However real the threat posed by the climate crisis, for many, it remains too abstract to deal with. Psychologists suggest talking in less abstract terms and opening up about our fears.
The science is clear. If we continue to emit greenhouse gases at the same rate we have been doing for the past decades, 80 years from now, our planet will be at least four degrees warmer than pre-industrial levels.
"And the warming won't stop there," climate researcher and oceanographer Stefan Rahmstorf told DW. "It will continue to rise to seven or eight degrees over the next 100 years. Human civilization won't survive that."
Normally, we respond to danger quickly; we put out fires, run away when we feel at risk, and protect our children in every way we can. So why are people so slow to react to the existential threat of global warming?
"In evolutionary terms, we are not built for this kind of danger," explains Andreas Ernst, Professor of Environmental Systems Analysis and Environmental Psychology at the University of Kassel. "We react to a rustling in the bushes with lightning speed. But the threat posed by climate change is abstract."
Environmentalists have called for wild fires to be renamed as climate fires to make their connection to planetary warming clearerImage: The Orange County Register/AP Photo/picture-alliance
For many younger people, the concept of climate change seems easy to graspImage: Gero Rueter/DW
Although the findings of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports are unambiguous, many laypeople, as well as politicians, find their details hard to understand. This can impact the implementation of recommendations. Such, at least, is the conclusion reached by an international team of researchers who analyzed the IPCC reports.
Many struggle to picture a ton of the greenhouse gas CO2. Such figures "don't really reach the human psyche," Ernst said.
Yet dealing with CO2 is essential in the climate crisis, because the more greenhouse gases there are in the air, the faster the earth warms up. CO2 is mainly produced by the burning of oil, coal and natural gas. In order to limit global warming to a maximum of two degrees, CO2 emissions need to be reduced as quickly as possible, and neutralized no later than 2050. In order to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees, however, the world would have to become climate-neutral even sooner.
Christoph Nikendei, psychotraumatology expert at University Hospital in the southern German city of Heidelberg says it's important to use easy-to-understand figures, and to address the emotional brain so that climate change can become a real and tangible part of life.
How many trees need to grow to compensate for my flight?
To stay with that example: One ton of CO2 is produced, for example, by burning 422 liters of gasoline, which would allow a car to travel an average of 5,400 kilometers (3,355 miles).
Image: DW
Conversely, plants absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. This enables them to grow. A beech tree, for example, takes in around 12.5 kg of CO2 per year. That means a single ton of CO2 corresponds to the annual growth of 80 beech trees.
If we compare the CO2 emitted and absorbed, we can calculate how many trees are needed to compensate for a certain distance traveled by car, and which means of transport "consumes" the least amount of tree growth.
For example, 20 beech trees would have to grow for one year to offset a 1,000 kilometer journey with a combustion engine. For 1,000 kilometers of air travel, it would take 33 beech trees per person. The same distance traveled by train would equate to the growth of just one beech tree.
Collective behavior: Silence and repression
Another obstacle to tackling the climate crisis is repression, which is a very common psychological protection mechanism.
"People don't want to hear how bad things are, so they push it away. Smokers also do this when confronted with the consequences of their behavior," Ernst said, adding that many who don't want to deal with the climate issue, look away and leave it for others to solve.
Nikendei sees this behavior as a collective pattern of action: acollective social norm of silence, and likens the reluctance to acknowledge the climate crisis to the social taboos of ageing, illness and death.
From hurricanes, typhoons and floods to drought and failed crops, the impacts of climate change are hard to ignore - but we appear to tryImage: REUTERS
Image: Reuters/Yonhap
Rejection and paralysis can be overcome
Nikendei regards it as the role of psychologists to acknowledge this collective rejection and the emotions associated with it while simultaneously assisting the necessary change in values. This includes mourning the end of the fossil fuel era, recognizing one's own involvement in climate change and a shift in values towards cooperation over competition.
Excessive behavior in society needs to be replaced by more sharing, repairing and preserving, the psychotrauma expert says. Reconnecting with nature is also important. In pursuing this approach, he believes psychologists can help people to cope with the climate crisis and overcome feelings of fear, paralysis and helplessness.
More than a thousand psychologists and psychotherapists in Europe are trying to do just that with the Psychologists for Future network, says co-initiator Lea Dohm. "Our campaign has struck a nerve. Lots of people from all walks of life want our help in tackling the climate crisis."
This article was adapted from German
11 surprising facts about trees
Trees soak up carbon from the atmosphere, provide a home to wildlife and even improve our mental well-being. But did you know they can also "talk" to each other, and send out distress signals when under attack?
Image: picture-alliance/Goldmann
60,000 different species
There are around 3 trillion trees on Earth, according to a global study led by researchers from Yale University. That includes over 60,000 known tree species, more than half of which are endemic — meaning they're found in only one country. Brazil, Colombia and Indonesia are home to the most tree species. The bad news: there are 46% fewer trees today than at the start of human civilization.
Image: picture-alliance/Wildlife
Trees 'migrate' to escape climate change
Trees clearly can't uproot themselves and move, but their population centers can shift over time in response to climate pressures. A study looking at 86 trees species between 1980 and 2015 in the eastern United States found that 73% moved west, where rainfall is increasing. Others headed to the poles, apparently to escape heat. On average, they moved about 16 kilometers (10 miles) per decade.
Image: picture-alliance/blickwinkel/R. Linke
Keeping cities cool
Trees not only give us shade, they can also mitigate extreme temperatures by transpiring — absorbing the sun's radiation and releasing water into the air through their leaves. Urban areas can become sweltering "heat islands" in summer. But a 2019 study from the US found that tree canopy cover of 40% or more could lower summer temperatures in cities by as much as 5 degrees Celsius.
Image: picture-alliance/Loop Images
Sucking up pollutants
Trees draw CO2 from the atmosphere and are therefore crucial in the fight against climate change. They can also use their leaves to filter particulate matter and toxic gases like nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide from the air. A recent UK study found that silver birch, yew and elder trees could reduce particles at rates of 79%, 71% and 70% respectively.
Image: picture-alliance
Healing power
Trees can reduce our stress levels and help us feel happier and healthier. Several studies have shown that spending time in nature, or even just looking at trees or flowers through a window, can lower blood pressure, boost the immune system, improve sleep, reduce depression and anxiety, and even speed up recovery after surgery.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/C. Klose
Trees 'talk' to each other
Forests have their own communication systems — almost like an underground internet —that allows trees to swap nutrients and send warnings about drought or disease. They interact via networks of soil fungi, known as mycorrhizal networks. Research by ecologist Suzanne Simard has shown that paper birch (pictured) and fir trees use this system to send water, carbon and nutrients back and forth.
Image: picture-alliance/All Canada Photos
Sending signals in the air
Trees can't flee if their leaves are being devoured by a hungry herbivore. But what they can do is release chemicals — volatile organic compounds — into the air to warn nearby members of the same species there's a threat in the area. Studies show that other trees respond by boosting their own production of anti-herbivore toxins, which, in the case of acacias (pictured), makes their leaves bitter.
Image: picture-alliance/Anka Agency International
Call for backup
When besieged by bugs or parasites, some species, including apple trees, and tomato, cucumber and lima bean plants, release compounds into the air to alert the attackers' predator. Most often, these predators are insects. But a European study showed that trees infested with caterpillars also put out chemical signals to attract caterpillar-eating birds, such as the great tit (pictured).
Trees are the oldest living organisms on Earth. One individual can survive hundreds, even thousands of years. According to the OldList, an officially dated record of ancient trees, the oldest known living individual is a bristlecone pine in California's White Mountains. Named Methuselah, it's around 4,850 years old. Its exact location is kept a secret to protect it from vandals.
A photograph can't really do justice to the world's tallest trees: redwoods. The tallest known living specimen is a coast redwood called Hyperion measuring 115.85 meters (380 feet) — more than Big Ben or the Statue of Liberty. The giant, discovered in 2006 in California, is believed to be several hundred years old.
Image: picture alliance/ZUMA Press/B. Cahn
Other record breakers
California is also home to a giant sequoia named General Sherman, thought to be the biggest living tree in terms of volume. It stretches to a height of 83.8 meters and is 7.7 meters in diameter. The title of the world's widest tree goes to the Arbol del Tule (pictured), a Montezuma cypress in the Mexican state of Oaxaca. It has a diameter of 11.6 meters and circumference of 42 meters.
