When psychotherapist Caroline Hickman was asked to help a child overcome their fear of dogs, she introduced them to her labradoodle, Murphy. “You make the child feel confident around the dog, and you teach them the skills to handle the dog,” she says. “You build skills, you build competence, you build confidence, and then they’re less afraid of dogs overall.” Climate anxiety is a different beast, says Hickman. “We don’t know 100% how to deal with it. And it would be a huge mistake to try to treat it like other anxieties that we know very well and have been around for decades. This one is much, much worse.

In the most severe cases, climate anxiety interferes with the ability to function on a daily basis. Children and young people in this category experience alienation from friends and family, distress when thinking about the future, and intrusive thoughts about who will survive, according to Hickman's research. (Olivia Rudgard, Jack Wittels, Bloomberg News, medicalxpress.com )