For many young people, particularly those still in their teens and early twenties, anxiety about climate change has been part of their lives for as long as they can remember. Survey results published in The Lancet showed that “of 10,000 youth in 10 countries in 2021, more than 45 per cent of respondents said their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily life and functioning.”
In February 2024, “an American study of 39,000 high school students found those who experienced the highest number of days under a federal disaster declaration were 20 per cent more likely to report mental distress, even five years later.”
So what can young people, and those that care about them, to do to counteract these potentially very harmful feelings of anxiety and other mental distress? Luckily someone is studying what is going on with youth and sharing their findings about what helps and what doesn’t when it comes to climate change burnout. University of Toronto researcher Maria Vamvalis’s recently published qualitative study did find that being part of a larger movement was helpful in combatting feelings of despair and hopelessness but that it also brought a lot of pressure to bear on young people.
Vamvalis’s study found that some young activists find solace and inspiration in the writing of other activists - even those from history - like Zain Haq who began reading Gandhi’s writings and said that “learning about nonviolence as a spiritual path, Haq has been able to detach somewhat from the outcomes of his activism and cultivate patience.”
We’ll let seventeen Zoha Faisal, who came to British Columbia, Canada, from Pakistan and has been involved in climate action since the age of 13 have the last word.
She told Vamvalis in an interview that:
“This crisis is caused by systems of oppression and you can’t dismantle it using this grind mentality, like work and work and work,” Faisal says. “You have to centre love and hope and joy if you want to build a movement that has those ideas at its core.”