Eco-anxiety and its divergent power holds: a youth climate activist’s perspective

Abstract

I am a climate activist living and working in Nigeria. I have always had an interest in environmental protection, I remember feeling very hurt as a child when a Mango tree was unnecessarily cut down in our compound. Years later, I have become a youth organizer working with hundreds of young Nigerians on community-led, climate action through advocacy and activism. Eco-anxiety can be broadly referred to a range of emotions a person can feel because of direct or indirect impacts of ecological breakdown, climate change, and biodiversity loss. As a Black, youth climate activist, my experience of eco-anxiety has mostly been filled with anger, frustration, and powerlessness. In this commentary, I briefly explore the role of power (and the lack of it thereof) in understanding eco-anxiety, drawing from a subjective experience and research conducted in 2020 with some youth climate activists living in the United Kingdom (Uchendu, 2020).A helpful framework that has supported my understanding of how power relates to eco-anxiety is Bronfenbrenner's social-ecological theory, the framework helps to situate the complex system of relationships between young people and their surrounding contextual environment. These relationships could either span from the young person's immediate family and peer networks to or even broader cultural and societal backdrops (Bronfenbrenner, 1979;Kilanowski, 2017). Starting with the personal space of self-identity and other external relationships, I have shared my thoughts on some emerging power links worth considering. The terms eco-anxiety and climate anxiety are used interchangeably in this article. Power, self-identity, and eco-anxietyEco-anxiety has to do with recognizing your own power and how it intersects with privileges. I am in Brighton, I am a white, middle-class citizen and have grown up in that sort of setting, so I have a specific eco-anxiety and it is important to recognize the power relations that have created this eco-anxiety. . . Ecoanxiety comes in different forms and is dependent on the power relations within which you are situated. I think it is important to be reflective of your positionality. If not, you will not understand the root causes of your eco-anxiety. -Youth Climate activist living in the UK

Validation of the Hogg Climate Anxiety Scale

“…Qualitative research indicates that people's anxieties about the planet are tied to their perceptions of climate injustice issues. Uchendu (2022) found, when speaking with climate activists in the UK, that their anxieties about environmental problems were related to their understanding of climate injustice issues and 1 3 inequalities between countries, whereby developed nations (the very nations these activists come from) have emitted large volumes of greenhouse gases to achieve their current level of industrialisation. Qualitative research also shows that adults are worried about the impact climate change will have, not only on their current or future children, but on future generations more broadly, which is reflective of the inequalities between generations (e.g., Howard 2022).…”

Complex dynamics of climate emotions among environmentally active Finnish and American young people

“…Much like the physical impacts of the climate crisis that disproportionately impact countries and places that contribute the least to the phenomenon, affective impacts are both unequally distributed and experienced differently across individuals and groups (Lawrance et al, 2022). There are also complex dynamics related to the justice issues and privilege when it comes to investigating climate emotions (e.g., Uchendu, 2022). Notably, indigenous people, who are particularly attuned to climatic changes due to their lifestyles experience climate emotions such as grief, sorrow, and solastalgia quite heavily (Cunsolo Willox et al, 2013;Middleton et al, 2020).…”