“Eco-Anxiety” Spreads among Youth

Research conducted around the world has indicated that intense “eco-anxiety” is common among young people. More than 45% reported that their feelings about climate change had a negative impact on their daily lives and functioning, while 75% believe that the future is frightening. What should be an optimistic generation is now consumed by existential dread.

Young people have been overwhelmed with irrefutable proof suggesting the future will be bleak. The most recent IPCC assessment warns, once again, that the window to achieve climate goals is “rapidly closing.” Meanwhile, it reports a spike in severe water scarcity, extreme heat events, and food-borne, water-borne, and vector-borne diseases. This is the world that has produced an “eco-anxious” generation.

These feelings are further aggravated by the inability of capitalist institutions to deal with the climate crisis. Young people expressed feelings of betrayal rather than assurance due to the inadequate government response. As they should! The IPCC states the obvious when it points out that present global funding flows for adaptation, including those from public and private sources, are insufficient, limiting the implementation of solutions.

Last month, the Financial Times found that it would require $9 trillion a year from now until 2030 to fund the mitigation and transition costs needed to keep temperature rises in line with the Paris climate agreement. To put this into perspective, the fiscal measures needed to maintain capitalism afloat during the 2020 pandemic amounted to $12 trillion, and after being forced to spend this sum in a desperate moment of crisis, the ruling class shut off the tap as soon as they could.

By contrast, fossil fuel subsidies in 2022 alone were $7 trillion, whereas not even $2 trillion went towards climate finance that same year. As for where the $9 trillion is supposed to come from, “world leaders” have no answers.

The capitalist mode of production caused this crisis, and capitalism is incapable of solving it, for the simple reason that polluting industries are terribly profitable, whereas addressing climate change is not. Not only are they neglecting the effects of climate change, but the industries responsible for it have not slowed down at all. The last three years have seen record oil production and profits.

All of this record-breaking drilling and polluting has happened on the watch of Genocide Joe, whose weak campaign promises about transitioning away from fossil fuels have gone up in smoke. The ruling class has demonstrated its utter inability to take adequate measures to address this impending disaster. Neither Biden nor Trump; neither the UN, nor the market can solve the climate crisis!

In order to safeguard the majority’s interests, the majority has to take political and economic power. Only the expropriation of the Fortune 500 companies and the total restructuring of the energy grid under the democratic control of the working class can achieve the urgently needed measures. We can no longer leave it in the hands of the capitalists, who would rather invest in climate-controlled bunkers.

There is reason for optimism along the road of the class war. The same forces producing widespread foreboding about the future are also impacting mass consciousness in the direction of communism. The climate anxiety felt by millions of people must be converted into a revolutionary determination to bring capitalism to an end. A brighter future is possible!