Sense of Urgency About Climate Change Is Declining Among Youth, Poll Finds

YungOnions , 10 days ago

To be clear, this poll is only about American youth. I've not seen anything about the same reduction in urgency in youths from elsewhere in the world.

It's also worth noting that the poll didn't have a particularly large number of participants and that the age range was 18+ which obviously excludes a fair number of American youths younger than 18.

The Monmouth University Poll was conducted by telephone from April 18 to 22, 2024 with 808 adults in the United States.

I'm also just going to leave this here as a counterpoint:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/09/unprecedented-youth-climate-trial-demands-action-from-32-european-governments/

FaceDeer , 11 days ago

I mean, we keep hearing breathlessly alarmed articles about how "this year is a tipping point!" and "if we don't do X by next year it's all over!" And then those dates pass, and either new dates are announced or they're just forgotten about.

Crying wolf means that when the actual wolf comes nobody pays attention any more.

BrikoX OP Mod , 11 days ago

We are beyond the tipping point. Just look at this year. We have floods that are dumping in days what used to take months, and we have droughts never seen in the modern age.

FaceDeer , 11 days ago

Well, there you go. How can you expect people to pay attention when you're telling them there's nothing they can do?

BrikoX OP Mod , 11 days ago

That's not what I'm saying. We are past the point of being able to reverse the harm already done, but we can still limit the future harm. And that is critical. The current world is still livable, alternative is portions of the world becomes unlivable.

And who knows, maybe some future tech will make possible what is impossible today.

stonerboner , 11 days ago

There’s a huge difference in how people process/accept/protest when the conversation changes from “if we keep doing what we’re doing, we’ll kill the earth” to “the earth is already fucked, best of luck.”

There’s a certain point where optimism degrades into hopelessness.

AnEilifintChorcra , 11 days ago

Tbh I'm just so tired of it, my whole life I've been warned about this constantly, non stop, and nobody with any power does anything effective ever.

I do all my little environmentally friendly things and they're all just routine now. I rarely even bother to read about it anymore because its so depressing and I've been told lie after lie after lie that this policy will help and that regulation will be great and and these new laws will counteract it and then... Nothing, just right back to destroying this pale blue dot

stembolts , 11 days ago

What am I supposed to do? Live in a perpetual anxiety attack? Instead I choose to accept I'm one of the last living humans before the atmosphere turns to acid, or skittles, or whatever the fuck.

But hey, line go up.

HappycamperNZ , 11 days ago

They know its urgent, they are just sick of being ignored