Editor’s note: The following is the first of a reporting series on the subject of climate anxiety and young people. This work is supported by a grant from the Solutions Journalism Network, which encourages journalists to report on responses to problems.
The term climate change can mean many things — a political agenda, a fact of life or a signal of impending doom. But for people across all generations, climate change can represent a problem that can only be solved with cooperation — a view that can increase stress.
Community members, ranging from college students to local farmers, all spoke about the ways stress about the impending climate has affected their lives and how the reactions of those around them to climate change can affect that stress.
“It [climate change] really is a cause of stress because I really don’t know what’s happening,” Senior Sebastian Griego said. “Climate change is a big worry, and the people in power are all so old, and I feel like they care about it less than me because I’m so young, and young people have to deal with the consequences of their bad decisions.”
Intergenerational Frustration
Climate change is not just a problem for the youth, who have more time to reap the consequences of a warming planet, according to Sci Blog. Rather, middle-aged and elderly people also can feel anxiety about climate change — in proportions similar to their younger counterparts.
For change to happen, there needs to be an understanding about the problem across generations, senior Lainey Fenn said
“Those conversations need to happen more definitely because, yes, I think the youth are going to be the ones to fix the issue, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t integrate the voices from the previous generation either,” Fenn said.
For junior Kate Ho, the realization that, as an individual, she doesn’t have enough power to fix the problem is startling, she said.
“It’s out of my control it feels like, and that’s a scary thought,” Ho said. “Maybe I just have control issues, but that’s a scary thought.”
Ho said her family “is very Republican” and doesn’t acknowledge climate change and that her family members do not share the same concerns as her.
“They’re in complete denial, and that’s also scary,” Ho said.
Ho is not the only student to face pushback when bringing the problem to older relatives. Senior Mary Rockelman said she tries to talk about climate change with “everyone” she knows who is older than her.
“It’s a consistent source of contention between me and the rest of my family, but it is what it is, and I try my best to deal with it,” Rockelman said.
Because of the seriousness of climate change, Rockelman said is stressful when people with power are not following what Rockelman feels is “correct.”
“Now I’m able to vote, but before, when I wasn’t, it would really stress me out when those who were voting were not really particularly caring about climate change or bills that would protect the environment and prevent climate change,” Rockelman said.
Growing up in a conservative household, Senior Raymond Avenido said his family sees the climate as cycles of “no storm” and then “storm” — quieter weather periods and periods of more extreme weather.
“So, they believe it as a hoax, and like it’s just how the world operates, they said, but I feel like it’s getting worse and worse,” Avenido said. “So, it’s a hard topic to discuss over the table.”
Global temperatures are on track to reach 1.5 degrees Celsius — or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit — above pre-industrial levels by 2030, according to PBS.
Change is happening quickly, and “modern humans have never before seen the observed changes in our global climate, and some of these changes are irreversible over the next hundreds to thousands of years,” according to NASA.
Griego said the fact that his parents most likely will not live as long as he will means they care about climate change less than he does.
“And so the issue is, they [Griego’s parents] understand the issue, and they usually understand that it’s kind of a problem, but they have a hard time seeing how it affects them and why it’s a hard thing for them,” Griego said.
This means the younger generation must do what they can, which is difficult, Griego said.
“Because older people tend to be more important people, if they’re not doing anything about it, then it’s hard for us to do anything about it as young people,” Griego said.
For other students, parents do not offer the biggest pushback. Sophomore Relena Pattison said her biggest struggle is with her grandparents, but she has a positive reception from her parents.
“I’ve always been pretty vocal about my stresses and worries of the environment and being more eco-friendly and things like that, and I have had little resistance with family members,” Pattison said.
Junior Lucas Lorimer said that while the topic of climate change is controversial, not every conversation he has is argumentative.
“You bring up climate change, it’s very political nowadays, right?” Lorimer said. “You bring up climate change, you instantly get maybe a frown or something like that. But I’ve had some good conversations with my own family and my own parents about it.”
Change in Plans
For students, climate change has not just caused frustration but also a change in plans. Avenido said he wants to retire in his home country of the Philippines but climate change has caused him to reevaluate his plans.
Lorimer said he struggles with the question of whether it is “morally permissible” to have children in the changing climate. His answer is not yet definitive.
“My answer right now would be, in my view, it would seem like the morally impermissible thing to do would be to go on having kids,” Lorimer said. “But, I’m looking for arguments that would tell me otherwise.”
Senior Tess Bridgesmith said she is from Westlake, California and has experienced weather events such as severe wind and fire — she had to evacuate because of the 2018 Woosley Woolsey fire. When hearing about climate change, she thinks of more frequent and more severe natural disasters.
Bridgesmith said her parents are interested in and willing to have open conversations about climate change.
“It’s just frustrating and alarming,” Bridgesmith said. “Like, when I heard this summer about Phoenix and places in Arizona having the hottest temperatures and the road melting, it’s kind of what can I do personally? And it feels out of reach for me on an individual level, which is frustrating.”
The fact that it feels hard for individuals to enact change is part of the frustration, Bridgesmith said.
“Using sustainable cups and straws and stuff for me isn’t giving an impact to the environment that I originally thought that it would,” Bridgemsith said.
In seeing news reports about corporations and celebrities, Bridgesmith has learned change needs to come on a bigger level.
“Mine [her emissions] is not even in comparison to theirs [celebrities], even if I’m trying to make a difference, if they’re not changing, it’s not going to make much of an impact,” Bridgesmith said.
Going forward from her classes, knowing that climate change will affect people who cannot afford to move away from at-risk areas is “disheartening,” Bridgesmith said.
Climate change has caused Bridgesmith to think differently about her future, she said.
“Will there be enough resources for everyone?” Bridgesmith said. “If I have kids, will they be set up in a world that is going to sustain them?”
A Farmer’s Perspective
Gene Etheridge is the owner of Etheridge Organics from Dinuba, California — a farm south of Fresno, specializing in organic fruit — and is part of the Healthier Generation committee, which recommends policy changes nationally with the hope of creating healthier communities, according to Good Life Organics.
Etheridge was born in 1947, before the 50s fast-food scene really began, he said. 20 years later, Ethridge got married and bought a small 1.62 acre farm with the intent of raising his children on organic food. After being drafted to and returning from Vietnam, Etheridge started his family and began farming.
“I had to learn a lot about nature,” Etheridge said. “And when you farm, you have no control.”
For example, Etheridge said, when growing fruit trees, it is important to gauge the trees’ needs and adjust from there — not adjust the trees to fit the farmer’s needs.
“I knew, as a person in farming, I had to change,” Etheridge said. “I cannot repeat. If I do the same thing and it dies the first time, it will probably die the second time and the third and the fourth and all that craziness.”
For established farmers, climate change threatens their livelihoods, which must constantly adjust to varying temperatures and weather conditions, especially in California — the most productive agricultural state in the nation, according to the USDA.
Mike Cisneros has worked in sales for Living Water Farms for four years. Every Sunday, Cisneros and his coworkers drive fresh produce and raw honey from the farm in Delano, Calif, to the Malibu Farmers’ Market.
This year, Cisneros said, the farm lost two full hives of their bees due to cold weather and experienced a significant decrease in their crop yield due to last spring’s torrential rains and this summer’s heat waves.
“[The heat] has affected a lot,” Cisneros said. “It burned a lot of the watermelon. It burned a lot of the strawberries in our area. The plants we planted early — it killed all of those too. It affected a lot of plants.”
In Ethridge’s life, he said he saw the environment change in multiple ways — for the worse and for the better.
“I don’t know all the answers,” Etheridge said. “I just know that I’ve seen a lot change”
In the past 20 years, Etheridge said he has seen species from his area such as the round-tail fox disappear.
“How are we going to work on that?” Etheridge said. “We’re getting better at it. We’re not good enough. We’re running out of time. We’re running out of time.”
Another example is water, Etheridge said. When he began farming, he could find water nine feet deep in the ground — now, almost 60 years later, it can be as deep as 150 feet from the surface.
“I’m not sure if I’m stressed,” Etheridge said. “I’m not sure if I can say it right, but it makes me kind of mad. I’ve been on this earth 76 years. So, I’ve seen a lot of change.”
For Cisneros, he said this is the first year he has seen such a drastic change in the production of fruits and vegetables on Living Waters’ farm. He estimated that the farm is producing about half as much fruit as usual.
“Actually, all of the other years, we had good production,” he said. “This is the first year that we have just had so much water.”
Like Etheridge, Cicneros said Living Water isn’t extremely concerned, but they are worried about flooding with unpredictable rain patterns.
Living Water has a greenhouse for delicate fruits — tomatoes for example — for the winter, but Cicneros said there is not much the farm can do to prepare for extreme weather conditions.
In the meantime, he said they are adjusting their planting schedules to try to make up for the fruit they lost to weather. The loss of crops to weather costs more on both ends — raising prices for the consumer and creating significantly more work for the farm workers.
Cisneros also said that, while Living Water is situated in a shady area where their farmers can work comfortably, many people within the farm community are experiencing weather-related stress working in extreme weather conditions like high temperatures.
Climate change disproportionately affects day laborers, according to previous Graphic reporting.
Hope for the Future
If people stop caring for nature, Etheridge said these changes would increase in severity, and the pressure to solve the problem falls on the younger generation.
“It’s that people don’t make decisions best for the people,” Etheridge said. “They make decisions only [based on] what’s best for them, and that’s gonna do us all in.”
Etheridge said solutions are possible, for example, Los Angeles lessened the amount of smog in the air due to emissions.
“I’m not apprehensive about anything,” Etheridge said. “We can do a good job still. We just need a lot more cooperation with everybody worldwide.”
Etheridge said he sees possible solutions both in terms of cooperation and new technology such as A.I. For example, Etheridge’s granddaughter suffers from an overload of iron in her body; however, there is research utilizing CRISPR — a technology used in farming — to help heal people with the disease.
While Etheridge’s granddaughter — and the Earth — are not healed yet, Etheridge said he is still hopeful.
“There’s always hope that things will get better,” Etheridge said.
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Contact Samantha Torre via Twitter (@Sam_t394) or email: sam.torre@pepperdine.edu
Contact Marley Penagos via Twitter (@marleypenagos) or email: marley.penagos@pepperdine.edu
Contact Joe Allgood via email: joe.allgood@pepperdine.edu
