More than half of young voters believe it is at least somewhat likely that the world will end in the next decade, according to a new poll conducted by Scott Rasmussen.
As climate change hysteria continues to dominate the news cycle, more and more young people are picturing themselves in doomsday scenarios: an uninhabitable planet with few people around to see it.
Older voters tend to be more optimistic. Only 12% of senior citizens agree that climate change is an existential threat, compared to the 51% of voters under 35 years old. Overall, 29% of voters tend to believe the end of the world is somewhat near, while 71% disagree.
Rasmussen’s latest poll confirms a trend we’ve seen sweep the United States over the past few years: Young people are increasingly uncertain about the world they live in, and they’re ready to do something about it.
Just this week, hundreds of students abandoned their classrooms as part of a staged climate change walkout. Anxiety tends to push these kids toward activism. More than 7 in 10 American teenagers believe climate change will cause a moderate or great deal of harm to their generation. As a result, roughly 1 in 4 have participated in a walkout, a rally, or have written to an elected official to express their concerns, according to a new Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll.
To these kids, growing up in a world plagued by fossil fuel dependence, meat consumption, and rising temperatures is like reading a dystopian novel. They see natural disasters, like hurricanes and floods, as evidence that the world really is falling apart. And they think the grownups just don’t care enough to stop it.
Ironically, the people these kids hold responsible for climate change — the adults — are the very same ones feeding them the information that fuels doomsday paranoia, intentionally or not.
A recent scene in HBO’s Big Little Lies captured the dynamic. After a second grade teacher gives a presentation on climate change, he finds one of his students passed out in a closet after she had suffered from a panic attack. Why did she panic? “She believes the world is ending,” the school counselor says.
If these recent polls are any indication, parents might just be watching that scene unfold in their everyday lives in no time at all.
—by Kaylee McGhee
