the face of the climate emergency, subtly generalizes a great discomfort with eco-anxiety.
Eco-anxiety: what is it?
Those who have the privilege of knowing have a duty to act. This idea of Einstein passes today for the leitmotif of millions of young people engaged around the world. They are from Generation Y and Z, enjoy an overflowing wealth of information and demonstrate a clearly greater ecological awareness than that of past generations. Their positions, whether on the Internet or during formal meetings such as the COP, reveal anger, fear of the future and indignation. They make their voices heard wherever the opportunity is given to them and when this is not the case, they create opportunities for rebellion: “Friday for Future!” They chant every Friday to claim a virtuous future. But this fear of the future, although legitimate, at the same time generates a feeling of eco-anxiety. Indeed, outside of major events, when they are in front of television, at school, with their families, these young people do not feel any sign of hope for the planet in constant degeneration. They are eaten away by eco-anxiety, loneliness or even the discomfort of being on a planet that is literally burning at an infernal rate, because of our actions. They thus develop the fear of what humanity will be in 10, 20, 30 years ...
This blow of the blues leads to self-guilt, an ill-being maintained by the fear of a decidedly dire future on the one hand and the despair of a doomed struggle on the other.
The weight of over-information and preconceived ideas
The ice cap has reached its point of no return in Greenland. Even if we succeed in curbing climate change, this part of the sea ice will remain unrecoverable. Was such a scenario preventable? Is this a first in history?
The attempts to explain this kind of climatic catastrophe go in all directions. The received ideas are generously distilled and are extremely viral. Choosing the most relevant information in this infobesity becomes the real challenge. It is difficult in this 21st century to get a fair idea of ecological news, because of the media which have established themselves over time as real levers for the moralization of society. It is no longer a question of just giving information to inform actions. The media space has become for many actors, the agora of great expertise, as varied and controversial as they may be. Opposite, there are young consumers who are increasingly anxious and afraid of what is announced for our planet within 100 years.
In this era, where the exaggeration of facts and causes sells better, the pleasure of learning and cultivating quickly turns into anxiety. On the controversial question of meat consumption, for example, two years ago, the host Nagui brought livestock professionals out of their silence, when he affirmed on television that red meat polluted more than anything else. transport sector. It thus awakened an old debate which had opposed FAO statistics on livestock to IPCC statistics on transport. The share of emissions from the livestock sector, taking into account direct and indirect emissions, appeared to be greater than the share of emissions from transport in circulation. This comparison, rejected several times but still popular, should not have been done according to some experts, given that the two studies were not based on the same methods of calculation. Young people thus and routinely attend media forums that hyperbolize and extrapolate facts, inherently helping to lower their morale.
Heavy facts and entourage
Drowned in a deluge of alarmist information, ecology continues to unleash passions and create strong anxiety, to the point that it begins to develop in many young people who do not lead wider like Beatrice, symptoms of 'eco-anxiety.
Like Greta Thunberg, Béatrice became aware very early on of the impact of her activities on ecosystems. It follows environmental news and knows what its ecological footprint consists of. On social media, she is interested in all the tips that could help her reduce her impact on ecosystems, but she feels like she is doing little. As she works to cut down on her meat intake, she regularly receives videos from her vegan friend, Rebecca, disturbingly showing the treatment of animals in slaughterhouses and explaining the toxicity of raising cattle. Yesterday, she was following the nuclear debate with George after watching a documentary on melting glaciers. A few months ago, Mamadou told her that the phone she has held for two years and which cost her her savings, comes from the mines in Congo and the exploitation of children.
She who loves chocolate, the investigation into Ivorian cocoa, revealing the exploitation of children, made her lose her appetite for derivatives of this raw material. Troubled, she wants to do her part to revolutionize the world because, like the Hummingbird, she believes in the action of small daily gestures. Every day, she lives with the desire to do better but feels guilty for not being able to do more. This Sunday, after consulting an article on the population explosion, she made an important decision: join the ideology carried by the GINKS (Green Inclinations No Kids) movement. This movement advocates the renunciation of the idea of procreating. Because she wants to preserve the planet from other mouths to feed and other bodies to clothe, Béatrice has decided not to have children. Also, last week, she could not go to the walk for the climate because she was tired and not too motivated.
Beatrice makes an effort but every time she tries to follow the environmental news her morale takes a hit. She ultimately feels useless despite her gourd, her organic-oriented food, her bulk purchases, the choice of local and artisanal products, her ecological activism and her resolve not to have children. Beatrice actually suffers from eco-anxiety. Her friends ironically call her “organic lady”. This pressure from the environmental cause has turned into social pressure and materializes in her appalling bigotry when she goes to a shopping center, a supermarket and even when she goes to local artisans. To free herself from this state, Béatrice must be better informed, take a step back and perhaps learn to appreciate her youth in a different way.
Learn more and take a step back to act better
There are thousands of “Beatrice” today, these young people, affected by the apocalyptic information and whose morale drops each time a rise in the earth's temperature is announced. They feed off calibrated information on actually larger topics and often unknowingly develop signs of eco-anxiety that prevent them from living and exercising a right commitment. To cure it, taking a distance from the information synthesized in the online press is proving to be an important avenue.
Freeing yourself from media influence is not the ultimate solution. It would even be missing out on essential engagement data. On the other hand, we could integrate some predispositions. One of the first things to understand is that the good news is not spread. On the other hand, bad news quickly goes around the world because it provokes more reactions. The second element to integrate is that when we do not document ourselves in the light of several sources on the subject that interests us, we risk just being in the know instead of understanding. The third element to integrate is that as much the news can be marked by the same event giving the effect of urgency, as much it can convey false information which by force of repetition gives the same effect. It is also important to keep in mind that one has the right to think, question, follow and not follow.
Every citizen has the right to choose his way of getting involved. All contributions, whether media, scientific or political should be in line with the diversity of beliefs and leave margins for citizens to make up their own mind. Because if the objective aimed for several years by the media, is to arouse a feeling of guilt in the young people in order to push them to act better, the result remains very mixed. Indeed, in spite of the media contribution for the awakening of the ecological conscience of the young people by the means of appalling messages, the habits remain consumerist. Young people are therefore ecologically conscious, but many are these young people who no longer see the point of depriving themselves of certain consumption habits, since in any case, the media overwhelmingly announce the ecological apocalypse on all continents. It's time to change strategy.
Yves-Landry Kouame
The media battles on subjects which affect the future of humanity are obvious. Whether it is a question of politics, economy, education, social inequalities and especially ecology, the media have been, for a long time but even more today, real levers of various intellectual productions. Several postures are expressed by often distilling more bias of understanding than clarification in the ordinary citizen. This reality, coupled with the strong will to act among young people, in the face of the climate emergency, subtly generalizes a great discomfort with eco-anxiety.
Eco-anxiety: what is it?
Those who have the privilege of knowing have a duty to act. This idea of Einstein passes today for the leitmotif of millions of young people engaged around the world. They are from Generation Y and Z, enjoy an overflowing wealth of information and demonstrate a clearly greater ecological awareness than that of past generations. Their positions, whether on the Internet or during formal meetings such as the COP, reveal anger, fear of the future and indignation. They make their voices heard wherever the opportunity is given to them and when this is not the case, they create opportunities for rebellion: “Friday for Future!” They chant every Friday to claim a virtuous future. But this fear of the future, although legitimate, at the same time generates a feeling of eco-anxiety. Indeed, outside of major events, when they are in front of television, at school, with their families, these young people do not feel any sign of hope for the planet in constant degeneration. They are eaten away by eco-anxiety, loneliness or even the discomfort of being on a planet that is literally burning at an infernal rate, because of our actions. They thus develop the fear of what humanity will be in 10, 20, 30 years ...
This blow of the blues leads to self-guilt, an ill-being maintained by the fear of a decidedly dire future on the one hand and the despair of a doomed struggle on the other.
The weight of over-information and preconceived ideas
The ice cap has reached its point of no return in Greenland. Even if we succeed in curbing climate change, this part of the sea ice will remain unrecoverable. Was such a scenario preventable? Is this a first in history?
The attempts to explain this kind of climatic catastrophe go in all directions. The received ideas are generously distilled and are extremely viral. Choosing the most relevant information in this infobesity becomes the real challenge. It is difficult in this 21st century to get a fair idea of ecological news, because of the media which have established themselves over time as real levers for the moralization of society. It is no longer a question of just giving information to inform actions. The media space has become for many actors, the agora of great expertise, as varied and controversial as they may be. Opposite, there are young consumers who are increasingly anxious and afraid of what is announced for our planet within 100 years.
In this era, where the exaggeration of facts and causes sells better, the pleasure of learning and cultivating quickly turns into anxiety. On the controversial question of meat consumption, for example, two years ago, the host Nagui brought livestock professionals out of their silence, when he affirmed on television that red meat polluted more than anything else. transport sector. It thus awakened an old debate which had opposed FAO statistics on livestock to IPCC statistics on transport. The share of emissions from the livestock sector, taking into account direct and indirect emissions, appeared to be greater than the share of emissions from transport in circulation. This comparison, rejected several times but still popular, should not have been done according to some experts, given that the two studies were not based on the same methods of calculation. Young people thus and routinely attend media forums that hyperbolize and extrapolate facts, inherently helping to lower their morale.
Heavy facts and entourage
Drowned in a deluge of alarmist information, ecology continues to unleash passions and create strong anxiety, to the point that it begins to develop in many young people who do not lead wider like Beatrice, symptoms of 'eco-anxiety.
Like Greta Thunberg, Béatrice became aware very early on of the impact of her activities on ecosystems. It follows environmental news and knows what its ecological footprint consists of. On social media, she is interested in all the tips that could help her reduce her impact on ecosystems, but she feels like she is doing little. As she works to cut down on her meat intake, she regularly receives videos from her vegan friend, Rebecca, disturbingly showing the treatment of animals in slaughterhouses and explaining the toxicity of raising cattle. Yesterday, she was following the nuclear debate with George after watching a documentary on melting glaciers. A few months ago, Mamadou told her that the phone she has held for two years and which cost her her savings, comes from the mines in Congo and the exploitation of children.
She who loves chocolate, the investigation into Ivorian cocoa, revealing the exploitation of children, made her lose her appetite for derivatives of this raw material. Troubled, she wants to do her part to revolutionize the world because, like the Hummingbird, she believes in the action of small daily gestures. Every day, she lives with the desire to do better but feels guilty for not being able to do more. This Sunday, after consulting an article on the population explosion, she made an important decision: join the ideology carried by the GINKS (Green Inclinations No Kids) movement. This movement advocates the renunciation of the idea of procreating. Because she wants to preserve the planet from other mouths to feed and other bodies to clothe, Béatrice has decided not to have children. Also, last week, she could not go to the walk for the climate because she was tired and not too motivated.
Beatrice makes an effort but every time she tries to follow the environmental news her morale takes a hit. She ultimately feels useless despite her gourd, her organic-oriented food, her bulk purchases, the choice of local and artisanal products, her ecological activism and her resolve not to have children. Beatrice actually suffers from eco-anxiety. Her friends ironically call her “organic lady”. This pressure from the environmental cause has turned into social pressure and materializes in her appalling bigotry when she goes to a shopping center, a supermarket and even when she goes to local artisans. To free herself from this state, Béatrice must be better informed, take a step back and perhaps learn to appreciate her youth in a different way.
Learn more and take a step back to act better
There are thousands of “Beatrice” today, these young people, affected by the apocalyptic information and whose morale drops each time a rise in the earth's temperature is announced. They feed off calibrated information on actually larger topics and often unknowingly develop signs of eco-anxiety that prevent them from living and exercising a right commitment. To cure it, taking a distance from the information synthesized in the online press is proving to be an important avenue.
Freeing yourself from media influence is not the ultimate solution. It would even be missing out on essential engagement data. On the other hand, we could integrate some predispositions. One of the first things to understand is that the good news is not spread. On the other hand, bad news quickly goes around the world because it provokes more reactions. The second element to integrate is that when we do not document ourselves in the light of several sources on the subject that interests us, we risk just being in the know instead of understanding. The third element to integrate is that as much the news can be marked by the same event giving the effect of urgency, as much it can convey false information which by force of repetition gives the same effect. It is also important to keep in mind that one has the right to think, question, follow and not follow.
Every citizen has the right to choose his way of getting involved. All contributions, whether media, scientific or political should be in line with the diversity of beliefs and leave margins for citizens to make up their own mind. Because if the objective aimed for several years by the media, is to arouse a feeling of guilt in the young people in order to push them to act better, the result remains very mixed. Indeed, in spite of the media contribution for the awakening of the ecological conscience of the young people by the means of appalling messages, the habits remain consumerist. Young people are therefore ecologically conscious, but many are these young people who no longer see the point of depriving themselves of certain consumption habits, since in any case, the media overwhelmingly announce the ecological apocalypse on all continents. It's time to change strategy.
Yves-Landry Kouame