As the world warms, how are young people feeling?
Climate scientist Michael Mann of the School of Arts & Sciences and Annenberg School for Communication leads a research community that aims to understand climate anxiety and improve climate communication.
As the world warms, how are young people feeling?
By Xime Trujillo
“Overall existential dread,” is how Michael Mann sums it up. Mann is Presidential Distinguished Professor in the School of Arts & Sciences’ Department of Earth and Environmental Science, has a secondary appointment in the Annenberg School for Communication, and directs the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media (PCSSM). During a summer already marked by an early scorching heat wave and wildfires, young people can feel that the world and humanity are both doomed, and that the impacts of a changing climate are rapidly spiraling out of control. However, the antidote to doom is doing, as Mann and fellow climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe argued in a recent opinion piece for the Financial Times.
To foster this proactive approach to the climate crisis, Mann is leading one of EII’s research communities, Understanding Climate Anxiety and Messaging in Climate Change Communication in Understudied Populations Among Philadelphia Area Middle and High Schoolers. The goal of the interdisciplinary community of researchers is to understand students’ emotions about climate change, the extent to which they are experiencing anxiety, and how these factors are connected to climate science communication and messaging.
“Middle and high school student’s frustration is not just a consequence of climate change impacts, but also a response to today’s politics and the state of democracy,” notes Mann. Research findings suggest that merely articulating concerns about how the planet is warming is a form of ineffective communication; it is key to advocate for change through informed dialogue, activism, and participation in the democratic process, including voting, he explains. In climate science messaging, “there is a thin balance to strike, between recognizing the climate crises and the urgency that is needed to address it,” Mann emphasizes. For this reason, he says, “urgency and agency are overarching messages that help to counterbalance climate anxiety, especially among young audiences.”
An overall takeaway: climate impact messages must be carefully crafted, Mann says, because taking either a pessimistic approach—that we are powerless to combat climate change—or an optimistic one—that we are making progress in fighting warming—can be equally weaponized by polluters, such as the mammoth fossil fuel industry.
Nowadays, high school students are particularly exposed to mixed messages that seek to minimize the climate crisis and the human-caused activities that are driving it. Even further, they are especially vulnerable to “doomscrolling” messaging about the climate crisis via different social media feeds. It is a sad truth that spreading “despair and doom-filled” messages results in higher levels of youth online engagement.
Artificial intelligence (AI) can exacerbate the problem. Imagine a teen with an active online presence, doomscrolling through social media posts about heat waves or wildfires. AI algorithms may perpetuate this type of content for the sake of digital engagement. The result? Young people become paralyzed into inaction, click after click. But better communication strategies can help to combat this paralysis. “Young people need to know that they have the ability to change the world,” says Mann. “Fight the good fight!”
Aiming to understand the psychological impact of climate change on young people, the research community led by Mann has sought partnerships with schools in West Philadelphia and gathered expertise from faculty across Penn’s Schools, including: Emily Falk at the Annenberg School for Communication, Jennifer Pinto-Martin at the School of Nursing, Lily Brown at the Center for Treatment and Study of Anxiety, and Kate Staley, a visiting scholar at PCSSM.
The next steps of their work are twofold. First, in an effort led by Staley, a clinical psychologist and expert on the psychological impacts of climate change, they are working to understand how climate distress impacts youth and young adults from historically marginalized groups. Second, they aim to “diversify various ways of receiving information, either formal or informal, to engage and motivate everyone’s hearts and minds,” explains Mann. “Different sources of information can include anything from academic coursework to art and music, to visiting zoos and aquaria, to watching films and documentaries.” These open-ended and all-inclusive channels facilitate climate science learning and communication. Meanwhile, researchers Allie Sinclair and Eryn Campbell, experts in public opinion research, including scientific polling and intervention experiments, are helping to determine what sorts of climate communication lead to high levels of interaction that can turn despair into determination and hopelessness into hope.
“Young people need to know that they have the ability to change the world. Fight the good fight!”-Michael Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor and Director of Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media