In 2023, a visit to a local state secondary school to discuss our project, The Museum of Climate Hope, led to an unexpected discussion. A few weeks earlier, an eminent climate scientist had presented a harrowing tale of climate apocalypse to the school’s sixth form. But the students told us the scientist’s presentation, intended as a wake-up call to apathetic teenagers, had backfired.
After that “doom and gloom” message, a teacher at the school told us some students who were already concerned about climate change were showing signs of eco-distress. This term has been coined by environmental psychologists to capture the negative emotional responses – worry, anxiety, despair – to environmental change.
