This month, researchers from the University of Bath, University of Helsinki, The College of Wooster, New York University, the University of East Anglia, Stanford University and Oxford Health published the results of a survey of 10,000 young people (aged 16 to 25) across ten countries that asked about their thoughts and feelings regarding climate change and government responses.
They found that a large majority of youth respondents are worried about climate change (84 percent were at least “moderately” worried while 59 percent were “very” or “extremely” worried) and that over half of respondents said that they feel sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless and guilty.
About 40 percent of the young people surveyed indicated that they are hesitant to have children because of the climate crisis and over 45 percent said that their feelings about climate change negatively affect their daily life.
Seventy-five percent agreed with the statement that the “future is frightening,” 56 percent believe humanity is doomed, and more than 50 percent agreed that they would have fewer opportunities than their parents did.
Sixty-four percent felt that governments are not doing enough to address the climate crisis or to protect them or future generations. A similar number said they felt betrayed by older generations and governments. Less than 40 percent of respondents across nine of the ten countries agreed that government “can be trusted”—with just 21 percent of American respondents agreeing with that statement. The study found significant, positive correlations between feelings of worry, anxiety, and distress and feelings of betrayal and negative feelings about governments responses to climate change.
In sum: Youth are worried and angry about the climate crisis, and they lay the blame squarely at the feet of governments that have failed to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.
One of the study’s authors, Caroline Hickman from the University of Bath, said that the study “paints a horrific picture of widespread climate anxiety in our children and young people. It suggests for the first time that high levels of psychological distress in youth is linked to government inaction. Our children’s anxiety is a completely rational reaction given the inadequate responses to climate change they are seeing from governments.”
Feelings of worry, anxiety, and betrayal about climate change and the lack of government response to it threaten the mental health and wellbeing of an entire generation of young people who have contributed the least to the problem of global climate change but are all too aware that they will suffer its worst impacts.
