to think constantly taking about the end if the world can't be helping our young people's anxiety levels?

[DrinkSangriaInThePark]

Before I start, I'm NOT saying that we need to protect them from realising that things are in a bad way, and that we need to address it.

However, in Ireland, we have just had a full 'Climate week' on our national TV and radio stations (RTE, BBC's Irish equivalent) which talked non- stop about the impending end of civilisation. I'm a secondary teacher and I'm really starting to see how stressed these teenagers are becoming. Now one argument is that it's good, that the more affected they are, the more likely it is that they'll be motivated to react and change things.
But at what cost to their individual mental health?
I don't want an argument, by the way... I'm just musing. My own kids are between 9 and 12 and I hate when they get scared about the future. I don't think any child or teenager should be awake at night worrying about the world's future on top of all the usual growing up stuff they have to deal with.

They’re going to pick up on it anyway, you may as well give them a space to voice their own thoughts on it.

yes, I do think it's akin to child abuse.
let children have their childhood. Nothing that children can do will change anything. They only have a tiny part of their lives relatively free from anxiety about the world and it's selfish for adults to take this away from them, just to satisfy their own agenda.

every generation has grown up believing the world was about to end. As others have mentioned IRA, Cold War, AID's, Ozone layer. Going back it was Vietnam and Korean War, WWII, TB, Industrial revolution pollution. etc etc etc.

Our job as grown ups is to help children interpret all this and do what they can do.

I think it's good to discuss this with young people and for them to be aware of the issues that they will inevitably have to face but the way it's done is the issue.
I do a lot of work on conservation optimism at the moment and a lot of the focus is on communicating these issue to young people without making them feel hopeless. That's where I got scared when I was younger, that horrible feeling of inevitability and helplessness.
If issues can be discussed with a bit of optimism and in a way that gives some sense of empowerment for change our young people might not lose sleep due to the fear of the future.

It's happening. It's the reality and shouldn't be avoided in school. When I grew up it was the threat of nuclear war...

I think the difference is that we are told we can affect climate change by modifying our behaviour. Nuclear war was out of our hands! Not sure whether one is better than the other psychologically

I think the difference is that we are told we can affect climate change by modifying our behaviour. Nuclear war was out of our hands!

I take that point, but I would still argue that it's important to discuss it in schools. I suppose with TV programming there is a risk of it being 'overload'. It's a tricky balance.

Our cats will be fine, they'll have our corpses to chow down on.

Famine in Ethiopia. Famine in China. The Blitz. Prolonged civil wars. The Holocaust. Spanish Flu. Trench warfare. Cholera epidemics. Genocide on the American frontier. Typhoid fever wiping out most of the Aztecs. Regular plagues in London in Tudor times. Plague wiping out a third of the population in Europe.... sabre tooth tigers.

Find an era when humans weren't threatening to wipe themselves out.

There is evidence that yes it is increasing their anxiety BUT if they do something positive about it that hugely helps their mental health. Going on marches, actively changing their lifestyle, the act of meeting up in groups and forming communities all make them feel better (even if they are doing something that doesn’t end up working) because they are gaining control back

we were subjected (1980s) to public information films about how to prepare for nuclear war when the 4 minute warning is sounded.
We survived.

Having lived through the cold war, I cannot agree. We always knew we were one or two pushes of the button from oblivion-and we were powerless.

We were discussing this at an extended family lunch today.
I didn't worry too much about AIDS or nuclear war in the 80s.
Nuclear war was out of my control.
The AIDS message was loud and clear before I was sexually active so I just decided not to take any risks. I guess I didn't have the sexual freedom of a previous generation of teens but not having experienced it I didn't know what I was missing out on.

My teens however are assuming they probably won't have their own children because the planet will be too hostile a place to bring them into.
And they and their cousins are at the 'think about your future career' stage of life. It's diificult to know what to study. If we are all going to have to make serious changes to our lifestyles, the jobs market is going to change in consequence.

I'm amazed they aren't more anxious/depessed.