Does Attention to Climate Change Lead to Stress and Burnout?

Robin Tschötschel

August 4, 2026

Does constant engagement with climate change make people tired, discouraged, or even ill? Two new experimental studies show: It is not the topic itself that leads to burnout—but how we talk about it. The studies show why focusing on pragmatic solutions protects against psychological distress without taking away the urgency.

This post is part of the series “Studies of the month” in cooperation with klimafakten.de, where this post can be read in German. In the series, members of the climate communication lab (PI: Prof. Dr. Michael Brüggemann) share their expertise on noteworthy recent studies.

Which questions do the studies address?

It is clear that engaging with a distressing topic like climate change can have negative effects. But does more news about the crisis inevitably lead to stress and burnout? In today’s edition of “Study of the Month,” we discuss two studies on this topic:

Joshua Carlson (2025) investigates whether news about climate action can help combat the negative sides of climate anxiety.

Lucy Bird et al. (2024) deal with the topic of “climate burnout.” The researchers define this as a sense of exhaustion regarding the topic, as well as disengagement from efforts to advance climate protection. Bird et al. explore the question of whether utopian thinking or pragmatism can help combat climate burnout.

What methodology was used, and why is it reliable?

Both studies are experimental in nature. Participants were recruited and randomly exposed to different “stimuli,” including receiving certain information or having to complete specific tasks.

Through random assignment and the use of control groups (who received either no stimuli, neutral information, or neutral tasks), experimental studies achieve high causal validity. Thus, the different stimuli are with a high degree of probability responsible for differences between the groups.

The disadvantage of experimental studies usually lies in the fact that it can be difficult to translate stimuli from an experimental setting into the “real world.” There is also the question of whether the effects persist when people receive similar stimuli in a less controlled environment, such as when reading the news on their phone. Nevertheless, the results often provide good indicators of real-world relationships.

What are the core findings, and why are they relevant for climate communication?

Carlson (2025), observed a positive effect of attentional training. Here, using a computer program, participants were trained to quickly identify photographs of climate protection measures (such as wind turbines or electric vehicles) compared to neutral images.

Following the training, participants exhibited lower levels of climate anxiety compared to those who did not undergo such training.

A particularly notable aspect here is that “attentional training did not lead to a decrease in concern or alter participants’ views on what they themselves can contribute to climate protection” (p. 4).

Thus, it does not create the impression that the issue has already been resolved or that no further efforts are necessary—the “adaptive” component of anxiety or concern, which is appropriate for the issue, remains intact.

Pragmatism can lower burnout

Bird et al. (2024) describe the results of several experiments with the shared goal of testing different interventions to combat “climate burnout” (defined as exhaustion regarding climate change and disengagement from efforts to mitigate it).

The experiments focused on the aspects of “utopian thinking” and “pragmatism.” Participants were asked either to spend a certain amount of time drafting a positive climate utopia or to describe pragmatic steps that could lead to a positive climate future.

Bird et al. (2024) report markedly different results from their interventions. A focus on utopian thinking alone does not appear to achieve consistent effects, which may be because the “discrepancy between reality and utopia can cancel out the actual positive effects of utopian thinking” (p. 10).

In contrast, training in pragmatism appears primarily to reduce apathy toward the topic (even if the effect on topic fatigue/exhaustion seems more negligible). According to Bird et al. (2024), this may be because “the focus on specific goals and steps, along with the planning of individual actions, is particularly motivating and engaging” (ibid.).

What can be concretely derived from the study for practical application?

The most important takeaway is: Engaging with climate protection and actions that contribute to mitigating the climate crisis is unequivocally positive. It can lead to a reduction in the strain associated with the topic without undermining its relevance.

Louisa Pröschel, a researcher in climate communication at the University of Hamburg, notes: “In climate communication, there is a recurring discussion that reporting should perhaps not be too constructive, in order to avoid the impression that nothing more needs to be done. These studies show that this concern is likely unfounded.”

When it comes to motivating people to remain personally engaged in climate action (whether politically or through individual actions), pragmatic thinking seems to work well—certainly better than engaging with utopian visions of positive climate futures.

According to Dr. Mike Farjam, this effect can likely be explained by an increased sense of self-efficacy: “Those who believe they can achieve something themselves are more willing to take in information and take action. Encouragingly, these types of messages are somewhat on the rise in the media, especially in Germany.”

However, Prof. Michael Brüggemann (University of Hamburg) warns against completely discarding engagement with positive visions of the future: “In my view, further studies investigating the combination of both approaches—pragmatism and utopian thinking—would be valuable.”

Bird et al. (2024) also note: “Creating an overwhelming to-do list can be just as demotivating as drafting an unachievable future.” The best results may be achieved when both aspects are used to a certain extent—for instance, by outlining the next three actionable steps and subsequently painting a picture of a society where everyone has carried out these steps.