'What if all the water ... takes us?'

By Maroua Rahaoui and Akila Rayapuraju

ALLSTON — Melissa Andrade began worrying about the planet in sixth grade, just after Donald Trump was elected president for his first term. 

As a child, she felt anxious when the president repeatedly called global warming a hoax. It was the first time she heard anyone so prominent deny that climate change was happening.

“It was a big contrast to my life at home, because I heard people talking about the effects of climate change, and it was stuff that I was learning about in school,” said Andrade, 21, now a junior at Boston University.

Until she was 6 years old, Andrade lived near the beach in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She remembers how storms sometimes battered the harbor’s massive dike, which is the longest hurricane barrier on the East Coast. 

The New Bedford Hurricane Protection Barrier, which rises 20 feet above the water and spans 3.5 miles, was built in the 1960s to protect one of the nation’s busiest fishing ports after the 1938 and 1954 hurricanes, which caused millions of dollars in flood damage.

A state-funded 2014 study found that the barrier may no longer protect the city if sea levels rise by 4 feet and it is hit by even a Category 2 hurricane.

Growing up with the fear of the dike failing sparked what Andrade described as “anxiety when it comes to the climate.”

Andrade’s mother, Roseangela Williams, remembers her daughter asking during beach visits, “What if all the water comes over here and takes us?”

The mental health impacts of climate change can be far-ranging, particularly for youth. 

Dr. Elizabeth Pinsky, a pediatric psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and the associate director for advocacy at MGH’s Center for Environment and Health, said she worries that many youth are developing “cascading negative mental health outcomes” due to climate change. 

Eco-anxiety, defined by the American Psychological Association and ecoAmerica as a “chronic fear of environmental doom,” is among these mental health outcomes. Symptoms of eco-anxiety can include a phobia of extreme weather, existential dread, obsessive and fatalistic thoughts about climate change, and worry about the future of oneself, children, and later generations. 

A 2021 global survey in The Lancet Planetary Health found that 45% of 10,000 young people said their concerns about climate change affected their lives. Respondents reported difficulties with basic activities like concentrating, sleeping, going to school, and maintaining relationships.

James McKowen, a child psychologist and co-chair of the Climate Mental Health Initiative at MGH, sees those effects firsthand. In his practice, he works with teenagers who feel distressed, isolated, angry, and at times paralyzed by climate change. For some, he said, it can even “get in the way of school.”

The Lancet Planetary Health study also showed that institutional betrayal and eco-anxiety are often linked. Institutional betrayal refers to the distress experienced when people are harmed deliberately by the institutions they rely on for support and protection.

Both McKowen and Pinsky noted that the Trump administration’s climate denial and action to thwart efforts to address global warming have been distressing for many youth. 

More Environmental Protection Agency measures to address climate change have been removed during Trump’s second term than during his first. Media Cloud data also show a decline in climate change coverage beginning in 2024, around the time of Trump’s re-election.

In February, the Trump administration took its most significant steps to block efforts to address climate change. The EPA repealed the 2009 Endangerment Finding, which legally established greenhouse gases as a threat to public health and underpinned nearly all federal limits on climate pollution.

Despite these setbacks, Andrade tries to overcome her climate despair through activism and awareness.

She studies ecology and conservation biology at Boston University and serves on the executive board of BU’s Environmental Student Organization. Outside of school, she interns at the Boston Climate Action Network, a grassroots movement mobilizing residents and allies to push for urgent climate action in Boston.

Andrade’s activism started at home when she persuaded her parents to compost. Though they initially resisted, they came to love it. 

“It's like just part of the whole process of bringing out the trash,” Andrade’s mother said.

Most recently, Andrade led an effort to pick up trash along Commonwealth Avenue near campus, attracting 19 participants — a record for the organization.

For nearly two hours in heavy snow, Andrade and her peers combed the streets of Allston, collecting about 78 pounds of trash. This was one of Andrade’s ways of funneling her eco-anxiety into action.

But while activism is essential, it can also lead to burnout, according to a 2023 article in the International Public Health Journal. 

For Andrade, recent actions by Donald Trump’s administration have felt like a “gut punch,” at times making her efforts seem like “a complete waste of time.” She describes periods of feeling “paralyzed and helpless.”

She also points to media coverage that focuses heavily on the negative aspects of climate change, reinforcing what she calls a cycle of bad news that leaves people disengaged.

Andrade now often avoids the news, which makes her feel hopeless and depressed.

Pinsky worries that too much gloomy media coverage about climate change could make the problem worse. “If we make people feel hopeless, it’s a bigger problem than climate denial,” she said. 

Instead, she urges news outlets to highlight solutions at the individual and systemic level. That includes what she calls “meaning-focused coping,” or connecting climate action to personal values and what matters most in your life. Still, she cautions against framing individual action as the sole answer to climate despair.

“I think a rapid transition off of fossil fuels centered on environmental justice — that’s the antidote to despair,” she said. “A future where we’re no longer tied to the fossil fuel industry is a more just, hopeful, peaceful, and better future.”

For McKowen, supporting young people means helping them build the psychological tools to manage that anxiety without shutting down. He points to approaches like mindfulness (paying attention to the present moment) and guided reflection to help young people process their emotions. But he also emphasizes action, however small.

“Whether it’s organizing a local trash pickup or nature restoration or maybe you plant a native garden,” he said, “what you’re good at can give you some strategies for taking action.”

Despite her anxiety, Andrade remains committed to pushing for change and encouraging others to do the same.

“You can’t complain about something if you’re not doing anything to change it,” she said.

Maroua Rahaoui is completing her master's in journalism at Boston University and plans to pursue multimedia foreign reporting after graduating. You can reach her at mrahaoui@bu.edu. Akila Rayapuraju is studying public health at BU and works on climate change and mental health research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. You can reach her at arayapur@bidmc.harvard.edu.