In 2024, he worked with an international collaborative in producing videos on his Process Model of Eco-anxiety and Grief. You can watch an animated short film and a discussion video together with Isaias Hernandez (QueerBrownVegan) on the project website.

Panu’s research emphasizes that eco-anxiety can be very difficult to bear, but it is fundamentally an adaptive reaction to be worried about the ecological crisis. Together with emotion philosopher Charlie Kurth, Panu has written on “practical eco-anxiety”, and he has also been part of research teams which study heavy manifestations of ecological distress.

In 2021, Panu was the third author in the internationally influential study on climate anxiety among children and youth, published with the lead of Caroline Hickman in the Lancet Planetary Health. This study showed that youth all over the world feel lots of emotions about the climate crisis, and that they are generally very disappointed at the lack of climate action by decision-makers. The study has been cited numerous times and it has been discussed widely in media and policy-making.

Panu has worked with many Finnish researchers in studying various aspects of eco-anxiety and climate anxiety, and his work has inspired many Finnish students in their theses. He has worked as an advisor and workshop leader in Finnish projects on eco-anxiety, health care, and education. The most prominent project has been led by MIELI ry (Mental Health Finland), and there is a description available in English for its early years.

Panu’s widely known and cited research articles on eco-anxiety include:

* Pihkala, P. (2018). Eco‐anxiety, tragedy, and hope: Psychological and spiritual dimensions of climate change. Zygon, 53(2), 545–569.

* Pihkala, P. (2020). Anxiety and the Ecological Crisis: An Analysis of Eco-Anxiety and Climate Anxiety. Sustainability, 12(19), 7836. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12197836

* Pihkala, P. (2020). Eco-anxiety and Environmental Education. Sustainability, 12(23), 10149. https://doi.org/10.3390/su122310149

* Hickman, C., Marks, E., Pihkala, P., Clayton, S., Lewandowski, R. E., Mayall, E. E., Wray, B., Mellor, C., & Susteren, L. van. (2021). Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: A global survey. The Lancet Planetary Health, 5(12), e863–e873. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(21)00278-3

* Sangervo, J., Jylhä, K. M., & Pihkala, P. (2022). Climate anxiety: Conceptual considerations, and connections with climate hope and action. Global Environmental Change, 76, 102569. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2022.102569

* Kurth, C., & Pihkala, P. (2022). Eco-anxiety: What it is and why it matters. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.981814

* Pihkala, P. (2022). The Process of Eco-Anxiety and Ecological Grief: A Narrative Review and a New Proposal. Sustainability, 14(24), Article 24. https://doi.org/10.3390/su142416628