Worrying about climate change: is it responsible to promote public debate?
Open accessAbstract
Some fear that provoking widespread worry about climate change may harm mental health. The Regional Wellbeing Survey, a large study of health, well-being and life in rural and regional Australia, examined climate change worry and attitudes. Most respondents were worried about climate change and agreed that fossil fuel use causes global warming, but there was no evidence to suggest that worry about climate change is linked to mental health in the general population. Respectful, calm, considered public debate about how to respond to climate change is unlikely to be harmful to population mental health. Individually focused clinical approaches are unlikely to be effective as a primary approach in managing the mental health impacts of climate change. Instead, collective, systems-based approaches will be needed.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
There is conflicting evidence on the association between depression, anxiety, and climate-related anxiety and functional impairment.
“Although there is conflicting evidence on the association between depression, anxiety, and climate-related anxiety and functional impairment,30, 44, 45, 46”
From Psychological responses, mental health, and sense of agency for the dual challenges of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic in young people in the UK: an online survey study (2022) · cites this paper as [46]
The Methods section says the study screened symptoms of anxiety and depression, and the Discussion reports no substantial link between community worry about climate change and population-level psychiatric morbidity. This provides one finding relevant to the claimed association, but the paper does not assess functional impairment or establish that the evidence is conflicting. Page numbers were not available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.78)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Screening for serious mental illness in the general population
Kessler, R. C., Barker, P. R., Colpe, L. J., Epstein, J. F., Gfroerer, J. C., Hiripi, E., Howes, M. J., Normand, S.-L. T., Manderscheid, R. W., Walters, E. E., et al. (2003) · Archives of General Psychiatry · doi:10.1001/archpsyc.60.2.184 · Cited by 5,692 · see citing works
Grand challenges in global mental health
Collins, P. Y., Patel, V., Joestl, S. S., March, D., Insel, T. R., Daar, A. S., Bordin, I. A., Costello, E. J., Durkin, M., Fairburn, C., et al. (2011) · Nature · doi:10.1038/475027a · Cited by 2,043 · see citing works
The Effects of Climate Change on Cardiac Health
De Blois, J., Kjellstrom, T., Agewall, S., Ezekowitz, J. A., Armstrong, P. W., & Atar, D. (2015) · Cardiology · doi:10.1159/000398787 · Cited by 1,697 · see citing works
The psychological impacts of global climate change
Doherty, T. J., & Clayton, S. (2011) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/a0023141 · Cited by 894 · cited 2× · see citing works
“Conversely, it makes sense to propose that believing human activity is causing (potentially disastrous) global warming would engender worry; and that certain predisposing factors might influence, in complex ways (Doherty & Clayton, 2011), the likelihood of believing this.”
Pearl in the Oyster: Climate Change as a Mental Health Opportunity
Berry, H. (2009) · Australasian Psychiatry · doi:10.1080/10398560903045328 · Cited by 86 · see citing works
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 5
- Berry, H. L., Bowen, K. & Kjellstrom, T. (2010) Climate change and mental health: a causal pathways framework. International Journal of Public Health, 52, 123– 132. 20033251
- Capstick, S., Whitmarsh, L., Poortinga, W., et al (2015) International trends in public perceptions of climate change over the past quarter century. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 6, 35– 61.
- Costello, A., Abbas, M., Allen, A., et al (2009) Managing the health effects of climate change. Lancet, 373, 1693– 1733. 19447250
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2014) Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press.
- Whiteford, H. A., Degenhardt, L., Rehm, J., et al (2013) Global burden of disease attributable to mental and substance use disorders: findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. Lancet, 382, 1575– 1586. 23993280
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Development and validation of a measure of climate change anxiety
Clayton, S., & Karazsia, B. T. (2020) · Journal of Environmental Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101434 · Cited by 1,196 · see citing works
Anxiety, worry, and grief in a time of environmental and climate crisis: a narrative review
Ojala, M., Cunsolo, A., Ogunbode, C. A., & Middleton, J. (2021) · Annual Review of Environment and Resources · doi:10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-022716 · Cited by 670 · see citing works
Lawrance, E. L., Thompson, R., Newberry Le Vay, J., Page, L., & Jennings, N. (2022) · International Review of Psychiatry · doi:10.1080/09540261.2022.2128725 · Cited by 500 · see citing works
The case for systems thinking about climate change and mental health
Berry, H. L., Waite, T. D., Dear, K. B. G., Capon, A. G., & Murray, V. (2018) · Nature Climate Change · doi:10.1038/s41558-018-0102-4 · Cited by 485 · see citing works
Self-citationFear for the future: Eco-anxiety and health implications, a systematic review
Boluda-Verdú, I., Senent-Valero, M., Casas-Escolano, M., Matijasevich, A., & Pastor-Valero, M. (2022) · Journal of Environmental Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2022.101904 · Cited by 306 · see citing works
Ecological Grief as a Response to Environmental Change: A Mental Health Risk or Functional Response?
Comtesse, H., Ertl, V., Hengst, S. M. C., Rosner, R., & Smid, G. E. (2021) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph18020734 · Cited by 244 · see citing works
Lawrance, E. L., Jennings, N., Kioupi, V., Thompson, R., Diffey, J., & Vercammen, A. (2022) · The Lancet Planetary Health · doi:10.1016/s2542-5196(22)00172-3 · Cited by 123 · see citing works
Global priorities for climate change and mental health research
Charlson, F., Ali, S., Augustinavicius, J., Benmarhnia, T., Birch, S., Clayton, S., Fielding, K., Jones, L., Juma, D., Snider, L., et al. (2022) · Environment International · doi:10.1016/j.envint.2021.106984 · Cited by 103 · see citing works
“harmful to population mental health (Berry and Peel, 2015).”
A systematic review of climate emotions and mental health in adults
Pitt, C., Norris, K., & Pecl, G. (2023) · Global Environmental Psychology · doi:10.5964/gep.11405 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
- Authors
- Berry, H. L., & Peel, D.
- Affiliations
- Australian National University (AU)
- University of Canberra (AU)
- Venue
- BJPsych. International
- Publisher
- Royal College of Psychiatrists
- Published
- 2015-05
- Volume
- 12
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 31-32
- ISSN
- 2056-4740 (ISSN-L)
- 2058-6264
- PMC
- PMC5618910
- OpenAlex
- W2783265825
- Cited by
- 54
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 1 · 2018: 1 · 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 2.05
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Locations
- BJPsych International (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- University of Canberra Research Portal (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change Communication and Perception
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Climate Change and Health Impacts
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Keywords
- climate change concern, climate anxiety, mental health, climate change debate, fossil fuel consumption, global warming, regional Australia, well-being, systems approach
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
