Young People: Humanity Is Doomed
According to this article, an international survey reveals ‘shocking’ rise of eco-anxiety and hopelessness. Amidst a sharp increase in deadly wildfires and flooding, increasingly violent storms, and extreme heat, new research published Tuesday found that refusal by governments to act on the climate emergency is causing a widespread sense of hopelessness and eco-anxiety in teenagers and young adults worldwide.
The global advocacy group Avaaz joined researchers at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom and five other universities to survey 10,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 25—the first large-scale eco-anxiety survey of its kind—and discovered that majorities of the respondents were fearful for the lives and livelihoods of their families and the future of the planet.
“If this isn’t a wake up call for world leaders, what is?”
I don’t blame people–of any age–from believing that humankind as we know it now has no future. There are only two ways out, and there is no precedent for either one: a) continued and worsening effects of global warming causes an enormous expansion of the Paris Accord, including sharp teeth, and/or b) radical breakthroughs in technology in both energy and land use.
As writer and activist Rebecca Solnit said, “There is a strange similarity between environmental optimists and pessimists, and that is they both think they can see into the future. I don’t know what’s going to happen–and neither do you.”
