If the proliferation of diseases and afflictions to do with lifestyles wasn't enough to give you palpitations at night, here's one more. It's called eco-anxiety. Al Gore has no idea of the havoc he has wreaked upon an unsuspecting world. His heart-stopping warning in his documentary An Inconvenient Truth that only 10 years remain to avoid an environmental catastrophe has only added to the growing number of people worrying themselves sick over issues like global warming, pesticides in food, nuclear waste, vehicle emissions and carbon footprints. In fact, eco-anxiety has even created a new breed of professionals: eco-therapists who counsel patients on making environmentally friendly lifestyle changes. The fears of the eco-anxious are fuelled by excessive and often hysterical media coverage of doomsday scenarios like the one outlined by Gore. In fact, we have a new phrase to describe such coverage: climate porn! The word was created after the US-based Institute for Policy Research analysed hundreds of media articles, news clips and TV ads on the issue. Climate porn refers to the use of apocalyptic language to describe the challenges posed by climate change. Pornography or not, what it has achieved is to give most people on the planet a serious complex about their contribution to global warming and the inevitable retribution that the environmental gods will hurl down on them from above. Image As a socially conscious citizen, my ecoangst has really changed a lot of things I took for granted. I work for a widely circulated weekly newsmagazine that prints on paper made from trees cut down in a forest somewhere. Am I committing a mortal sin each time I write? Should I petition the publisher to reduce the number of pages? It's a Catch-22 situation, similar to the feeling I get when I climb into my gas-guzzling car every morning. Shouldn't I be cycling to work instead? Actually, considering distance and time, that would mean waking up at 4 a.m. and getting home at 9 p.m. which is hardly conducive to good health and quality time at home. I also turn pale when I look at the greens sold by my local vegetable vendor. What foul pesticides have gone into their preservation and why do they look so unnaturally green, or yellow, or red? So, would it be better to reduce my living space and plant a vegetable garden even if it means sacrificing a much-loved and much used balcony? My best friend's apartment is on the 17th floor. Could I reduce electricity consumption by taking the stairs or would I be inviting a seizure? Going green and saving the planet is all very laudable but the anxiety is killing.
