UPDATE: Kids and Climate Paranoia
22/08/08 11:40
UPDATE: You can see a short video of these kids from the week as described below. A marketing piece, but a very nice one.
Originally posted: 25 June 2008
I’m old enough that I was among the last generation to grow up with serious, warranted nightmares about massive nuclear exchanges between the U.S. and Soviet Union. I can remember being about six or seven and first learning about total nuclear annihilation; I had nightmares for a while, and I felt a consistent sense of fear and unease, certainly well into Bush 41’s presidency. I never had to deal with duck and cover drills like the generation before me, but I always felt aware of this potential doom, which felt completely out of my hands. The undercurrent of that time is hard to explain to people who haven’t lived through it.
Originally posted: 25 June 2008
I’m old enough that I was among the last generation to grow up with serious, warranted nightmares about massive nuclear exchanges between the U.S. and Soviet Union. I can remember being about six or seven and first learning about total nuclear annihilation; I had nightmares for a while, and I felt a consistent sense of fear and unease, certainly well into Bush 41’s presidency. I never had to deal with duck and cover drills like the generation before me, but I always felt aware of this potential doom, which felt completely out of my hands. The undercurrent of that time is hard to explain to people who haven’t lived through it.
Certainly the threat of total nuclear destruction is much reduced, though the potential for “small” explosions seems far more likely than before. The global doom is gone, and “global terrorism” has not proven to be an adequate substitute. I suspect that the rise of climate change as an increasingly definite and defined threat is well positioned to replace the widespread paranoia of my youth. I have just seen some evidence of this in some high school students in the U.S.
I spent most of the past week as a one of several scientists in residence in Alabama at an event sponsored by an NGO and several corporate sponsors. My stay there was only a small portion of the total time of the workshop for the students, who had all been directly or indirectly impacted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The students ranged in grade from sophomores to students a few weeks away from entering college. Many were from New Orleans, Louisiana, but they came across a wide swath of the upper Gulf coast region. The program was small (25 students), and they had to apply to the program after being nominated by a science teacher. They all seemed smart and engaged, and most of them seemed well out of the norm relative to the rest of the U.S. South in being politically liberal.
Much of what they heard from myself and the other content specialists was pretty depressing: the science behind climate change, the range of global and regional impacts assessments, and what could (and should) happen in response. They also received media training and soon will be in DC to connect with some politicians and political outeach staff.
I formally spoke to them three or four times on a variety of subjects. Each time, they were listening hard and close. I tried to show I didn’t take myself too seriously, and occasionally I interrupted other speakers when I thought they were being too negative and frightening. But no amount of humor can hide a central point: bad things are happening as a result of climate change, and they’re going to get worse. Much worse, and so far without a lot of reactive change on our part.
What does that feel like to a kid? How do you respond to the concept that your life may be substantially harder, more painful than that of your parents? Than even during your youth?
An easy response is one alluded to by Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth: it’s very easy to go from not knowing very much about a big problem to knowing a little, and slipping directly from ignorance to total despair. Even escapism or a super-selfish atomism. I didn’t see any of these reactions in these kids, though perhaps it was there, occluded and obscured. But they seemed pretty resilient to much of what they were hearing, even when I saw their earnestly serious faces staring at me, brows furrowed.
These kids seemed very focused on the task of their generation — a sort of spit-on-your-hands-and-get-down-to-work reaction. They seemed very interested in those of us there, gauging our worldview and attitude so they knew how to calibrate themselves. They were good kids. I felt uplifted for having known them and seen and touched them as people. Especially since they were as culturally challenged as myself in growing up in the South.
But I wonder too: deep underneath, have they found a hard, cold place of dread? Will their children stay up late, alone and afraid in bed, when they first learn about climate change? And will their reservoir of optimistic concern run dry?
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