Eight years ago, it snowed in Santa Barbara in the most quintessentially Californian way possible: ash from the ever-growing Thomas Fire.
The ash entered the air, homes, and lungs of residents as an ominous harbinger of the dangers just ahead. As the disaster ravaged the drought-dried vegetation of mountainsides from Los Angeles to Montecito, many faced the devastating losses of their homes and treasured possessions.
Still, few could have predicted what came next: the Montecito Mudslide, which scarred and gauged the local landscape while taking 23 lives.
Almost immediately, the community rallied together in support, mourning the loss of life, organizing grassroots efforts to dig homes and other structures out of the mud, and ultimately rebuilding and returning to the normal pace of life.
Every single year, on the anniversary of the tragedy, a commemorative searchlight shoots into the sky, but the community has moved on. New buildings emerge on the once-decimated creek sides.
The segment of the 101 freeway that had spent several weeks as an unnavigable pool of muck and years as an uncomfortably bumpy passage is now getting revitalized and expanded.
Still, forgetting is never that easy. After all, insurance prices in Santa Barbara have skyrocketed, and companies often refuse to insure a property.
In addition, some of the boulders that cascaded down from the hills still sit at the sites of their destructive handiwork, though they are mostly broken down into smaller rocks. Throughout all this, the psychological toll remains.
Santa Barbara’s pair of devastating events was tragic, but, unfortunately, far from unique.
Fires, hurricanes, heat waves, and more devastating natural disasters are tormenting billions around the globe, and only increase in frequency and severity as climate change worsens.
In light of all this, it can feel as though humanity is irreversibly doomed to a fate of perpetual death and destruction on a planet that sometimes seems to be exacting revenge for society’s mistreatment of it.
Rapidly emerging from this dread, fear of the unknown, and general feeling of helplessness in the face of a seemingly insurmountable challenge is climate anxiety, a challenge faced by millions, even if they might not have the words to articulate their experiences.
Unfortunately, there is no definition conclusively agreed upon by experts for what climate anxiety is, but it is generally considered to be a condition of chronic anxiety brought on by a deep fear of climate change and its adverse effects.
It tends to share the same symptoms as other anxiety conditions would, both in terms of its impact on behavioral and physical health.
Studies on these phenomena first truly emerged in 2001, but have become increasingly frequent, many involving surveys on the anxiety levels of participants.
A study from Yale University found that approximately 54% of Americans felt “concerned” or “alarmed” about climate change, while an international study conducted by Harvard University reported that about 60% of respondents felt “very worried.”
Besides all the typical treatments associated with anxiety, there tends to be a bifurcated path for those experiencing climate anxiety to grapple with their condition.
Depending on the person, it is either beneficial to back away from media related to climate change or tackle the issue head-on, which can include participating in a meaningful volunteer project or devoting oneself to the green revolution.
However, what is truly alarming is that climate anxiety is not a recognized diagnosable mental health challenge, even though, of the survey participants from the Harvard study, “nearly half said the anxiety affects their daily functioning,” something that is typically a metric of diagnosis for other mental health conditions.
Excluding climate anxiety from the status of a diagnosable condition minimizes the experiences of those who live with it, who tend to have the most intrinsic drive to see changes in the world that eradicate the looming environmental threats our planet faces.
Meanwhile, day after day, systems that support mental healthcare in the United States are continuously stigmatized, riddled with bureaucratic obstacles, and even, as in the case of Santa Barbara County’s own Access Line, defunded.
In the face of climate change, when these resources are needed most, they are simultaneously being stripped away.
Therefore, action must ensue to counteract this harmful trend.
This atypical tool of mental health advocacy plays a larger part in the fight against climate change.
Perhaps, it is in recognizing the interconnectedness of society’s challenges that many of the most meaningful ways to combat the effects of climate change can emerge.
Instead of viewing climate change as a distant threat and low priority in comparison to more immediate societal challenges, it is better to address all our crises in tandem.
Modeling off this method, what if clean energy is not a cost-ineffective change that must be put off until a period of sound economic stability, but is instead a tool to bolster new, steadfast industries?
What if marine conservation were not just about protecting adorable and fascinating creatures, but also a means of sequestering carbon and even providing a sustainable and nutritious food supply to food-insecure communities?
In the torrential downpour of a seemingly endless cacophony of societal challenges, it may seem ignorant to focus the searchlights solely on climate change.
However, if we broaden the focus of our beacons and shed light on all the tangles that intertwine the world’s issues, we can work towards more efficient and permanent solutions that do not leave a single problem behind in the mud.
