Essay by Eric Worrall
“… when I discuss climate change with people who are older than me, the general response is to … feel angry and betrayed by their lack of involvement, considering that they contributed to the world we now live in.’ …”
‘Listen to me!’: Young people’s experiences of talking about emotional impacts of climate change
Charlotte A. Jones
Chloe Lucas University of Tasmania School of Geography, Planning, and Spatial Sciences, Australia
Received 23 December 2022, Revised 21 July 2023, Accepted 30 August 2023, Available online 16 September 2023, Version of Record 16 September 2023.
Highlights
- •Results of a large national Australian survey of young people (15–19 years)
- •High concern, worry, powerlessness, and frustration about climate change.
- •Respondents most commonly talked to friends about climate change feelings.
- •Feeling listened to predicted talking about climate change feelings.
- •Differences in emotions when talking to different generations were evident.
- •Young people need respect, opportunities to act, and shared understanding.
Abstract
The emotional significance of climate change for young people is becoming recognised. However, their experiences of talking about these feelings are not well understood, despite being acknowledged as an important avenue for support and social change. This article reports on a survey of 1,943 young people aged 15–19 years living in Australia. The survey examined their level of concern about climate change, the feelings they associate with climate change, whom they talk to about these feelings, under what conditions, and with what effects. Respondents reported a high level of concern about climate change, most associated with feelings of worry, powerlessness, and frustration. Friends were most trusted to share these feelings with, followed by parents/guardians and then teachers. The most important predictor of young people talking about their climate feelings was whether they felt listened to. Respondents were more likely to feel comfortable having climate conversations with younger or same-aged people and associated these conversations with hope. In contrast, climate conversations with older people were most often associated with betrayal, uncertainty, and worry. Through open-ended responses, the young people surveyed called for further respect and consideration of their views, opportunities to drive action and lead climate conversations, and a need for shared understanding of the issues at stake. Our findings highlight opportunities for those who care about and interact with young people to help them come to terms with the challenges of living in a changing climate through listening and creating safe spaces for what can be difficult discussions.
…
When talking with older people about climate change, nearly half of respondents expressed they felt betrayed (49.4%). This was supported in respondents’ open-ended reflections with one stating ‘when I discuss climate change with people who are older than me, the general response is to nod and smile and then change the subject which makes me feel angry and betrayed by their lack of involvement, considering that they contributed to the world we now live in.’ 38.5% of respondents said that when they talked to people older than them they felt uncertain, and 32.4% said they felt worried. This uncertainty and worry could be directed towards climate change, or about the direction and form of the conversation. As one participant described, ‘talking with people older than myself can be a mixed bag, it’s unsettling.’ Only a small percentage of respondents felt encouraged (15.3%), comfortable (13.5%), hopeful (11.9%) and safe (6.1%) when talking with older people. For those who did experience these feelings, open-ended responses indicated this was related to being supported and learning from older people: ‘I feel when talking about climate change to older people, I become more informed of the situation.’.
…
One key avenue through which the findings of this study could be enacted is within education structures, offering opportunities for changing intergenerational relationships through student–teacher interactions. While less than half of the respondents of this study shared their feelings about climate change with their teachers, it was clear from our findings that participants who felt regularly listened to by their teachers were more likely to talk to them about their emotions. Further, high perceived teacher concern about climate change was also a significant factor in increasing the likelihood of these conversations. …
…
Studies have demonstrated how cultures of silence and silencing work to produce and cultivate maladaptive behaviours and denial (Verlie, 2022, Norgaard, 2011). Conversely, to offer young people the opportunity to talk about climate change in open, non-judgemental conversation, and most importantly to listen, rather than seek to reframe their perspective, is to offer them power to adapt and respond to the crisis they face. …
…
Read more: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378023001103?via%3Dihub
To her credit, the author admitted that the sample in her study was possibly biased, because “… the survey was based on a non-representative and convenience sample which may have led to a higher proportion of respondents who are concerned about climate change and engaged in climate action.”.
What does the study tell us?
I get a strong impression that young people who participated in the study think talking to older people about climate change is intolerable, if the older people do anything which remotely challenges their climate beliefs. Even nodding, smiling and trying to change the subject is enough to arouse feelings of betrayal. Young climate fanatics demand complete attention, submission and enthusiastic affirmation, otherwise they “feel betrayed”.
Nobody, including the author, asked why older people are frequently so dismissive of climate concerns, why they don’t express concern at the same intensity as young people, and the most absurd precept, the implicit believe that the climate education process is only supposed to go one way, from the younger people to the older.
The author and the participants appear to have completely ignored or discounted the possibility they might learn something new, if they do some listening, instead of insisting on doing all the talking.
One thing is very clear, this intense anger and sense of betrayal seems about as far as you can get from mutual tolerance and respect for others, which underpins Western democracy and civil society.
We all have fun laughing at the climate snowflakes getting offended at their own shadows, but then I had a disturbing thought.
Was the Chinese Communist Revolution an explosion of mob violence perpetrated by a group of left wing Maoist snowflakes?
Did the students who stormed the schools and universities, dragging teachers into the street and beating them to death, genuinely believe they were delivering righteous justice to traitors? “Traitors” being defined as anyone who gave the slightest hint of less than absolute devotion to the Maoist ideals embraced by the students?
How do we convince today’s young fanatics that they don’t have all the answers, that sometimes they need to listen to the experience and opinions of others? How do we convince them to not blind themselves with irrational feelings of hurt and betrayal, when in the presence of someone who doesn’t completely share all of their beliefs?
How do we shore up the foundations of our freedoms, by ensuring our young people learn tolerance and respect for others? Values which were so universal in our youth, it never occurred to us such values might be lost to future generations?
I think we need answers to these questions, and fast, before something terrible happens.
A measure of how effective the lies and propaganda have been.
Education in climate REALITY would alleviate all their mental problems….
“considering that they contributed to the world we now live in.”
Yes kiddies..
ALL the massive benefits of the modern civilised social environment are there because of
older generations.
Why do you want to destroy all those benefits, and live in the dark with nothing, eating insects ???
The world they live in , as opposed to the one they are told about by evil propagandists, is wonderful.
Reminds me of my 4 year old. She has been known to throw a temper tantrum when we try to explain to her why she needs to wait until tomorrow to go to the playground.
Human brains aren’t fully developed until we are in our mid-20s. It’s quite telling that it’s teenagers that are leading the charge to solve a non-existent problem.
But the Left wants to give them the vote!
I wonder why.
Because young people don’t have much experience in life and are easily misled and manipulated.
“Was the Chinese Communist Revolution an explosion of mob violence perpetrated by a group of left wing Maoist snowflakes?
Did the students who stormed the schools and universities, dragging teachers into the street and beating them to death, genuinely believe they were delivering righteous justice to traitors? “Traitors” being defined as anyone who gave the slightest hint of less than absolute devotion to the Maoist ideals embraced by the students?”
Yes.
I am sitting with a friend from China who had to memorize Mao’s “Little Red Book” during that time. Every one of those students had memorized and internalized that book. Dissention from Mao’s thinking was not conceivable.
Now there is another line of thinking extant in the world, an idea locked in iron, from every direction of authority imaginable in the western world. The Biggest Lie Ever Told, of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change. Burned into the tender mind of every child. Aristotle said, “Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man.” For our well indoctrinated children, the concept of an unspoiled world and a happy future are not conceivable.
The ideas that we, the older generation who gave them this world and hopeless future, might in fact be innocent, are also not conceivable.
People are inundated with constant climate boiling hype. But still, they are incredibly naive. It simply doesn’t occur to them to: 1. Check the facts and data for themselves; 2. Follow the money; 3. Acknowledge that more people are living longer, richer and healthier lives than ever before on this planet and that *should* be impossible under the various boiling scenarios proposed 20,25, 30 years ago; and, 4. Not a ONE of the catastrophists’ ominous predictions have come true and all their “tipping points” have been nothing burgers.
While this article is about “young people”, it is not only “young people” who accept those attitudes and beliefs. I know people who are in their 50s, 60s, and 70s who are just as brainwashed by the general media claims of extreme high temperatures, massive heat waves killing off human and other animal populations, out of control wildfires, and other frequently reported catastrophes.
They believe that massive wind and solar projects, and the end of fossil fuels (leave it in the ground, not just ‘stop burning it’) are both necessary and successful. They are basically intelligent people who are capable of thinking rationally on subjects not being hyped by their politicians and media.
They do not, however, believe that making uncomfortable life changes, like giving up reliable electricity, free travel, good heating and air conditioning, are anything other than joke ideas from “climate deniers” succumbing to big oil propaganda. And they don’t like to hear about data not supporting the CAGW claims.
“They believe that massive wind and solar projects, and the end of fossil fuels (leave it in the ground, not just ‘stop burning it’) are both necessary and successful.”
Until you propose to build a wind or solar farm right next to THEIR property. I’ve seen this NIMBYISM often here in Wokeachusetts. When some here argued in favor of wind/solar I often asked them their address and saying, “I know some wind and solar firms looking for new sites- I’d like to give them YOUR address ’cause you love wind and solar energy”. I never got a response with their address.
It’s all about reducing atmospheric CO2, yeah? So what are their proposals ? They’ll need to go to China first.
Who cares what a bunch of 15 to 19 year olds think. Most of those surveyed were probably girls and haven’t made up their minds yet about ‘my little pony’ or high-heeled shoes. The literacy rate is under 50% in Tasmania and probably not much better in Australia. You have to keep in mind that literacy and numeracy are closely related. If you show these people a graph their eyes glaze over.
I might add: we contacted the local hospital and asked if we could have an optometrist appointment. The girl on reception asked ‘What is an optometrist? Is that an eye doctor?
I rest my case.
Both of these will be familiar to the UK readers.
I caught a bit of Gogglebox last night where a programme by Chris Packham was the subject of discussion.
Both the programme and the peoples reactions left me very depressed. There seemed mindless agreement with the green eco nonsense and rubbish Packham was peddling. Packham was on Channel 4 I think and I unwillingly fund that.
A number of friends and family don’t like to hear about real world data because they get confused. They know that what they believe is true so the disconnect is disturbing because they can’t counter facts with facts or logic.
Their scientists would never lie. Anyone who disagrees with their scientists, is a liar.
That’s all they need to know, it’s all they want to know.
Highlights…
All planted in their heads by adults who should know an awful lot better
Exactly; we have two children, bright and academically distinctly, by virtue of exam results and degrees, way better than “average”. Their schooling – identical apart from upper school and different Universities was bedevilled by blatant Socialist dogma, Woke approaches to certain subjects, indoctrination and in one case corrupt behaviour by two Teachers who should have been sacked for lying. I must say, for balance, there were exceptional individual Teachers for both of their careers but they were the exception. Both had horrendous issues with CV19 whilst at University and a total abrogation of University lecturers’ – contractual – moral and ethical responsibilities, characterised by striking at key times in final years, withdrawal of f2f tutorials and such things as course tutors going on holiday and being unavailable during thesis/final project periods. Attempts to get a partial refund on tuition fees got nowhere because of corrupt Deans and Chancellors.
However I do not “blame” the “younger generation”; from our experience, they have been spoon fed blx in many subjects for years, English Comprehension has been morphed into so called critical thinking, reading reduced catastrophically; the AWG/CC propaganda had been/is shoehorned into all aspects of their curriculum and Parents evenings became embarrassing to attend ( with , again, notable exceptions in the minority ) – how can “they” be expected to think for themselves when they have had that nurtured capacity deliberately removed from their education by the Ultra Far Left Woke Teaching Union apparatchiks? These B’stards know what they are doing, sewing division between thinking parents and bright kids, and I dont think many vote Tory – as we never will ever again.( I say, metaphorically, “kill ’em all”.)
Fortunately, my sons finished their education – as it then was – around 2000
Even then the lunacy had begun: everyone got a medal in school sports day races, every parent was a potential paedophile and couldn’t be trusted to video the Christmas play etc
The nub of this is the young people are much more susceptible to climate propaganda than older generations.
This reminds me of dealing with my teen age girls. They were always smarter than me or my wife.
The subject did not matter, peers were right-parents are wrong. It took about 15 years for them to figure out that parents were not so stupid after all.
Teenage use of cell phones is a major part of the decline in mental health of teenagers.
What is different with this is the cult of climate has become a religion.
Facts do not matter, emotions rule.
I think it was Mark Twain who said this “When I left home at 17 I couldn’t believe how ignorant/dumb my father was. But when I returned 8 years later I couldn’t believe how much he had learned.”
The preferred propaganda model for modern environmentalism is the doomsday scenario. This model rose to godhood from Rachel Carson’s 1962 book, “Silent Spring.” Her thesis was that pesticides and other industrial chemicals were going to kill off all the birds, until springtime would no longer be graced with their songs.
It didn’t happen. Songbirds are still plentiful. It’s fall, and birds are migrating from north to south by the millions and tens of millions, as we speak.
Carl Sagan popularized a doomsday scenario of “nuclear winter,” if a major exchange of H-Bombs should ever occur. That hasn’t happened, either.
The H-Bombs are still there, but people worry less. Industrial activity of all kinds persists, and still shifts from place to place. None of the predicted doomsdays have come to pass. Moral panics recur, like the contemporary youthquake over “climate change,” but in due time subside.
The trick is to avoid panic, and keep your life on an even keel while doomsday fads swirl around you. Rudyard Kipling made such a recommendation in the first line of his poem “IF.”
“If you can keep your head, while all about you are losing theirs, and blaming it on you. . .”
Have we moved on from the Angry Young Men of the 1950s?
It’s exactly describing the contents of a link I posted here yesterday:
Headline:“Generation Z can’t work alongside people with different views and don’t have the skills to debate, says Channel 4 boss as she cites the pandemic as the main cause of the workplace challenge
Dailymail UK
Read what you’ve written in his story – it exactly describes the belligerence, intolerance, the closed minds of your average drunk
It is deep chronic depression = a form of self-inflicted Dementia. It is caused by eating carbohydrate (sugar) food and is in fact quantifiable in people who are (merely) pre-diabetic and don’t even know they are.
Our own doctors, scientists and Governments tell us that we must Eat Sugar ‘because our bodies need Energy‘ and ‘Only sugar can deliver that Energy‘
Then, as the disease progresses, the demented folks become soooo demented and sooo numerous/commonplace, nobody ever realises anymore that they are = Demented
Well hello: Joseph Brandon
It is deliberate intentional mass-poisoning, homicide and murder. Self-inflicted Genocide.
That is The Problem going on in all this world right now.
Here’s another example:
A 12yr old schoolgirl was too ‘petite’ to fit the regulated uniform for the school she attended.
Her mother went the local supermarket and found an identical garment – at a price of £7 for 2 instead of nearly £20 a piece for the official version from the appointed shop.
The skirt the mother got was identical – you could only tell by lifting the girls’ blouses so as to see the manufacturer’s tag.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12549493/Girl-12-whos-tiny-fit-uniform-skirt-punished-school-wearing-supermarket-alternative.html
So that’s what the school did and threw the 12yr old into solitary detention when it was found she was wearing The Wrong Brand of clothing.
What sort of lasting mark does that leave on any young woman?
jeez
This is beyond hideous but – it’s what Sugar Poisoning does for you.
I blame the so-called teachers….
if you can’t do it, teach it- if you can’t teach it, regulate it
Or as I heard it
Those who can’t…. teach
Those who can’t teach join Ofsted
What, he teachers sugar poison the pupils? 🙂
Eric
I was on a study trip to China in the early 1980’s. Two things showed –
There was a generally missing generation of research people that coincided with the Cultural revolution
And one bloke who was from that era had done it by “dropping out” – in that he did enough “required cultural appearence” to cover that he was still studying. Another wonder of “meaning reversal”
How is it when you talk to older people who know better about the subject
than you do, and tell you that you’re mistaken ? Do you listen to them ?
In many countries today, there is a real movement to lower voting ages to 16 years. Frightening!
Many of those same people want to lower the age of consent to 12.
What does that tell you ! !
In the eighties I was working a fair bit in Nigeria and I saw a newspaper which carried a piece allegedly about Sierra Leone where a politician was campaigning to lower the age of consent to two. This, of course, had nothing to with his pending court appearance accused of rape of a four year old.
When I was 13 I thought my father was a fool, by the time I turned 25 I was surprised to see how much he had learnt.
Climate dysphoria is a thing. Affirmation is NOT the answer, as the possible consequences Eric points out are severe.
This is easy to deal with. Screeching climatard gets in your face, smack them in the mouth. They get off the ground and screech their climatard lies again you smack them again. THEY are the ones advocated violence against real human being, long past time to apply it to THEM.
young people always think they’re smarter than older people
We are. I just can’t find many people older than me anymore. It’s like they all are going to some magic place in the sky.
yuh, I’m turning 74 in a week- I’ve lost 2 good friends just this summer and they were both a mere 68- as for magic place in the sky, I’m an atheist, but I hope I’m wrong 🙂
… or they went somewhere hotter.
Where has this craving for “safety” suddenly appeared from?
There is a report in today’s UK media — https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/race-row-academic-barred-to-ensure-psychological-safety-of-speakers-8cvdb9lnx — (paywalled but the link speaks for itself) of a debate that will not take place because three of the participants claim they would feel “unsafe” in the presence of an academic who maintains (in effect) that Britain is not an “institutionally racist” country.
Either they have the courage of their convictions and should be prepared to stand up for them or they don’t and prefer not to debate perhaps in case their opponent really does have a better case.
Either way it makes for a distorted view of the subject if they refuse to speak because that is preferable to allowing an opposing point to be heard.
I really can’t think of anything more pathetic than that.
Demanding that a debate consist only of people who agree with you, because facing contradiction would be damaging psychologically.
“This boy is Ignorance and this girl is Want. Beware them both ….but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.” Charles Dickens
“The young people think that the old people are fools, but the old people KNOW the young people are fools.” Agatha Christie
“If You Are Not a Liberal When You Are Young, You Have No Heart, and If You Are Not a Conservative When Old, You Have No Brain” Unknown, possibly Churchill
“How do we convince today’s young fanatics that they don’t have all the answers, that sometimes they need to listen to the experience and opinions of others?”
It used to be that reality and working in the real world did this. Unfortunately, we now live in a world of such affluence and comfort (largely the result of reliable, cheap energy) that most people are too well insulated from reality.
Which is why the apprenticeship system is useful. One learns by experience and watching those more knowledgeable. Today, they come out of college and immdeiately think they should be a vice president or something.College used to teach one how to think. now it teaches what to think. Not good.
But then you tell the young climate hypocrite not to use FF and they tell you it’s okay for them to use it, because it was forced upon them.
“..whether they felt listened to..”
As the article points out if you want to be listened to, you first have to listen.
Admitting that their absolute certainty may be fallible would also help!
The Chinese communist revolution was not caused by a bunch of young Chinese snowflakes. It was led by a determined group of marxists, at the top by Mao Zedong who was 56 years old when he finally succeeded, after a sustained effort of 32 years. China was a basket case of a nation, ruled by competing war lords, of whom Chiang Kai Shek was the first of many, akin to Putin as head oligarch of the Russian oligarch’s today.
The young people of the 1960s in the US didn’t bring about a revolution either. The determined revolutionaries were just an extremely tiny slice of young people. Most young Americans at that time were solid citizens, patriotic, etc. They were slandered in later decades as nothing but a bunch of young airheads with flowers in their hair – but the generation of young Americans during the Vietnam War volunteered for military service at a higher rate than did young Americans of the so-called “Greatest Generation” – most of whom were drafted during WW Two.
Young people are naturally skeptical and at least some tendency of rebelliousness towards their elders – that has always been true because it is human nature. But when pampered kids finally come to the realization that Mom and Dad are not going to support them forever, they start building careers, households, and families, and finally have to pay their own bills and taxes, their tunes naturally change.
“The young people of the 1960s in the US didn’t bring about a revolution either. The determined revolutionaries were just an extremely tiny slice of young people. Most young Americans at that time were solid citizens, patriotic, etc.”
That’s true.
Unfortunately, the leftwing revolutionairies didn’t stop after the 1960’s, but continued their quest to destroy the United States as founded, and now here we are all these years later, and the revolutionairies are taking over every institution in our society.
From the earliest age possible, children should be urged to welcome that natural but uncomfortable instinct for DOUBT about most things we’re told.
And maintain that until we can verify things for ourselves.
This approach applies not just to climate, but anything being pushed by anyone to the general populace.
Particularly by people with invested icareers in institutions.
Sadly, they are bombarded with climate propaganda daily. I have just heard on the radio news that the (pretty normal) summer we have had in the UK but which has resulted in an excellent crop of grapes for winemakers, is the result of “climate change”. We had a warm and sunny May/June for the flowers then a cool and wet July/ August which swelled the fruit. Sweet FA to do with climate change.
Why has the public bought into the current rhetoric “lock, stock, and barrel” to STOP THE USE OF FOSSIL FUELS, which simulates the resurrection of the 1978 mass murder-suicide of religious cult members of the Peoples Temple, led by Jim Jones, Jonestown, Guyana?
In September 2023 , 45 years after the Jim Jones tragedy in Jonestown, President Biden used his executive power to establish the American Climate Corps, which will employ and train 20,000 young people in the work of climate resilience without fossil fuels.
When I watch the TV coverage of protesters, both politicians and teenagers, carrying signs to STOP THE USE OF FOSSIL FUELS, what I SEE on those posters is:
RID THE WORLD OF AIRPORTS, JETS, SHIPS, SPACE PROGRAMS, AND STOP SOCIAL MEDIA, AND THE PRODUCTION OF CELLPHONES, COMPUTERS, and PORCELAIN TOILETS that are dependent on the derivatives manufactured from crude oil!!
As John Stossel so often said, “give-me-a-break”!
But everything they do to build resilience will require FF to do!
They probably don’t know that the cost of stopping warming by 2050 has been estimated to be $US 200 Trillion with a T and that families in developed countries will have to spend about $1 million each or about $33,000 per year for 30 years, and that may not work depending.on how the Sun acts.
They probably don’t know that the Sun is entering a Grand Solar Minimum and the Sunspot Number is forecast to start dropping starting in 2025 and to drop to single digits in 2031 and to zero in 2040 when the forecast ends. Sunspots are associated with hotter areas and more solar output and fewer sunspots mean less solar output and a colder Earth.
They probably don’t know that around 10 times as many people die from cold weather as from hot weather because of increased strokes and heart attacks caused by blood vessels constricting to save heat.
They probably don’t know that the Earth is in a 2.56 million ice age named the Quaternary Glaciation in a warmer period called an interglacial period that usually lasts about 10,000 years and alternates with cold glacial periods that usually last 90,000 years and so far this interglacial period has lasted 11,700 years, so a cold glacial period may start at any time.
It might be a good idea to start by asking why warmer is so bad that it’s a harbinger of catastrophe.
The worst-case alarmist scenarios predict warming of 4°F over the next century. That’s less than the mean temperature difference between Nashville, Tennessee and Columbus, Ohio. Is Nashville a hellhole? Is Columbus a paradise?
Most of the world’s population lives in areas where the temperature fluctuates about 20° from day to night. Without the doomsday propaganda, would anyone even notice a few degrees difference on average over a lifetime?
Also, sharp warming occurred between 18,000 and 8,000 years ago. Millions of square miles of glaciers melted, the Great Lakes Appeared, and the entire boreal forest colonized Siberia and Canada — the millions of square miles formerly covered with lifeless ice. It happened before humans were a significant species, so it couldn’t have been our fault.
Was it a catastrophe?
Nothing new about teen age zealots, especially during big social movements such as climate alarmism. (“Waving your banner all over the place” as the song says.) I remember lots from the 60’s. Listening to older people question their zeal is rare at best.
I do question this statement: “One thing is very clear, this intense anger and sense of betrayal seems about as far as you can get from mutual tolerance and respect for others, which underpins Western democracy and civil society.”
Mutual tolerance and respect are relatively rare in politics, however much they might be desired. Despising the other side is far more common.
Given this is a convenience sample, probably self selected by the zealots, it tells us nothing about the general population. (Same for the samples used for global surface temperature estimates by the way.) Thus the results are best termed anecdotal, that is interesting examples of a special case.
Perhaps, just perhaps, the young people lack experience and perspective on the things they don’t really understand, part of the reason we refer to “young love”, among other things.
As a Gen X, I’ve lived through “the coming ice age” (yes, it really was a thing, despite denials), running out of oil before 2000, nuclear war before 2000, nuclear winter after that, swine flu, AIDS and the general population, global warming, “climate change”, “climate disruption”, and on and on. There have been numerous end of the world scenarios, and every one has proven false. The people selling climate doom do not act like it matters to them (Davos and other exotic locations for conferences, instead of Zoom calls, for example). You learn to recognize the hype, with experience.
No one, regardless of age, is entitled to respect, what they are entitled to is civility and courtesy which is almost totally missing in the me society of today. Respect is earned and you don’t earn it by ignoring facts which fail to confirm your beliefs and feelings.
to offer young people the opportunity to talk about climate change in open, non-judgemental conversation, and most importantly to listen, rather than seek to reframe their perspective, is to offer them power to adapt and respond to the crisis they face.
This is so wrong. It is not a conversation if you do not respond to their thoughts. It is lying to them to affirm all the propaganda they are suffering from. Exactly what they need is to hear an alternate view. This advise is worse than that propaganda. It accepts the propaganda as true and reinforces their worry.
Thank you. You read my mind.
Call in the Paiute Tribal Police.
“How do we shore up the foundations of our freedoms, by ensuring our young people learn tolerance and respect for others? ”
Home school ?
😉
We should take a hard look at the school curriculums and the left-leaning media that bombard these kids with alarmist propaganda; then we’ll realize what an unbalanced degree of exposure they’ve been getting on climate issues. We should also closely examine their lifestyles to see what sort of sacrifices they’ve been willing to make to combat the alleged “problem”. We’d quickly find it’s been next to nothing.
My advice to is to agree with the climate concerns of young people, and then ask them how Tasmania can influence China’s energy policy.
“How do we convince today’s young fanatics that they don’t have all the answers?”
A: Put two books on their reading lists.
The first book explains how mass manias arise and take hold of large cohorts, and how difficult it is to emerge from a mania.
The second book explains the roots of fanaticism, and how it provides meaning and purpose to otherwise empty lives.
These books offer insights into misguided crusades of the past, make it easier to recognize them in the here-and-now, and avoid some of the obvious, stupid mistakes.
Whenever anybody starts talking about climate, I ask them if they wish to have a rational discussion on the subject or just trade emotion laden slogans, because I’m not interested in the latter. If the former, I start by asking if they even know what “climate” is. Almost nobody does, which makes it difficult, if not impossible, to have a meaningful discussion about it. And even when they allow me to explain what climate is and why the idea of “global climate” is complete nonsense, the cognitive dissonance makes them bail on the conversation entirely.
So I just nod and smile at them now, like you would a small child or the village idiot.
Maybe it’s just me but there are a lot of subjects that I tend to not put a lot of weight on the opinions of 15 to 19 year olds:
Relationships
Finances and investment
Dietary needs
Tax policy
Recreational activities
Alcohol and drug use
I could go on. The point is that human caused climate change is just one subject among many that I put little stock in the opinions of kids.