With so much at stake, it’s little wonder our children and young people are increasingly anxious about the impact of climate change on our precious planet.
Thanks to smart phones and the internet, there’s no escape from the doom and gloom of global phenomena. Social media and news platforms spout endless streams of devastation and destruction, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Even in the comfort of our own homes, we’re bombarded with distressing footage of raging fires, disastrous floods and catastrophic weather events from around the world. And because all of this information is available at the touch of a button, no matter where you are, or who you are, climate change can feel terrifyingly close to home.
This continuous access to global news events means many young people are filled with an almost-constant feeling of dread around the ‘climate emergency’, as it’s sometimes referred to.
For some, these feelings can escalate into ‘climate anxiety’, a term that is used to describe a heightened state of anxiousness and an overwhelming sense of dread about the threat to the environment.
According to research by Friends of the Earth, teenagers and young adults are at higher risk of suffering from climate anxiety, perhaps because they often have unlimited, unchecked access to social media and may not be as willing as older adults to discuss what they are seeing online. They are also the group most likely to witness the worsening effects of climate change chaos and be most frustrated because they feel little action is happening.
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