Environmental knowledge is the best "medicine" to combat climate anxiety and green propaganda

The specialized publication "Climatic Change" recently published a study whose title states that "the degree of knowledge of the environment is inversely proportional to the anxiety related to climate change".

The article, "Environmental knowledge is inversely associated with climate change anxiety," appeared in the April 2023 volume 176, issue 3 of the publication and is signed by Hannes Zacher, a professor at the University of Leipzig, and Cort Rudolph, a professor at Wayne State University of Detroit. The article is available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-023-03518-z, and all data and computer programs used are available for review at https://osf.io/5mqjh.

"The results showed that, even after accounting for demographic characteristics, personality characteristics, and environmental attitudes, general environmental knowledge and specific climate-related knowledge were negatively correlated with climate change anxiety," it is shown in the conclusions of the study.

In other words, environmental knowledge is the best "medicine" to combat climate anxiety and green propaganda.

Zacher and Rudolph quote in their introduction the British mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell, who once said that "The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts, the less you know the hotter you get."

The authors wanted to test the hypothesis that people with better environmental knowledge show less tendency to be anxious about climate change, and testing this hypothesis could lead to "reducing climate anxiety through interventions that improve environmental knowledge".

The analysis used data collected through a survey of 2,066 people in Germany in August (T1), September (T2), October (T3) and November (T4) of 2022.

The share of women in the sample was 50.39% with an average age of 47.07 years, while the age range was 18 - 85 years. The majority of participants (43.37%) had university or technical college education, and the authors state that the sample is not representative of the entire population, as it did not include children, retirees, or the unemployed.

The degree of anxiety was measured on a scale of 1 to 7 after the participants were presented with a questionnaire with 35 questions to assess knowledge about the environment. Answers to the 35 questions were collected in T3 (October) and anxiety was measured in T4 (November). Data collected in T2 were not used, and in period T1 participants provided information on demographic characteristics and attitudes toward the environment and climate change.

The authors justify the gap between the completion of the questionnaire and the assessment of the degree of anxiety by reducing the influences on the survey participants but also by the fact that it allows "the extraction of stronger conclusions regarding the assumed temporal order of the variables".

Statistical analysis of the data and application of a linear regression model showed that "people who have better overall environmental knowledge show less climate anxiety" (see chart).

The average value of the degree of anxiety for the studied sample was 2.1 points, while for the 35 questions assessing knowledge about the environment, an average of 21.5 correct answers were recorded.

According to additional data presented, the inverse relationship between knowledge and degree of anxiety does not depend on demographic characteristics, personality characteristics, or environmental attitudes.

The statistical distribution of the climate anxiety data led the authors to also apply non-linear models, and the results showed the same type of inverse relationship between environmental knowledge and climate anxiety.

At the end of the article, Professors Zacher and Rudolph point out that "the main finding that environmental knowledge is inversely related to climate change anxiety suggests that efforts to improve environmental knowledge, for example through educational and training interventions, can contribute to the reduction of this anxiety".

But what form can such "educational and training interventions" have, given that the political authorities at the global level, with insignificant exceptions, proclaim that "the science is established regarding climate change", do not accept debates in which they are presented other points of view and try to completely silence scientists who are not part of the "scientific consensus"?

And why would it be desirable to increase the degree of knowledge regarding the environment, when the anxiety of a permanently terrorized population represents the best instrument of "control and guidance" on the road to a new totalitarianism?