In First-of-Its-Kind Survey, Greenlanders Report Fear and Anxiety Over Effects of Climate Crisis

Although Greenland’s proximity to the Arctic Circle means scientists pay close attention to changes in sea ice and temperatures in the island country, few have remarked on the effects of the climate crisis on the 56,000 people who live there—until now.

Completed by the University of Copenhagen, the University of Greenland, and the Kraks Fond Institute for Urban Economic Research, the Greenlandic Perspectives Survey (pdf) was released on Sunday and reveals the high levels of anxiety and stress people in Greenland are experiencing on the frontlines of the climate emergency.

“There is no question Arctic people are now showing symptoms of anxiety, ‘ecological grief,’ and even post-traumatic stress related to the effects of climate change.”
—Courtney Howard,  Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment

“When it comes to Greenland we actually understand the ice more than we understand the people,” Kelton Minor, lead author of the survey, told The Guardian. “Historically, many survey samples of the Greenlandic population were taken from the radius of local airports, which doesn’t give us a picture of a vast and complex country…For a nation in the grip of record ice melt, this felt like something that needed to be done.”

About two percent of the country’s population was surveyed—the equivalent of speaking to a million people in the U.K. about their perspectives on an issue—and more than three-quarters of respondents said they have been personally affected by the warming of the globe.

Researchers noted that people living in Greenland, where warming is about two to three times higher than it is elsewhere, are coping with major, noticeable changes in their surroundings.

“The Arctic is a bellwether for the unequal impact of global warming on social and economic systems,” Minor told The Guardian. “As countries struggle to limit future risks and overall warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius [an increase of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit], many Arctic and Greenlandic residents are already living in regional climates that have changed by more than this, in less than a lifetime.”

One doctor who was not involved in the study said the research shows the effects of “ecological grief.”

“There is no question Arctic people are now showing symptoms of anxiety, ‘ecological grief,’ and even post-traumatic stress related to the effects of climate change,” Courtney Howard, president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, told The Guardian.

In a video accompanying the study, one woman talked about the rapid melting of sea ice, which is used regularly by Greenlanders to travel with sled dogs and which is needed to sustain the fish population that feeds much of the country, over the course of their lives.