Feeling anxious about climate change? You're not alone
With the Met Office's announcement that 2026's summer was the hottest summer on record and new terminology such as ‘noctalgia’, ‘climate refugee’ and ‘firewave’ being coined to describe the ever more challenging effects of climate change, many people are now reporting feeling paralysed by climate anxiety.
Unusually prolonged flooding at Long Mead Local Wildlife Site during winter 2025
The 2026 summer heat wave followed unprecedentedly long flooding in the winter, and the impact has brought climate anxiety to the fore in our local community too. We had to close our project for 3 weeks in January and February due to flooding and postpone community events in the summer due to heat. This is particularly stressful for our autistic participants who suffer significant stress if their routine is altered.
This pressure can lead to a sense of resignation, denial and inaction, all of which are particularly damaging to the movement to combat and adapt to climate change as well as our collective mental health.
Feedback collected between January and July 2026, suggests that on average our participants felt happier having participated in plant propagation and meadow restoration activities on Long Mead than they did on arrival.
However at NRN we have hands-on evidence that engagement in climate action can help 'to maximise hope and minimise impacts on mental health'. Feedback from our participants show that coming together as a very diverse community to restore floodplain wildflower meadows and hand-propagate the rarest plants and seeing them establish in the landscape over time, goes a long way towards alleviating anxiety.
As Robbie one of our youth contributors puts it:
“Climate change is very much a running topic in everybody’s discussion these days and, I’ll be honest with you, it feels so very pessimistic, there’s no hope. [...] I often wish I could go to people doing this kind of stuff and say to them, ‘You’re not inspiring the public into action, you’re inspiring them into anxiety.’ That’s what I really love about this project, it’s a way out. Something that we can do that actually brings hope to people [...] It’s not just good for the environment, it is good for community.”
Robbie planting out Devils bit scabious in a restoration meadow
NRN youth members speak out
NRN members Sophie, Aoife, Angus and Hannah
So we have asked our younger network members to give voice to their concerns, put forward analysis of what is going wrong and share their strategies for the future with us here. In a special series of articles, they have risen to the challenge with enthusiasm and we share their responses here.
Discover the causes, challenges and some common misconceptions about climate change with Angus Gingell, as well as a discussion of why it’s so difficult to solve, and what we can do about it. Angus volunteered with us at our plant propagation group over the course of 2025-26 and has since gone on to Loughborough University to study Computer Science.
Follow Sophie Fleet as she takes a deep dive into the psychology of our responses to climate change. Sophie joined the network after completing her A-Levels and was instrumental in helping us keep our hand propagated wildflowers alive during the summer drought of 2026. She is now studying Biological Natural Sciences at Cambridge University.
Hear from Ieuan Owen on the intersection between nature & community. Ieuan first heard about NRN in 2023 through partners Peace Oak Association and GreenTEA. He subsequently attended an initial community meadows day - planting many snakeshead fritillaries in the Eynsham Playing Fields - and is now a regular at our monthly community days when home from university. He’s now studying Global Sustainable Development at the School of Social and Environmental Sustainability, University of Glasgow.
Louise Floyd joined our watering team in the summer of 2026 after graduating from university. She is now studying an MSc in Sustainable Food Systems at UWE in Bristol (University of the West of England). Read Louise’s meditations on the changing nature, and meaning of community across the generations here.
Robbie Cooke first came to us as part of his MSc in Conservation Ecology at Oxford Brookes. He and his mother Jacquie both joined the network in 2023 as they sought to relieve stress during a difficult time for the family. Since his mother passed away in 2025 Robbie has continued to regularly help with meadow restoration activities and has become one of our greatest advocates. In his article he looks at turning environmental anxiety into hope and collective action.
In her article Hannah Shaw also examines reasons to hope for the future. Hannah volunteered with us weekly throughout 2025 - 26 after deferring university for a year. Her keen interest in and support for all aspects of the network’s work for nature recovery is inspiring! Hannah is now studying a BSc in Ecology and Conservation at the University of Sussex but is keen to return to the network in her breaks from uni.
Many thanks to Community Action Groups (CAG) Oxfordshire who provided funding for this project, supported by Oxfordshire County Council.