ABSTRACT
The implementation of various smart city initiatives provides ways in which the collective can help address climate change. Implementing policies that combat climate change is essential. Implementation includes communicating broadly with city residents in ways that motivate participation.
Research has noted that, as residents reflect on climate change issues, there are potential mental health concerns. Climate anxiety is a term recently defined to explain the intense fear of environmental doom. For some, this experience is mild. For others, it can lead to major clinical concerns. Hopelessness is another symptom. This hopelessness co-exists with decreased motivation or learned helplessness.
If proposals are created and presented in a way that increases hopeless feelings in individuals with climate anxiety, these proposals may be met with intense pushback. Those suffering from environmental doom may experience eco-paralysis. This phenomenon is noted by behavioural inaction, creating obstacles for policymaker.
This chapter addresses how to motivate those with climate anxiety. It addresses pro-environmental behaviour as the ultimate outcome of proposals. Considerations in this chapter include how policymakers encourage citizens with climate anxiety to engage in climate action. Exploration of how eco-paralysis occurs in citizens with climate anxiety, and how this impacts the implementation of environmental policies, will be completed.
