Guest essay by Eric Worrall
LA Times reports that children are so distressed by what they have been taught about the alleged climate crisis, some are committing suicide. Others are embracing radical climate activism as a coping mechanism for their climate mental health crisis.
For young Californians, climate change is a mental health crisis too
By BRIAN CONTRERASDEC. 27, 20205 AM
…
Without reducing those emissions, climate change will make natural disasters, food shortages and rising sea levels even worse, experts say. The world is not yet on track to make the changes necessary to ameliorate its worst effects.
Climate depression played a central role in teenage activist Greta Thunberg’s political awakening, and according to Varshini Prakash — executive director of youth-focused climate activism group the Sunrise Movement — it’s not uncommon for her group to meet kids who have contemplated suicide over the climate crisis.
…
Lifestyle changes “empower individuals to feel like they can act,” said Abby Austin, 23, the political lead for the Sunrise Movement’s L.A. branch — echoing medical professionals who say that even small personal actions can help people feel like broader change remains possible.
Getting involved with activism can serve a similar function. Many young Californians said volunteering with climate advocacy groups like the Sunrise Movement or for politicians who have made climate change a central plank in their platforms has given them a sense of purpose.
“A lot of the people who are in Sunrise,” Austin said, “are literally organizing out of climate anxiety.”
Read more: https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-12-27/for-young-californians-climate-change-is-a-mental-health-crisis-too
Feed kids a constant diet of climate anxiety; some commit suicide, some turn to radical activism, some choose to become vegans or withdraw from life or vow to never bring children of their own into what they believe will be a ruined world.
The solution is obvious. Stop frightening the children.
Parents in a war zone don’t take young children out every day to see a bloody parade of all the mutilated corpses, they try to shield their kids from the horror, to give their children as normal a childhood as possible, even in the most impossible circumstances.
But climate activists don’t seem to behave that way. Activists seem to delight in “preparing kids for the future”, by feeding them as much horror and misery as they can pack into a school day. When the kids get home, the indoctrination is far from over. The kids get to tune into often government funded climate documentaries, to reinforce the unhappiness they learned at school.
No wonder the kids end up so messed up.
Even if you believe that the climate crisis is real and imminent, even if you believe we are all going to die in the next few decades, taking joy from the lives of children is an unspeakable act of cruelty.
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THIS IS CHILD ABUSE!!!
If children are dying because of it, it is manslaughter.
And adult abuse!!!!
Hard to believe that Greta is turning 18.
And has yet to receive an adequate education.
But, she has received an abundant re-education.
Counting down the days. 5 more days until she must relinquish her crown as the Child High Priestess of the Climate Cult of Doom and Gloom. Once she turns 18, her fibs and tantrums will no longer be acceptable.
Do they have a successor Child High Priestess waiting in the wings?
At which point, she will no longer be a useful idiot. Funny, how we are afraid of simulations now, whether it be Covid or CAGW. It’s like that episode of ST where they kill people based on a simulated war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon?cagw=false
“For young Californians, climate change is a mental health crisis”
Wrong.
For young Californians, climate change is a mental health disease.
There. Fixed it for ya.
… known to cause cancer in the state of California …
Fortunately, I do not live in the state of California, so I don’t have to worry about it causing cancer.
At the rate this ‘fear mongering’ by the Activists, MSM, Government, etc., is growing your state and community will be next. It’s not about the
“Climate Crisis” it’s about grabbing raw power by politicos. I would’ve thought given what we are currently living through, with the ‘Pandemic’ , you would’ve recognized this power grab similarity? But the ‘Piper must be paid’ government budgets next year will be a disaster – tax revenues will be cut in more then half and they will come for more tax revenue increases via the ‘fear action’.
Wyoming schools were not much better. The central planners have control of the universities, especially the liberal arts and we pretty much have become a single state. It will take an ice age to change their minds and then they will still blame mankind for the problem.
But is this really happening? Polls show concern about climate to be at the bottom, not a big deal for most people. I do think this is the case and if so, why are kids being so affected? Are we sure this is not more CAGW propaganda based on Greta’s Crusade?
Kids are going to believe what adults tell them. If the adults are ignorant, then they teach this ignorance to the children.
I feel sorry for the kids today. They have a bunch of socialitsts trying to manipulate them and brainwash them.
I see where a grade school is being sued for, in effect, accusing grade school kids of being racists, if they are white, and requiring them to acknowledge their crime of being born white.
Parents, you better look into what your children, even your very young children, are being taught in the schools today. Much of it is radical, leftwing propaganda meant to deligitimize the United States and ultimately destroy it.
Radical Socialists are not above using your kids for their own political purposes. And that’s what they are doing now.
Put a stop to it.
Not just trying, but succeeding.
True.
This is a very good question – I am not sure. I hope others chime in.
Find the people pushing this garbage and tell them there is no proof humans can control climate! The earth’s climate changes on all of history.
The central planners, i.e. the political types, will still use it for control. Just basic fuel economy standards pick winners and losers.
Ever increasing control whether you believe the theory or not. Covid proves that.
Bill Gates is working on a project to deflect the sun away from earth so we avoid the “global warming.” How many billionaires are in cahoots w/ him? Kids used to be the ones for whom we did programs – good programs: Study, tutoring, clean camping, etc. Now kids are (and have been) used as shields for every unprovable fantasy of the left. Why? As stated here, control.
Try it this way: For young Californians, climate change hysteria causes mental health diseases.
A few months ago I was asked by some parents to meet with their high-school-aged daughter, She was so worried about climate change that she literally had trouble sleeping at night. She felt like there was no point in getting married and having kids, since the world was going to be ending soon. The parents were not equipped with the information needed to try and counter this, so they asked me to come talk to her.
I went in expecting to meet a young girl who had been indoctrinated with all the typical CAGW talking points, but instead, all I saw was a scared teenager. As I started asking her questions, it became clear she was clueless. She was not a STEM student, and she new almost nothing about the science. All she knew was that the world was ending, and it was our fault.
All I could tell her was a few things to maybe counter the hype, and told her to educate herself and form her own opinion. For teachers and the media to be scaring kids like this without giving them the tools to evaluate the science it is almost a crime.
A crime and educational malfeasance.
Lee — I have told such kids about all of the predictions of disaster when I was becoming aware of the world in the 1970s, particularly from all the scientists predicting catastrophic cooling, but also running out of resources, starvation from overpopulation, pollution — not to mention nuclear war.
There are sites that compile these — I think showing all these false apocalyptic predictions could be very helpful.
I like to point out (to adults!) that those, like AOC, predicting imminent disaster are further from the “establishment science” than outright deniers. It’s like a kid’s game of “telephone”, where the message gets distorted and amplified each time it’s repeated.
@Lee Scott: I have done two “interventions” (aka de-brainwashing sessions) in situations similar to the one you describe. Both successful apparently. I asked the parents of one kid if they had considered getting psychiatric advice. They said the best way to answer was to send me an email with some links on the subject. Mind-boggling. So far, it appears that the entire psychiatry and psychology industry around the world is in lockstep with this climate alarmism insanity. Their solution is to make the problem worse. I fully expect to be asked to help kids who are suffering from the treatment, as well as the disease. “Climate grief” is being treated with “Great Turnings”, or “Collapse-Transcendence” methods.
Martin, don’t be surprised if the psychology/psychiatry community displays a prominently monetary motive to much expand their clientele in this fashion. After all, people are pretty simple about finding a way to elevate their own sense of importance with a raise in income, and many do have pool payments to make.
No “almost” about it.
Its not almost a crime. It is child abuse on a par with statutory rape
This really needs to be quantified. How many kids? What percentage of the population?
When you read something in the news you might think it’s normal but that’s backwards. The news reports things that are abnormal.
Never mind climate anxiety, there’s an actual mental health problem for youth because of smartphones and social media.
Every kid I’ve ever known thinks they are invincible. Based on the surveys showing climate change is not considered a pressing problem, I would think this is a small number of kids with a loud activist organization trying to whip up a frenzy to get money.
Public education is child abuse.
Public education is culture abuse.
Public education is intelligence abuse.
Public education is human abuse.
Simon say fall down…and they all fell down (at least in CA)
Other children saw it as another cult thing.
Here is some purple juice to calm you down. Never mind the bitter taste. Everyone says to drink it–even Governors, Nobel Prize winners, the UN, WHO, and former Vice Presidents. They call it the consensus punch.
Just watching that modern Gorgon, Greta Thunderbird looking at and lecturing to them would be enough to drive many children to suicide.
That kid looks about to spit out a turd.
“That kid looks about to spit out a turd.”
And regularly does. !!
Not educated enough to know which end the crap should come out of.
As against the Anti_Greta who is actually educated and in science.
They don’t listen to enough Pink Floyd as that always makes me forget my worries, :))
“So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it’s sinking, racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death” . . .
Everyone just needs to wake up and live, not worry about some political sorcery like so-called climate change.
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
A better solution would be to have these kids actually live a carbon-neutral existence for awhile instead of whining about it and demanding that someone else act. They might then learn how blessed they actually are to be living in the physical comfort of the 21st century and would get over it.
Yet that would just depress them further, as they would then be conflicted, should I live in misery, or feel horribly guilty over turning on the AC?
It is certainly child abuse, and a shame we no longer have civil debate in our culture.
( About anything)
Behold the Talking Tina of climate scare.
“ taking joy from the lives of children is an unspeakable act of cruelty.”
Leftists don’t care. They never care about the misery and poverty and despair that result from their ideas, their words, their policies. Foisting their ideology on the world is the only thing that matters to them.
….. don’t forget their bank accounts now.
The ends justify the means. Beware of zealots of any sort. Especially ones who make a profit off their zealotry.
“Such is the nature of the Tyrant, when he first appears, he is a protector.”
Plato
The misery and poverty gives them more control.
Progressives are, at their core deeply disturbed and unhappy individuals.
As a result they spend all of their time trying to strike out at others. They have a deep seated need to destroy the happiness of others. It isn’t fair that others are happy, when they are not.
“Progressives are, at their core deeply disturbed and unhappy individuals.”
Yes, and they are always angry and never satisfied.
A progressive is only happy when everyone else is unhappy.
Lets stop using the PC term “Progressive” and tell it like it is:
SOCIALISM
REGRESSIVE !!
Ed Berry’s new book “Climate Miracle” is an easy read and understandable by high schoolers for sure and probably by astute and interested 7th graders. It’s message removes the stigma of human cause of global warming and addresses the inaccuracy of the model predictions. I think it would be a good place to start if you know any worried youth.
Read about the doctrine for the Hitler Youth – it’s not hard to see the similarities in tactics and execution to what is happening, but on a global scale, with AGW.
Good point Brent. None of this would be foreign to Vladimir Lenin’s and the current equivalent Chinese Communist “Young Pioneers” or Joseph Goebbels’ “Hitler Youth”, and channeling in this way a youthful sense of grand mission (while implying their life will be wasted if they don’t make a major difference for the cause) is the common currency of more recent radical counterparts as it lays the groundwork for a multi-generational program. It is parental naivety that hobbles any resistance to this societal manipulation of children, whatever it may cost them in shed blood.
They can persuade children that the end is nigh, and that Socialism is the way to go.
From the article: “The solution is obvious. Stop frightening the children.”
Exactly! Stop frightening the children with science fiction masquerading as climate science.
The Climategate Charlatans and their Spawn are where the blame for these children’s mental health problems should be laid. They have lied to the world about the Earth’s climate and their lies are having real-life consequences. It’s not a game.
“It’s not a game.”
How true that is…. its akin to a WAR for the future of human civilisation….
…and I will continue to treat AGW apologists with the CONTEMPT and RIDICULE that they deserve.
Eventually, there will be open U.S. Congressional hearings on budget proposals for the various GND-type Federal spending plans. The clown car will then begin weaving off the road; all taxpayer pain with no gain. The “Iron Law of Politics” from Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr.
What the Left is teaching our kids is child abuse and ruining their lives and the country:
Gender dysphoria is cool
CAGW will kill us all so we have to spend $100’s of trillions to save it
America was founded for the purpose of slavery
America is the worst country on earth
There are no such things as: objective reality or moral absolutes
Americans are: racists, homophobes, misogynists, Islamaphobes, blah, blah, blah..
Capitalism is evil.
Minorities have no hope in America because of systemic racism.
Police are evil.
The Left is absolutely destroying our country.
“The Left is absolutely destroying our country.”
That seems to be the aim of the Radical Left.
Yeah it’s a weird fact that nobody wants to acknowledge but most of the plantation slaveowners actually supported the British against the American revolutionaries! Goes to show that myth has become far more important than truth to some people.
The PARENTS deserve every bit of angst that they get from the children.
As if they actually CARED. !
If a parent felt any responsibility towards their child’s welfare and future, at all …
…. they would educate themselves and put a stop to the mindless scare-based propaganda of this climate FARCE.
My TEEN daughters rest easy when I tell them we are in no danger, that they never hear me talk like a warmist/alarmist nutball. and have told them of a world much warmer and colder than now during this 12,000 year long interglacial period, yet we are here as are the cute Polar Bears…..
You have to realize that many libtard Climate Activists with kids in US probably wish they had aborted their children in-utero so they could brag about that with their similarly sicko friends and claim it was good for “solving climate change.”
see more: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/8/michelle-williams-and-the-over-normalization-of-ab/
I see these problems developing into an entirely new field of practice for plaintiff lawyers in the US and elsewhere.
This is nothing less than brainwashing.
nothing less than child abuse.
and what sort of ‘people’ sometimes do The Most Horrid Things to other ‘people’
what sort might capture & ‘experiment on’ insects & small critters
what sort of people ‘pass off untruths’ and exaggerate routinely
what sort of people act on impulse and panic/frighten easily
what sort might be indecisive, often and rapidly changing their minds on ‘most any subject
what sort of people constantly seek attention
what sort like to use Big Words to try make out they are ‘clever’
what sort of people are often shy and lacking in self-confidence
what sort like to appeal to authority,
……e.g. My dad’s bigger, richer, stronger than yours
what sort organise into gangs
what sort of people featured in Lord of the Flies..
Think about it.
Apart from the last one, I could be describing modern politics, healthcare, science & education
Scary huh? Why are what outwardly appear to be adults now behaving as they do?
i.e. Like children
What’s happening
I have My Theory, you may have read it here.
Its for the same reason that more adults now wear nappies (diapers) than do babies.
Something they’re eating……
Climate anxiety is reportedly a serious problem among children. Our schools have been active in spreading this false alarm. I have written several missives to the Alberta Teachers Association and the Alberta Minister of Education, strongly advising against this harmful and unscientific nonsense.
There is no real global warming crisis – it has always been a false and fraudulent crisis, promoted by scoundrels and believed in by imbeciles – wolves stampeding the sheep.
The Big Picture:
The global warming / climate change scam, the Covid-19 full-Gulag lockdown scam, the specious linkage of these two huge frauds, and the leftists’ “Final Solution”, the Marxist “Great Reset” – aka “Live like a Chinese peasant”.
WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM PRESENTS: THE GREAT RESET— “YOU’LL OWN NOTHING, AND YOU’LL BE HAPPY.”
I wonder what will happen when millions of people realize they have been lied to.
Considering the extent of the brainwashing that may never happen. The lie is reinforced by parents and grandparents, the brainwashing is complete.
IF that happens then there’ll be a huge backlash against scientists and science in general. It won’t be pretty and no distinction is likely to be made between scientists and pseudoscience activists.