| This work initially addresses some relationships between uncertainty, environmental and disaster communication, and climatic urgency as contributing elements to eco-anxiety. Some people experience daily bouts of grief and despair, others show sudden panic attacks. Eco-anxiety can be defined as “chronic fear of environmental catastrophe”.
The local effects of climate change are more relevant at the individual level, impacting more people than the general phenomenon of global warming, especially when the direct effects are combined with the news broadcast in the media. Although the news of natural disasters is common, why are some reluctant to understand it? It is a phenomenon called psychological distance, by which terms such as climate change and global warming are conceived on a large scale, but are not related to the consequences they have on a personal level.
Perceiving how a majority does not take action in the face of the climatic emergency and the environmental catastrophe is, for other people, an added stressor. It's about passivity anxiety. Anxiety, sadness, worry and obsessions occur in people for various reasons related to the destruction or vulnerability of the environment. What will we do with the masks, gloves and other types of protection elements that have become everyday objects? Single-use barriers used and discarded by a large part of the world's population that are going to have a great impact on the planet.
Few are the brands that propose the biodegradable version of these articles, some of which are compulsory; other interests prevail over those of the environment. Today we are witnessing a generation that attends scared of the uncertainty for the future. In the last fifty years, the warnings of the scientific community have been ignored to take real action, while world governments look the other way.
Keyword: eco-communication, uncertainty, digital technologies, climate change, eco-ansiety
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