Almost half of young people (45%) say their feelings about climate change negatively impact their daily lives. More than three in four young people (77%) say the future is frightening with regard to climate change.
That’s according to a survey of 10,000 young people across 10 countries released this month by academics at Stanford, Oxford, and the University of Bath, among others.
CNBC spoke with Natalie Sweet, an 18-year-old climate organizer, in August about her experience living with and moving through climate anxiety. Sweet became involved with Zero Hour, a youth-lead climate activism organization, as a freshman in high school and worked her way up to become the communications director. She’s transitioning out of that role to focus on her freshman year of college at Wesleyan, but will still be a member of the Zero Hour communications team.
The following are excerpts of Sweet’s comments in a telephone interview with. They have been edited for brevity and clarity.
‘We were not the ones who started Shell and Exxon’
There’s a different sense of urgency with youth because we hear things like ‘Miami will probably be underwater in the next century,’ ‘these heat waves and storms will just become all more frequent.’ Older people know this is not really an issue for their generation and that’s just really infuriating to me, because part of me feels like this is their mess to clean up.
We were not the ones who started Shell and Exxon. That was not our generation. And now we’re sitting in this big mess that come has come from rapid-fire anthropogenic climate change since the 1950s.
A lot of times, even if there’s an appreciation of youth fighting climate change, it’s always, “Wow, I’m so proud of you kids. You all are doing well.” Then come help us. Come join us.
