GQP: Anxiety About Climate Collapse Among Young Americans The Real Problem (Not Climate Collapse)
Because Teh Children!!!
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According to a recent Pew poll, only 12% of Republicans, compared to 59% of Democrats, believe that dealing with climate change should be a top priority for the president and Congress. Showing that the GOP wants to go beyond its usual aims of bolstering fossil fuel production and eliminating environmental regulations, Republicans’ resistance is increasingly evolving into shrewd strategies focused on dismantling climate education and advocacy programs, and even promoting misinformation (like Republican U.S. Congresswoman Majorie Taylor Greene’s recent claim that people can “control” the weather). But the GOP’s newest, and perhaps most dangerous, effort has been to weaponize the accelerating prevalence of “climate anxiety” in American youth. Climate anxiety speaks to the dread that people often feel when ruminating on the known and suspected consequences of climate change. It’s especially high among youth—the demographic that will bear the brunt of climate change in the coming years. Republican’s response? Making the case that it’s the grim discussions of climate change, not climate change itself, that’s contributing to youth climate anxiety.
In one 2024 study conducted by MassINC Polling Group, 53% of middle and high school students polled across the U.S. indicated that they think climate change will be a major problem in their lifetime, highlighting associated feelings of sadness, uneasiness, and helplessness. At a youth climate leader event in 2023, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris spoke to these deepening concerns, empathizing with American youths’ fears over “whether it makes sense for you even to think about having children, whether it makes sense for you to think about aspiring to buy a home because what will this climate be.” Predictably, the Right quickly seized on soundbites from the visit to suggest Harris was encouraging young people to abstain from having children or buying a home.
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Following destructive climate-related events like hurricanes and wildfires, data from climate researchers shows that survivors often become depressed, anxious, and sometimes suicidal in their struggle to recover and make sense of the occurrence. Primary sources of stability—like employment—are often directly affected, which in turn can impact one’s mental health. With these kinds of climate-related happenings becoming both more severe and more frequent, youth are asking serious questions regarding what kind of life they can expect for themselves and their loved ones. That’s far from hysteria.
Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump routinely maligned and mocked environmentalists, purposefully caricaturing them with labels like "prophets of doom.” He reserved some of his most minimizing remarks for young activists. Responding to climate advocate Greta Thunberg’s fiery speech at the United Nations General Assembly in 2019, Trump glibly tweeted this about the then-16-year-old: “She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!” If elected, Trump has vowed to exit the Paris Climate Accords (again) and eliminate political and administrative hurdles to oil and gas projects, acts that will deepen our already perilous situation. And this is just one element of his party’s ongoing assault on climate change reduction efforts. In recent years, Republicans have gotten more brazen in their efforts to silence or otherwise undercut climate advocacy, now focusing on the supposed perils of climate education on youth.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/how-climate-anxiety-became-a-convenient-foil-for-the-right/ar-AA1snHnZ
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