Between frequent return flights and acquiring enough cosmetics to lighten all the world’s bathrooms, Marie Lopez (Enjoy Phoenix), used to generate a lot of CO2 emissions in her former life as YouTube beauty maven. But in 2018, this former over-consumer decided to change her lifestyle as well as her editorial stance on social media to act, in her own way, on behalf of the environment.
(english subtitles available)
“Are my daily actions really helpful when you see thousands of litres of water used to produce artificial snow at the Olympic Games, or when air-conditioned stadiums are being built in Qatar?” “Should I even have a child while the world rushes to disaster?” Marie Lopez often asks herself questions like this, and if you do too, then you’re probably suffering from eco-anxiety. Using studies, testimonials and her own experience, Marie explains that eco-anxiety occurs daily and can be both a brake and an accelerator when it comes to reducing C02.
Does being aware of environmental harms generate a sense of hopelessness among adolescents? Our study, undertaken at a gym and with undergraduate university students (across all disciplines) shows that that’s not necessarily the case: the more they sensed that humanity faces a major ecological catastrophe, the more they felt they could do something for the environment and engage in concrete action. Becoming engaged is crucial to reducing potentially paralyzing anxiety (see Crandon et. al., 2022 on this topic).
