‘Ecological distress’, as described above is a source of psychological pain, but is not a mental illness (Verplanken et al., 2020). One of the main arguments in support of this is that eco-distress arises from an accurate and rational interpretation of the existential threat humanity is facing, and which is set to get worse (Clayton, 2020; Verplanken et al., 2020). Cognitive behavioural theory posits that psychological distress arises from the meaning individuals make of their experiences, rather than the experience itself: ‘events and other people do not make us ‘feel good’ or ‘feel bad’; we do it to ourselves, cognitively’ (DiGiusseppe et al., 2014, p.21). How one thinks about a situation impacts how one feels and acs, and in many cases of psychological distress, the meaning an individual may create can be unrealistically negative and catastrophic, leading to a situation where their belief about a threat is far more distressing than the most likely outcome. In contrast, the reality of climate change is that the threats are catastrophic, and many are already happening. Accurate thoughts about the current and predicted future impacts of climate change thus, understandably, lead to feeling paralysed and hopeless.

A recent review (Maiella et al., 2020) found that greater psychological proximity to climate change was associated with increased pro-environmental behaviours. As such, ecological distress can be associated with positive aspects of the self, including a strong sense of environmental identity (Verplanken and Roy, 2013; Verplanken et al., 2020), as well as with adaptive behaviours which aim to mitigate and reduce the threat (Whitmarsh et al., 2022). Thus ecological distress appears not be characterised by the types of unhelpful beliefs, assumptions, and core beliefs which are commonly linked to mental illness such as depression (e.g., Dozois and Beck, 2008). Instead, ‘ecological distress’ is likely to arise in individuals (such as climate scientists) who have core beliefs and values relating to the health and wellbeing of the planet, other species and other people. These values and beliefs are combined with a realistic interpretation of the threat to life on Earth that the climate and ecological crises represent, and a commitment to acting in a way that will mitigate this threat.

Despite ‘ecological distress’ being reported by climate experts, some research has indicated that there may be a tendency to avoid exploring or sharing such emotions with others, for example, by keeping them ‘in a box in my head’ (Andrews, 2017, p.10). This can be described as an emotionally avoidant coping strategy, and is likely to have advantages and disadvantages for the individual and society more broadly. The degree to which it is used, however, and its consequences are not yet well explored. This approach could, for example act as a protective mechanism to allow continued engagement with the science. Alternatively, as described by the Limited-Resource Model of Self-Regulation, ongoing attempts to regulate emotions in this way could have the unintended consequence of depleting one’s resources, making it harder to do again in the future (Vohs et al., 2011), potentially leading to burn-out, or even increased risk of earlier death (e.g., Chapman et al., 2013).

Despite being regularly exposed to information likely to fuel their distress, climate scientists, like others reporting ecological distress, have limited space to air their concerns. This can be understood as a ‘socially constructed silence’ (Fivush, 2010), where emotional and cognitive responses to climate change are not allowed to be talked about in many social spaces. It can be seen in the reports of people being ignored or dismissed when they try to talk about climate change (Hickman et al., 2021). This limits both individual emotional expression, and social forms of expression such as adaptive and community-based coping, where people find solidarity with others who share their experiences (Mah et al., 2020). For climate scientists regularly exposed to highly distressing information about the climate crisis, they are likely to experience painful emotional and cognitive responses. The impact of this on their functioning and health is as unclear. Furthermore, as many climate scientists centre their professional lives around pro-environmental action, their experience of managing such distress may be different from other populations who potentially have less ability to engage in such action, when considering the relationships between pro-environmental behaviours and ecological distress (Clayton, 2020; Verplanken et al., 2020).

There are important relational aspects to eco-distress, since it is both caused by humans and since the solutions depend on actions being taken by other people. Climate scientists assume a unique position in that their exposure to climate realities comes from a deep scientific knowledge of the field. In addition to the direct psychological burdens of this, the way in which climate scientists’ findings are reported by the media, and how such findings are received by the public, can bring its own challenges, with many scientists having experiences of being disbelieved, publicly criticised, and even vilified (Bowe et al., 2014). Such negative reactions and conflict with the public and media may exact an emotional toll, but this has not been well investigated. Experiences of being disbelieved by others is known to cause emotional distress in other populations, such as those with chronic pain (Newton et al., 2013). Furthermore, exposure to vilification and public threats may be linked to greater psychological distress, for example in judicial officers where threat frequency and threat concern were each correlated with higher scores on measures of PTSD (O'Sullivan et al., 2022).

The mixed nature of public opinion on the climate and ecological crises is demonstrated by recent polls indicating moderately high levels of ‘alarm’ or ‘concern’ about climate change, in 67% of people in the United Kingdom, and 58% in the United States (Leiserowitz et al., 2021). This, however, leaves over a third of people not particularly concerned, while only about half (55% United Kingdom and 40% United States) of respondents believe that climate change was ‘caused mostly by humans’ (Leiserowitz et al., 2021). Phillips et al. (2018) reported that while 93% of British adults believed climate change was happening, only 36% thought it was entirely/mainly anthropogenic, and only 25% were ‘extremely/very worried’. Thus public opinion still does not accurately reflect scientific consensus published by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). So, despite climate scientists raising the alarm, their warnings are frequently ignored, disavowed and even disbelieved.

Väliverronen and Saikkonnen (2021) report an increase in ‘disturbing feedback’ towards scientists from 2015 to 2017 and suggest that as political and organisational control on science increases, scientists may self-censor more (e.g., remaining silent for fear of damage to reputation of career). If they feel attacked or undermined publicly, climate scientists may become reluctant to publish future research, or engage in self-censorship. This could lead to society and policy makers being less informed, and could also reinforce painful feelings of guilt, shame, and self-doubt in climate scientists who might feel that they are not doing enough.

One of the relational aspects of eco-distress that may be particularly important is the experience of moral distress and injury. Moral distress can arise when ‘institutional constraints make it nearly impossible to pursue the right action’ (Jameton, 1984, p.6). The experience of climate anxiety in children and young people has been likened to moral distress, as their perception of government inaction on the issue (underpinned by climate science) has been experienced as a betrayal, which in turn is associated with greater climate anxiety (Hickman et al., 2021). Moral injury (a more chronic and distressing psychological experience) can occur when an individual loses confidence in ‘one’s own or others’ motivation or capacity to behave in a just and ethical manner’ (Drescher et al., 2011, p. 9). It may arise when one either sees or engages in actions of commission or omission that violate moral or core beliefs (Griffin et al., 2019; Evans et al., 2020). Molendjik (2018) suggests that perceived societal misrecognition (which could include the misrepresentation or harsh public criticism of climate scientists) can be a morally injurious event. Such experiences can lead to feelings of remorse, betrayal, and separation from others. Moral distress and moral injury have been experienced by NHS staff during the COVID-19 pandemic (Lamb et al., 2021), and by journalists covering the migrant crisis in 2015 (Feinstein et al., 2018), where people considered themselves to have acted in violation with their moral codes. High levels of moral injury have implications for mental health and were significantly associated with anxiety, depression, alcohol misuse, and PTSD in healthcare workers working during the COVID-19 pandemic (Lamb et al., 2021). It follows that these outcomes negatively impact the ability of healthcare workers to thrive in their job. In the same way that it is essential to protect the mental health of healthcare staff in a pandemic, it is important to protect the mental health of climate scientists whose contribution to society is equally valuable.

Definitions of moral injury include feelings of powerlessness (Morley et al., 2019). It could be that climate scientists, as leaders in their field, are perceived as powerful, and so presumed to be not susceptible to moral injury. Nevertheless, evidence suggests that scientists can still experience dismissal and disavowal (Väliverronen and Saikkonen, 2021). How might moral injury present in a group seen as having a position of power? Similarly, moral injury in health care workers, for example, involves close proximity to the impacts of acts of commission or omission (Lamb et al., 2021). How might moral injury present in a group with greater distance from the direct impacts of their actions? This review will aim to scope the existing literature, and develop an understanding of the morally injurious experiences of a group seen as powerful, and somewhat distal from the threat they are studying.

As global temperatures continue to rise, the role of climate scientists becomes ever more important in helping us to both understand and positively engage with the impacts of climate change. Yet they face a range of professional related stressors including persistent exposure to negative climate-related information, negative responses from society to the science they publish, ranging from ignoring and dismissal (Leiserowitz et al., 2021), to anger and misrepresentation (Bowe et al., 2014). There also appears to be a lack of space in which they can discuss and explore such psychological burdens, all of which are likely to impact their mental health and wellbeing. The primary aim of this review is to scope the existing evidence base, to better understand the psychological impacts upon climate scientists. The secondary aim is to identify what future research is required, and how to best support this group of professionals so they can continue to contribute science to the public, businesses, and policy makers that is so essential to our own, and our planet’s, survival.

This Experiential (Qualitative) Review (Munn et al., 2018), followed a Population, Phenomena of Interest, Context (PICo) format (Lockwood et al., 2015). A systematic, electronic search strategy was carried out to identify peer-reviewed articles, exploring the mental health experiences of Climate Scientists as follows:

Table 1 details the keywords used for the review of the literature.

The search was initially conducted on 23 August 2022, and repeated on 19 May 2024 to update the findings, on the following databases: PsychInfo, Pubmed, Web of Science, Scopus, and International Bibliography of the Social Sciences (IBSS). These databases were selected after consultation with the University librarian. Given the multidisciplinary nature of this review, these databases were deemed most appropriate. Given the relative novelty of this field as an area of research, it was decided that broad search terms would be used. Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005, p.23) framework allows for exploring ‘reference lists, hand-searching of key journals, existing networks, relevant organisations and conferences’. It was decided, however, to search in a more systematic way to improve transparency, replicability, and a more methodologically sound approach. Table 2 details the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Titles and abstracts were then reviewed, in order to ascertain the appropriateness of the papers to be included. An independent research assistant screened 10% of the abstracts screened by the lead researcher. No additional studies were highlighted for inclusion. The lead researcher then screened the remaining full texts against the inclusion and exclusion criteria.

The research team in this review adopted a critical realist ontological stance, where reality is considered subjective based on the different phenomenological experiences of each individual. Simultaneous explanation and interpretation of data allows researchers to explore complex and interlinked realities (Cuthbertson et al., 2020). Epistemologically, critical realism advocates for the pursuit of developing models and structures to progress knowledge (Cuthbertson et al., 2020). As such, studies involving hundreds of participants (e.g., Jovarauskaite and Böhm, 2020) were included alongside commentary and reflective pieces (e.g., Reay, 2018). All of these phenomenological experiences were deemed equally worthy, and provided data that might usefully inform models of knowledge around climate scientists’ distress. A scoping review was undertaken in a way that permits the synthesis and analysis of a wide range of research and non-research material, i.e., including the ‘grey literature’ with the aim of developing greater conceptual clarity about a specific topic or field of evidence (Davis et al., 2009) such as this one. Grey literature includes literature produced in government, academia, and business but is not published by commercial publishers (Paez, 2017). While this review searched databases that include grey literature (i.e., Scopus and Web of Science), none was identified as relevant to this scoping reviewing. Commentary and reflective pieces published in peer-reviewed commercial journals were included, as they were clearly pertinent to the topic although they did not report raw data as such.

Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) framework for scoping reviews requires that the data from selected studies are ‘charted’. This involves synthesising and organising the data into key sub-headings (see Appendix A). The research questions were used to organise the sub-headings during the charting process. Scoping reviews involve a systematic approach to data collection but require an iterative process in knowledge synthesis (O’Brien et al., 2016), guided by the original research questions. This allows for flexibility in exploring this novel topic, but has implications for understanding the conclusions drawn, as interpretation uses a less rigid framework than in other types of review. The charting process in this review was completed by the researcher and an independent research assistant. Additional review of the charted data was completed by the research supervisor.

No quality assessment was conducted, as it is not a requirement of scoping review methodology (Arksey and O’Malley, 2005). Rather, the scoping review aimed to follow the methodological approach which encourages the synthesis of a wide range of research and non-research data, based on the critical realist epistemological approach that advocates for exploration of complex and interlinked realities. From this stance, both a randomised control trial and a single case reflective piece offer similarly valuable data to any model or structure being developed, and thus grey literature can add important information to the review, allowing concepts to be better developed, explored and refined. This was particularly important for the current topic which is nascent and for which there is limited published research.

In this review, Interpretive Content Analysis was used to code the data, which involved the researcher drawing interpretations and insights to generate codes and themes that goes beyond literal codes based purely on semantic content. Unlike traditional Content Analysis, Interpretive Content Analysis is not constrained by strict coding rules and allows researchers to account for wider contextual factors in the analysis (Ahuvia, 2001). Interpretive Content Analysis sacrifices inter-rater reliability for the opportunity to code the data in the context of the whole research paper, and note the subtle links and meanings in the data (Ahuvia, 2001). This fits the critical realist stance of the researchers in this review, as phenomenology is accounted for, and interpretation is facilitated. Given the limited literature on this topic, and the high levels of qualitative research in this area, Interpretive Content Analysis was deemed the most appropriate methodology. The coding and charting process was completed by two members of the research team, separately, who then met to compare their codes and agree the most compelling interpretation of the data (Ahuvia, 2001).

Eleven of the papers discussed intrapersonal processes in climate scientists’ responses to working in, and contributing to, the debate around the climate crisis. These papers included secondary data analysis (n = 4), questionnaire or survey data (n = 2), interviews (n = 2) and personal reflective pieces (n = 3).

Seventeen papers discussed interpersonal processes affecting climate scientists’ experiences of living with climate change.

Climate scientists appeared to deploy a mixture of strategies to cope with the impact of their work, with both engagement and avoidance behaviours, dependent on context.

The emotion regulation strategies reported by climate scientists paint a picture of labour. Developing a ‘thick skin’, turning away from a lived reality, radically accepting a painful reality, and actively shielding loved ones from conversations about climate change (Head and Harada, 2017) require effort and commitment. The Diathesis-Stress Model posits that individuals have a threshold for stress that, if exceeded, can lead to the development of psychological distress (Arnau-Soler et al., 2019). Intensity and chronicity of stress can break through such thresholds and lead to mental health difficulties. The consistent effort required to employ these strategies can be regarded as a stressor likely to increase the vulnerability of climate scientists to experiencing psychological distress.

As such, an increase in distress in climate scientists is not because they are experiencing a new type of psychiatric illness termed ‘ecological distress’, requiring diagnosis or medicalisation, it is because they are being placed under increasing levels of stress. The chronic stress arising from their proximity to the reality of the severe threats of climate change through immersion in the world of climate science, coupled with government inaction, and negative societal responses to their findings. If this is not addressed there is a risk that this will impact the sustainability of the role of a climate scientist, who may face challenges in continuing under such stress, for example burn-out. This could have impacts on the broader scientific community, and even lead to a loss of engagement between climate scientists, action and public policy. In contrast, addressing each, or any of these factors could reduce their stress, distress and vulnerability to mental health difficulties. Such changes could happen on the global scale, for example, if governments acted urgently in line with climate science, or if societal narratives changed to recognise the gravity of the threats. The recent electoral victory in Mexico of a climate scientist becoming president could provide an important touchpoint in political conversations around climate change.

As Head and Harada (2017, p.38) note, the job itself, the thinking about climate change every day, would be ‘paralysing’, so climate scientists ‘cannot think about it every second’ (Renouf, 2021, p.11). They must still, however, think about it far more frequently than many others, particularly those fortunate enough to be living in countries that are (for now) relatively untouched by the effects of climate change. Society, and the planet, depend on climate science. It is a vital profession that helps us to understand what is happening to the climate, and what actions are required to protect life on Earth. If society and governments do not listen or respond appropriately, and as the effects of climate change grow, climate scientists (and those who listen to them) will be under increasing levels of stress, and the outcome is likely to be the increasing severity of emotional and psychological distress. This is consistent with Duggan et al.’s (2021) finding that instances of expressing painful emotions increased in second time contributors to the ‘Is This How You Feel?’ project.

Preston et al. (2022) note that cognitive reappraisal is a more adaptive coping mechanism than expressive suppression. Expressive suppression was noted to be a response-focused emotion regulation strategy, where one restricts emotional responses to a stressor. Expressive suppression has been shown to correlate with negative affect and depressed mood (Haga et al., 2009). As noted previously however, eco-distress is not a mental health disorder, but a rational reaction to an existential threat. As such, cognitive reappraisal may not provide an useful alternative, and acceptance based intervention might offer useful antecedent-focused emotion regulation strategies. Radical acceptance is central to therapeutic approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), for example. When used in an intervention with carers of people with a terminal illness, Davis et al. (2015) reported that greater acceptance was associated with less psychological distress. In the face of an irreversible and insurmountable situation, radical acceptance is psychologically healthy and involves acknowledging ‘what is’ rather than wanting reality to be different, while still acting in line with your values (Davis et al., 2015). As such, radical acceptance would not lead to disengagement from climate action, but by shifting one away from passivity, resignation, or escape, it creates a space in which one can find new, adaptive ways to engage with the world as it is now. The energy that would be spent in fighting or resisting the painful reality and associated emotions is freed up to be used on other things, as reality is accepted and honoured, enabling engagement with action that makes a real difference. Similarly, Compassion Focused Therapy may be relevant, and Gilbert (2014) notes that connecting with the reality of suffering can be a motivator for taking responsibility and control, and making wise choices, rather than dwelling in suffering. This standpoint paradoxically reduces suffering and creates a space in which new hope, grounded in realistic appraisal, and action, can arise.

This review highlights the tensions between occupying, at least, two concurrent identities: scientist and citizen. Such identities are associated with distinct, often conflicting, emotional responses (e.g., curiosity as a researcher, worry as a parent). Devereaux-Jennings and Hoffman (2021) call this the ‘Paradox of Objectivity and Passion’, where scientists are asked to dispassionately study a topic that involves pain and hardship for human, and more-than-human, life, including themselves.

The Social Integration Theory (Wakefield et al., 2017) posits that having multiple identities could be protective. Wakefield et al. (2017) noted the importance of multiple social connections, with more group identifications associated with increased ‘Satisfaction with Life’. The authors hypothesised that multiple group memberships can lead to a stronger sense of meaning and more support. However, as climate change can threaten many of these identities at once, this protection may lose effectiveness. Furthermore, as certain media and politicians undermine and divide the climate science community, conflict is engendered (Herman et al., 2017; Spies, 2017), and social group identification loses protective power. Findings thus suggest that feeling disunited or excluded from the ‘climate scientist’ group, could increase one’s emotional burden and vulnerability to mental ill health.

While the data are limited, and one should exercise caution when interpreting the findings, there is evidence here that moral distress and moral injury might offer a useful conceptualisation of the experiences of climate scientists. Acts of commission and omission by oneself, and by others, can be morally distressing and/or injurious. This review indicates how climate scientists may bear witness to, fail to prevent, and even perpetrate behaviours that ‘transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations’ (Litz et al., 2009, p.1). They see others ignore their warnings and in turn may feel compelled to suppress core aspects of themselves, such as their environmental identity (e.g., how they dress and talk) (Andrews et al., 2016) to increase their acceptability to others with the hope of increasing the acceptability and dissemination of their work. This simultaneously undermines protective self-identity (Verplanken et al., 2020) with potentially deeper consequences, such as shame about suppressing a moral code, or caring about nature.

The mixture of exposure to negative information about the future and insufficient action from policy makers and governments (The Lancet Planetary Health, 2021), will contribute to moral distress. Climate scientists work within the Western epistemological scientific framework (i.e., that beliefs should change when faced with sufficient evidence), but this is not reciprocated by the wider culture, where their findings meet with backlash and disbelief from media, government (Spies, 2017) and the public (Beck, 2012; Jaspal et al., 2012). This could be construed as a betrayal, which can contribute to moral distress and injury (e.g., Hickman et al., 2021). The Deficit Model of Science Communication (Tangney, 2018) describes how the power of communicating good science (Tollefson, 2021), is undermined by unhelpful discourse, or lack of forum for discourse, as the scientists’ values and integrity are attacked by media and political figures (Tangney, 2018).

Living in a society that encourages people into a ‘culture of uncare’ (Weintrobe, 2020) may also fuel a sense of moral distress, and the sense of individual ‘exceptionalism’ this encourages (i.e., the belief that ‘I am entitled to whatever I want’). This may explain why the warnings and evidence of climate science are dismissed or ignored, as it challenges the belief that global problems are not our individual responsibility, and so there is no need for individual or societal change.

Climate scientists have expressed indignation, contempt, and disappointment (Jovarauskaite and Böhm, 2020) at the ‘mass effort to ignore, defer, deny, and lie’ (Wang et al., 2018, p. 29) about a problem affecting us all, but particularly those in the poorest and most vulnerable nations, who have contributed least to the problem. In Renouf’s (2021) study, most climate scientists were from WEIRD countries, with a twofold risk; if such scientists experience climate change as less proximal, they may underestimate the immediacy of the threat (although this may change as extreme weather in the global North grows). Additionally, this could perpetuate the dominance of Western science, devaluing or dismissing indigenous knowledge.

In summary, climate scientists work in a world that at times may socially and politically undermine scientific knowledge to preserve economic and political ideals (Tangney, 2018). This can lead to the transgression of deeply held values by others, and sometimes even by themselves. For some climate scientists, this may lead them towards ‘climate perfectionism’; unachievable expectations of being beacons of pro-environmental behaviour that are impossible to live up to, and thus another source of distress.

The data available on the psychological and mental health impacts of climate change on climate scientists are largely focused on the emotional expression of climate scientists, with less exploration of specific psychological and physiological impacts. Similarly, as noted earlier, the current definition of eco-distress is broad. While this can make it difficult to operationally define eco-distress, for this review, it felt important to keep definitions broad to capture the wide range of psychological and emotional experiences present in climate scientists. There is clear evidence that ‘anger’, ‘sadness’, and ‘rage’ are present in climate scientists (Renouf, 2021), with less evidence regarding specific mental health and functional outcomes. Future studies would benefit from exploration into other areas associated with mental health difficulties such as sleep, appetite, and motivation.

Despite attempts for the term ‘climate scientist’ to capture a particular group, there was heterogeneity in how the term was applied in practise. While some papers restricted recruitment to scientists of earth sciences, physics, and maths (Head and Harada, 2017), others included social scientists and academics in the humanities (Jovarauskaite and Böhm, 2020). The term climate scientist is likely becoming increasingly broad, with the authors of this very paper potentially considered, by some, climate scientists. As this exploration of the psychological experiences of this group continues, a clear, operationalised definition is important. Similarly, situating this group in the present moment is essential. The data in this review ranges from 2010 to 2024. These two time points represent distinct situations with distinct pressures and context. From 2010 to 2024 there have been several climate movements (e.g., Fridays for Future or Extinction Rebellion). Future research might helpfully explore the impact of these on climate scientists’ distress.

This review is limited by the small number of climate scientists available in the data set, with three studies reporting on the same data set (Clayton, 2018; Duggan et al., 2021; Wang et al., 2018), partly due to the lack of studies in this area. This may mean the review is unable to offer a representative summary of the broader population of climate scientists, particularly when one considers the risk of bias, for example through self-selection. As Tollefson (2021) note, 60% of IPCC scientists did not take part in the survey as it dealt with opinions rather than science. To mitigate the limited data available, this scoping review included grey literature. No grey literature was identified in the search. Future reviews might benefit from developing and implementing a ‘grey search’ plan (Paez, 2017). This can both expand the data set from which conclusions can helpfully be made, including creating a more balanced view of the evidence. As it is not always peer-reviewed, however, grey literature should be interpreted with caution, and as such the findings of this scoping review point towards preliminary development of the area and the need for new areas of research.

This review was not pre-registered. Pre-registration was not mandatory at the time when the project was in development (i.e., 2021) but is has become standard practise in the past 2–3 years. Pre-registration is aimed at increasing transparency and reducing bias in research, and the lack of pre-registration in this project is acknowledged as a limitation.

This review focused only on climate scientists, and other environmental/sustainability professionals may experience similar strains, and so should perhaps also be included in future work. Furthermore, all studies reviewed came from WEIRD countries, with some having poor cultural validity (e.g., Jovarauskaite and Böhm, 2020; Herman et al., 2017). However, there was some diversity in other studies. Renouf (2021), for example, included participants from 12 countries including Botswana, Fiji, Germany, India, and the United States. Even so the limited variability of participants limits the conclusions as most reports come from climate scientists who live in parts of the world that are both most responsible for climate change, and most geographically and economically protected from its consequences. Future research must have larger samples and be more inclusive of experts in climate and ecology from across the world, including indigenous populations.

There are specific emotional burdens on climate scientists, including the emotional responses, coping strategies employed, and the group dynamics at play. Future research would benefit from exploring the role of social connectedness within the climate science community, as well as the impact of values and acceptance based psychological interventions on supporting climate scientists to tolerate distress and feel able to remain engaged with the important work that they are doing. Future research would benefit from specific exploration of some of the process discussed here (i.e., social connectedness as a predictor of positive wellbeing or the impact of moral injury or moral distress on climate scientists).

Political discourse can be seen as a contributing factor to the mental health and wellbeing of the world’s climate scientists and if society is to support their vital work, discourse needs to shift away from the pursuit of ideological and economic interests in favour of coherent, honest, and respectful conversation about data. This should be echoed by media reporting that prioritises accurate dissemination of knowledge and responsible reporting rather than inflammatory reporting aimed at increasing readership. As citizens of the world, all of humanity has a responsibility, and an interest, in demanding these changes of our institutions.