A recent survey reveals that roughly 60% of youth and young adults report feeling “very” or “extremely” worried about the environment, with nearly half saying climate-related anxiety negatively impacts their daily lives, reports CBS News. As it comes to climate change, 62% said they feel anxious, and 67% said they feel sad and afraid.
Dr. Sarah Schwartz, a psychology professor at Suffolk University, says that while climate anxiety is not a diagnosis, it is a “valid response” to the current state of the world.
According to the American Psychiatric Association, another study reveals that among adolescent students, those who have had recent and longer exposure to disasters are more likely to experience mental distress.
Dr. Andrew J. Spencer, author of “Eco-Anxiety and the Cross,” said on American Family Radio (AFR)’s “Dr. Nurse Mama Show” that standard secular approaches to this despair fall short of true healing.
“I read 10, 15, 20 different secular approaches to this, and they’re not very hopeful. It’s about coping, not overcoming and not looking forward to the redemption of all things through the power of Christ, which is the promise that the cross gives us,” Spencer says.
Rather than leaning into secular despair, Spencer encourages families to anchor themselves in a biblical worldview. By pairing practical local stewardship with an eternal hope, believers can move past paralysis.
“Tim Keller said in the last few months that he was alive, that if the resurrection is true, then everything’s going to be okay, and that’s a pretty good place to begin any conversation when anyone in the family has anxiety over anything,” Spencer states.
While the culture tells the next generation to brace for a hopeless future, Spencer reminds people that families don’t have to navigate fear alone. By stepping away from the endless digital doomscrolling, engaging in local stewardship and anchoring conversations in the truth of the gospel, adults can help young people trade paralysis for a lasting, eternal hope.
