My freelancing has kept me busy. I have multiple projects due by the end of the month, focusing mostly on climate change and biodiversity; the next few weeks are going to be hectic. Seasoned freelancers tell me this is the way of my new world. It's feast or famine.

Trying to work from home during my son's naps can be a struggle. More challenging yet is trying not to get sucked into a vortex of depression regarding the potentially apocalyptic implications of the topics I'm writing about.

Apparently I'm not the only one fighting this condition. It even has its own name, 'climate-related depression'. And Australian doctors recently reported a case of 'climate-change delusion' in which a teenager refused to drink water, as he was convinced that he would cause a major water shortage in drought-stricken Australia. Extinctions here, range shifts there, and pathogens and pests expanding everywhere. With all the tabloid reports, it is easy to become haunted by nightmares of a stark Earth devoid of life.

But it's not all bad news, and to keep my sanity I focus on the positives. Animals and plants have an amazing capacity to adapt. We can help them. Many of my projects aim to help educate and inform. And let's face it: my freelance work, much of it catering to academics and policymakers, will have a far greater impact than most of the scientific-journal papers from my postdoc days. I believe that what I write matters. That is my cure for climate-related depression.