By Robert Bradley Jr.
Sam Belfied in his essay, “Climate Activism: ‘It Made Me Feel Like a Good Person’” (August 19, 2026), has a number of interesting insights on the motivations of climate campaigners given the intellectual case that their cause is both futile and wasteful. And ecologically damaging (think wind and solar industrialization). Excerpts follow verbatim; footnotes can be found in the original.
The following commentary and research findings suggest that climate ideology and activism are psychological compensatory responses to painful, emotional, subjective, and even existential aspects of the self. Specifically, the material suggests a deeper and collective psychological malaise, of which anxiety and distress about climate change are an expression, not the root cause….
The climate movement involves guilt, self-loathing and seeking redemption
In discussing the emotions motivating climate activists, commentators have proposed ‘guilt,’ ‘self-flagellation,’ ‘sin,’ ‘self-loathing’ , ‘conscience’, and seeking ‘atonement’ and ‘redemption.’ Activists are also described as seeking to fill a ‘God-shaped hole with something good,’ and that ‘Net Zero is like heaven.’
They are described as supporting an ‘anti-human ideology’ and a worldview in which ‘human beings are parasites, cancers, that consume way too much, we’re in this existential crisis.’ Climate ideologies such as the pursuit of Net Zero are characterised as a ‘belief system,’ ‘quasi-religious,’ and an article of ‘faith’. A parallel is drawn with identity politics and the psychological mechanism of self-validation through identifying as ‘warriors’ for ‘climate justice.’
Incidental feelings of guilt and anger found to increase support for climate actions
Experiencing anger for discrete reasons (not arising from environmental harm) has been found to increase the tendency to condemn and punish perceived perpetrators for negative events, while experiencing guilt predisposes people to make reparations and to seek punishment for their wrongdoing. In the context of climate change, when people were primed to feel angry, they more strongly endorsed actions that entailed punishing others for not preventing such harm. In contrast, when primed to feel guilty, some placed the burden on individuals but the main effect was support for climate policies that targeted offending industries.
The study sought to reconcile these findings thus: to ‘paint self in a positive light,’ in addition to personal accountability, guilt may also lead people to attempt to ‘purge their guilt and responsibility by scapegoating others.’
Inducing environmental guilt and shame found to increase support for climate actions
Negative self-focused moral emotions, or a guilty conscience, have been found to be a powerful motivator of pro-social behaviour, and then found eliciting negative moral emotions through confrontation with human environmental harm led to a ‘guilty conscience,’ ‘guilt and shame’ that in turn led to pro-environmental behaviour, with shame ‘driving the manipulation’s effect.’
Activism as a ‘psychological coping mechanism’ for ‘Eco-anxiety’
A study recognised the emotional and existential nature of eco-anxiety and included the following extracts:
As awareness of [environmental degradation] has grown, so too their psychological impact, giving rise to a condition known as ecological anxiety. The American Psychological Association (APA) defines ecological anxiety as a persistent fear triggered by environmental threats …”This form of anxiety is characterized by feelings of loss, helplessness, and frustration concerning the deteriorating state of the environment.”
‘Although ecological anxiety is not a prerequisite for engaging in pro-environmental actions, it is a strong predictor of such behaviour.
Engaging in environmental activities provides individuals with a sense of control that can mitigate distress, serving as a therapeutic channel for converting feelings of helplessness into empowerment and fostering hope.
Conversely, direct engagement with environmental crises can heighten concern and generate negative psychological effects in personal lives.
[T[he correlation between anxiety and pro-environmental behaviour may suggest that individuals more anxious about the environment are more proactive in mitigating the crisis; they adopt a psychological coping mechanism in the face of significant global challenges …both personal and collective actions may serve as coping mechanisms for individuals experiencing ecological anxiety, offering a sense of control and purpose amid environmental uncertainty.’
A ‘warm glow’ for pro-environmental action and moral licensing to avoid a ‘guilty conscience’
A similar study included these extracts:
The American Psychological Association (APA) defines eco-anxiety as “a chronic fear of environmental doom”.
The concept of eco-anxiety encompasses a broad spectrum of definitions, including emotions such as guilt, fear, worry, despair, shame, and hopelessness. It is possible to differentiate at least three distinct behavioural responses: an anxiety-type response characterised by nervousness and fear, a self-reflective response involving shame and guilt, and a pain-oriented response manifesting as anger and distress.
Specific emotions, such as fear, are associated with increased pro-environmental behaviour, while emotions like guilt and anger are linked to participation in protests. Other climate-related emotions, including eco-guilt and eco-grief, eco-rage, eco-fear have also been shown to promote pro-environmental actions.
[Another] study argues that emotions such as fear, hope, anger and guilt underpin climate activism.
Research into the psychology of pro-environmental actions has recognised a feel-good ‘warm glow’ and ‘intrinsic emotional reward’ and the potential for reinforcing a ‘virtuous cycle’ of feel-good. Moral licensing whereby ‘past virtuous [climate] behaviour’ is used to justify ‘immoral, unethical and problematic’ climatic behaviour to avoid ‘the fear of feeling or appearing immoral’ and a ‘guilty conscience’—and reduce the motivation to change the problematic climate related behaviour.
Moral emotions leading to performative morality
Psychological commentary on virtue signalling and moral grandstanding has recognised that ‘moral talk’ can be a means of ‘seeking approval, status, belonging, attention, or protection,’ and that ‘being seen to care is more important than caring.’ Furthermore, ‘moral emotions’ including ‘anger, guilt, shame, pride, and disgust’ can drive moral expression, and while this can motivate ‘action and solidarity’ these emotions ‘can also make people impulsive, punitive, performative, or more concerned with emotional release than practical repair.’
Grandiose and vulnerable narcissism
One study has found that ‘grandiose narcissism is positively associated with pro-environmental values and virtue signalling mediates this relationship. This suggests that individuals high in grandiose narcissism may adopt pro-environmental values primarily to enhance their self-image.’ Conversely, vulnerable narcissists may engage in virtue-signalling to ‘protect their fragile self-esteem,’ as a ‘self-protective mechanism,’ and ‘guard their fragile self-concept.’
[Narcissistic vulnerability] is characterised by feelings of inadequacy, helplessness, low self-esteem, shame, and emotional vulnerability, which can lead to the avoidance of interpersonal relationships as the individual is hypersensitive to rejection and criticism. Narcissistic grandiosity entails entitlement, an inflated self-image, interpersonal exploitation, a lack of empathy, and aggressive behaviours.]
Another study notes ‘individuals with pronounced dark personality traits such as narcissism are inclined to use political or social activism as a vehicle to satisfy the needs specifically associated with their dark personality (e.g. getting public attention, feeling morally superior, domineering others, engaging in social conflicts, seeking thrills etc.)’
…In combination, all these traits could make narcissists more prone to participate in environmental activism not to save the planet but to satisfy their own ego-focused needs.
Climate ideology is formulated to avoid ‘difficult’ things and meet ‘psychological needs’
Psychologist Jordan Peterson, in response to being asked on ABC-TV in 2019 if collective responsibility overrides individual responsibility … said ‘no’. Then elaborated as follows ‘I think generally people have things within their personal purview that are more difficult to deal with, and that they’re avoiding, and generally the way they avoid them is by adopting pseudo-moralistic stances on large-scale social issues, so they look good to their friends and neighbours.’
In 2025, Peterson wrote a blog notably titled, ‘Net zero alarmism is a mental illness – Climate hysteria, and policies to ‘cure’ it, are the work of a cabal of ill-informed narcissistic worshippers of fear and force.’ In this blog, he wrote,
There are non-scientific, indeed psychological, reasons that such models [purporting to indicate catastrophic future danger] were and are generated and promoted in the first place.
…Here is the crucial question: Is the climate apocalypse narrative just a scientific theory? Or is it instead a system of belief, unmoored from the objective world, with essentially psychological factors playing the primary role in its initial formulation, current maintenance and widespread dissemination? …I have come to conclude, after much detailed consideration (informed by my professional training and experience as a researcher and clinician), that the climate doomsayers are possessed by an ideology much more akin to a psychogenic epidemic* than they are purveyors of any information remotely scientific.
*Psychogenic is defined as originating in the mind or in mental or emotional conflict; it describes conditions rooted in the mind, such as stress, trauma, or anxiety, rather than structural body damage.
Climate activism as a dysfunctional response to an ‘indifferent world’
In a 2025 article, Jeffrey Blehar provided an update on the evolution of Greta Thunberg’s activism. He wrote,
Thunberg is fulfilment in the flesh of an intellectual conceit: the brutally perfect embodiment of an entire younger left-wing generation’s hopeless attachment to the politics of gesture as opposed to the politics of hard work; politics as little more than an externalised expression of narcissism; politics as a plea for attention from an otherwise indifferent world. With that as Thunberg’s guiding star, no wonder she has captured the attention of a similarly lost segment of progressives. Watching both principal and audience mutually dysfunction like this, spiralling downward together in a self-radicalising vicious cycle, is almost sickeningly poetic to me.
Blehar also noted the shift of Thunberg’s performative activism to other contemporary social justice causes.
The trend in society of elevating the subjective above the objective
In a 2023 podcast, Australian psychiatrist Tanveer Ahmed was asked by the host, ‘How would you assess the dangers of identity politics?’ In response, Ahmed said,
A fundamental thing is the denial of individual responsibility. So, even the moral dimension, there’s a projection of all types of distress. So, “I feel a level of pain, I feel a degree of distress”, automatically that’s projected to the outside.
Later in the same podcast, Tanveer made the observation:
Some wider trends that have happened in society are that the subjective experience has been elevated, and this overlaps a lot with mental health. …at a very simplistic level, feelings have been elevated. And sometimes that clashes with what might be called objective truth. The notion of objective truth has been depicted as a kind of harsh, almost masculine trend, if you like. And as a result, it’s been diminished.
The ‘kernel of truth’ contained within secular ‘isms’: ‘We are not who we ought to be’
In 2025, former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson AC spoke with Melanie Phillips [10]. In this podcast, Phillips expressed an opinion on the current raft of secular ‘isms’ (e.g. environmentalism, climatism, globalism, etc.). She said they are based on the Christian template of sin, guilt and redemption, and then observed they are like,
medieval, millenarian Christians who believe that …we [must] purge ourselves of our sins,’ ‘they’ve arrived at something which is a kind of weird mirror image of Christianity. It’s called Christianity without God.
In response, Anderson suggests that at the core of secular ‘isms’ is an insecurity of moral worth and meaning:
Allow me a little musing for a moment. I wonder if, in a way, like all great lies, there’s a kernel of truth there somewhere. I wonder whether innately we are not right to think to ourselves, “I’m not who I ought to be. I am flawed. I do need redemption in some way”.
And what you’re now seeing is not so much a problem of people having been shaped to think that way by Christianity; it’s more a reality that we instinctively know we’re not that there’s right and there’s wrong, and we’re not always on the right side of the ledger. The problem is more that we’ve found the wrong answers because the right answers, the ones that real rigour brings you to, are unattractive, really. They’re not comfortable having to face the fact that we all have our bad, to use an expression from your own, the title of your own book. We have our better and our bad angels, everyone of us.’ To which Phillips replied, ‘Yes, it is uncomfortable. Conscience is uncomfortable, but reality is uncomfortable.’
Climate activism in younger generations as an outlet for ‘angst at the world’
American therapist, Stephanie Winn (@sometherapist), in her interview with Biggers, said her time as a ‘climate alarmist came from, for one thing, growing up in an overwhelming city.’ She also described how exposure to the pollution and ‘the apocalyptic events’ of her childhood, like the riots, made her ‘very susceptible to any type of alarmism.’ Winn then made the following revealing observation that is consistent with the research outline above:
If you’d told me the world is ending I would have believed you, because it sure felt like that in so many ways. And then I got involved in radical activism as a teenager, partly as an outlet for angst and some of the things that had happened to me. I was angry at the world. And so I was very susceptible to extreme ideas. And I think I was always seeking good and looking to do good with my life.
Winn goes on to emphasise the severe negative impact climate anxiety had on her mental health, behaviours, and decisions and later says:
We sometimes choose to adopt worldviews, beliefs, social circles, ways of life that match something deeper within. And so I explained how for me, some of the stress and trauma of my childhood made me a very easy target for any messaging that the world is about to end.
Climate activism as a misguided attempt to recreate ‘perfection’, leading to ‘frustration’ and ‘extremism’
During her interview with Biggers, Winn also mentioned her journey to becoming a Christian. She then reflects on her worldview that contributed to her becoming a climate activist, in retrospect through that ‘Christian lens’:
Much of my life I have been experiencing a longing to return to Eden, a longing to return to this original state of perfection. As an environmental activist, I was seeking that perfect state before the ‘Fall’, before ‘sin’, before separation, before evil came into this world. For me, the biblical understanding of the nature of good and evil has actually been really helpful in contextualising some of these [activist] inclinations. Because the thing that you [Biggers] describe of we’re a fallen species that actually resonates. But I think for me personally, having a spiritual understanding of that and then recognising, “Okay, this is life east of Eden. This is life after “The fall”. And our longing for perfection does tell us something about our nature. But some of our attempts at recreating that can also be misguided.” Right? If trying to create a perfect world in a world that cannot be perfect, you know, people will encounter this frustration.
And so I think any type of sort of zealotry or idealism or extremism maybe has that little grain of truth in it where, you know, there is some instinct, some compass in us that tells us that a more perfect world is possible. But I see that as misguided.
Biggers agreed with Winn and affirmed that she had been thinking about the ‘exact same theme’ as well. Shortly after which, Winn said, ‘I think when you get into activism without a foundational faith, you are trying to find that faith in that activism. And that’s a theme that’s very relevant. And it happens with all the types of activism,’ and then referred to several other social justice causes.
The above commentary and research, taken together, strongly suggest that the root cause of climate ideology and activism lies in deeper collective aspects of our experience, encompassing intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and existential aspects of the self. Furthermore, it supports the contention that climate ideology and activism are a psychological compensatory response to avoid and alleviate the emotional pain and confrontation of a deeper realm.
Lucy Biggers: From Climate Activist to Climate Realist
The following draws on three separate interviews with Biggers, by different hosts, including Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster on Triggernometry, since December 2025.
In 2015, at the age of 25, Biggers emerged as a high-profile American climate activist. In about 2020, Biggers stepped away from the climate movement for several years before becoming, in her words, a ‘climate realist’ advocating against ‘anti-climate alarmism and climate anxiety.’
When asked about how she became a climate activist, Biggers described herself as an average millennial who, at 16, watched Al Gore’s climate documentary, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, which ‘really scared’ her. She described at the time, ‘having an overwhelming feeling of existential dread’ that the ‘planet’s not in a good place.’ Biggers has explained the impact of watching other climate documentaries in her 20s, the emerging significance of social media, algorithms feeding her the climate movement narrative, and her involvement in the Dakota Access Pipeline protest. Her talent for promoting the ‘climate crisis’ led to her gaining a sizeable social media following, advocating for the Green New Deal and interviewing Greta Thunberg.
In retrospect, Biggers describes herself as having ‘climate anxiety’, believing that ‘the world was beyond saving,’ and feeling an ‘existential dread, powerless, and without the prospect of an abundant and prosperous future.’ In contrast, by embracing the movement she gained a ‘persona,’ a lot of support and the next thing she was a ‘gung-ho climate activist.’
On another occasion, when asked in retrospect what led her to make climate activism her life, Biggers described wanting to be of service to the activists and on ‘the side of justice.’ She explained that, politically, at the time she was very left-wing and working in a very progressive environment. She has also emphasised her personal sense of moral guilt stemming from her ‘white privilege’ and ‘oppressor status’ in the context of critical race theory.
Significantly, Biggers has also described a deeper internal dimension at work.
Biggers said she was ‘pulled into’ the climate movement and ‘drawn in by the emotions of it.’ When Biggers was asked on where her generation got the idea to be on the ‘right side of history,’ she attributed it to the context they grew up in: the financial crisis of 2008, income inequality in America, 9/11 and the ensuing ‘Bush “forever wars”.’ In line with the observations of Ahmed included above, Biggers also notes that some people are caught in a ‘fear and victim mindset,’ that allows them to keep ‘blaming other people.’
In the interview with Maya Sulkin, Biggers said, ‘Psychologically, in retrospect, I think it was this desire to atone for my privileged position that I had in the world. And the way I could atone was by propping up these [climate narratives]. So it was very emotional, emotionally driven, and psychologically driven, and then black and white thinking … a lot of that was happening at a subconscious level. But that is, I think, what first drew me to it and I took it on as an armour.’
In a similar vein, in the same interview, Biggers said, ‘When I was in the climate movement, I got my identity from being a good person and from being on the right side of history
… I’m an oppressor by being a white woman in America and so I need to atone for my sins by pushing and being part of this movement and that is what makes me good.
And so if I’m going to leave this, I’m no longer going to be seen as good, and I’m no longer a good person, so who am I? And then that’s when you have to start doing the work of building up yourself, your sense of self and identity in that internal world, which again, it took me, again, five years between questioning and leaving that job and posting this past year [2025].’
Biggers has differentiated between the traditional conservation and environmental movement and the contemporary climate movement. The latter she describes as the ‘demon spawn of environmentalism’; and said it’s about ‘guilting us for our modern life,’ it’s ‘anti-human, anti-progress’ and ‘very nihilistic.’ Furthermore, Biggers has said ‘it’s not a rational movement. It’s an emotional movement’ with ‘spiritual undertones.’ Significantly, Biggers has said that the climate movement is the next iteration on from socialism and communism, and that non-climate related movements have since emerged as ‘causes de jure’ for young people.
Notably, Biggers said the ideology ‘subverted’ her previous worldview and involved abandoning ‘critical’ and logical thinking. Moreover, she also described how once in the movement her internal sense of self was built on sand and that she would get ‘triggered’, insecure and anxious when someone questioned the foundations of her climate beliefs.
To summarise, Biggers has emphasised her generation’s anxiety about the outlook for humanity and the planet, wanting to feel like a good person and atone for a sense of guilt, and that her shift was emotionally driven. She also said climate ideology involved the inversion of her worldview and her giving up critical thinking, while rational debate threatened the foundations of her existence and identity….
Biggers’ emphasis on her need to feel like a good person and to atone for guilt is germane and enlightening. While Biggers primarily attributes her anxiety and guilt to environmental damage and identity politics respectively, she does recognise the distressing outlook of her generation more generally.
Applying Griffith’s treatise, her eco-anxiety and white privilege guilt can be framed as an expression of the anxiety and guilt arising from this subconscious domain of the human condition. Likewise, the desire to ‘feel like a good person’ and atone can be framed as a desire to refute the harsh self-judgement stemming from the human condition. This is not to diminish the intensity of the eco-anxiety and white privilege guilt but to suggest these emotions are energised by and an expression of a deeper existential source of anxiety and guilt. Relevantly, Biggers’ reference to the movement providing an identity, persona and ‘armour’ alludes to the psychological need to dissociate and seek protection from underlying painful feelings….
Biggers described the radical changes that accompanied her embrace of the climate movement and abandoning her critical thinking. Grasping the intensity of the shame and guilt at the heart of the human condition, as described by Griffith, provides a compelling explanation of these changes and an answer to Biggers’ question of “How did I get here?”….
Biggers has observed that climate ideology is nihilistic, anti-human, anti-capitalist, anti-progress, anti-West, and is based on the assumption that modern humans are ‘inherently evil’, ‘a fallen species,’ and ‘somehow sinful.’ In contrast, Griffith explains that while the human species is psychologically ‘upset’, we are not intrinsically bad, flawed, sinful, or evil; in fact, our species is heroic for having endured the difficulties of our condition. Put simply, “we are mad—mentally and emotionally—but we are not bad.” The nihilistic and anti-human view can be explained as a projection of an overwhelmed, dark internal state, which, in turn, is a result of the intense ‘upset’ (reality) that younger generations are encountering and trying to adjust to.
The climate movement advocates that humanity ‘go backwards’, not forward
Biggers has explained that climate activists maintain that the human species needs to ‘go back’ to ‘a less developed,’ ‘noble savage,’ and ‘more pure’ way of living. Biggers said ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’ and has drawn a parallel between communism and the climate movement trying to bring about ‘heaven on earth.’ On another occasion, Biggers has said that climate activists ‘value life on earth and nature over humanity’ and they ‘prioritise untouched nature and a perfect untouched earth over human flourishing’. Significantly, she asserted ‘the flip needed is to realise the goal isn’t untouched nature, the goal is human flourishing.’
Griffith’s treatise provides an explanation that aligns with and validates Biggers’ intuitions here. He argues that our conscious mind needed freedom from the dogmatic demands of our conscience to experiment and self-manage, from a basis of understanding, and to fulfil its extraordinary potential. Capitalism, the West, hydrocarbons, etc have been the engines that have propelled astronomical progress and knowledge toward fulfilling this potential. While it has been far from perfect, there has been immense purpose and meaning in human progress. Human progress and human flourishing can be understood as profound euphemisms for humanity continuing to seek knowledge, in particular self-knowledge, and ultimately, to explain and solve the human condition.
In this context of Griffith’s work, the call for humanity to ‘go back’ to a less developed society to mitigate the trade-offs is the exact opposite of the direction we need to take. However, the need for psychological relief is now so extreme that people are adamant that we must abandon the pursuit of this goal. There is a growing desire to dogmatically impose utopia rather than stay the course and resolve the human condition. Griffith emphasises how dangerous, immoral and unrealistic this retreat is.
Honest and compassionate insight needed to reach the activist mindset and heal the painful feelings
As mentioned, Biggers has been asked what the most effective ways are to ‘reach across the aisle’ to a climate activist. While Biggers said it needs to come from the person, she also emphasised the importance of people outside the movement showing up as normal, kind, and good people. She went on to mention a specific person who was independent in their views but was also kind to Biggers and modelled the values and the type of person she wanted to be as pivotal in her ‘awakening.’ Presumably, this person’s candour and expression of dignity and respect toward Biggers connected with her at the level that led her to embrace the ideology in the first place. Biggers described contrasting this persons values and secure sense of self with her situation as contributing to being reached, so to speak, and seeing through her activist persona. Elsewhere Biggers described not making young activists feel like ‘fools because I don’t think they are’ and approaching them in an open and supportive manner, resulting in an appreciative and receptive response.
Griffith explains that social justice ‘isms’ have been a vehicle to artificially affirm our worth as ‘good’ and alleviate the painful feelings stemming from the human condition. However, as social justice activism doesn’t resolve the core issue, the foundations of ‘feeling like a good person’ are ‘built on sand’ as Biggers described.
In contrast, Griffith honestly and compassionately explains the cause of our ‘upset’—the clash of our biology and psychology—allowing the guilt and shame to subside. It allows us to own our personal and collective shadow of the human condition. The “shattering experience” of facing our ‘upset’ can subside. It authentically establishes that, as a species, we are tremendously ‘beaten up’ mentally and emotionally by our encounter with REALITY—the human condition—but we are extraordinarily worthwhile. Explanation of the human condition ends the intensifying ‘upset’ that younger generations are exposed to. A key tenet of Griffith’s treatise is that we can know why we are worthwhile despite our ‘upset’. Accordingly, the self-loathing, anger, and need for atonement naturally subside. The nihilistic and anti-human worldview is reversed. The need for the highly compromised, superficial, and artificial compensatory response is obsolete. We can genuinely own and talk about the ‘messes’ that we all are, and this is the key to ‘reaching across’ whatever philosophical or political aisle you like.
Conclusion
Biggers asked the question, “How did I get here?” The clues to answering her question lie in her own description of the emotional machinations of her time in the climate movement. In particular, she emphasised that the climate movement made her ‘feel like a good person’ and provided ‘atonement’ for her sense of guilt. Consistent with this self-worth dimension, Biggers described the role of kindness and respect in emotionally reaching people in the climate movement and in having rational, respectful dialogue.
Griffith explains that social justice ‘isms’ have been a vehicle to artificially affirm our worth as ‘good’ and atone for an existential sense of guilt and shame. These painful feelings of unworthiness stem from the psychologically ‘upset’ state of the human condition that we are necessarily unaware of. In contrast, an honest and compassionate explanation of the root cause of this ‘upset’ allows this guilt and shame to subside. Honest insight into our shared and underlying psychological madness, while confronting, establishes our intrinsic worth, and heals the shame and guilt that is the emotional driver at the heart of secular ‘isms’….
