Gen Z's climate anxiety is real and needs action -- for everyone's wellbeing
Gen Z's climate anxiety is real and needs action -- for everyone's wellbeing
Young people have major concerns about climate change, which is having a significant impact on their lives and could have broader consequences decades into the future.
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Part of managing anxiety is working to make a difference.
I also recommend therapy. If you are in the United States, you can use this tool to find a therapist. See here for Canada.
Don't a lot of issues come back to learned helplessness? I'm in a good place right now, and I do what I can, but I also feel so disenfranchised in the US political system that it all feels completely pointless.
I think it's a combination of learned helplessness and an unrealistic expectation of your ability to affect change.
As of July 1st, 2023, there are 334,914,895 million people participating in the US political system, I think it would be a little ridiculous if every one of them could influence our government. Not all the people can vote, but they're still participating in the political system whether they know it or not.
Each of these people have their own ideas, hopes, dreams, ideologies. It takes a long time to sway that much public opinion, even when you aren't fighting disinformation campaigns from powerful corporations and state actors. Keep at it and have realistic expectations about the impact you'll have and how quickly things will change.
Do what you can, live the best life you can, and don't take responsibility for things that aren't your fault.
Edit: corrected the population of the United States because people oddly focused on that part of my comment.
I dunno. In my lifetime there have been real movement on gay rights, and then real backsliding on women's rights. Things can change. The bigger roadblock feels like the difference between advocating for social changes that might incidentally have economic impacts vs. advocating for policy changes that directly harm the economics of wealthy people.
As a non-American, I'm a bit confused. How are there 380 million people in the American political system? That's an entire Spain more than the population of the US
While there may be 380 million people in the US who have some impact, only about 132 million of them turned out to vote at all in 2022.
Morover, in things like your local neighborhood, city and county matters, a few dozen people can represent a significant political party. Just look at all the zoneing and Nimby that gets passed city by city and town by town.
If you scan show up to these sorts of meetings consistently, are nice, polite, and frame it right, a single person can absolutely change a local politians mind or get the wording of a law changed.
Laws are written by a committee of people, and at the local level you absolutely can shape what they write. Generally anyone in local government assumes that for every one person that shows up to a meeting, there are hundreds to thousands of local voters that can’t be bothered by who feel similarly.
It also provides a great opportunity to network with local groups and coalitions of people who also do this sort of stuff and who are more than happy to have help.
Watch your local counties and cities or towns schedule on their website, they publish what they are talking about ahead of time, and if something you care about like climate, there are often multiple meetings you can go to where you can talk to the room for a few minutes. Comte prepared with some quick notes or facts to back up your point, and you absolutely can shape both the polition’s positions and how the local news reports it.
Local politics exists largely outside of the two part system, appear as a well informed independent moderate, frame your points that way, and even if nothing major changes you can still rest knowing you did the best you could.
You may not be able to change the US export policy, but you may be able to get an admendment to the county next update to the building code that all new buildings have a part of the roof ready for solar panels, or new houses have to have plugs for EVs if they have grages, or push for limits on heat pumps and ac price gouging, or any of the other small changes that nevertheless make a far greater impact than any individual effect you could have alone. See what the people around you are pushing for and help them.
Not everyone has the time or schedule to do things like this, it’s one of the advantages the rich have that they can show up at these sorts of things, but if you are privileged enough to work from home or set your own schedule, it is absolutely worth it.
That's "doing what you can and not taking responsibility for things that aren't your fault"
132 million? Honestly, I'm surprised it was that many.
You don’t have to change your system, you must change your surroundings :)
If the system will come along, better. If not, you still kinda improved the life for those around you
I've got some specific recommendations on how to work the US system
Yes!
I always recommend checking out the following organizations, which are active in many nations:
https://a22network.org/ the a22 network is a overarching network of many national climate movements using civil disobedience.
https://fridaysforfuture.org/ Fridays for future was created after Greta Thunbergs peaceful protests and now has many national networks using mostly peaceful demonstrations.
https://scientistrebellion.org/ scientist rebellion is a worldwide network of scientists using civil disobedience. Again there are many national groups within.