Climate Alarmism
Is activist-led "doomerism" about climate change harming our kids?
EXCERPTS:
Climate change is a concern. But it’s not something to be alarmed or worried about. Yet for decades activists have used an inflated version of the science to sow fear. They’ve targeted young people: underdeveloped brains are much easier to fool. We now have a population of school-aged children raised to worry about their future.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 40% of high schoolers say they persistently feel sad and hopeless — up from 28% ten years ago. One fifth have seriously considered suicide. Girls are especially troubled: almost 60% feel sad and hopeless; 30%, have considered suicide. Researchers see this as the result of a new classroom narrative depicting the world they are inheriting as bad, broken, and heading for climate disaster. As Arthur Brooks laments,
“Almost every day that my daughter was in high school, she was taught about the dangerous world — about bad people, dangerous forces in nature, and a bleak future for our country .... She told us about the doom and gloom each evening at dinner, and my wife and I could see her growing pessimism.”
Former climate activist Lucy Biggers is now an assertive proponent of climate realism. She writes in a Substack post that Climate Fear Has Done More Harm Than Good:
“And don’t get me started on the fact that climate doomerism has created an epidemic of climate anxiety among young people who’ve been told they have no future. The amount of human capital that is wasted worrying about this nonsense cannot be overstated .... Climate fear hasn’t made us safer. It has only wasted our money, made energy more expensive and less reliable, and scared a generation of young people. Enough is enough.”
We need to think clearly, critically, and effectively about climate change. Not worry.
Climate change is a call to “wise up.”
The reality of climate change calls for effective thinking, not one-sided activism. Kids need a reason to hope. That means promoting agency, not victimhood. Agency is the degree to which you can consciously shape your own future. Effective Altruism is a better framework for young people. Unlike climate activism, using the tools of science to solve real climate-related problems is empowering.
Kids need to get outside and off their screens. We need to restore the vision of early environmentalists like Oregon’s Mark Hatfield. He focused on ecological self-determination: protecting lands and rivers, acting as good stewards of our natural resources — promoting pragmatic conservation efforts.
Hatfield avoided the one-sided activism dominating environmentalism today. He strove for consilience and cooperation to successfully achieve shared goals. He championed deliberation and moderation to overcome differences and unite people across the cultural and political divide in effective collective action.
GET THE NEW EXPLAINER: “Climate Alarmism,” including footnotes and references.
