Anticipatory solastalgia in the Anthropocene: Climate change as a source of future-oriented distress about environmental change

When people feel distress about changes to their environment, they are said to be experiencing solastalgia. In the context of rising concern about climate change, I examined whether people endorse an anticipatory form of solastalgia: current distress about expected future changes to the environment. I reworded the Brief Solastalgia Scale to examine experiences of anticipatory solastalgia in the United Kingdom (n = 509) and United States (n = 493). The resulting Anticipatory Solastalgia Scale performed well, and correlational analyses show that younger people and women experience heightened anticipatory solastalgia in the US sample (but not the UK sample). In both samples, anticipatory solastalgia was higher among those with a liberal political orientation, those who expected more significant impacts of climate change to their environment, and those reporting more intense negative emotions about climate change. These findings support the existence of anticipatory solastalgia and further highlight the emotional toll of expected environmental loss and decline.