Yesterday I started a dive into a recent study that claimed widespread climate anxiety among young Americans. If you’re at all involved with climate change, headlines like that will prompt a “click through.”
The headline summarized a study that was based on a survey of almost 16,000 young adults. Intuitively, it seems likely that climate change is in some way impacting the mental health of young adults, so I was particularly interested in the findings.
It quickly became evident that the authors weren’t interested in uncovering the truth, but rather in generating an attention-grabbing headline. I’m a marketing guy. I get “embellishing” the truth to get attention. But this went beyond embellishment. In my opinion the survey and subsequent study is pure junk.
That’s unfortunate because it’s an important issue. It doubling unfortunate given that this type of propaganda does more harm than good in furthering the effort to combat climate change.
Today’s post completes the debunking process. However, it also highlights a couple of insights that can be gleaned from the findings. Both go directly to the messaging challenge faced by the climate movement. And if the climate movement doesn’t get a handle on it, it will continue to create headwinds to achieving net-zero.
#climatechange #climatechangeisreal #youngadult #mentalhealth #meantalwellness
