Tag Archives: David Wallace-Wells

Climate Solutions, Observation

Climate Inaction Has Left Majority of Young People Believing Humanity Is ‘Doomed’

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International survey reveals ‘shocking’ rise of eco-anxiety and hopelessness. “If this isn’t a wake up call for world leaders, what is?”

Amidst a sharp increase in deadly wildfires and flooding, increasingly violent storms, and extreme heat, new research published Tuesday found that refusal by governments to act on the climate emergency is causing a widespread sense of hopelessness and eco-anxiety in teenagers and young adults worldwide.

The global advocacy group Avaaz joined researchers at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom and five other universities to survey 10,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 25—the first large-scale eco-anxiety survey of its kind—and discovered that majorities of the respondents were fearful for the lives and livelihoods of their families and the future of the planet.

“If this isn’t a wake up call for world leaders, what is?” —AvaazAs Luisa Neubauer, a 25-year-old leader of the global Fridays for Future movement in Germany, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, while the climate extremes caused by the planetary emergency are frightening, inaction by world leaders “is too much to handle, too much to accept.””Government is pushing us in front of a bus,” Neubauer told the outlet.

The mental health professionals who conducted the study spoke with young people in 10 countries including Nigeria, the Philippines, India, the U.K., and the U.S., finding that respondents in both wealthy countries and the Global South are facing “feelings of anger, fear, and powerlessness” as the climate crisis directly causes at least one famine, deadly flash flooding, and wildfires in multiple regions.

Nearly half of respondents said their worries about the climate crisis negatively affect their daily life and their ability to function, and more than half told the experts they feel humanity is “doomed.”

Four in 10 said they would hesitate to have children in the future due to the state of the planet, while three-quarters of respondents described their futures as “frightening.”

Avaaz reported that one of the most “shocking” findings was how respondents described their feelings about government inaction, including more than half who said they feel policymakers “are betraying them.”

“If this isn’t a wake up call for world leaders, what is?” asked Avaaz.

Young people in the cyclone-ravages Philippines and Brazil, where deforestation—driven by President Jair Bolsonaro’s government—has become increasingly destructive in recent years, showed the most anxiety of the countries surveyed. More than nine in 10 respondents said they were frightened about the future.

Caroline Hickman, lead author of the study, which was published in The Lanceton Tuesday, cautioned adults against telling young people it is up to them to save the future of the planet.”Thinking the way to cure eco-anxiety is eco-action isn’t right,” Hickman told Thomson Reuters, adding that what will solve the climate crisis is decisive action by world governments.

The survey “shows eco-anxiety is not just for environmental destruction alone, but inextricably linked to government inaction on climate change. The young feel abandoned and betrayed by governments,” Hickman told the BBC. “Governments need to listen to the science and not pathologize young people who feel anxious.”

The survey results were released less than two months ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26), where policymakers will meet in Glasgow to discuss commitments to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, provide climate mitigation support for frontline communities across the globe, and rapidly transition to an emissions-free energy system.

Young people are “doing everything we can” to push for climate action, Neubauer told Thomson Reuters, “but that won’t be enough.”

“We won’t fix it” through the Fridays for Future movement, she added. “We need everyone there.”

Originally published on Common Dreams by JULIA CONLEY and republished under Creative Commons.

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Books, Climate Solutions

“The Uninhabitable Earth”: an Apocalyptic Climate Study that Just might Shock you into Action

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Even if you’re Already Convinced of the Danger, this Book could propel you into Accelerated Action

In 2017, climate change journalist David Wallace-Wells published an essay titled “The Uninhabitable Earth” in the New York Magazine. The essay outlined in grave, uncompromising detail, the effects that climate change will have on the planet. Far beyond just talking about temperature increases and sea level rises by the numbers, Wallace-Wells dug into harrowing specifics about global warming, dissecting everything from the scientific to the socio-political impacts this unprecedented phenomenon will throw back into the face of humanity.

Now, Wallace-Wells has expanded his groundbreaking essay into an entire book, with the full title “The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming.” Like the essay before it, Wallace-Wells’ new book looks deep into the climate crisis, sparing not a shred of honesty in explaining how the human race will suffer from this ongoing environmental catastrophe.

The book is far beyond defining or describing the causes of climate change. As its subtitle explains, “The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming” centers on the horrifying consequences of climate change and paints a truthful image of what the planet will look like once this behemoth comes to irreversible fruition.

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That image is grim, almost dystopian. The future Earth that Wallace-Wells describes feels like something out of “The Hunger Games,” “Wall-E,” or “Children Of Men.” Ecosystems collapsing, civilizations running amuck, and planetary ecocide leading to mass extinction are all likely climate change aftermaths according to the author, and his rationales are backed with extensive research and scientific evidence.

Even the aspects of climate change that seem most commonplace at this point, Wallace-Wells analyzes with an unparalleled degree of depth and severity. Semi-palatable effects such as melting ice sheets or rising temperatures have profound interconnected layers. As Wallace-Wells explains, a warmer planet will not only create inescapable heat-waves, but it will also lead to heightened illnesses, lethal air quality, biodiversity loss, and migration disruption for humans and other species.

Likewise, while a rising ocean will tragically submerge many of our coastal cities, the book further explains how moving inland will not solve all of the problems, for with an eroding coastline, humanity will lose massive amounts of its food supplies, and our global race will cease to be a people of plenty.

Hope is still Possible but Our Hourglass is Running Out of Sand

This leads to many of the political aftermaths that Wallace-Wells covers in the book. He argues that with climate change displacing, infecting, and literally suffocating so many people, class divides will become sharper (the poor suffering insurmountably more), the nation-state ideology will shift, and more wars will break out. Likewise, economic systems will collapse, as entire markets will disappear and capitalistic gains will lose relevance in the face of Armageddon—a hard-to-swallow reality for those who prioritize fiscal profits over environmental reformation right now.

This is just the surface of what “The Uninhabitable Earth” covers. The book is truly a wide-ranging, almost all-encompassing study of the modern environmental world and where it is heading. Wallace-Wells follows in the esteemed footsteps of eco-critical writers such as Rachel Carson, Elizabeth Kolbert, Alan Weisman, and Amitav Ghosh.

The Economist, The Washington Post, and The New York Times amongst other review publications have heaped high praise on the book, and several critics listed it as one of the best books of 2019. The overarching consensus is that Wallace-Wells’ book is insightful, impactful, and absolutely terrifying, frightening the reader with its unbending image of reality and its harsh truth about where the planet is heading, short a total immediate commitment to counter the threat.

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