Essay by Eric Worrall
According to Mission Australia, climate anxiety is a leading cause of mental health issues in young people.
Youth Survey Shows Need for Action on Impact of Climate Change Concerns on Youth Mental Health
Published: 20 April 2023
Orygen and Mission Australia are calling for urgent action to address the impact of climate change concerns on the mental health of young people in Australia, following new research showing strong links between the two.
The 2022 Mission Australia Youth Survey shows 1 in 4 (26%) young people in Australia are ‘very’ or ‘extremely concerned’ about climate change, and nearly 2 in 5 (38%) of those respondents also experienced high psychological distress.
The survey of 18,800 people aged 15 to 19 showed that young people who reported being ‘very concerned’ or ‘extremely concerned’ about climate change were more likely to report:
- high levels of concern about coping with stress
- their mental health as ‘poor’ or ‘fair’
- higher psychological distress
- low subjective wellbeing
- feeling more negative about the future
The 2022 Youth Survey found that half of respondents (51%) identified ‘the environment’ as one of the most important issues in Australia today. Some young people are more worried about climate change such as those who identified as female or gender diverse, and those experiencing financial difficulties.
In-depth statistical modelling shows that the link between climate concern and psychological distress as well as the negative future outlook were genuine and not impacted by common risk factors. This link was also stronger among young people who identified as gender diverse, Indigenous, or those living in regional/remote areas.
Orygen and Mission Australia say the results warrant an urgent response, recommending four key actions to address the issue:
- Ensuring future government youth and mental health strategies include actions that address the relationship between climate change and mental health
- Partnering with young people when designing actions to mitigate climate related mental health impacts
- Providing training to professionals working with young people to identify and manage climate-related stress
- Funding targeted research focused on the impacts of climate change on youth mental health
“The impact of climate change on mental health is an emerging, but significant issue that is likely to grow as climate change becomes more severe,” said Orygen Senior Biostatistician and Environmental Epidemiologist Dr Caroline Gao, who co-authored the report with colleagues from Orygen, University of Melbourne and Mission Australia.
The report suggests that while concerns about climate change may contribute to a young person’s psychological distress, it is also possible that pre-existing psychological distress increases the likelihood of worry and concerns, including about climate change.
“We believe urgent action is required to better support young people. We want to reduce the impact of climate change on psychological distress, foster hope and avoid despair, while still motivating positive climate actions.”
Dr Gao added, “Young people are particularly vulnerable to mental ill-health; the onset of almost half of all mental health disorders occurs before the age of 18. With the extreme climate occurrences that have occurred in Australia over the last three years, it is likely that climate concerns are contributing to the exacerbation of mental ill-health for some of our young people.”
Mission Australia’s Executive of Practice, Evidence and Impact Marion Bennett agrees, adding: “Young people in Australia are telling us that the threat of climate change and the increasing regularity and severity of extreme weather is harming their mental health and wellbeing.
“We can see in this report that young people who experienced financial difficulties in the past year are particularly concerned about climate change, which aligns with what Mission Australia frontline staff see among some vulnerable young people that we support through our community services and housing.
“Young people overwhelmingly want action on climate change, and Australia must act to reduce the harm young people are experiencing.
“We urge governments to update their youth and mental health strategies so there is increased access for all young people in Australia to mental health services, to raise awareness and to upskill professionals in the realm of climate-related distress. It’s also important that governments partner with young people to co-design solutions that will address their climate-related mental health concerns.”
Dr Gao added, “We are currently conducting a programme of research with our partner organisations to support a better understanding of the impact of climate change on young people’s mental health as well as evidence-based resources for professionals working with young people.”
Press release source: https://www.missionaustralia.com.au/media-centre/media-releases/youth-survey-shows-need-for-action-on-impact-of-climate-change-concerns-on-youth-mental-health
Mission Australia is a Christian charity whose focus is outreach and assistance for the homeless and other people in distress.
Climate change anxiety and mental health issues are leading to other serious problems. According to Dr. Alex Wodak, a leading Aussie drug rehabilitation specialist (now retired), climate anxiety is a factor driving young people to destroy themselves with hard drugs.
…
First, the threshold step is redefining drugs as primarily a health and social issue rather than primarily a law enforcement issue. Second, drug treatment has to be expanded and improved until it reaches the same level as other health services. Third, all penalties for personal drug use and possession have to be scrapped.
Fourth, as much of the drug market as possible has to be regulated while recognising that part of the drug market is already regulated, such a methadone treatment, needle and syringe programs, medically supervised injecting centres. It will, of course, never be possible to regulate the entire drug market. We have regulated parts of the drug market before. Edible opium was taxed and regulated in Australia until 1906 and in the United States Coca-Cola contained cocaine until 1903.
Fifth, efforts to reduce the demand for powerful psychoactive drugs in Australia have had limited benefit and require a new focus. Unless and until young Australians feel optimistic about their future, demand for drugs will remain strong. Young people, understandably, want more certainty about their future prospects, including climate, education, jobs and housing affordability. Change will be slow and incremental, like all social policy reform.
As Herb Stein, as adviser to President Nixon said:
Things that cannot go on forever don’t.Drug prohibition cannot go on forever and will be replaced by libertarian paternalism. Thank you.
…
Source: Wayback Machine (the original link from 2019 no longer works)
Of course the risk of kids turning to hard drugs and depravity to fund those drugs is only one possible consequence of youth climate anxiety. Youth climate anxiety is driving the mushrooming of radical groups like Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, Rising Tide, an alphabet soup of youth driven radical environmental groups whose members regularly expose themselves to danger of injury or death by stopping trains, stopping traffic, vandalising buildings or artworks, or glueing themselves to roads.
I doubt politicians will listen to Mission Australia’s plea for intervention, given their ill considered education policies, which in some cases promote mandatory alarmist climate indoctrination, are likely the main cause of youth climate anxiety.
If anything the climate indoctrination is being stepped up, egged on by scientists advocating Communist Chinese levels of social engineering, to coerce green behavioural compliance.
Our children will continue to be the mostly forgotten victims of climate zealots, for the foreseeable future.
Orygen and Mission Australia say the results warrant an urgent
response, recommending four key actions to address the issue:
1. Blah blah blah blah blah
2. Blah blah blah blah blah
3. Blah blah blah blah blah
4. Blah blah blah blah blah
_______________________________________________________
Try telling the truth:
1. More rain is not a problem.
2. Warmer weather is not a problem.
3. More arable land is not a problem.
4. Longer growing seasons is not a problem.
5. CO2 greening of the earth is not a problem.
6. There isn’t any Climate Crisis.
So true! Mission Australia doesn’t give a hoot. They’re like doctors who, having prescribed one useless drug, now go on to prescribe a cascade more to combat the side effects caused by the first one(s).
A daily dose of WUWT would cure these kids’ ills.
Very true. Both my kids spent some time reading WUWT… two hours was enough. I have been getting my WUWT boosters since 2008… not a lick of fear. I don’t even fear the Dystopian Climate Merit Honor Society…..whoever they are??!!
Take a look at this Psychology Today article:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/psych-unseen/202204/why-dont-people-believe-in-climate-change
It looks like psychologists need a daily dose of WUWT too.
More rain is not a problem.
Globally, perhaps. Locally, only to a point. Crops don’t like to be flooded – I’ve lost some to too much rain.
Agree totally with the other 5 points.
What global warming?
The UAH satellite record for the air over Australia shows no warming trend for the last 11years or so.
Given that you start to remember after age 3, that means that no children now aged under 14 or so should have felt global warming. Maybe if they changed where they lived they would encounter so-called extremes, but that is nothing new to cause anxiety.
The big problem is the busy bodies who refuse to tell children what is actually happening.
By conversation, young female teachers could be a big source of information. But then, most teachers here are now young females. Geoff S
“Given that you start to remember after age 3, that means that no
children now aged under 14 or so should have felt global warming.”
___________________________________________
And those of us now aged 78 remember Global Cooling.
That’s nothing: some of us remember the dinosaurs.
I’m only 69. I still remember arguing with classmates that the next Ice Age was imminent due to excess CO2. They weren’t stupid, but I do wonder if they are now warmists.
A feeling of Helplessness and Hopelessness, a sense of Self Loathing and a desire for Stylish Self Sterilization is what TPTB wants to depopulate the world
These quotes below:
1. “With the extreme climate occurrences that have occurred in Australia over the last three years, it is likely that climate concerns are contributing to the exacerbation of mental ill-health for some of our young people.”
—> What extreme climate occurrences over the past 3 years??
2. “Young people in Australia are telling us that the threat of climate change and the increasing regularity and severity of extreme weather is harming their mental health and wellbeing.”
—> Same here; who is telling these young people there is regularly increasing & extreme weather??
HERE: It’s the mainline media driving this – by providing print & air-time very speculative (to be kind) CC news stories! And it’s those fund-seeking types trying to get noticed and ‘make their mark’.
Sorry if this sounds like a rant…
I was going to use both those quotes you used but you beat me to it, and did a good job in the process.
What is causing the children fear about the climate and the future is not any climate crisis, because there is no climate crisis. What is scaring the kids is the unwarranted scaremongering being done about the Earth’s climate.
The kids are being lied to, and they do not realize it yet.
I very much concur Tom; and I was just happy to beat others to it …near the top of the list👍🏻
To put it crudely. The majority of teenagers are thinking about getting laid.
Actually unlike our generation they aren’t, dumbasses
I wasn’t referring to intelligence. At that age hormones rule. Whatever generation.
They should can the silly alarmism…. but they won’t
The kids are only doing what everyone else is doing = blaming Climate
i.e. Passing the buck onto some unknown everyones everywhere
In reality: The kids can see that their parents have descended into irrational, obsessed and paranoid depressives.
That their parents have Completely Lost The Plot on just about everything and are impossibly dependant on Comfort Food, Booze, Gambling, Trash TV, virtue signalling, clinically obsessed by money, are hypocritical and greedy, have perfectly no self confidence/senses of humour and taken on myriad other addictive habits.
And that they, the kids, are neglected and lost.
Their parents have become all the very last things that parents should be – the kids have been dumped by their own parents.
That is what’s grieving them.
And that the folks doing/conducting this haha survey are in fact parents, ‘they know’ in their heart-of-hearts what I just said is true and guilty as hell and are themselves: passing the buck for their own failure as parents.
“Their parents have become all the very last things that parents should be “
The blotchy legs brigade can be seen walking down the street pushing a child in a buggy fixated entirely on the phone. No conversation or interaction with the child at all – the child is really something of an inconvenience…
I suspect there were times when the same essential anxieties were being experienced by European children as the Church preached about the dangers of witches, the Devil, strangers, and whatever other topics they used to control their income stream. Only the labels change.
Sad people always find a hook to hang it on.
But I have an intuition they prefer “problems” that deep down they know aren’t real. If one is already sad and were to focus on serious real problems, you might literally lose the will to live.”Climate change” is a readily available hobgoblin for anyone too debilitated to make up their own explanation.
It is is how they cope; it’s not the reason.
[Edit for spelling error.]
Exactly! Because all the hysterics out there—be it for climate, Trump, the shot—are generally somewhat depressed people who look to others for self-worth. These crises—the climate, Trump, the unvaxxed—allow them to not look at themselves. It’s exactly how they cope.
Doesn’t that just reflect the appalling standard of modern youth education? Maybe WUWT needs to be advertised so that this invaluable source becomes more widely accessed by these young worriers.
Would certainly be better than allowing the Far Left to turn them from Climate Worriers into Climate Warriors
Spend 33 years telling kids that “it’s the end of the world as we know it” within a decade and sure they will have ‘mental health issues’ as a result.
The solution is not to spread even more misinformation, by demanding ever increasing action to prevent the 10 year tipping points that never happened – but to admit they were wrong then, and wrong now…
What will they do if you take their vocation away from them, these alarmists?
I have made a submission to Mission Australia through their contacts page. Their survey is extensive, but to most of us here, the obvious weakness in the report is the assumption that the climate crisis is real. Some offers of assistance might make a difference.
Thee narrative needs to be changed to “Warmer is better”.
We start by mailing every teenage boy a copy of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition.
Two girls working at the supermarket checking people out were talking about the dying planet, oozing fear in spades. I was so tempted to butt in and set them straight, but how would they then be serious about something meaningful?
Fixed it for you.
They forgot gender dysphoria and covid isolation in the list of problems. Or does climate change cause all that too?
No, it’s possible psy-ops is causing it. Maybe it is all a result of some psy-ops? Or maybe the world has just gone mad all on it’s own? People by their nature are very vulnerable, short lived and amazingly week without consistent love, care, the generivity of chidden being born and Moms and Dad in multigenerational families, safety, reasonable consistency and healthy structures…. start whittling away at it and crazy gets crazier. It only takes a few bad apples to wreck everything.
What me worried? I am not worried about a thing left, right, vertical or horizonal.
The kids most vulnerable
Kids least vulnerable
My 18 and 20 year old kids are in college. They both have had problems with too much anxiety due to being glued to their smart phones and lap tops 20 hours a day at college. The antidote was keeping the online time to less than 1 hour a day which was like giving up cigarettes for both of them. The last thing they care about is climate. It wouldn’t even occur to them to check the weather beyond looking out the window.. Like the rest of us kids 50 years ago LOL.
The doomer groomers of kiddies take criticism onboard with a final solution-
Canberra becomes first jurisdiction to offer free abortions | Watch (msn.com)
Just Heinous!
The climate psychologist will see you now—-after setting the agenda and the narrative.
The climate psy-ops-ologist is seeing everyone virtually now free of charge.
From time to time I speak with youth about their electric bicycles. I ask them how many miles a day they ride them (typically, 1 -2 miles) and then I ask how often they recharge them They answer every night, just to be sure. So, well done Climate Change Howlers, our youth now suffer from Range Anxiety.
Chances are good that a thorough physical examination would find the anxieties and other health problems in youth are due less to climate concerns and more to drugs and alcohol. In addition, I wonder to what extent this age group is willing to adopt simpler lifestyles to fight the so-called “climate crisis”?
I was born in the mid ’50s. At school, we practiced bomb drills by filing into the halls sitting down and putting our heads between our knees. Not sure when someone came up with the Doomsday Clock that was set to 15 minutes to midnight for years. Somehow, a majority of us Boomers did not have more than the usual mental problems transitioning from childhood to adulthood (hormones) always brings despite the looming nuclear bombings.
Are we sure it isn’t really the same thing? If most adults don’t see CAGW as an existential threat (not willing to spend an extra dollar/month for mitigation), then where are the kids getting it? Do parents really not talk to their kids at all?
Quick, raise taxes, save the children!