Generation Z and millennials continue to suffer needlessly from “climate anxiety.”

For example, the University of Florida student newspaper recently profiled Elise Turesson, who “struggles with climate anxiety” because she feels “like she can’t do enough to curb the planet’s deteriorating conditions.”

“It's upsetting to see people walk around and litter and just do things that are not helping and just hurting a lot for the environment, especially when you care so much,” Turesson told the Alligator .

Calling fears about the future of the planet “anxiety” is actually an appropriate description since anxiety is “a future-oriented, long-acting response broadly focused on a diffuse threat, whereas fear is an appropriate, present-oriented, and short-lived response to a clearly identifiable and specific threat,” according to the American Psychological Association. 

Put another way, anxiety is an unrealistic worry about something that might happen in the future, whereas fear is related to an actual threat, such as someone right now is breaking into your home.

This is not to belittle someone who has had anxiety but rather to point out that the fears about the climate are not worth worrying about. 

For example, consider the claim that “hurricanes [are] gaining strength,” repeated in the University of Florida article. This is a popular claim that hurricanes are getting bigger and stronger.  But in reality, the data used to make these claims are not perfect. 

An oft-cited paper that makes this claim “uses no actual climate data on hurricanes” but “instead uses data on economic losses from hurricanes to arrive at conclusions about climate trends,” according to University of Colorado professor Roger Pielke. 

Economic damage is understandably going to rise year after year; the value of a Tesla destroyed by a hurricane in 2021 is more than that of a wagon and horse destroyed in 1855. 

There are ways to confront fears about what the environment will look like in the future. First, the climate does change in the same way that people do die. Accepting the natural order of life is a good step toward calming anxiety. 

Second, social media is a major contributor to mental health problems, and the frequent stories that blare about how the world is going to end and everyone is going to starve will not help anxiety. Remember that going back to the 1960s , if not earlier, there were false prophets who claimed overpopulation would ruin the world. To Al Gore’s credit, however, he has been saying my entire life that the world will end in 10 years .

For some reason, the media still give a platform to these people, such as Paul Ehrlich , whose “population bomb” claims turned out to be a big dud. So turn off the TikTok and the YouTube videos about climate disasters and go outside and take a walk. 

Which leads to a final way to calm anxiety: Focus on the local environment by planting trees or picking up trash. There is a lot that can be done in the local community to make the environment cleaner and healthier without getting worked up over what might happen 10 years from now because of climate change. 

“Climate anxiety,” like real anxiety, can be fixed with less social media, exercise, and being realistic about actual threats. The climate can change, but let’s be reasonable in our concerns.

Matt Lamb is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is an associate editor for the College Fix and has previously worked for Students for Life of America and Turning Point USA.