Linda Thyer: Give Young People Reason to Dream Again

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Low energy, interrupted sleep, poor appetite, and poor concentration. These are just some of the symptoms that young people are experiencing as a result of the climate crisis.

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As a family doctor practicing in a student health clinic, I see these manifestations of anxiety and depression on a daily basis.

While many factors can contribute to anxiety, in recent years I have suspected that a common factor may be the weather emergency, resulting in so-called climate anxiety, ecological anxiety, or ecological distress. Young people are witnessing the destruction of nature caused by centuries of air, water and soil pollution: our life support system is being destroyed.

This is translating into behaviors and decisions that are born out of hopelessness and lost ambition: decisions not to have children, not to pursue a higher education, or not to save for retirement, all with the heartbreaking belief that there is simply no future. livable. With this bleak future, young people are losing all reason to dream.

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However, a remedy is possible at this month’s COP26 conference when political, social and scientific leaders meet in Glasgow to collectively plan for humanity’s role in Earth’s future.

The weather anxiety that young people are experiencing is entirely appropriate, given the very real existential danger they face. Young people are aware of the science that clearly links the destruction of nature to climate change and extreme weather events that have already led to disease, death, and food and home insecurity around the world and here in Canada. They know this is ” code red for humanity . “

My clinical suspicions that climate anxiety is an underlying factor were recently confirmed in a landmark study published in Preprints in The Lancet, in which 10,000 young people in 10 countries they were surveyed about how they felt about climate change. Almost 60 percent said they felt “very worried” or “extremely worried,” and 45 percent of the participants said their feelings about climate change were affecting their daily lives.

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The anxiety of our youth is amplified by the negligence of today’s decision makers to change course, which was also demonstrated in the global survey. The researchers asked these young people how governments are responding to climate change. 65 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that governments are failing young people, 64 percent agreed that governments are lying about the impact of actions taken, and 60 percent agreed. agreed that they ruled out people’s distress. Only 36 percent agreed that governments act according to science.

Here in Canada, that distrust of government to act on the climate emergency is well founded. Despite signing our first international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions nearly 30 years ago, Canada’s emissions increased by 15 percent , without a significant decline in the last decade despite the desperate need for cuts. Adding to the anxiety are continued fossil fuel subsidies and new oil pipeline and oil sands projects. Young people around the world are struggling with cognitive dissonance between dire warnings from scientists and government inaction. They want to see quick and meaningful action on climate change.

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Feeling betrayed by the slow pace of meaningful change on the part of those responsible for their well-being, young people have begun to take action. They have resorted to civil disobedience with global school strikes. and legal cases against governments (including Canada) for failing to defend their right to life and the right to respect their private and family life. They are risking their health with hunger strikes. After all, your future is at stake.

We must address this intergenerational injustice and find the courage to take the bold steps necessary to avoid the disastrous costs for current and future generations.

COP26 provides an opportunity to change our current terrifying path to a healthier and more peaceful future.

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Let’s give young people hope and demonstrate the leadership they seek by going beyond promises and taking the immediate and courageous actions desperately needed to stabilize our environment, our climate and our future.

Let us give young people reasons to dream again.

Linda Thyer is a family physician practicing at the SFU Health and Counseling Services clinic, a founding member of Doctors for Planetary Health-West Coast, and a mother of three teenagers.

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