Survey of young people aged 16-25 from all US states shows concerns across political spectrum
The overwhelming majority of young Americans worry about the climate crisis, and more than half say their concerns about the environment will affect where they decide to live and whether to have children, new research finds.
The study comes just weeks after back-to-back hurricanes, Helene and Milton, pummeled the south-eastern US. Flooding from Helene caused more than 600 miles of destruction, from Florida’s west coast to the mountains of North Carolina, while Milton raked across the Florida peninsula less than two weeks later.
“One of the most striking findings of the survey was that this was across the political spectrum,” said the lead author, Eric Lewandowski, a clinical psychologist and associate professor at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. “There was no state sample where the endorsement of climate anxiety came in less than 75%.”
The study was published in the Lancet Planetary Health, and follows a 2021 study covering 10 countries. Both the previous and current study were paid for by Avaaz, an advocacy group.
I agree, it’s a very serious problem that the Democrats continue to push policy that is unpopular with young folks.
Because elections are popularity contests.
They very clearly are, but there aren’t any American political parties that are invested in their future. Just ones that pretend to cater to them while selling them out to the oil and weapons industries.
Yeah, it sucks. Any time you start talking about making the future suck less, Republicans start calling you a commie socialist and Democrats kick you out of the group chat.
That seems very defeatist though? I mean I get where you’re coming from in that ideally we’d have options which align more with what we want to move towards progress but realistically that’s not something that’s entirely possible right now.
Right now, there’s an option that pushes progress further back and the other one that seems somewhat neutral by comparison (unfortunately). In that case, wouldn’t picking the lesser evil be better than simply standing by and doing nothing?
Forget it, you’re talking to a brick wall.
Let them get some life experience and maybe in 15-20 years it’ll be a productive conversation.
I lost my faith in the American political system over 20 years ago…
Sure
?
It’s not defeatism, it’s political realism based on an understanding that the USA is not and has never been a democracy. The only two parties that matter get to pick their constituencies and they cannot fail, they can only be failed by the usual electoral scapegoats.
And in any case, the DNC knows they’re winning this election so why should they risk alienating their corporate and billionaire donors by appealing to the idealism of the youth?
Also, I don’t believe in lesser-evilism. If a party can’t pass an anti-genocide bar that’s so low as to be subterranean, then they aren’t getting my vote.
While I agree with you in the ideal scenario, wouldn’t the end result of not voting for the lesser evil lead to the outcome where the greater evil wins anyways? In that case, realistically, wouldn’t a lack of a vote be practically equivalent to a vote for the greater evil?
I’m not American and so I have no idea how things on the ground are like but it does seem that the people who support the republicans seem to be a lot more passionate in voting for their end?
Only in the short term, because the victory of the greater evil activates people politically. That’s how we got Biden in 2020, it was as inevitable as Harris’ victory next month.
No, abstaining is abstaining regardless. All blame directed at uncommitted voters is in reality a fault of the parties that fail to appeal to them.
The voters cannot be blamed for the lacl of choice they were given, to do so is to insist that the parties have a right to make demands of the voters rather than the other way around.
Yup. They’ve got a party that promotes their sense of greivance and Democrats can’t match that energy without moving left and alienating their right-wing campaign financiers.
I can’t say I agree entirely with you here since it does seem to equate a lack of variety in choices is the same as a lack of choice. Still, I do somewhat get what you mean and I can respect that. Either way, thanks for humouring me, it was enlightening to see the other perspective.
That would seem to be a fundamental point of contention there. In my perspective, a distinction without a difference is a distinction in name only. If there’s no variety to a choice then it might as well be moot, the only people who have agency are the ones who constrained the window of choosable options.
Anyways, I’m happy to share my weird perspective on politics. It’s always nice when folks actually listen instead of just ending the conversation by declaring me part of their opposition. XD