Eco-Anxiety & How to Deal With It | Heather White

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The human race has done massive damage to the environment. Thinking about the climate crisis and all the environmental dangers that exist today can be completely overwhelming. Today’s youth has a collective case of eco-anxiety. How can we calm their nerves and give them hope for the future?

WELCOME TO THE DARIN OLIEN SHOW

Heather White wants to help calm your eco-anxiety.

As the founder of One Green Thing, Heather is a nationally recognized conservation and environmental policy expert. She has more than twenty years of experience leading and advising non-profit organizations focused on environmental change. Her debut book, One Green Thing: Discover Your Hidden Power to Help Save the Planet explores all the ways people can get effectively involved. 

It’s obvious that Heather and I have so much in common. We both recognize the urgency of the climate crisis, and know we need more people involved. But Heather is amazing at reaching the young people where they are. The truth is, Gen Z cares much more about the state of the environment than we realize. But, their eco-anxiety is through the roof.

While eco-anxiety may be a new term to you, you’ve probably experienced its effects for most of your life. Eco-anxiety is the overwhelming sense of dread at the direction our planet is going, but feeling helpless to spark real change. Feeling this existential sense of dread that is eco-anxiety can make it seem impossible to make any real progress in the climate crisis. 

In this episode, Heather really helps break down what causes eco-anxiety and how we can use it to our advantage. Real change comes in collective efforts and attitude shifts– and she’s great at figuring out how to do that. You don’t have to quit your job, sell your belongings and live off the grid. But you do have to be more aware of your carbon impact, and know how to change it. Heather gives us great ways to get involved, ideas for conscious consumerism, and inspiration to bridge the generational gap to spark real change. We can save the planet– we just have to stop focusing on our eco-anxiety and instead focus on our potential impact.