Eco-Anxiety and the Responses of Ecological Citizenship and Mindfulness

Anxiety has become a defining feature of our time. This chapter investigates a rapidly spreading form of anxiety: eco-anxiety. The chapter begins with a working definition of eco-anxiety focused on three main features: future orientation and uncertainty; fear and insecurity; and paralysis and inaction. This definition also highlights that the distinguishing characteristic of eco-anxiety is its object: severe ecological risks and transcendental dangers. Although eco-anxiety is originally a lucid reaction to these real risks and dangers, and although it remains unclear whether or not eco-anxiety should be categorized as a mental health condition, the chapter then explains that eco-anxiety can be linked with three mental disorders: phobias; generalized anxiety disorder; and post-traumatic stress disorders. The chapter also stresses that three categories of people seem to be more vulnerable to eco-anxiety and its disorders: people directly exposed to ecological disasters; environmental scientists and the researchers and students who draw on their work; and especially children and young people. Finally, the chapter adopts the normative framework of ecological citizenship and a virtue ethics approach focused on mindfulness to propose a possible way to cope with eco-anxiety and its potentially pathological consequences. The objective is not only to better understand eco-anxiety and its effects, but also to find possible ways to live with it.