Pirate's Cove

It’s no wonder they profess to have climate anxiety: they’re making themselves nuts. Oh, and a bunch of these young people are in their 20’s. One is 28

17 Young People on the Moment the Climate Crisis Became Real to Them

Watching An Inconvenient Truth in your middle-school science class. Hearing Greta Thunberg’s calls to join weekly school strikes. Driving away from smoldering wildfires engulfing dry California hillsides.

These are some of the moments that made young people realize the climate crisis will define their lives — and the future of human life on Earth. We’ve heard the facts so many times that it’s easy to become numb to them. The world is steadily growing warmer, certain parts of the world are facing extreme droughts or floods, many wildlife populations are shrinking — and things are only projected to grow worse, with carbon emissions rising and countries contributing to mass deforestation. Despite these emergencies, many U.S. politicians, including Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton and Florida Senator Marco Rubio, deny the reality of climate change. And the Western world, particularly the United States, is currently the biggest contributor to the climate crisis. Though the climate crisis is affecting everyone on Earth, it’s effects have been particularly felt by those living in the global south, lower-income people, and younger people, whose futures are being shaped by how we handle the crisis.

It’s almost like they’re making it all about themselves, just like their narcissistic selfies

These overarching facts are important to reiterate. But it’s also critical to understand what climate change feels like on an everyday level — how it affects our mental and physical health. It’s a problem so enormous and disorienting that it’s often easier to just shove it into the darker corners of our minds, where we don’t want to look. Living under the spectre of climate change can make it feel surreal to try to plan an education, a career, a family, or any concrete aspect of your future.

That’s why younger generations have risen up, calling on global leaders to treat our rapidly changing climate like the emergency it is. Teen Vogue heard from more than 80 young people about how they imagine the climate crisis might define their future. A selection of their responses is below.

Yet, reading through the responses, you get the feeling that, at most, they are only making token changes in their own lives. Strange, right? Let’s take a look at a few. Here’s me favorite

Delina, Houston, Texas, 21, college student

I live in Texas, so the recent winter-storm outage has scared people around me and made us want to take matters into our own hands. I am a coordinator for mutual aid efforts in the Austin area, and seeing people share funds, housing those in need, and sharing food and water has brought me so much hope when seeing how we can help those who are victims of climate disaster. Through social media and listening to community leaders, I am educating myself on how to live a low-waste life and having discussions with those around me to take small steps in living sustainably.

That’s right, blaming a winter storm on heat trapping gases. Sure sounds like a cult, where no matter what happens, it is Proof of what they’re selling. Even when it makes no sense. So, they’ll just make something up to fit it into their cult.

Ariana Matondo, Tampa, Florida, 19, college student

In eighth grade, we learned about the sea levels rising in Florida, and that Florida could go partially underwater because of this. When the teacher told me this, fear plagued my body and I immediately started making plans to move out of Florida when I became a college student. Seven years later, however, and I’m still here. I’ve definitely become more sustainable in my own way since then. I started going second-hand shopping more often and started a community garden with my friends a few years ago. Some things that give me hope are going to beach clean-ups and the many sustainability options that people use in downtown Tampa Bay, such as solar panels and other energy management systems.

Florida sea rise is below what’s expected for a Holocene warm period, as I’ve written time and again. As for cleaning up, good for her, but, that is environmentalism, not climate cult stuff. And, she’s still in Florida, so, I’m guessing she isn’t that concerned.

Ace, Brooklyn, New York, 28, astrologer

I go through moments of realizing that this will define my future, but it’s hard to understand that fully. When I was 21, I remember having a moment [in which] I learned that climate change is irreversible. COVID has been an exercise in learning that crisis happens slowly. In the past few years, NYC has been reclassified into a subtropical climate. That has been scary. I feel anger at those in power. I feel fear for my family members in the developing world.

Wait, what was that part about being an astrologer? It actually gets better

Deeana, 30, U.S.A., sex worker and poet

The Land Back movement brings me hope. Native people’s knowledge of how to sustain the earth’s relationship to human life has been kept and passed on even through many centuries of capitalist colonizers committing genocide. I donate to Native activists and their causes and in general move the capital I can get my hands on into Native people’s lives. I work on my own relationship with my local environment and gardening practices. People are fleeing from the effects of climate change now, but we are going to need people-led food solutions because the government has proven it cannot be counted on to steward our food resources.

Not sure how we would survive without the cult opinion of a “sex worker and poet.” I’ll leave you to read the rest for a good laugh. Also realizing that most are doing nothing to change their own behavior.