The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates an increase of 250,000 excess deaths per year between 2030 and 2050 due to climate change (Hayes et al., 2018). Often overlooked in the aftermath of climate-related disasters, weather events, and disease outbreaks are the mental health impacts of exposure to a crisis situation. Exposure to climate impacts can be direct or indirect, running along a spectrum. Likewise, mental health presents in a range of ways, From mild to severe, contextual to chronic (Dooley et al., 2021).

For those highly impacted this can lead to PTSD, depression, and anxiety” (Dooley et al., 2021).

Impacts can be short or long term and range from youth stress to parental stress to migration stress (Dooley et al., 2021). I am particularly interested in the ways climate-related mental health symptoms impact students in school. Whether it’s displacement because a school has been destroyed or difficulties concentrating in a disaster or post-disaster setting, I would like to know how schools, teachers, counselors and curriculum, particularly at the secondary level, can appropriately meet the needs of students.

While working to increase interdisciplinary work, the field must also focus on climate justice by listening to the needs, concerns, and lived experiences of those who live in climate settings disproportionately impacted by the stress and trauma of living through climate disasters in the present (Denckla, 2024)

Many adults are still telling young people that they are the hope, they will be the saviors of our planet, when students who have learned about and experienced impacts of this crisis know the scale and scope are too big and the timeline is too short to wait any longer. Many times anxiety and a sense of unease comes from a lack of action. These types of statements often feel dismissive of their emotions when, in fact, "climate anxiety isn’t a clinical mental disorder; rather, the growing consensus in the field is that it’s a natural response to a real and existential threat" (Kamenetz, 2024).

Climate emergencies are similar and I fear schools, parents, and educators are not prepared for the mental health toll trauma from lived climate crises will have on students' ability to focus and learn. Educators collectively spend more time with youth than parents and caretakers throughout an academic year. It is crucial for the health of young people that teachers are trained to be more socio-emotionally aware of eco-anxiety and all of its manifestations.

As a means of improving health and health equity, I hope for schools to play a larger role in updating their curriculum and trauma-informed practices to include best practices for teaching about and supporting students through emotions about the climate crisis.

develop enhanced psychological stamina to face climate change. But because of decades of inaction on the

part of previous generations, they are being asked to do so. We owe it to children and young people to

prioritise mitigation of climate change at its source, while at the same time investing in evidence-based tools to support their mental wellbeing in the face of this ongoing crisis."

"The imaginative leap that allows a global health practitioner to consider their position or an issue from varying viewpoints requires respect and humility. Empathy is not enough. The desire to make the world a better place, however genuine and heartfelt, is not enough. Respect and humility are vaccines against supremacy."