A post at a UK website Future Net Zero (FNZ) claims that climate change is causing anxiety in children. This is false. Since climate change is not perceptible, and weather isn’t getting more extreme, it can only be the constant stream of media scare stories and schools pushing the false idea that the planet is doomed without immediate climate action that is traumatizing children. This makes groups like FNZ and those they quote for their story complicit in harming kids mental health.
The article, “Climate change sparks anxiety among children,” discusses a “new campaign” by a renewables company called 100Green which advertises survey results from a study conducted by Save the Children. The study found that 70 percent of kids surveyed “struggle with climate anxiety.”
The post itself, while short, gives you something of a climate-alarm whiplash to read, going from advising parents to “keep things positive when approaching climate change” with their kids, to a quote from Gwen Hines of Save the Children which basically says kids are basically doomed unless her preferred policies are enacted.
Hines said that this generation of kids “stand to inherit a deeply unequal world if immediate action is not taken,” and that their anxiety is “warranted” because of the so-called climate crisis and “growing inequality.”
In reality, the Earth has never been a safer place to live.
Because of modern technology made possible by the use of fossil fuels, both global temperature related deaths and deaths from extreme weather have declined. The decline is significant, too, around 99 percent over the last 100 years, despite and possibly in part because of the modest warming that has occurred over that same period. (See figure below)
Nor have hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, or floods worsened, so children can’t have “experienced” anything that would lead them to think the climate is getting worse. Also, contrary to repeated media claims, snow, polar bears, and islands aren’t disappearing.
Amidst these facts, why is it that children are frightened and worried that they face a climate apocalypse?
The answer is simple and obvious: media coverage and propaganda in schools.
As Climate Realism has now discussed several times, the constant media drumbeat pushing misinformation and fearmongering about every weather event, tying them all to climate change without evidence, is unsurprisingly having an effect on kids. This is intentional. As is the push to place climate alarm in the curriculums of classrooms on subjects that don’t seem like they would have anything to do with climate, like ceramics and gym class, as is the case in New Jersey schools. I myself experienced this kind of every-class-is-climate pilot program when I was in an Illinois public school. This kind of coverage is not being demanded by students; it’s being indoctrinated into them before they are even old enough to understand what the decarbonization policies they advocate for would mean.
As an aside, the FNZ post also claims that children today “are set to face seven times more heatwaves during their lives than their grandparents.” This is also false, serving as a great example of how climate alarmist groups spread misinformation in order to frighten people, especially children. Climate Realism has debunked the alarm surrounding heat waves many times, but in essence, the weather history does not show that heat waves are becoming more extreme or frequent in the U.S. or Europe.
FNZ, Save the Children, and the media and educators who are parroting and promoting their climate misinformation, are responsible for kids being terrified about climate change. They are the ones who are telling kids that unless their parents and leaders undertake the radical decarbonization they are demanding, the world will end. This language is so out of line with reality and so severe, some media outlets have even started to question if it isn’t counterproductive.
FNZ and other groups like it benefit from generations of people being terrified. It garners them financial support as well as political influence. It is gross that they harm children’s mental well-being with their own propaganda efforts, only to then use the angst they generate in kids as evidence that the world needs radical decarbonization – it’s for the children after all.
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On the ethics, or even the practicality, of telling little kids the bogey man in the closet will hurt them unless they are “good”?
Preaching climate doomsday unless you give up all your comforts is the modern equivalent of frightening kids by telling them they’re going to suffer eternal hellfire after they die if they mutter a bad word now and then, or be struck down by lighting if they touch themselves “down there” when no one’s looking.
That is how it goes – telling others (incl. kids) to stop using FF while using them every day. The UK is really going off the rails with their climate crap, brick wall dead ahead!
Yup, the perfect analogy. As I like to call it, “The Boogyman for Adults.”
There is definitely something to this. Since I started ignoring MSM reporting, I have fewer anger issues, almost never yell at the tv, and am generally calmer and less stressed.
I walk out of the room when CBS news comes on.
You are rightfully protecting your piece of mind. Legacy media, especially TV news, has degenerated to carnival barking about snake oil. If you’re been to a carnival recently, you can be amused by the sideshows, but you don’t have to punish yourself by standing around for hour upon hour of fakery.
I watch reruns of old shows like Frasier, Dick Van Dyke, Murder She Wrote, Stargate SG-1, Adam 12, etc. 😎
So do I. The main networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, are a waste of time now. When I watch The Five on Fox, I have to fast-forward through Jessica Tarlov’s commentary. Besides her grating voice, I can feel brain cells dying if I listen to her.
I never watch “the news.” Those who do just end up dumber for it.
It’s easy to turn off your TV.
DUCK AND COVER
I remember that, we did this in grade school.
Me too, and while positioned under the desk I looked at the wall of glass windows and wondered why are we bothering.
I think by my time it was “line up with your back against the walls” in the hallway.
Same principle though, and just as meaningless if you think about it.
We did that for tornado drills, not nuclear bomb drills. I always wondered why tornadoes were considered more dangerous that nukes.
Our school had concrete block walls, so it was a relatively good place to wait out a tornado.
STOP, DROP, AND ROLL!
That was for fire.
Correct.
Since the world is burning, in flames, due to climate change, expect to go through those drills again.
/s
Al Gore says it’s like 750,000 Hiroshima bombs every day! It used to be only 600,000. (Yes, /s)
I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. Heard lots of sonic booms. Adults seemed nervous. I don’t remember ever doing the “Duck and Cover” thing. Maybe we did. But it was Catholic grade school. Maybe we didn’t.
But I know the threat wasn’t pounding into us in every lesson.
Well presumably if you attended a Catholic school then God would protect you from such things. 😉
Mom said don’t bother, it’s a waste of time. But all the teachers made you do it anyway.
I remember asking my dad if we were going to make a fall-out shelter
like some of the school kids dads were doing. He paused for a moment
and said if the nukes start flying he was going to take his baseball
glove out and try and catch the first one coming over because the
world wouldn’t be worth living in after that. I still have one of the
metal drums from a shelter a neighbor built..
Perhaps the Heartland Institute could conduct a survey of school children, asking them specifically what they understand about the climate and where they got the information that forms their opinions. It is one thing to say what children know or feel, but it would be helpful to quantify and specify how they got that way. Too often, we climate realists rely on the alarmists to conduct their polls which allows them to frame the argument and results.
It’s absurd right on the face of it, that children should “struggle with climate anxiety.” They manage to get through a normal day where the temperature varies 15 – 20°F from day to night, where it rains like the dickens one day but not the next, and where temperatures vary 90°F from summer highs to winter lows in the temperate zones where most of the climate doomsday propaganda is produced.
The worst-case scenarios for climate doom are at most 5° over the next century. How would they notice, without the relentless propaganda?
Then there are actual facts like the graph in this article which shows clearly that modern societies are safer than ever before, especially from weather or “climate” events. People can, and do, go their entire lives without suffering more than an inconvenience now and then. Raining on a picnic is not a harbinger of the end of the world.
No from WEATHER events, you had it right the first time.
THERE ARE NO “CLIMATE EVENTS.”
/rant
From the article: “Amidst these facts, why is it that children are frightened and worried that they face a climate apocalypse?
The answer is simple and obvious: media coverage and propaganda in schools.”
Absolutely! It’s the Media/Climate Alarmists overexaggerating the weather and lying about the future that is causing anxiety in children.
It’s really Child Abuse. Kids have no way to judge. They depend on adults to tell them the truth. In the case of climate change, they are being misinformed by adults.
Similar to the brainwashing by trans activists in schools and media. The kids have not got the worldly experience to judge for themselves so they absorb whatever an authority figure tells them.
Reminded me of a story during the Covid school closures.
Some college professor (Harvard?) lamented the fact that children were spending so much time “authority figures” other than their teachers.
Sick.
They depend on adults to tell them the truth.
Therein lies the problem. Too many adults don’t even know the truth themselves, and too many others lie.
Or have swallowed hook, line, and sinker the propaganda or have been forced by authorities to spew the lies or lose their jobs. The list of causes is long.
“It’s really Child Abuse.”
Yes, you’re right! Frightening children negatively affects their mental and physical health.
How do we go about making this form of child abuse a crime that will result in some sort of punishment?
The public school system has been indoctrinating our kids for generations.
I wouldn’t send my kids to a public school these day if possible. Even
in remote areas homeschooling is being used over the public system. Teaching
was a very highly regarded occupation at one time but today not so much.
Boiled down the LINK says:
______________________________________________________
Children have climate anxiety because of the news media.
We need to take serious action on the climate crisis.
______________________________________________________
No, we need to stop scaring the crap out of our kids.
Perhaps if we spent all this energy and put focus on teaching kids to swim we could make a real difference.
That is an astonishing revelation, Dave.
I cannot imagine the heartbreak these families must suffer after one of these tragedies.
Teaching children to survive immersion would be a far greater contribution to humanity than teaching them about the 27* genders they can now fantasize about / identify as.
(* that’s just today’s count)
I understood it to be in the mid-40s.
That’s not “a bug” of that specific media indoctrination program, it’s not even (just) “a feature”.
It’s one of “the main features”.
It isn’t just the MSM. It’s the story lines in many TV shows. Sometimes it’s subtle. Sometimes it’s blatant.
(Climate Change or whatever meme those calling the shots want to instill.)
“It isn’t just the MSM. It’s the story lines in many TV shows.”
That is the sme thing. Movie makers and TV producers are just as much a part of the Democrat propaganda machine as are the news organizations.
The Leftwing Media includes all the Media. The Left is constantly trying to brainwash the public. It’s what they do to gain political power.
Scaring the kids to get to their parents has been going on for a long time.
http://www.globalwarming.org/2010/12/27/headline-2000-snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past/
On March 20, 2000, The Independent, a British newspaper, reported that “Snowfalls are just a thing of the past.” Global warming was simply making the UK too warm for heavy snowfalls. The column quotes Dr. David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia — yes, the epicenter of what would become the Climategate scandal — as saying that within a few years snowfall will become “a very rare and exciting event.” Indeed, Viner opined, “Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.”
Similarly, David Parker, at the UK’s Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, said that eventually British children could have only “virtual” experience of snow via movies and the Internet.
Well that did not work well when the beast from the east turned up 18 years later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_British_Isles_cold_wave
Storm Emma brought chaos with heavy snow and strong winds to the South of Ireland, South West England and Southern Wales on 2–3 March 2018 with up to 50 cm (20 in) of snow in some elevated areas.
Some people are so scared of climate change that they will believe anybody who will tell them that it’s all fine and dandy. And they demand others to lie to themselves too.
The claim that it is only our “emissions” that remain in the air and accumulate year on year, nature cannot cope with our contribution or that the carbon cycle was somehow magically in perfect equilibrium before we started to burn coal and oil is a complete fairy tale designed to fool the gullible. And here you are.
That is a fine example of what is popularly called a “straw man” logical fallacy.
“We” are not saying that “it is absolutely 100% guaranteed certain that everything will be fine and dandy”.
“We” are simply asking “Source(s) please ?” to the environmental activists who make hysterical claims in their (social) media outlets that are designed to “frighten the children”.
Claims like “It is 100% guaranteed certain that all life on Earth will definitely go completely extinct by 2030 (AOC) / 2050 (‘extreme’ activists) / 2100 (‘moderate’ activists) ! ! ! ! !”.
Claims whose authors then act “surprised” and say something like “Climate anxiety ? How can you possibly think that my post(s) / article(s) might result in ‘climate anxiety‘ ???”.
Why are you so determined to destroy human civilization?
This ^
“Some people are so scared of climate change”
So funny… Luser, the SCARED LITTLE CHILD, makes a moronic and juvenile comment, proving the point..
Its constant lying to itself to maintain its scaredimess, is hilarious.
“Some people are so scared of climate change that they will believe anybody who will tell them that it’s all fine and dandy. And they demand others to lie to themselves too.”
“Some people so profit from “Climate Change” in money and/or power that they try to silence anybody who doesn’t preach “Doom and Gloom”. And they demand all accept that they are “The Science”.
(Fixed it for you, Liar.)
Nobody scared of climate change here but you and a handful of other trolls.
Why would anyone capable of critical thinking fear a warmer climate?! A warmer climate is BETTER.
Do a search with: ” long-term effects when children are lied to ”
With a quick search, I did not find a study that matched the issue in this post.
Regardless, I don’t believe this will end well. The COVID episode shows that
misinformation (some outright lies) has led to loss of trust in government and
medical officials, and a decrease in vaccinations of many types. 😒
True, instead of being impressed how fast we can develop and distribute a vaccine today, we are left remembering how a portion of the population falls prey to misinformation from right-wing parties and grifters.
Far too many people are susceptible to conspiracy theories and hatred.
Any “vaccine” can be developed and distributed quickly if said “vaccine” skips the clinical human trials phase.
Even then, the last version of “vaccines” killed most of the mice that were co-opted as substitutes for humans in the “clinical” trials that were rushed.
Truth eventually surfaces, even if it takes endless FOIA applications and Congressional hearings to liberate it.
“Safe and effective” my arse.
Such as you the faithful acolyte of Climate Apocalypse.
#DiedSuddenly has entered the chat.
You mean the right wingers like Kamala Harris, who caused some serious vaccine hesitation because it was the “Trump vaccine”? Or Joe Biden who did the same? Or any number of other right wing Democratics who did the same?
Yes, but when they found out that closet greenie Bill Gates was a proprietor of BioNTech and co-pilot of the WHO, suddenly Pfizer et al were “miracle drugs”, and so “safe and effective”.
Funny how that works.
I sincerely hope you have taken your 10th jab.
Something is obviously badly affecting your mental growth…
“Far too many people are susceptible to conspiracy theories and hatred.”
You mean like “Russian Collusion”?
Again.
Safe and effective indeed
“Far too many people are susceptible to conspiracy theories and hatred.”
Yes, you are. !
It’s called Mass Hysteria by proxy.
The world has always been unequal and always will be. It’s up to the individual to rise not the left to bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator.
That’s called child abuse
See point 1
kids stand to inherit a deeply unequal world
Isn’t that the plan?
Reducing the population per the Population Bomb metrics to under 2 billion starts with kids being convinced to not enter the gene pool.
Scaring children for political gain. just like the idiots doing all these ridiculous active shooter drills. fewer children have died from weather and school shootings in any year in history than have died from accidental drowning.. More children ages 1-4 die from drowning than any other cause of death.
Very nice Linnea, this is important stuff. I would like to give those people who claim heat kills more people than cold a choice. Using approximate numbers the record high was 130 degrees Fahrenheit and the record low was minus 130 degrees Fahrenheit. I wouldn’t expect anyone to sit out in the open for either record. In order to make this more realistic let’s take away 30 degrees from each record. So I’m looking for volunteers to sit out in the open at 100 degrees F or minus 100 degrees F. Which would you choose? I sat in my backyard this summer with the highs 95F. to 100F no problem. I wouldn’t think of it for minus 100F.
If parents and teachers told children climate alarmism was hogwash most children would not be bothered by what the media is spouting. Anyway, nothing children try to do is going to fix the problems of the world. That is why, as Jordan Peterson keeps telling young people, they should start by keeping their own bedroom tidy.
The kids, mostly, are not reading the media. They are absorbing what their authority figures are feeding them. It is the teachers who read the media and those teachers apparently lack critical thinking skills.
IPCRESS – Induction of Psycho-neuroses by Conditioned Reflex under Stress” – does work. Look around.
One pet peeve, Linnea. If that graph truly is supposed to be showing “climate related” deaths, it should be a flatline at “ZERO.”
THERE ARE NO “CLIMATE RELATED” DEATHS.
There are WEATHER RELATED deaths, which is what the graph references. Calling them “climate related” just feeds the propaganda. Please stop calling weather disasters “climate disasters” and weather-related deaths “climate related deaths,” since neither of those “climate” labels are accurate and referring to them as such just feeds the Eco-Nazi propaganda.
Linnea did not create the graph. She got it from an international data base OFDA/CRED.
Your point is quite correct.
Here in Scotland, climate alarmism is being pushed at school children in every class. My church asked me to do a talk for the congregation’s kids, because they weren’t sleeping at night. I talked to them about carbon dioxide and temperature, ice, sea level rise, weather and polar bears. It seemed to go well and I’ve heard nothing more about kids not sleeping.
Funny how the troll gets the same or more down votes as the most upvoted comment. Effective parents have learned that ignoring the provocative behavior of the attention-seeking child works better than responding.
In simpler terms, Don’t feed the trolls.