From climate change to conflict to higher living costs, today’s challenges are connected—and seeing those links can help us respond more effectively.
The world feels like it’s unravelling. More and more people are losing their lives to needless wars. Communities, ecosystems, and the atmosphere are victims of current conflicts. Energy, food and other costs keep rising due to the standoff over the Strait of Hormuz.
Anxiety is high as the economy, security, democracy and justice are all under threat. Military spending is rising in response, and when that happens, money for education, health, climate action and other priorities goes down. Inequities and poverty grow. The long-term implications of these trends feel very, very daunting.
It’s hard to hold so many threats and concerns. So much uncertainty. As concerns about immediate risks rise, such as the invasion of Iran, do they diminish concerns about other risks, such as climate change? As fears rise, how can hope (a key ingredient to advancing action on climate change and other social change) be maintained?
From “Finite Worry” to Competing Demands on Attention
These questions make me think back to the work Dr. Elke Weber did at the outset of the field of climate communications in 2006. She introduced the concept of the finite pool of worry (FPW). Dr. Weber argued that humans have a limited emotional capacity to worry. At the time, the thinking was that if people were more worried about threats that felt more direct and immediate, it could inhibit action on climate change, which in the early 2000s seemed like a gradual, distant risk.
Over the past twenty years, research regarding the finite pool of worry has continued, and thinking has evolved. At this point, there is no conclusive evidence that people do, in fact, have a finite pool of worry. Researchers, however, are learning there may be a finite pool of attention. Worry doesn’t seem to go away. Yet as new threats are added to existing ones and/or immediate threats are added to ongoing ones, such as climate change, people’s attention can become more focused on direct risks. Take COVID-19. Concern about climate change remained high, but people’s minds were on survival, health and the economy.
What Conflict Can Teach Us About Climate Concern
Research exploring the intersection of war and a finite pool of worry for climate change is limited. However, a study published in November 2025 surveyed people in Ukraine about climate concerns. What researchers found challenges the finite-pool-of-worry theory. Concern about climate change actually increased after the conflict began. The hypothesis is that when people face a major risk or trauma, it can shift their thinking about security more broadly, and related vulnerabilities can become more obvious.
The researchers also looked at polling in Germany, where climate concern has increased since the war in Ukraine, illustrating that people do not have to experience a conflict or threat directly to gain a greater understanding of the interconnectedness of risks and their drivers.
“When entire societies grapple with manufactured risks like war, the resulting collective consciousness may extend beyond immediate threats to encompass broader systemic vulnerabilities, including environmental risks that similarly threaten collective futures.”
— Authors Mateusz Błaszczyk and Berenika Dyczek
The Common Threads Behind Today’s Crises
As the transport of energy and fertilizer is held up by conflict in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, everyone feels the economic ripple effects and increased insecurity. For people in conflict zones and the Global South, the impacts are even greater, which starkly and painfully illustrate the degree to which the world is interconnected and interdependent. Another harsh revelation is the common driver of polycrises: fossil fuels. Economic volatility, inflation, war, and poverty— all threatening that collective future.
The Sunrise Movement in the United States that campaigned for a Green New Deal has called the current political times, “fossil-fueled fascism,” where Donald Trump and fossil fuel interests are using authoritarian tactics to drive an extractive, unjust and neocolonial agenda. As a result, their first priority is now to build a youth movement to overcome authoritarianism as a precursor to advancing climate policy and programs.
“Throughout history, when authoritarian regimes have looked to consolidate power, it has been movements of workers and young people that have pushed them back and driven them out. Every day, we are building and becoming that movement, because we know that there will be no meaningful climate action if we lose this fight.”
— The Sunrise Movement
How Movements Are Adapting to This Moment
This is an example of one source of hope right now. Civil society organizations and networks are responding to and pivoting due to the times. Recognizing that fossil fuels, climate change, conflict, the economy and democracy are all connected and must be viewed and approached as a system. There is not one narrative, not one tactic that can work. A diversity and multitude of approaches are called for. For actors to operate through coordinated networks.
Another source of hope is that the public is starting to see the interconnections as well. Polling conducted by Opinium on behalf of the Sierra Club Canada, fielded in early February 2026—after the U.S. takeover of Venezuela and threats to Greenland—offers some insights. The research shows that 67 per cent of Canadians feel that oil and gas increases the risk of international conflicts. Fifty-nine per cent feel we would be safer with renewable energy in light of these events, while 58 per cent say it’s more important than ever to transition away from oil and gas.
This tracks research exploring public opinion regarding energy security in the UK. The Climate Barometer team found that concern about energy security is high, and that people feel renewable energy would deliver greater security and protect against price shocks.
What Past Movements Can Teach Us Right Now
The conflict in the Middle East highlights the interconnections between fossil fuels, human security, public health, the climate, ecosystems and economic shocks, losses and damages.
Systemic challenges require systemic solutions. There are masters of systems thinking to learn from during this moment. Take Dr. Fritjof Capra, whose work provides a roadmap for applying interdisciplinary problem-solving to major crises. His book, The Systems View of Life, provides a narrative overview of how conflicts in the 1960s led to the birth of diversity of social movements fueled by visions of new ways of living. This ultimately grew into the network of civil society organizations that’s at the table at climate negotiations and in forums on other issues today.
Capra talks about social change as a “swing of the chaotic pendulum” with times of disruption, such as the current one, providing leverage to drive significant change. In his 80s, he’s training young social change leaders in systemic problem-solving focused on solutions that advance qualitative growth rather than quantitative growth.
Why It Hurts—Even From Far Away
Fritjof Capra was a leader in merging the exploration of science with spirituality in his early book, The Tao of Physics. His work highlights that anxiety is not only generated by direct experience of impacts. It’s also sparked by a basic tenet of interconnectedness. That we are all tied to one another, despite the differences and distances.
It therefore hurts when innocent people unknown to us are needlessly losing their lives. That future generations will suffer due to the unhinged actions of a few now.
In his book Matter and Desire, Dr. Andreas Weber takes the idea of interconnectedness one step further, arguing that the essence of love is a desire for life to be connected to other living organisms. Interconnectedness in nature means communities survive and thrive. Being connected to one another and to nature means the same thing for people.
Extractive, militaristic economic and military actions go against this. They separate. Cloak the interdependence. Hide the vulnerabilities.
Why Systems Thinking Matters Now
Moving forward, recognizing how the dots connect across issues and prioritizing solutions that advance action on multiple files—not just climate change—is key. Moving from a focus on individual responsibility (often accompanied by guilt) to opportunities to partner with others to take action is also important. Love, the driver of ecological and human life, is not a squishy thing to be left out. Research shows that protecting the people and places we love now and into the future is the concern and value most universally held.
Coming together through networks of learning, caring and action is a way for those who know we cannot have climate action stall out to move forward without going it alone. To tap into the power of our interconnectedness and collective wisdom and power. You’re invited to do just that by joining thousands of other leaders advancing climate action via the Re.Climate network. If you’re not already on our mailing list, you can sign up here.
Cara Pike is a Senior Advisor at Re.Climate and Executive Director of Climate Access
