Before refering to "Climate-Change-Is-All-Around-in-the-Movies" tomorrow, the last day of 2022, today we go over how all this is impacting the feelings of young people and their anxieties about the future: "climate anxiety".
About a month ago, you may have seen that the activist Greta Thunberg, together with a group of children and young adults - has sued their native country Sweden for failing on climate. Here is an article from Impakter and Auroramålet is the name of the organization behind this action (website in Swedish, including link to the lawsuit itself)
"The Swedish state fails to meet the constitutional requirement to promote sustainable development leading to a good environment for present and future generations," the group said in a statement. Greta herself tweeted: “Today on Black Friday is the perfect day to sue the state over its insufficient climate policies. So that’s what we did. See you in court!”
This is not the first time. In 2019 they petitioned against Argentina, Brasil, France, Germany & Turkey.
A global survey from titled "Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change" brings some findings that should not be ignored. 10k children and young people (aged 16–25 years) from Australia, Brazil, Finland, France, India, Nigeria, Philippines, Portugal, the UK, and the USA responded the online survey. Findings were:
climate change: 59% were very or extremely worried
>50% reported each of the following emotions: sad, anxious, angry, powerless, helpless, and guilty.
>45% said their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily life
75% think the future is frightening
83% think people have failed to take care of the planet
Respondents rated governmental responses to climate change negatively and reported greater feelings of betrayal than of reassurance. Climate anxiety and distress were correlated with perceived inadequate government response and associated feelings of betrayal.
Picture is not nice.
Click on the graph below for an analysis by Hannah Ritchie that advocates : "We need to reframe the narrative from doom and sacrifice, to one of opportunity" https://hannahritchie.substack.com/p/young-climate-anxiety . Carbon Credit Markets adds: it is about participating in a New Industrial Revolution, now Global.
