Young People and Concern About the Climate Crisis

Avaaz is a US-based, non-profit making, campaigning organisation. Its name is based on the romanisation of a word meaning 'voice' in Persian and some other languages. Avaaz has paid for a poll of 10,000, 16-25 year old subjects based in Australia, Brazil, Finland, France, India, Nigeria, the Phillipines, Portugal, the UK and the USA on the climate crisis (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/14/four-in-10-young-people-fear-having-children-due-to-climate-crisis). The poll revealed that nearly 60% of the respondents were 'very' or 'extremely worried' about climate change. A similar percentage said their governments were doing too little to protect them. Around 40%, expressed hesitancy about having children 'as a result of the climate crisis'. It might actually be truer to say their hesitancy is due to there being a wider knowledge of the climate crisis. 10,000 is a pretty big sample but it may not truly reflect the level of concern in young people. Some big countries are missing from the analysis (probably for very good reasons). Many of the featured countries are currently/or have been relatively 'safe' from major environmental catastrophes. For example, no responses were sought from small island nations, where the level of fear might have a stronger focus. It would be interesting also to know how the subjects polled were selected, as this can produce bias. Were they self-selected? Did they receive similar levels of education? Were they based in urban or rural locations? Having said all this, it is evident that many young people a) are concerned about the climate crisis and b) don't (with good reasons) trust the politicians to solve the problem. It's interesting to point to a historical analogy. At the height of the 'Cold War', some young people also agonised about 'bringing children into a world threatened by the nuclear bomb'. Many of these individuals also didn't really trust 'their' politicians. Having said that, the 'Cold War'was probably a simpler problem to rectify than the climate crisis. The climate crisis has many more participants. It directly involves everyone, in all parts of the globe. There are also very many different vested interests in play.