Some 57% of American teens say they fear climate change, and 52% are angry about it, according to a Washington Post and Kaiser Foundation national survey.
The Post said a majority of respondents, many of whom will reach voting age by 2020, are motivated to channel their anxieties into activism.
“Fear is a commodity we don’t have time for if we’re going to win the fight,” said Madeline Graham, 16, of Maryland, who is organizing a student protest planned for this week.
The poll found about 1 in 4 teens have participated in a walkout, attended a rally or written to a public official to express their views on global warming.
The Post noted it was the first survey of its kind since the igniting of the youth climate movement last year by 16-year-old Greta Thunberg of Sweden.
Her year-long “strike” from school in front of the Swedish Parliament and “carbon-neutral” sailboat voyage across the Atlantic to the United States have made her an activist icon.
Earlier this month, Thunberg was joined by hundreds of American teenagers on at a protest outside the United Nations headquarters in New York City. They carried hand-drawn placards with messages such as “United behind the science” and “Act now or we will.” And they chanted “System change, not climate change” and “Don’t just watch us, join us.”
‘On top of that, everybody’s gonna die’
Thunberg is scheduled to speak at this month’s United Nations climate action summit. Hundreds of thousands of children plan to skip school and join in protests ahead of the event, the Post said.
“People feel very guilty when a child says, ‘You are stealing my future.’ That has impact,” Thunberg told the Washington Post. “We have definitely made people open their eyes.”
The survey found more than 7 in 10 teenagers and young adults say climate change will cause a moderate or great deal of harm to people in their generation.
“It’s terrible,” Sam Riley, 17, of Boston, told the Post. “It’s hardly ever brought up at my school.”
He said that nearly everything he knows about climate change has come from reading the news and searching the Internet.
The Maryland teen, Graham, said climate change is “the greatest threat to life as we know it and humanity as we know it.”
“When you’re facing something like that, and you’re 16 years old, and your mom’s yelling at you, and you have classes, and, on top of that, everybody’s gonna die … it’s easy to let fear overtake you,” she said.
“But, this generation — we’re fighters,” she said, “and we’re going to win.”
Meanwhile, as WND reported earlier this month, a new, improved system to assess surface temperatures established in 2005 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, indicates there has been no warming in the United States over the past 14 years. Further, raw temperature readings at preexisting stations indicate temperatures are the same now as 80 years ago.
Tony Heller of the website Real Climate Science, who has a broad career in science, education, environment and engineering, puts Thornburg’s activism in perspective in a video:
