How To Turn Eco-Anxiety into Hope and Joy This Earth Day

Talking to kids about the climate crisis, racial justice, and inequality can feel tricky. We want kids to be kids — to imagine, play, and feel joy and lightness. Sometimes, it can feel like talking to them about these issues can dim their lights. But I’ve found that it’s the opposite.

Kids can see what’s happening in the world around them. A recent survey showed that 78% of kids under 12 worry about the climate crisis, and teachers say they find tackling this eco-anxiety challenging.

This checks out; whenever I go into schools and ask if the kids ever worry about the climate crisis and their future, almost every hand shoots up. Kids know what’s up. They can see that there are many injustices in our world, and they see that none of it makes any sense. When I then ask the kids if their worry is made worse by a feeling that they can’t do anything to stop this crisis, many hands remain in the air.

By the time I’ve finished my talk or session on what climate justice is, what the solutions are, and how kids are an essential part of creating a better world for us all, I quite literally see hope shining from their faces.

Their lights are made brighter by being able to see a way out. And their bright lights can lead the way for all of us to follow. So here are some tips for how to turn eco-anxiety into hope and joy.

Illuminate history

The past is still present and can clarify what we experience today. Through understanding how change happened in the past, we can better understand how change can, will, and is happening in the present.

Ask your kid — or yourself — what is one thing you’re grateful for in your life? Perhaps it’s a weekend off work (won by union organizing) or that everyone can sit wherever they like on a bus (won by mass organizing through the bus boycott movement).

Explore together how that change happened, how many people worked together, how it took time and energy, and many different skills. Remember how every change that has ever happened was believed to be impossible before it happened. Remind yourself that we decide what is possible through the actions we take in our lives.

Exercise imagination

Kids have a special gift: their ability to imagine. Every single day on the playground, in their bedroom, or at the park with friends, kids exercise a skill that is essential for us to create a better world. The world we currently live in is the result of the imaginations of people from the past and the present.

“Race” is an idea invented by people to justify the enslavement of kidnapped peoples from the African continent.

“Capitalism” is an economic system invented by people.

These ideas — and many more — are made powerful by belief in them. Belief in these systems or ideas as “the only way” leads to actions to ensure they are the only option. In the same way, our imaginations — our ideas of what the world could be like — and our belief in these imaginations can create a world where everyone is safe, lives in dignity, and has the things they need to survive. If kids can imagine dragons, magic, fairies, and talking animals, they can also imagine a better world for us all.

An exercise I encourage in my book, Climate Is Just The Start, is to draw the best world you can imagine. What would your neighborhood look like? What would it smell like? How would it feel? Sit in that imagination, that new world. Anchor your soul there so every action you take will move us closer to it.

Make what moves you move the world around you.

A lot of this eco-anxiety comes from the feeling that we have no agency; our future has already been decided, and there is nothing we can do about it. Once I realized how much I could do and started building active hope with my actions, I moved from fear to joy.

The hope wasn’t something I waited for someone to give me; it was something I built. I no longer pushed down my emotions, letting them fester inside of me. Instead, I used what moved me to move the world around me. I channeled my emotions into action. I found that these big feelings were something to embrace rather than reject. Next time you see something that moves you or your kid(s), perhaps you could ask, “What can we do about it?”

Know that you can’t fix or do everything and don’t have to. But know that what you can do is worthwhile. Every small action adds up to a bigger whole. Did seeing the wildfires in California move you and your family? You could see if your kid’s school or your workplace could come together to support the Make Pollutor’s Pay historic climate superfund and endorse the Fossil Fuel Treaty.

My biggest piece of advice would be to see if there is already a group in your local community working on an issue you care about and reach out to join them. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Often, we can learn and feel supported by organizing alongside people who have been doing this for much longer.

Once we understand the world, our history, and our roles in creating the future, joy and expansiveness can be found. I know that my life has been more full since I’ve refused to look away from the reality of the world and instead chose to face it head-on, arm-in-arm with my friends and siblings all over the world. I hope you’ll link your arm in mine this Earth month and beyond.

A better world is possible, and the future is not yet written — it is the story we are all writing with our lives.