Eco-anxiety, denialism and collapse

PalmEnvironmentalism has focused attention on environmental degradation. Unfortunately, the data and information from ecologists, climate experts, and social scientists are inconsistent and point in the same direction: toward a significant worsening of the living conditions of humanity and the planet. They therefore confirm the global magnitude of the ecosocial crisis and indicate that we are approaching a collapse scenario. Simultaneously, as more sensitized and informed citizens have become aware of this situation of degradation and have become conscious of the moribund state of no return, they have also developed a chronic fear of the vital and existential consequences that the end of industrial civilization could bring. This is a natural and predictable psychological reaction that has become popularly known as eco-anxiety, a state of mind that affects more and more people.

According to this view, eco-anxiety or ecological anxiety can be understood as an emotional reaction that arises from the awareness of the proximity of an eco-social collapse, and especially from the perception that the main threats that cause it, such as the emergency of the emergency and the inconclusive and effective.

The bleak present

Eco-anxiety arises from a mixture of emotions and feelings related to the disenchantment and helplessness felt towards a bleak and undesirable present, and the fear and uncertainty aroused by a future that is presumed to be even worse. It can be said that eco-anxiety is linked to the social awareness of the unwillingness of governments to abandon the path of growth that causes climate change and to the perception of the failure of environmentalism in its attempt to influence political decision-making that contributes to reversing an increasingly dramatic and irreversible situation.

Eco-anxiety has become a widespread collective phenomenon that expresses a very close connection between environmental health and physical and mental health, since the health of the natural environment is a worrying threat that can affect emotional well-being and alter mood, cause mental stress, listlessness, apathy, and more serious and permanent ones such as depression, apathy, and melancholy, and affect personal relationships, prospects, and personal projects.

It is very evident that environmental policies implemented by states tend to preserve economic growth, sustained by a carbon economy, at the expense of the health and habitability of the planet, through actions that subsidize and protect the interests of large energy companies, with measures that do not prevent the use of f energies. And knowing that the hope placed in the energy transition is unjustified generates even greater eco-anxiety. The suspicion that the energy transition is a fraud is being confirmed, not only by the reasons previously provided by some scholars such as Antonio Turiel, and the well-founded warnings that renewables by themselves cannot sustain the current system of production, consumption and growth, but also because, in addition, this hope of humanity placed in the transition from fossil fuels to clean energies is absorbing renewables and integrating them in an aggregated way with other energy sources, as Jean-Baptiste Fressoz lucidly and empirically shows in his book, No transition (2025). According to Fressoz, the energy transition is, in fact, a reassuring but false story, because a journey through the history of energy uses allows us to observe a regular energy dynamic that is maintained over time, that works in the present era and has worked in the past, and that consists of superimposing different energy sources, making them available to society. This vision debunks both the myth of coal being replaced by oil and also refutes the decarbonization of the economy.

Nor can we trust our salvation to faith in technology and passively wait for things to change by introducing innovations that do not alter the consumerist and productivist lifestyle or reduce existing inequalities. False technological solutionism only disappoints citizens' expectations and assuages the certainty that all it is achieving, at worst, is fueling denialism, and at best, mentally delaying collapse.

At this point, some may think that it is better not to know the truth, because it is uncomfortable, painful and causes anxiety and suffering and other negative emotions, and that it is more convenient, and even more adaptive in the immediacy, to adopt the strategy of ostrichness, not looking reality in the face, and trying to face reality, and trying to falsely believe that by ignoring problems they will almost disappear, hoping that it will be the shortest path to happiness. This attitude of voluntary ignorance has a strong irrational component and not only explains denialism, but is at its root.

The global collapse

The anxiety linked to the threat of global collapse is a problem for informed people. This statement psychologically explains climate denialism as a defensive reaction to the inability to accept the uncomfortable truth of humanity's suicide. According to this interpretation, eco-anxiety and denialism have in common the fact that they are psychological self-defense mechanisms in the face of an unacceptable situation. Both phenomena have a psychophysical basis in the reptilian brain, since they are activated by the evolutionarily predetermined survival instinct.

Australian philosopher Glen Albrecht has identified a variant of eco-anxiety that he calls solastalgia, which he describes as the sense of loss or grief that people experience when faced with the destruction of their immediate natural environment, with which they maintain a close emotional bond.

On a local level, eco-anxiety is confused with solastalgia, and mixes with the feelings of frustration, helplessness, nostalgia, rage, and indignation experienced by those of us who feel rooted in Mallorca and are concerned to see the current government continue to sacrifice the territory we love to economic interests. Paradoxically, eco-anxiety becomes a stimulus to increase commitment to the environmental struggle, driven by the will to live and an ethic of solidarity with future generations. For this reason, we often peacefully channel our feelings through street protests.

From a psychological perspective, raising our voices and publicly expressing our grievances can be interpreted as a way to avoid the remorse that would come from knowing that we have not done everything possible to defend our environment from destruction. Those of us who love Mallorca are convinced that we are right, but we let ourselves be guided by our feelings because we know they are stronger than arguments. We give no ethical or moral validity to passivity and inaction, because we have a duty to act, despite knowing that we are part of a minority that has been unable to transform the economic and social system. And we are also activists because it is the healthiest therapy against pessimism.