MThe ore and even more, climate change is wreaking havoc not only on communities, the environment and the economy, but also on human minds. In recent years, researchers have described what they have labeled the eco-detrament, exo-anxiety or even eco-engineering-a series of symptoms, in particular depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder-linked to the serious time or to live in a world in which climate change becomes an increasing crisis.
Whatever the name of the phenomenon, it does not concern anyone; Simply by dint of being exposed to a warming world, you have a cause of feeling distress on this subject. Last year was the warmest ever recorded, going in 2023, which had briefly held first place. The first 10 warmer years have all occurred since 2014. Extreme weather conditions and other disasters linked to climate change – including forest fires, droughts, floods and hurricanes – are all increasing.
Experts note, however, that a demographic group can suffer more than the others: young people. A recent wave of articles has documented significant and growing levels of climate anxiety in the group aged 25 and under, even preschool children sometimes with symptoms.
“You meet him in children as young as three years,” explains Elizabeth Haase, founding member of the Climate Psychiatry Alliance and Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the University of Nevada Medicine School. “You find them on Tiktok, sobbing to lose their bears in a plush or sobbing that the animals they loved were killed” in an extreme meteorological event.
Now, researchers in studies evaluated by peers put empirical meat on these anecdotal bones. In an April 2025 article published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNA)Scientists interviewed nearly 3,000 young people in the United States aged 16 to 24 and found that around 20% of them were afraid of having children – working to bring a new generation into a world that heats up regularly. This figure has increased more than 30% among young people who had experienced a violent first -hand event event.
A previous study in 2021 in Lancet Questioned 10,000 from 16 to 25 years in 10 countries and has found even more worrying results. Overall, almost 60% of respondents described themselves as very or extremely worried about climate change and almost 85% were at least moderately concerned. More than 45% of the total said that these feelings had harmed their daily functioning. Completely 75% said they thought the future is frightening and 83% said they thought that adults in charge failed to take care of the planet – leaving the generations to follow.
“I think it’s different for young people,” said a 16 -year -old in the study. “For us, the destruction of the planet is personal.”
“These are the people who have contributed the least to the problem that faces the consequences,” explains Emma Lawrance, responsible for the Climate Care Center at the Imperial College in London and co-author of the PNA paper. “They were disappointed by adults who were supposed to keep them safe.”
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If children are particularly affected by the ravages of climate change, it is partly because of one of the great gifts of youth – an agile, flexible and very plastic brain. This can be useful when it comes to learning new things and acquiring new skills, but it brings a potential mental health price, because an agile brain is also impressionable. According to Lawrance, the vast majority of mental health problems – up to 75% – before the age of 24. 2021 Lancet The study studied its 10,000 subjects on a whole range of emotional measures and revealed that they were indeed hard affected – and early in life – by distress linked to the climate. Two -thirds of them indicated that they felt sadness linked to climate change; Almost 51% described themselves as feeling helpless; 62% were anxious; 67% were afraid; And only 31% said they were optimistic that the climate problem could be solved. Significantly, an additional 57% said they were angry with the mess that the world had become.
“We see children having a more reactive or situational depression,” explains Haase. It is the type of depression that occurs – sometimes completely rationally – of a current set of problems or circumstances, and is different from endogenous or persistent and floating depression.
By looking further in the downstream effect of climate trauma, a 2024 paper Preventive medicine reports In the United States, interviewed nearly 39,000 high school students living in 22 districts of urban public schools, to determine how they developed emotionally two years, five years and 10 years after a meteorological event or a serious disaster. Overall, these 22 districts endured a total of 83 climatic disasters declared by the federal government during the decade preceding the study. Investigators sought signs of mental distress, defined as feeling a prolonged sadness or despair suffering from a short sleep. Through the group of samples, they found that young people who had known the greatest number of disasters had a mental rate of 25% higher when they were exposed to a disaster in the previous two years, and a rate of 20% higher at five years. There was no significant difference when the disaster took place 10 years in the past.
“We were alarmed to note that climate-related disasters already affected so many teenagers in the United States,” said Amy Auchincloss, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Drexel University School of Public Health and the main author of the newspaper. “Disasters can upset the lives of adolescents for long periods, for example [by] Interrupt academic and social and physical support services. And the material circumstances of their family could worsen. »»
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Some of the distress that young people experience can be improved or exacerbated by those around them, especially adults, when children seek to talk about their climate anxiety. A 2024 paper in Lancet studied nearly 16,000 young people in the 50 states and asked them, among other things, on the perceived and desired answers that they obtained when they tried to give voice to their feelings. Almost 62% said they had at least tried to talk to others about climate change, and almost 58% said they felt ignored or rejected. More than 70% said they wanted others to be more open to discuss the problem, and more than 66% said they wanted their parents and grandparents to understand their feelings.
“One of the things that is very harmful to children with the whole spectrum on any problem is invalidation,” explains Haase, who was not involved in the study. “A child expresses a deep emotion and the parent rejects it or shows its contempt; This is very harmful in a global psychological way. “
Listening is not the only way that adults can help young people in their lives better face. For children who already receive psychological advice or who envisage it, Haase urges therapists to work on what she describes as a “aware of the climate” way. “I think we really need to know exactly what therapeutic techniques will help the most,” she says. “There is no [yet] Manual or developed psychotherapy to work with young people with climate distress. »»
Helping children find a better balance between worrying about the future and staying hope can also be a powerful tool. “How do they sit with some of these difficult emotions?” Said Haase. “How do they have space for these difficult emotions, but also turn to a future they want and that there is still so much joy?” It is up to adults to help children find this road in the middle. Auchincloss also underlines the particular importance of practicing these interventions in the communities of the lower wealth which are often more hard affected by disasters linked to the climate, such as the regions subject to floods in the world centers or developing cities which suffer from urban heat islets in summer.
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If there is something good that can come from all this distress, it is that a worried or anxious or angry person can become a very motivated person, taking measures through public demonstrations or boycott or reduction of carbon use or simply to vote resistant politicians to take climatic measures.
“Many young people have channeled their despair in action and become world leaders in the movement to preserve a skilful climate,” said Auchincloss. “They called for a radical replenishment of the company as usual.” A problem that will not be the manufacture of children will – unjustly – a generation of activists to put the world to the rights.
