Swedish energy supplier Vattenfall addresses climate anxiety sufferers by offering one on one sessions to talk about this. During a 20-minute call, one of their engineers will elaborate on what is happening to the climate and what solutions are currently being worked on. Their “engineerapy” is free for everyone to book here.
Climate anxiety is a term that’s been on the rise the past years, even to a point where Grist magazine called it “the biggest pop-culture trend of 2019”. However, it is acknowledged a real phenomenon that deserves clinical attention according to this article published in the journal of anxiety disorders. The author of the article found that 17-27% of adults reported a degree of climate anxiety that was having some impact on their functioning. Another study investigating climate anxiety in Tuvalu, a pacific island regarded as extremely vulnerable to climate change, found that 87% of people were impacted by climate anxiety in such a way that it impaired normal functioning. This indicates that when climate change worsens, the threat to mental health can grow to severe levels.
So, by providing people with engineerapy, Vattenfall is addressing a serious issue. People’s mental health is not something that should be taken for granted, just like climate change.
