In November, the National Agronomic School of Toulouse will offer its students and its staff a cycle intended to combat ecoanxiety, an increasingly present feeling among its students.
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Like a fire that devours a forest, ecoanxiety is spreading. In 2021, 45 % of young surveyed in ten countries even affirmed that she affected their daily life, according to the journal The Lancet Planetary Health. In Toulouse, the National Agronomic School (ENSAT) has just seized the subject. From November, it will start a cycle of training, for students and staff, intended to see ecoanxiety as a systemic problem, “a healthy reaction to a world in crisis”.
“The solution goes through students more aware of their connection to the living. The more we enter, the more we become resilient”, say Marie Bourgine, Isabelle Giraldo and Candice Marro, all three psychotherapists or ecotherapists, who worked at Set up the new training.
But the initiative comes from the students themselves. Blandine Vignal, 20, a student in the second year, “chose an agronomy school to work on the issue of food production”. Vegetarian, “Ecolo daily activist”, she does not want to “stay in denial”.
Nicolas Kahn, 25, vice-president of Greensat, the environmental association of the campus, says it is “very politicized”. “Global warming is a tiger. So either we are paralyzed, or we fight,” says the oldest of the promotion, originally from the Jura. They decided to fight. “For my part, I am in favor of radical measures such as the ban on bullfighting, housing pavilions on the outskirts of cities, but also free public transport,” he continues.
“There is still time to act”
About 60 % of school students say they are affected by a feeling of ecoanxiety, according to a survey conducted by Greensat with 82 students in 2022. “During projections of documentaries or films like tomorrow or animal, some Young people were crying, says Blandine Vignal. It is not a pathology, but rather moments, a sum of negative emotions that can lead to depression. “
“There was the covid, the pandemics, the fires, the heat wave, but also the presidential campaign”, details Nicolas Kahn. “There is still time to act, to take great measures,” said the young man, who would like to work in regional planning.
They called on Isabelle Giraldo, a former architect who has become an ecotherapy, who has been leading awareness workshops for the ENSAT for five years. “Students often feel very alone. Many young people are seized by guilt, sadness, anger too. We thought it would be good to train young people, but also teachers and administrative staff “, she says.
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