Opinion – Reinaldo José Lopes: Thread of Hope

The technological superpowers our species has gained over the past 200 years have produced a paradox that is hard to swallow. We are capable of doing immense and lasting damage to the biosphere (the “living” portion of the Earth), but this destructive potential has not been accompanied by a similar increase in the ability—or willingness—to solve the problems we create. It makes sense, therefore, to imagine that people who are learning the more disheartening details of this paradox are experiencing mental health problems.

This is exactly what a pioneering survey in Brazil demonstrates, carried out by researchers from UFSCar (Federal University of São Carlos) with 250 biological science students from six universities in the country, spread across the South, Southeast and Northeast regions.

The study’s coordinator, Vinícius de Avelar São Pedro, had already noticed how discouraged students were leaving classes on conservation biology, dubbed by specialists the “discipline of the crisis”. Together with colleagues Larissa Trierveiler-Pereira and Juliano Marcon Baltazar, he created a questionnaire that attempts to scrutinize the connections between this apparent despondency and what future biologists have learned.

As the authors of the study in the scientific journal PLOS Biology point out, it is not possible to attribute the survey’s troubling results solely to what students are learning about the global environmental crisis. It is also necessary to take into account the fact that mental health problems are increasing among young adults worldwide. In addition, the changes brought about by entering the university, such as the concern with the career and the attempt to form new social bonds, can also have negative impacts in this sense.

A good part of the students (37%), for example, say that their mental health has worsened since the beginning of their biology degree, but for reasons that are not related to the course. On the other hand, 36% say that this worsening is linked to the university, and more specific questions give a clue as to why this is.

According to most of the students interviewed, studying and understanding environmental problems worsens their mental health a little (52%) or a lot (14%). Most of them also consider themselves pessimistic (59%) or very pessimistic (25%) about the future of these problems, and almost a quarter of them say they feel discouraged at the prospect of seeking solutions to such challenges. The reports seem to match the so-called eco-anxiety, the exacerbated concern for the future linked to environmental problems.

The survey also shows that the opinions of these students’ teachers almost always influence young people’s vision of the future of the planet, which led the authors of the study to propose changes in approach in the way in which conservation biology and environmental problems are taught and discussed.

It’s not about sweeping threats under the rug or playing the game of contentment, but it’s crucial to also focus on the ability to imagine solutions and put them into practice, they say. “Let’s try not to put too much weight on students’ shoulders,” the authors write. “Instead of saying ‘the burden of the environmental crisis is yours’, let’s try to show that we, environmental professionals, can change this scenario.”

After all, without the dedication of those who work in the area, we would never be able to see so clearly what needs to be done. Preserving their ability to hope — and that of all of us — is the only possible alternative.