What Do You Say to a 13-Year Old About the Future?
By Debbie Mytels
This summer I was on a camping trip in the Santa Cruz mountains with my grandsons, aged 11 and 13. We were enjoying a hike through the redwoods, counting banana slugs and looking for trees they could climb, when the older boy said to me, “I heard on the radio that the Earth will be dead by 2050.”
Oh no, I thought, he knows about this. What can I say? He’s a smart kid, good in math. He knows 2050 is 30 years away — and by then he’ll be his parents’ age. Do I share my darkest fears — or sugar-coat the truth? I opted for the truth as best I know it: “Well, I’m pretty sure the Earth will still be alive,” I said, “but I have some worries about humans. As the planet gets hotter, we’ll have problems with agriculture. We may not be able to grow enough food for everyone. And as the polar ice melts and sea levels rise, more people will die from floods and hurricanes.”
But I knew it was important not to leave it there. “People are waking up to this problem,” I said. “We’re trying to make changes. Your father and I now drive electric cars, so we’re not burning fossil fuels to get around anymore. More and more people are making this change. In Palo Alto right now, a third of the new cars being bought are EVs — and the cost is coming down, too. I think that when people learn what they can do to stop global warming, we will start to make the changes needed. People have done that in the past. You know what happened with the bald eagle and the California brown pelican, right?”
And so began a conversation between us about Rachel Carson’s book, “Silent Spring”– which I’d read when I was about their age — and how when we learned that the potent pesticide DDT was making eggshells so fragile they cracked prematurely, killing the baby birds — people then decided we had to ban DDT. Now today, the bald eagles and the pelicans are back in such numbers that they are no longer on the endangered species list.
“When we humans learn how to solve problems, we DO act to make changes,” I told them. “So now we all have to stop burning oil and other things and use solar and wind power for energy instead.”
“What about burning wood for our campfire?” the younger one asked. “We want to have s’mores.” I’m not an absolutist, so I said we could still make a small fire, but we need to plant two trees for every one that gets chopped down. Then, being boys, they spied a huge fallen redwood and ran off to walk across it. I felt that, without getting too preachy, I’d given them an honest assessment of where we are — and a sense of hope about the future, by giving them a recipe, of sorts, for what they can do about it.
For many years, I’ve recognized that finding a way to push through despair is essential to overcome it, but I never knew how to express that until I heard a talk by Richard Heinberg. The author of several books about our addiction to oil, including “The Party’s Over” and “Our Renewable Future,” Heinberg was speaking about the history of America’s love affair with petroleum, how it is so deeply enmeshed in our culture. Finally a woman at the back of the room raised her hand and said, “How do you get up in the morning? This is so depressing!”
Heinberg smiled and said, “Oh no. I don’t get depressed. Optimism is the only viable strategy.”
Without the optimistic belief that our actions will make a difference, we will sink down into despair and do nothing — thus assuring that the worst case will happen. So, we need to take action. And while this is important for our own state of mind, it’s even more important for young people.
Suicide is now the second most common cause of death among people ages 10 to 24, and while other social challenges are also a contributing factor, knowing about climate change can add to a sense of futility. If YOU hear on the radio that the Earth will be dead in 30 years, does it make sense to pursue a standard path of school, college and career?
Psychologists studying youth depression back in the Reagan era found that young people were similarly affected by the knowledge of potential nuclear Armageddon. But those youth whose parents were speaking out against the weapons build-up were less disturbed, even though it was a common topic in their homes. As psychologist Susan Linn noted in a 2017 LA Times article, “Kids need to see adults take action. We can join protests…, write letters and sign petitions…. [C]hildren need to see that we care enough about them, and the world, to face the terror of nuclear war and do everything we can to prevent it.” Similarly, today’s youth desperately need to know that the adults on this planet are looking out for them — and all future generations.
Unfortunately, like a lot of depressing topics, it’s easier not to talk about climate change. When visiting my sister this summer, she asked me what I was up to, and I started talking about my climate-related activities and how important it is to stop burning fossil fuels. “Let’s change the subject.” she said. I pushed back: “That’s the problem — people don’t want to talk about this — but we can’t solve a problem if people won’t even discuss it!”
One of the problems with not talking about it is that people don’t realize how many people DO agree that climate change is happening. A recent study from Yale found that 70% of Americans accept that climate change is real, but they think that only 54% of people agree with them. In short, people don’t think that others are concerned — and so they underestimate the strength of this movement.
How many of us talk about climate change with our family? our neighbors? our co-workers? People are uncomfortable talking about it for a number of reasons. For one, it IS truly frightening to think that our whole civilization might disintegrate into chaos. Others are reluctant to get into a situation where they think people may disagree with them. And then there are those who feel depressed, thinking, “What can I do about it? Nothing…”
Fortunately, one of the main antidotes to depression is talking about it. And one simple way to get the conversations going — and to show the strength of our movement is to wear a button. Or get a yard sign. Let’s show the depth of public opinion — and that will build the courage for more action. We can’t let the burden of reducing the impending climate tragedy fall solely upon our youth.
Debbie Mytels is former executive director of the Peninsula Conservation Center Foundation and longtime friend of Acterra, a Bay Area environmental nonprofit dedicated to addressing climate change. Acterra brings people together to create local solutions for a healthy planet.
