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  • NEWS FEATURE

The rise of eco-anxiety: scientists wake up to the mental-health toll of climate change

Researchers want to unpick how climate change affects mental health around the world — from lives that are disrupted by catastrophic weather to people who are anxious about the future.
  1. Helen Pearson
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A person stands among the rubble of his hurricane-destroyed home in High Rock, Grand Bahama, Bahamas, September 2019.

The Bahamas is vulnerable to storms and hurricanes. Extreme weather can exacerbate mental-health illnesses. Credit: Zak Bennett/AFP via Getty

Every year for six years, Laureen Wamaitha hoped that her fields in Kenya would flourish. Every year, she’d see drought wither the crops and then floods wash them away. The cycle of optimism and loss left her constantly anxious, and she blamed climate change. “You get to a situation where you have panic attacks because you’re always worried about something,” she says.

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Nature 628, 256-258 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00998-6

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