University of Bath Press Release
UNIVERSITY OF BATH
Nearly half of global youth surveyed (45%) say climate anxiety and distress is affecting their daily lives and functioning – according to results from the largest scientific study into climate anxiety in children and young people, according to recent research.
The inaugural study, based on surveys with 10,000 children and young people (16-25) across 10 countries, found 75% of young respondents believe ‘the future is frightening’ – jumping to 81% of youth surveyed in Portugal and 92% in the Philippines.
It found, for the first time, that climate distress and anxiety is significantly related to perceived government inaction and associated feelings of betrayal. 58% of children and young people surveyed said governments were “betraying me and/or future generations,” while 64% said their governments are not doing enough to avoid a climate catastrophe.
The study finds widespread psychological distress among children and young people globally and warns ‘such high levels of distress, functional impact and feelings of betrayal will negatively affect the mental health of children and young people.’ Experts warn that because continued government inaction on climate change is psychologically damaging, it potentially amounts to a violation of international human rights law.
Caroline Hickman, from the University of Bath, Climate Psychology Alliance and co-lead author on the study said: “This 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. Children and young people are now mobilising around the world and taking governments to court; arguing that failure to act on climate change violates their human rights. This study makes an important contribution to these legal arguments, framing climate anxiety and distress as a ‘moral injury’.”
Co-lead, Dr Liz Marks, from the University of Bath’s Department of Psychology added: “This study shows us how many young people around the world feel betrayed by those who should be protecting them. Despite this, governments at COP26 failed to take the bold and decisive action required to combat climate change. The decisions that those in power are making now will have the greatest impact upon the youngest and future generations, but they feel dismissed and ignored.
“We must consider the futures of young people, listen to their voices and place them at the centre of decision making. By bringing together all generations, we can demand that that governments engage in the urgent action on climate change we so desperately need.”
Mitzi Tan, 23-years-old, from the Philippines, said: “I grew up being afraid of drowning in my own bedroom. Society tells me that this anxiety is an irrational fear that needs to be overcome – one that meditation and healthy coping mechanisms will ‘fix.’ At its root, our climate anxiety comes from this deep-set feeling of betrayal because of government inaction. To truly address our growing climate anxiety, we need justice.”
Beth Irving, a 19-year-old climate activist behind the Cardiff student climate strikes, said: “When I was 16… I went through phases of feeling utterly helpless in face of this immense problem, and then would launch myself into organising protests or changing things within my school. To put so much energy into something and then see so little real life impact was exhausting; I had many occasions where I would hide myself away and think “None of this is enough”. It’s so damaging to put this problem on the shoulders of young people – hope needs to come instead from palpable structural action.”
Additional findings from the study include:
- 59% of children and young people surveyed were very or extremely worried about climate change;
- More than half of respondents said they had felt afraid, sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless, and/or guilty;
- 55% of respondents felt they would have fewer opportunities than their parents;
- 65% felt governments were failing young people, while 61% said the way governments deal with climate change was not “protecting me, the planet and/or future generations”;
- Almost half (48%) of those who said they talked with others about climate change felt ignored or dismissed.
- Young people surveyed from the Global South expressed more worry and a greater impact on functioning; while young people surveyed in Portugal (which has seen dramatic increases in wildfires since 2017) showed the highest level of worry amongst those from the Global North.
The study concludes that governments must respond to ‘protect the mental health of children and young people by engaging in ethical, collective, policy-based action against climate change.’
Notes about the study
- 10,000 young people (aged 16-25 years) were surveyed, using polling company Kantar, in ten countries:
- Australia, United States, United Kingdom, India, Nigeria, Philippines, Finland, Portugal, Brazil, and France. Data was collected on their thoughts and feelings about climate change, and government response.
- The study was carried out by academics from a range of institutions: The University of Bath, the University of Helsinki, NYU Langone Health, University of East Anglia, Stanford Medicine Centre for Innovation in Global Health, and Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, The College of Wooster, Climate Psychiatry Alliance.
- The costs of the survey were funded by AVAAZ. Avaaz is funded by small donations from citizens worldwide which allows it to finance urgently needed quantitative research in the emerging field of climate psychology. Avaaz has been campaigning on climate change for over a decade.
JOURNAL
The Lancet Planetary Health
DOI
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Content analysis
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: a global survey
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
9-Dec-2021
COI STATEMENT
COI: No competing interests. Acknowledgments: AVAAZ paid for the costs of the survey and arranged for data collection to be conducted by an independent recruitment platform (Kantar). We acknowledge Judith Anderson (Climate Psychology Alliance) and Natasa Mavronicola (University of Birmingham, Birmingham, U
Social media like Instagram is the real threat to teenage mental health.
One way of easing the distress supposedly caused by the media’s climate hysteria would be to go easier on the drugs and alcohol.
Another aspect of this is to consider what the anxiety would be if governments and science activists were to change their opinions about ‘human-caused climate change being mainly driven by CO2 emissions’, to ‘climate change is mostly natural, and beyond our control, and therefore we must adapt and protect ourselves from extreme weather events which are likely to occur in the future because they have fairly regularly occurred in the past?’
It’s very expensive to build infrastructure and homes that can resist the effects of extreme weather events that might tend to occur every decade, or 2, or 3, in a particular region.
In 2011 we had some very severe flooding in Queensland, Australia. Rockhampton, which is a city north of Brisbane, experienced particularly severe flooding which was reported in the media as the worst ever, or worst on record.
Out of curiosity, after the floods had subsided, I did a search on the internet to find if that flood in 2011 really was the worst on record. I found from the BOM records that it was the 5th worst on record since 1880. I also discovered that Rockhampton experiences a major flood, on average, every 20 years, approximately, plus a moderate flood every 6 or 7 years, on average, since records began.
The previous major flood occurred in 1991. The flood height was just a few centimeters below the 2011 flood, but what amazed me is that the Rockhampton Council was still deliberating over the recommendations of the 1991 flood report when the 2011 flood occurred. That report recommended the construction of flood levees to protect the airport and low-lying houses.
I’ve just recently done another search to find out what progress the Rockhampton Regional Council has made to protect the citizens from future flooding. Not much it seems. They haven’t even started the construction of the levee which was recommended 30 years ago, due to a lack of funding. The following site provides an overview.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-14/south-rockhampton-flood-levee-faces-funding-challenge/12761640
This situation at Rockhampton is just one example in a fairly well developed country such as Australia. I wonder how many similar situations exist throughout the world. Presumably tens of thousands, in countries with far less money available to mitigate the effects of extreme weather events, than Australia has.
Suppose the alarm about the effects of our CO2 emissions were shifted to an alarm about the recurrence of natural, extreme weather events. Wouldn’t a greater percentage of children in the world suffer even more anxiety because governments were not doing enough to protect their citizens from such future events?
I know that this is a little off topic but what is wrong with the Rockhampton Council in Queensland .
Every time the news media hypes up a flood in New Zealand and blame it on climate change here in New Zealand younger people say to me “see that’s proof of climate change “.
I then tell them about the 1958 flood on the Waipa river that inundated Otorohanga and caused some flooding in other towns on the lower Waikato River .
The government of the day formed the” Waikato Valley Authority ” who got to work with the Otorohanga Council and erected stop banks around the town which were well built and have stood the test of time and have never been breeched .
That was in 1958 ,what is wrong with the modern councils ?
Answer They spend to much time on climate change instead of tackling flood issues .
“That was in 1958,what is wrong with the modern councils ? Answer They spend too much time on climate change instead of tackling flood issues.”
Many skeptics, including myself, are concerned about the waste of money and resources used to replace energy from fossil fuels with energy from unreliable renewables, which has the effect of raising electricity prices. However, suppose the Rockhampton Council were to give priority to the building of levees, even though they couldn’t get sufficient funding from the federal government. Where would they get the funds from?
The obvious answer would be from a significant increase in property rates and land taxes. However, this could result in lots of people leaving the area. Their house insurance is already very high due to the flood risk. Increasing property rates and taxes to pay for levee construction could result in an over-all reduction in economic activity in the area as people moved to safer and less expensive areas.
I see this as a major problem in so many areas around the world, especially in less developed countries where so many families can only afford to live in the most basic shacks with little protection from floods, tsunamis, hurricanes and so on.
I wonder what the young people in China think?
That’s a good question.
They probably don’t see any difference between the current climate prohibition movement and the missionary-based colonialism of the 18-19th century. I don’t think they love it very much. Or us westerners. Why should they?
…. and 0% said they’d be willing to give up their fossil-fuel produced phones or air conditioned classrooms to save the planet.
That’s more like it.
I’ve yet to meet any young person who exhibits “climate anxiety”. Although I accept there might be such individuals (Greta Thunberg), to call it widespread is nonsense.
Utter drivel, as usual. If the question isn’t asked, then the topic won’t even be mentioned.
I can tell you what at least 50% of the world’s youth is really concerned about: Not getting laid. I bet the survey didn’t ask about that.
Quite honestly, even though I’m 20, I am more worried about “global cooling”. NOT global warming. My parents are in their early 50’s. With that, I’ve grown resilience against listening to the media and ignoring their apocalyptic messages of climate change and several other thing. It annoys in some ways and also saddens me my generation doesn’t know this is just a money-grabbing opportunity. So I do have anxiety of climate change, it just isn’t exactly what the majority of my generation is worrying about.
I have a “feeling” that lots and lots of over emotional females were involved in expressing their “feelings”in this survey.
These kids are going to be very angry when they grow up and tumble to the fact that they have been well and truly duped. I am just pleased that I won’t be around to witness the consequences.
How they will react with only a flat battery with which to express themselves is anyone’s guess.
Yeah, no. The “poll” and its “conclusions” busted my bogometer. Kids are being used as pawns by the lying Climate Liars. That is criminal on a humongous, monstrous scale. The ones who go on to climate activism become the angry, tiresome, whiny Gretas, unwilling and/or unable to contribute to society.
Here’s a video of a “climate talk” between a young person and his “parents”. In the sketch, the son has to “educate” the parents, but in a way that doesn’t make them uncomfortable. Funny, huh. Because the kids “know” all about “climate change”, while the parents are totally ignorant and squeamish about it. Riiiiiiiiight.
From the article: ““Our children’s anxiety is a completely rational reaction given the inadequate responses to climate change they are seeing from governments.”
It is a completely rational reaction given the amount of climate change propaganda they have been subjected to.
There is NO evidence that CO2 will cause harm to humans or the Earth’s atmosphere. The harm comes from all the lies and distortions spread about CO2.
Michael Mann and his Data Mannipulating cronies must be so proud of themselves. They’ve managed to scare half of our young people to death with their climate change lies.
The only “evidence” for unprecedented warming is the Hockey Stick chart Lie created by Michael Mann and Company.
Written temperature records, uncontaminated by Michael Mann’s manipulations, show there is no unprecedented warming today, and this means that CO2 is a minor player in the Earth’s atmosphere and is nothing to be worried about or regulated.
Kids, you have nothing to fear but fear itself. Some adults are lying to you.
Maybe this fact will help the kids sort it out: Fact: Not one prediction by the Climate Change alarmists has come true since this human-caused climate change isssue came up decades ago. Not one. That ought to tell you something. You are being scammed.
First world psychosis
3rd world poverty
All caused or maintained by climate change POLICY
The Catholic term for this is “attrition”, as shown in the movie “Seven” (Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt). Suffering directly for your sin and stupidity, without any progress toward repentance. Not a nice place to be in.
I have to say that in regard to the climate, the earth and the biosphere I feel a very profound feeling of happiness, tranquility and peace. The thought of CO2 pouring into the atmosphere second by second, fertilising and enriching the biosphere on land and sea, is a source of pride and contentment.
I also am OK with the existence of the human race and their / our dominant position in the earth system. The biosphere is quietly adapting to this reality to mutual benefit. At the heart of self inflicted climate anxiety is intolerance of humanity itself. It is not based on science or reality, but is a Nietzsche-ian death cult. Like the na3is.
Eco-anxiety:
https://www.marketforum.com/forum/topic/52100/#52106
Well-known tip for mental health: if anything is beyond your ability to change, it’s OK. This is profoundly true.
By coercing a generation to believe that they are morally responsible for the weather and the earth’s climate system, and the law of chaotic nonlinear dynamics, our dear leaders have condemned that generation to a huge amount of damaging anxiety.
However this should be weighed against the enormous thrill of moral self-righteousness that accompanies moral prohibitions like the current carbon prohibition and the alcohol prohibition a century ago. And add to that the sweet schadenfreude that comes with the stoning to death of heretics.
Forgot the image 🙂
It would have taken a lot of alcohol to breed with those ladies.