Skip to content

Worried about climate change? Here’s 4 things to give you hope

The writer Matt Haig tweeted yesterday: “The reason anxiety rates are spiking … is because toxic modern life is so out of tune with nature.” In other words, climate change is becoming a huge contributor to anxiety. And who can blame us? It’s a more than worrying time. But as scary as it seems, there’s so many good things happening. If you’re worried about climate change, here’s 5 things to give you hope:

1. Greta Thunberg’s Instagram page

Have you ever seen a 16 year old with such a look of steely determination? Even Arya Stark couldn’t match it. If you’re feeling down about the state of things, go and see her posts about the climate strike last week and you’ll get goosebumps. It goes a long way towards realising that you’re definitely not the only one worried, and that people aren’t just going to sit around doing nothing. What do we say to climate change? Not today.

She did that

2. So many good things are already happening

Solar and wind energy costs have come down, coal is becoming unprofitable, plant based eating is becoming the norm (yay). Less and less people are accepting single use plastic, New York literally banned plastic bags – oh, and here’s some baby gorillas who’ve learned how to dismantle poacher’s traps. It took me about three minutes to learn all that – imagine how many good things you could find in 10.

3. The solutions do exist

Sometimes it can feel like there’s no hope. Scaremongering on social media really can make it seem like we’re fighting a losing battle. But newsflash: we’re not. The solutions do exist. From city benches that clean the air to Greenpeace creating ocean sanctuaries to every business suddenly realising it’s cool to use their profit to plant trees. These solutions really are enough to save the planet – the hard part is getting them implemented. Which brings me to my last point…

4. The younger generation really, really care

It’s easy to feel powerless when you’re not a 50 year old white male government official with a receding hairline. It’s easy to blame the problems on the powers that be, the ‘grown ups’. But spoiler alert: we are the grown ups now (scary, huh?) But what’s not scary is that the power is slowly but surely shifting into the hands of the people who I’m confident will actually use it for good. There’s always hope, we’ve just got to start using it.

Wondering how you can make a difference? Check out my list of ways you can help save the planet.