“The problem isn’t that people feel too scared about climate change,” said Thea Gregersen, a climate psychologist… and lead author of the study. “The problem, in Norway at least, seems to be that they’re not scared enough.”...
“We’re nowhere near having a comprehensive understanding,” said Caroline Hickman, a climate psychologist at the University of Bath, who was not involved in the study. “If anybody presents this material confidently as certainties or pretends they’re an expert, ignore them. Run away.”
The researchers also only looked at what people said they would do, rather than what they did, he added. Previous studies have shown “intentions are surprisingly weakly aligned with actual behaviour”.
Climate scientists have raised fears that a glut of doom-laden headlines and negative rhetoric – some of it based on incorrect claims – will push people into despair and stop them from acting.
A survey of 10,000 young people in 2021 found most agreed with the statement “humanity is doomed”… “Rather than climate anxiety, we should be calling it politician anxiety or people anxiety, because it’s the people in power who are failing to do the right thing whilst lying to us, or doing the opposite, that is causing the terror,” said Hickman, who was the lead author of the 2021 study and previously a social worker...
