Climate Anxiety Paralyzes. Gospel Hope Propels.

“Two years to save the world.” That’s how Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, opened his remarks on April 10, 2024. His high-level policy speech at Chatham House in London was intended to inspire “bold new national climate plans” at the governmental level and action from “every person on this planet” to take advantage of the tiny time window we have to save ourselves and the world as we know it.

The hyperbolic rhetoric of environmentalism is nothing new. Paul and Anne Ehrlich’s best-selling book The Population Bomb was published in 1968 to warn readers of impending disaster unless population controls were instituted. Though most of their proposals weren’t implemented, the disaster has yet to come. Yet the couple revisited their project in a 2009 article, arguing, “Perhaps the most serious flaw in The Bomb was that it was much too optimistic about the future.”

Pessimistic language is a growing feature of popular culture, as Amanda Montell argues in Esquire. She calls it “doomslang,” a category that includes terms like “doomscrolling,” “bed rotting,” and “dumpster fire.” Montell argues the casual adoption of apocalyptically negative language is affecting mental health. One symptom of that mental health decline is the phenomenon of climate anxiety beginning to define younger generations.

And yet, even among those who accept humanity’s role in accelerating climate change, this rhetoric can undermine the goal. “Climate change is alarming,” argues climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe. But, she continues, “research on everything from airplane seatbelts to hand washing in hospitals shows that bad-news warnings are more likely to make people check out than change their behavior” (10).

Amid the cultural narrative of despair about the environment and our future as humans, Christians have an opportunity to share our hope for God’s creation.

Consumed by Climate Anxiety

According to author Britt Wray, climate anxiety is “a condition that robs sleep from those who, when all is dark and quiet, stir in thoughts of how uninhabitable the Earth will soon become” (3). In a 2021 survey, nearly 60 percent of the 10,000 young people (16–25 years old) surveyed reported they were “very” or “extremely” worried about climate change. More than 45 percent of those surveyed reported their anxiety “negatively affected their daily lives.”

In her book Generation Dread, Wray celebrates the rise of “self-care guides, climate-conscious therapists, and a cottage industry of coaches [that] have emerged to help folks grapple with ecological uncertainty” (3). But others, like journalist Abigail Shrier, see this widespread emphasis on climate data and therapy as part of the problem rather than the solution. She asserts, “So many progressive parents seem to believe their job is to scare the ever-living crap out of kids when it comes to climate change” (30). She argues the globe is warming but also that continually affirming kids’ fears is likely to make their anxiety worse.

Climate anxiety is only one of a host of nebulous global problems young people are grappling with, but climate is often the crisis that binds the others together. This is an intentional strategy by some climate activists. Naomi Klein, in her subtly titled book On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal, calls for “an intersectional approach to social and political change” (148) that lumps fighting “existential threats” like “poverty, war, racism, and sexual violence” into a “civilizational mission, in our country and in every major economy on earth” (178). She calls for wall-to-wall propaganda to raise fears and promote her proposals to overhaul society (271).

The convergence of social concerns is a recurring theme. Richard Neuhaus warned of it after the first Earth Day in his 1971 book In Defense of People. In his day, the “Movement” included campaigns against racism, anti-war protests, environmentalism, efforts to curb poverty, and resistance to all the usual bad things in human history. All these concerns ended with a call for committed action. He notes many people “of good will” would respond to the “call to commitment . . . if only the objects of commitment would stop jumping around or would for once cluster themselves in some intelligible association” (43).

The weight of overwhelming and sometimes conflicting problems only contributes to the sense of despair and makes human existence seem unbearable. Climate activism as an umbrella for resisting colonialism, sexism, racism, and other issues increasingly burdens the minds of a generation awash in social media algorithms designed to serve them content that makes them more anxious and hopeless.

Discouraged by Existential Threats

True existential threats deserve extreme responses. The vandalism of art and disruption of traffic that climate activists engage in gesture toward that sort of response. They say history, art, beauty, commerce, and well-being don’t matter if the world is literally burning.

The weight of overwhelming and sometimes conflicting problems only contributes to the sense of despair and makes human existence seem unbearable.

Most young people, however, aren’t that committed and are simply trying to make their way in the world. Their “failure” to respond to an “existential threat” as if it were total war only increases their sense of guilt and anxiety. Moreover, the mass of people quietly living without devoting their full attention to the climate crisis is disheartening and unnerving to those most concerned about the climate data. In the worst cases of climate anxiety, it leads to a loss of hope. In some cases, as Patricia MacCormack highlights in The Ahuman Manifesto, despair leads to advocacy for human extinction.

Having children is both a sign and a cause of hope. In her 1992 novel The Children of Men, P. D. James imaginatively explores a world in which all of humanity has mysteriously become infertile. Set a quarter of a century after the last generation, the “Omegas,” were born, the story highlights a self-absorbed generation that’s becoming disinterested in sex, that emphasizes self-care, that views pets as a suitable replacement for children, and that adopts euthanasia to avoid the task and expense of caring for the elderly. These eerily familiar attitudes are accompanied by anxiety that parallels the growing concerns of our own culture.

The hopelessness of climate anxiety and the flood of other bad news is leading many young people to remain childless. For example, Elizabeth Rush’s book The Quickening documents her agonizing deliberation about becoming a mother as she serves as artist in residence on a scientific expedition bound for Antarctica to study climate change. She decides to have a child to fulfill her desire to be a mother, but she goes to great lengths to justify that decision to herself and her readers.

The natural desires to have children, to enjoy good food, to explore the world, and to hope for the future seem like treason in the face of such overwhelming negativity. Pervasive pessimism sometimes causes people to miss the pieces of good news about the environment. It’s little wonder climate anxiety is only growing; there’s no real hope offered by the cultural narrative of climate change.

Respond with Gospel Hope

Christianity has been accused of being pessimistic because of the doctrine of original sin, but it looks downright cheerful in comparison to much of climate activism. It has the best antidote to the problem of climate anxiety because it offers a vision of hope to a culture in despair.

Despite the effects of the fall (Gen. 3:17–18), the Bible affirms the continued goodness of all creation. Though the first humans’ sin grew and spread until God judged the world severely through the flood, still humanity’s mission to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” was reiterated by God (9:1). Humans aren’t an alien species in this good world.

God has promised not to leave his creation in its fallen and dilapidated state. As Al Wolters quipped, “God does not make junk, and he does not junk what he made” (49). In Romans 8:18–25, Paul depicts creation longing for God to renew it, a condition that mirrors our glorification at the resurrection. Our renewal is guaranteed through Christ’s own glorified, resurrection body. That’s why Paul emphasizes the hope of believers in creation’s coming renewal.

The hope of creation’s renewal should lead Christians to pursue substantial healing in this world through biblical justice in society, restoration of relationships, and caring for creation.

The hope of creation’s renewal should lead Christians to pursue substantial healing in this world through biblical justice in society, restoration of relationships, and caring for creation.

We know that God will ultimately perfect creation, but in the meantime, we seek to embody the hope of the renewal of all creation in our daily lives. Future hope is the grounds of a properly Christian care for creation because it points toward the gospel’s culmination when there are no tears, nor death, nor pain, “for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4).

We may have limited time to reduce human effects on creation before we multiply complex environmental problems. But our response to those problems must be based on the hope of God’s restoration of all creation, rather than on despair. We can never allow fear to justify doing evil in the name of some supposedly greater good. In an increasingly anxious world, the gospel still offers our only real hope. If we live as those who have hope in a culture of despair, our anxious neighbors may begin to ask us why (1 Pet. 3:15).