My anxiety attacks began two summers ago. They were mild at first, a low-level unease. But over a period of months they grew steadily worse, morphing into full-fledged fits of panic. I was a wreck. The sight of an idling car, heat-trapping carbon dioxide spewing from its tailpipe, would send me into an hours-long panic, complete with shaking, the sweats, and staring off into space while others conversed around me. The same thing happened on overly warm days, like those 60-degree ones here in the Big Apple last January. The culprit, I realized, was all the reporting I’d been doing on global warming—that, and the emotional impact of becoming a first-time parent. I had come down with a severe case of eco-anxiety—a chronic fear of the environmental future.

My condition only got worse. To save electricity—most of which, after all, comes from the fossil fuel–burning power plants that cause 35 percent of the United States’ carbon dioxide emissions—I’d skip the elevator and walk the eight flights of stairs to my apartment. At night, I lay awake worrying about which of the myriad climate-related disasters scientists are predicting would come first—flood, famine, heat wave, drought—and how I might prevent each and every one of them. Couldn’t I win the lottery and fund a renewable energy technology to replace all those power plants? How much would it cost to run a full-page ad in The New York Times telling people how to reduce the greenhouse gases they generate? (Only $60,000—I checked.)

Sure, my reaction was extreme. But it wasn’t wholly irrational either. Climatologists predict that without radical action to address climate change, civilization as we know it may end in 50 years. The world’s coastal areas, home to nearly half the Earth’s population, could well be under water.

Severe weather will likely wreak havoc upon the delicate agricultural cycle that feeds us. (If we don’t drown, we may starve to death.) Half the world’s species could perish as their ecosystems change drastically.

My little boy is three years old. Fifty years isn’t so long.

Nothing I did to curtail my anxiety helped—not talking to my shrink, not switching my apartment to a greenhouse gas-free electricity supplier, not handing out cards to idling motorists telling them how much pollution they could prevent simply by turning off their engines. My girlfriend started screening the newspaper for me, like some Soviet censor, snipping away alarming news. But even with her intervention, I felt alone. Riding high in their SUVs, few people around me seemed concerned about the changing climate. Was I the only person afflicted?  

A little digging revealed that I was not. While few Americans report symptoms as extreme as mine, 36 percent of the U.S. population worries “a great deal” about global warming, according to a recent Gallup poll. Another 26 percent worry “a fair amount.” When asked what will be “the most important problem facing our nation 25 years from now,” Gallup respondents listed the environment third, just behind “a lack of energy sources” and Social Security, and way ahead of terrorism, education, unemployment, race relations, and the budget deficit.

You can’t blame them...er, us. Forget about global warming for a minute. (At least try.) There are plenty of current environmental crises to make Americans anxious: the world’s disappearing forests, diminishing freshwater supplies, toxic nuclear wastes, over-fished oceans, vanishing species. The list goes on. These horrors flicker nonstop across our TV and computer screens. And with a White House not known for its environmentalism, it’s hard to hope that things are moving in the right direction.

Posted on Sep 6, 2006 at 7:02 AM
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