Nearly 60% Of 16,000 Americans From 16 To 25 Surveyed "Very" Or "Extremely" Worried About Climate Collapse

A new study delving the emotional and psychological impact of climate change on 16,000 young Americans provides crucial empirical evidence for what until now “we’ve been relying on our intuition to tell us,” the study’s first author says. A clear majority of young Americans between the ages of 16 and 25 are either very, or extremely, worried.

Eric Lewandowski, a psychologist at New York University, focuses on the mental and emotional effects of climate change and co-authored a 2021 paper on the subject but still felt there was more to be studied in the United States. His new paper, “Climate emotions, thoughts, and plans among US adolescents and young adults: a cross-sectional descriptive survey and analysis by political party identification and self-reported exposure to severe weather events,” was published Oct. 17 in The Lancet Planetary Health.

The bottom line nationally: Young people are overwhelmingly concerned about climate change. The study found that nearly 60 percent of respondents said they were either very or extremely worried when asked, “How worried, if at all, are you about climate change and its impacts on people and the planet?” and more than 85 percent said they experience some level of climate anxiety. “This was a chance, in such a big country, to try to get a better feel across the country, where the impacts of climate change are so heterogeneous, to try to get a feel for the emotional and psychological impacts of climate change,” said Lewandowski.

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There was similarity in responses across dramatically different geo-political regions of the country. The responses never differed by more than 25 percent across all surveyed populations. The survey also tracked the emotional and psychological impact of climate change across the political spectrum. “Endorsement was high regardless of political identification, and yes, it was lower in the Republican group … One of the widely recognized features of thinking about climate change in this country is the political divide, and that’s also documented in the research,” said Lewandowski.
“It was very striking,” he said, that endorsement of climate issues was above 50 percent no matter political affiliation.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26102024/young-americans-distraught-over-climate-change/