We must avoid the temptation to label eco-anxiety a mental-health problem. It is, in fact, a perfectly rational and normal response to the situation we face
Dr. Trevor Hancock
15 April 2025
701 words
From Mother Nature’s perspective, the results of next week’s election are largely irrelevant – and that should worry us. The two main contenders, as well as the NDP, are just proposing slightly different variants of business as usual.
Their focus is on more economic growth, more resource extraction and consumption and – although not formally part of their platforms – more resultant pollution. All they really differ about is how the spoils will be divided between the public and private sectors.
In fact, the environment, including climate change, has pretty much fallen off the public and political agenda. CBC News recently reported “In 2021, 24 per cent named the environment as their most important issue. But in this campaign, the environment is eighth on the list, at about five per cent.”
This has enabled governments in Ottawa and BC to back off from carbon pricing, having failed to vigorously defend it in the face of a powerful fossil fuel lobby. So we have lost an effective tool to reduce fossil fuel consumption, at the expense of the wellbeing of future generations and a myriad of other species. The fossil fuel robber barons must be rubbing their hands in glee.
But even though it may not be not top of mind in terms of current electoral concerns, there is a great deal of ‘eco-anxiety’ out there. A recent survey of 1000 young people (aged 16–25) across Canada found “78 percent reported that climate change impacts their overall mental health.” But we must avoid the temptation to label eco-anxiety a mental health problem. It is in fact a perfectly rational and normal response to the situation we face.
Consider for a moment that we have now crossed six of nine planetary boundaries, of which climate change is but one, and are approaching a seventh. We just had the first year where the average global temperature was more than 1.50C above the pre-industrial level, and it’s only going to get worse. Moreover, Canada is warming at twice and the Canadian North at three times the global average, the federal government has warned.
On top of that, the loss of biodiversity accelerates, as does the level of pollution. The latest Living Planet Index report, with data to 2020, shows that the population counts for almost 35,000 monitored populations covering 5,495 vertebrate species (mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians) around the world had declined 73 percent since 1970. Meanwhile the IUCN’s Red List reports that “More than 47,000 species are threatened with extinction. That is 28 percent of all assessed species.”
When it comes to pollution, it’s important to note that six of the nine planetary boundaries that have been established involve some form of pollution – and we have crossed three of them: Climate change (greenhouse gas emissions), nitrogen and phosphorus pollution from agricultural and other wastes that pollute our lands and waters (in particular creating marine and freshwater dead zones), and novel entities.
The latter are new substances such as synthetic chemicals, pesticides and plastic nano-particles, “not previously known to the Earth system” that are produced in numbers that exceed our ability to properly assess their impacts. In addition, we are approaching a fourth boundary, ocean acidification, that results from carbon dioxide and other acidifying emissions.
So does it make sense to be worried about the state of the environment? Absolutely it does. Does it make sense to largely ignore this issue, to fail to treat it as an absolutely vital priority, as an existential concern? It does not.
It is not eco-anxiety that is the problem, it is the failure to feel eco-anxiety and to respond appropriately. Albert Einstein once said “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Those among our business and political elite that continue to promote and pursue economic growth as a solution, with all its attendant problems, who continue to advocate for and implement policies and practices that push us further beyond planetary boundaries, are acting irrationally.
I would go further. It has been said that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” In the face of the global ecological crises we face, business as usual is insane.
© Trevor Hancock, 2025
Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy
Dr. Trevor Hancock - Healthy people, healthy communities, a healthy planet 