Climate Anxiety and Our Kids w/ Dr. Susan Clayton & Jeremy Jarecki

the Golden Globe. After all we've been through, we deserve in orgasm. Cis I deserved? Welcome to Go ask Allie. I'm Alli went Worth And this season I'm digging into everything I can get my hands on, peeling back the layers and getting dirty. So last season we talked to Dr Harold Koppowitz about the epidemic of anxiety in our teens, and today we're digging deeper and getting a little more specific because we're talking about what experts are calling climate anxiety.

So a few years ago, my youngest daughter wanted to have elimonade stand and of course we have always said that if you have a bake sale or eliminate stand, you have to do it for a cause. And my daughter Harper said, oh, we have a cause. We have a cause. I said, well what is it? And she said polar bears? And I said, well, how is that a cause? And she showed me a photograph of an emaciated and dirty polar bear sort of trouncing through what looked like a melted fiord. It was just water and

she said, Mom, because of global warming, they're dying. And it devastated my younger daughter and she said, I've got to have elimonade. Stand. I have to raise money, mom, we have to save the polar bears. It was a crisis and an emergency and she needed to raise money right away. So it's real climate xiety. So how do we help our kids cope with this deep worry so

many or feeling over climate change and their future. I mean, kids are already affected by climate change when they have to run from a wildfire, lose their home in a flash flood, or maybe they're just terrified about a global

extinction of animals. Climate anxiety is becoming a real mental health issue, which is why I'm so grateful to talk to our guests today we have to first Dr Susan Clayton, an environmental psychologist, and then Jeremy Jarecki, a high school student and climate activist, for one teenager's point of view. First up is our mental health expert. Dr Susan Clayton is a professor of psychology at the College of Worcester

in Ohio. Her research examines the way people think about and respond to nature and environmental issues, and she's currently writing about the effects of climate change on mental health. She's published over a hundred articles in several books. She has a PhD in social psychology from Yale University and currently she's a visiting hello at the Paris Institute for Advanced Studies. Dr Clayton, thank you so much for being here. Well, thanks so much for calling attention to this topic, and

it's it's nice to talk with you. How do you I'm just thinking if you were if you and I were at a cocktail party right now and I said, what is climate anxiety? How would you answer that? I'd say it can refer to a host of negative emotions that people experience based on their recognition and awareness that climate change is occurring. Um so I think anxiety is one of the most pronounced emotions, which is why I

talked about that. But people you know experience tend to experience the anxiety alongside other emotions like fear and grief and even anger. I would then add, if you were still listening to me, that climate anxiety is not a mental disorder. It's not, you know, a clinical diagnosis. It's a description of a very normal response to a very frightening situation. However, for some people it can become overwhelming, and certainly it's a source of stress that coroved present

a threat to mental health. Do you think people are talking to their therapists about it? Yes, I know they are. So let me start with a with a broad question, which is how are we getting our younger generations to care about what I call the global crisis? Well, I think that they really learned to care when it becomes

personal for them. In part, so in New York, I think you can see the effects of some of the major storms that you guys have had, or it can be seeing the impacts on an animal, or sometimes just hearing a personal story from somebody who's been affected from by climate change. So I think it really helps to

make it concrete rather than abstract. Some of the things that you've written about about zoos and aquariums, which really I pivoted my way of thinking about them, because I had always viewed them as you know, caged in animals or contained fish. And you talk about the kind of psychology of having real experiences with the animals, you say that if they're scary or fun or awe inspiring, there's kind of a visceral connection children have, particularly with animals. Yeah. Absolutely.

And you can debate the ethics of the zoo, and of course many people have, but my interpretation is based on what I see. And and first one thing, Uh, all of the zoo people I've talked to are so committed to the welfare of the animals of both in the zoo and in the field and trying to to promote conservation efforts. But then secondly, just watching people in the zoo, and certainly it's not every single person that they have these really profound emotional experiences, and not just children.

You see you know, really sedate looking middle aged people saying oh wow, this animal is awesome. So um So I think that people can, at least some of the time, have these really significant emotional experiences within while watching the animals. Yeah, for parents that are you know, bringing children up. How do you take that experience and sort of push it further?

Do you say, oh, by the way, this beautiful snake you've been admiring is actually going extinct, and so you know you need to pay atten Like, I'm curious about the language you use after they've had that experience. Yeah, that's a great question, because, as you say, a lot of people have these experiences at the zoo, and for most people, they stop right there. So they need to be developed to have a greater meeting for the kids. And of course it depends on how all the kids are.

So you want to say anything too depressing to a very young child, But as I get older, I think you can certainly tell them about the problems these animals are facing and also hopefully combine that with something that can be done. So whow, I just love lions. It's really sad that they are facing these challenges. Um, I wonder do you do you want to donate some money to help save the lions or what do you think is there something we can do to to help save

the lions? Um? And again, depending on the age bring that into something that they actually can accomplished, maybe personally. And do you ever And I did this with my kids, and maybe it was the wrong thing to do, but I would I used to try to combine things and show them how we need this particular animal, let's say, because he eats this, which saves this, which gives us oxygen.

You know, I would try to sort of create a chart that shows what an integral part that animal plays in the much bigger picture, which is maybe a more positive spin. No, that's absolutely great. I think a lot of people when they think about animals and humans and all kinds of parts of nature, they think of them very separately, and they have a very poor sense of how it all fits together as part of the system.

So anything you can do, and again when the children are very gun, they're probably not going to really grasp this, but to explain that, um, their interactions and you know, what happens to this animal might effect this other thing, and it all comes back around to us, and therefore what we do might all come back around to them as well. So it's it's teaching about interdependence. Yeah. But by the way, um, you know, when I've been researching to talk to you about, you know, the sort of

anxiety that comes with global warming. I realized that, um, a lot of adults can benefit from this too, you know. I I have come across a lot of adults that are in denial or have fear about all this stuff and just sort of two now. So I keep talking about, uh, the younger generation are our kids, but I'm actually, with a wink to you, it's really everybody, absolutely, and adults are really bad about recognizing interdependence to them. You know, a lot of people I'm sure of thinking, why should

I care about the polar bears? You know, why should I care about the modern butterflies? Why should I care about bees? And they don't recognize, especially with the bees, that's pretty clear, yeah, that we are intimately dependent on them. Right, So let's get into the sort of mental health of this subject. So how do we help the upcoming generations of kids with their fears and their concerns? Because there,

you know, I have certainly seen my own kids. There's that feeling of, um, look what you're leaving us with? How dare you look? Look at the garbage build up, look at the wildfires, look at the flooding. Look at everything, it's chaos and the news everywhere. Why are you doing this? And how do we you know, the next generation, how do we stop it? Yeah, and I mean that the extent of that distress and that emotional responses is greater

than I even realized. You probably saw the study that came out ten thousand young people around the world surveyed about how they feel about climate change and how they feel about the way society is responding to it, and just astonishing percentages saying, uh, humanity has doomed, the government

has failed us. I feel portrayed. So there's, as you say, it's very powerful emotions that are not just fear, but also I think a feeling of anger that they've been left holding the bag and yeah, yeah, the people who are supposed to take care of them have fallen down

the job. So a lot of parents, I think an instinctive reaction is I need to tell them everything is going to be okay, especially for younger children, And that's not the right approach because children, I don't know if you could ever keep the news from them, but you can't do it anymore. They hear things, they have their phones,

they have their computers, they have their friends. They know we're facing environmental challenges, so if you tell them you know, everything's okay, they will just stop trusting you as a source of information. Yeah, so I think they need to be encouraged to talk about their feelings because it does help to express them, and because if the anxiety is maybe even worse if you think other people don't feel it as well, so a little affirmation that this is

a reasonable response can be helpful. I would also think that if you placate them and say everything's going to be all right, then they're more apt not to do anything about it either. That's true too, so that they're even though teenagers probably don't realize they're doing, because they're still looking to their parents and to the adults in their lives for clues about how to respond to this situation.

So if the adult says, so don't worry about it, it'll all work out, or if there's not even any problem um, even if the child doesn't quite believe it, they are getting this message from a very powerful adult figure that you don't have to do anything, and so they are they've been entitled to go on with their lives and not worry about it, And don't you think that there's a reason that they have all sort of clung on to Greta as a climate crisis pioneer and

hero and speaker for them. Well, I think that she has just she articulated what nobody was articulating before. And I know it's not just young people. I know a lot of older people who just share her on which she talks about how angry she is because nobody was talking about anger before. They were talking about anxiety, and they were talking maybe about sadness. But this anger, I think is a really important thing to recognize. And of

course she's had such an impact. So she's also a case study of just because you're young doesn't mean that you have no power, right, And I'm thinking about how to be honest with our kids. You can use her as you know, not as a scare tactic. But you know, she was afraid, she's upset, and look what she's doing

sort of a way to get them to be proactive. Um, you know, you don't want them to sort of throw in the towel and say, oh, we're screwed, or she just well, there's nothing I can really do about it. So I was just thinking about when you said, um, there's a way to have the honesty of it without increasing their anxiety, but actually get them a little mobilized. Absolutely. I teach college students, so five years ago you get

the comment, well what can one person do? And now I just kind of said, well, here's what person and look what she was able to do. I think what people think about you know, what can an individual do? There's two There's often too much focus on what can I do directly? What can I can't reduce the amount of carbon emissions in the air. You know, I can't clean up the ocean. But we forget how powerful social influence is as a as a force but also a thing. So you can you can have an impact as a model.

And even if even if you can't affect everybody, if you could effect a significant subgroup of people, like maybe only other New York teenagers will pay attention, that's still a pretty large group. So we really have this tool for social influence that we all have that we often underestimate. And so when you hear climate crisis anxiety for younger generations, what are some of the things that you hear over and over again, and how do you address them like

with your college. Well, to get to answer the second part of the question. First, I've began to feel that it's kind of a professional obligation to maintain optimism, so I do try to give them a positive message while also listening to of course they're concerns and um. One of the things that's really struck me that I seem to hear more and more is questioning whether or not they will have children. So they're thinking about this because you know, at the age of two, it's on your mind,

and I strongly suspect that most of them will. But the fact that they're even thinking about it, they're thinking about their futures in an entirely different ways that I thought about my future at their age. There's a sense of things things get worse, right, And if you are, you finding that they have a fear that I didn't have growing up, which is a fear of the environment, Like are they feeling that that they're in danger all

the time, like the flooding and the fires. I think certainly some younger children are feeling this way, maybe not college age, but I've heard middle schoolers who really have a sense that there is a battle between humans and nature and humans we're doing bad things to nature, and so now nature is uh once revenge in a way, it's turning the tables. And how do you address that, Like, what do you say? Well, I'm never actually I think

exactly in that position. But I think it's very important to break down this idea that nature and humans are on opposite sides of the of the battlefield where or that there even is a battlefield. So I would try and emphasize that nature is not out to get us, that in fact, we are part of nature, and there are plenty of good things that people can do for the environment. And again depending on the edge of the child, let's look at some examples of some of the things

people are doing in order to protect the environment. So we try and break down that in tagonism, right, but also the idea that the environment itself will become less hospitable. And I think, now I'm going to sound very psychological, but of course we have these nice ideas about mother Earth, mother Nature. Nature is supposed to nurture us and take care of us, and so um, I think people have this almost subconscious feeling that nature is not going to

take care of us. So much anymore. It's it's going to be a less pleasant place to be. And does that at all give them the impetus to change? I mean, does that not provoke a way to try to befriend nature? Well, I think for someone does. I think most people probably don't need to be more worried. They just need to know what to do and to have a better sense of how to do it. So some of them need to be more worried. Yeah, well, I'm planned on scaring the ship out of all of them. And it's time

for a short break and we're back. Can I ask you what are you most scared about? Well, because that will that will become my fear. As if you're worried about it, then I'm gonna be worried about it. Um in a in a very abstract way, I'm just worried about the future being harder and less pleasant for live children. So if if I guess, if I went to name the one concrete thing, it would probably be the way population distribution is going to be affected by cloud change.

Maybe that sounds learning, but you know, to be specific, what's going to happen to Florida, What's going to happen to New York City. What's going to happen to people who are living in the low lying islands. I'm worried about increased global conflict as people kind of struggle over uh, you know, some people have to leave their homelands and move someplace else where the people who are there don't want them, Increased struggle over adequate natural resources, increase suceptibility

to diseases that might be spread by climate change. But my more general fear is just that it will be a a sad or weaker place. I mean, I'm still optimistic, partly, as I confess a while ago. I feel like it's an obligation. I think that we will develop new behavioral patterns and also new technologies, but gee, I wish we were focusing on those with a little bit more urgency than we are. I want to talk about the politics of this too, because you know, everything in our country

is so fractured and polarized now. I mean, I think Republicans are far less likely than Democrats two enact laws and reforms about climate change. But you know, we have generations of new voters coming up, and so are you seeing an impact on them? My understanding is that there's still a very strong political divide between Republicans and Democrats in terms of accepting climate change is happening and wanting to government to do something about it, but that it's

less of a divide among younger voters. And I think we can see politically there is already somewhat of a shift that Republicans are a little bit more willing to acknowledge that something needs to be done than probably they were five or ten years ago. So you see the party sort of coming together when it comes to global warming. I will say I see them coming closer together. I

don't see them coming completely together. I think it's been extremely unhealthy that we have this level of political divide about climate change in this country, which is not true in every other country. I think it's legitimate for there to be political differences about how to address the problem. I would love to see what political debate about appropriate ways of addressing the problem. What doesn't help anybody is when one political party says there is no problem. Yeah,

that is a problem. Yeah. So which leads me to my next question, which is in terms of anxiety about this particular issue for our kids. I am a big believer that education is a huge tool that that that dissipates some of the anxiety about what's happening in the world.

And I would love, love, love if middle schools and high schools would implement global warming education so it becomes kind of a fundamental part of our children's education, and therefore they're more up to want to do something about it as they get older. I think that would be great for one thing, as you say about knowing more about it can make it less scary. It's I mean, right, face lots of bad things. We're facing COVID right now, which is a pretty bad thing, right. And education conserve

a variety of functions. It's not just necessarily giving people the facts, but it can also be teaching them that it's part of what it means to be a citizen is to think about these problems and to think about solutions to those problems, or to be part of the solutions for those problems. I remember when I was going through elementary school, we would do all this stuff in school. We would make posters about recycling and saving the earth, and so I wasn't scared at all because I thought, yeah,

we have this problem. But clearly people are paying attention and they're on top of it. I think the disconnect for a lot of young people these days, um, as we're talking about politics is that they're feeling the dangers and they're feeling, oh my gosh, the flooding, the fires, the animals, the you know, all of it, and yet there are people saying, no, it doesn't exist, it's not true.

And I think that's also a difficult thing for young people to sort of wrap their head around, because they know it intuitively, you know, absolutely it can be one of the scariest things in the world when you know there's a problem and people deny to you that that problem exists, and not to be insensitive, but that it can be thought. It was similar to the case of where our child it might be being abused, and the adults around him or her refused to acknowledge there's a problem. Um,

it really magnifies the problem. So it's not just about the physical experiences, about the sense that others are not supporting me, others are denying the very reality I'm living in. And if you were still talking to me at that cocktail party, um, what advice would you give me in terms of helping my kids deal with climate anxiety. Well, I would say, first, are they just a little bit

anxious or are they a lot anxious? Because for or anyone who's very, very anxious, they need to come to terms with their emotional response thwart and I would say, in that case, you know, go on a media free diet, you know, stop paying attention to the news, do deep breathing, go for a walk in the woods, those kinds of things.

But for most of us who sometimes feel anxious but are are pretty functional, I'd say, help your kids become informed because a big part of anxiety is uncertainty, and we hear all these terms being sort of thrown around. Our world is on fire, We're all doomed. I'm pretty worried about climate change, but I don't think our world is on fire, and I don't think we're all doomed.

So getting a little bit more accurate information about what might happen in my community in the next two years, in the next twenty years, What are we really talking about? What we talked about climate change? Because even if it is bad, just knowing about it gives you a little bit of a greater sense of control. Understand what's happening.

Then I would say make sure they have people to talk to, and that can be you, but it's also nice for them to have peers, so they might look into finding or starting a social group of people who are concerned and then find something that they can do,

find some way to take action. Not every child wants to be politically active, so taking action could mean preparing your own household, or preparing your community, trying to establish community response to again whatever issues that community is faced with. But on all four political action as well, right your right, your congress people, right right to corporate executives asking them to change their practices, and that's a good thing to

do because it might have an impact. It's also a good thing to do because again it's being actively involved as an agent can help you feel less overwhelmed and out of control. But I do see it's very important to give children hope. And hope doesn't have to be, in fact shouldn't be in this case, unrealistic optimism, but

just the sense that better things are possible. And one of the things that gives me hope is a sense that this this kind of build back better idea that we don't have to just avoid some of the worst impacts of climate change. But we can actually change the way we function as a society in a way that will be better than it was before. And that could just be things like walking, more driving less, spending more time with family and less time and the shopping mall.

I love that. I love ending on an optimistic note like hope. All right, Dr Clayton. Now is when you get to ask me a question. So what you got for me? And not in French? Oh yeah, well, I was going to ask you how you would describe your relationship to nature. I found when I was younger, Um, I didn't appreciate it very much, and now that I'm older, I appreciate it so much. I try to spend as

much time as I can in nature. I try to have my kids spend as much time in nature, which makes me even more afraid of it being taken away or being gone. And it's funny enough, because a couple

of summers ago I discovered clamming. So my favorite thing about it is not that I bring home dinner, but that I'm out on a bay and it's quiet, and I'm seeing cranes and ducks and these beautiful weeds, and sometimes it's at dusk and I have one of those beautiful moments in nature where you can almost hear Box brand American Charito play, and you know those moments I only have in nature, really, and I think someday when my husband and I retire, we want to be fully

engulfed in nature. So I can't get enough of it. That's great. Dr Susan Clayton, thank you so much for all of this. I think it's an issue that's not talked about enough, and I'm very grateful that you came on and talked about it with me today. So thank you well, thank you very much for a really interesting conversation. When we come back, I talked with high school student and climate activist Jeremy Direcky about her feelings a climate change and what she's doing about it. Okay, let's get

back to it. So I really wanted to talk to a younger person who might be experiencing some of the things that Dr Clayton talked to me about. Jeremy Direcky is a climate activist and a leader of our high school's environmental club. Hi Ali, Hi Jeremy. I'm very happy to have you on because um I screened thousands of teenagers, and you came up as the the girl to talk

to about. I'm calling it climate crisis because there is a huge amount of anxiety I think with your generation when it comes to what the climate crisis is doing to the Earth. And I'm just I'm curious, what is What would you say your number one concern about global warming is what scares you the most? I think global warming scares me so much because it's an issue that doesn't have one finite solution, and it's something that we as young people and we as a society have to

continually adapt to in order to confront it. And so that's really scary to think about an issue that you have to consider and care about um so strongly for the next foreseeable future, like for the next decades to come. There's really no end to confronting this crisis. Is there something that really really really makes you mad that really gets you? Is it? Is it the abundance of garbage? Is it oil spills? Is it, you know, carbon monoxide? Like,

what is it that in particular really grinds you? I think I guess something that really grinds me is that people don't realize how it's going to affect them, and

so they detached themselves from the issue. Um, And I'd love to say that I'm like completely selfless in my pursuit of environmentalism, but I am definitely thinking about my own future and if I want to have kids one day, and that's something that I think me and a lot of my friends and peers have to question, like do we want to have children to bring into this world that is being threatened by climate change? And I wish that that was more obvious to people my age, just

the impending doom of the crisis that we're facing. And it's not something that's just going to affect Australia or just going to affect the West Coast or you know, wherever it's really right now. It's something that's going to affect each and every single person you know, and every single person who is going to be in your life for the you know, next generation to come. And so I think that I just want people to like internalize that a bit more how it is going to affect

you personally. So you and your friends really are concerned about having children, Yeah, Like that's a real fear for you. And so what what is it that what's the narrative in your head when you think about it, that you'll

have children who won't be able to survive. I think partly that, like it's scary to think about bringing up a new generation that's just going to have to face like exponentially more crises than we've had to face, because in the coming years there are going to be so many more natural disasters and um, you know, oil spills, pollution problems, trash build ups, etcetera. And so I think that's a part of kind of like the horror that we're thinking about. But also overpopulation is one of the

main causes of climate change. Like if you look at this issue over time and just how I mean this is going all the way back to the Industrial revolution, but how we've this demand for kind of fast food, fast fashion, fast innovation has created this culture of disrespecting the planet, and a lot of that comes from overpopulation. And so I think me and my friends, even though that sounds kind of funny, like we are genuinely concerned to contribute to the masses of people like creating this demand.

And so what are some of the things you're doing that is sort of your contribution to change? I mean, you know, look for me, it's recycling, it's um being aware of it, certainly, reading and educating ourselves as much as we can. You know, I I have. I'll be the first to admit I'm ignorant about a lot of things. I'm truly Like where is all the garbage going? By the way? Where does all the poop go in New York?

You know that that kind of stuff. And I think for a long time my generation would just be in denial of it or just go, well, it's not really my problem, so I don't really have to think about it. So on the one hand, it's great that your generation is standing up and going, hey, this is a huge crisis. But also do you start to think of actual things that you can do that you and your friends practice

that can make a difference. Yeah, for sure. I think that one of the most underrated ways to involve yourself and environmentalism is just like, find your niche and understand where your passion aligns with the movement. And I think that that's the most important part of it. Well, maybe it's looking at like how Black Lives Matter and the climate crisis intersect, and how like the crisis will disproportionately

affect people of color. Maybe it's you know, if your LGBT look at queer communities and like their lack of accesibility to clean water and stuff like, there's just so many ways to get involved in just that small little intersection and then that's just that's what's going to change everything.

And then people just don't go outside. And so something that we do in our environment club at school is UM we try and come up with like activities or fundraisers that will just get kids like hands on involved

with outside. So last spring, for example, we UM held a I think it was called it Potting Plants in the Park party, and we got a bunch of soil and a bunch of UM at home grow your own basil and grow your own time, and we brought it to the park with a bunch of paints from the art department, and we got like forty kids to come to the park and just sit there like no phones or anything, playing some music, painting these pots, growing these plants,

and just talking about like the outside and talking about environmentalism. And after that we had way more sign ups for club, like way more involved kids excited about what we were doing. And I think a part of that is just because you need to find what people are going to connect with. UM. Tell me about soil versus dirt, future food vulnerability. Okay, this is what I spent this entire summer doing. So um Soil describes the very rich and carbonous material in

which plants and ecosystems can grow and thrive in. UM. Soil is something that you discover if you went to a really bio diverse park and you just grabbed a handful of ground and you saw all of the different colors and all the different bits and worms in what you were holding. That describes a really nice soil. Dirt, on the other hand, is kind of like dead soil. UM. And when it comes to farming and agriculture purposes, UH, you want soil to be able to grow your crops

because crops fuel on carbonus m aial. So if you're going to plant a corn crop, you needed to plant into this really rich soil in the ground in order to grow into healthy food. UM. But once that soil starts to degrade because of you know, weather, because of overuse, because of mono crop culture, then it loses all of the nutrients and it loses all of the carbon and it just turns into this super dead, dry material that

can't grow anything. UM and so one of the huge I think effects of the climate crisis that people don't realize is that we really only have about sixty more crop cycles until a lot of our soil in the US turns into dirt. And when it's reached dirt, you can't do anything with it. It just it's like a

total total dust bol situation. It's this um, you know, material that is just going to get lifted up into the air, suffocate people, and it's it's not something that can be used for productive growth or human life and so UM that's really important part of sustainable agriculture to focus on, like how not only do how do we

grow food sustainably, but how do we grow dirt? Um and so in the coming years, I think that there are gonna be a lot of soil farms, which is a really fun idea UM I actually worked on when this summer. So Soil is a really interesting aspect. What

do you do on a soil farm. UM. On a soil farm, you create kind of like little micro ecosystems for soil to grow without added seeds are added plants, so for us, we combined compost, we combined cow manure, and we combined some existing soil and then we put it under this very tempered um uh kind of like bio maatt and over the course of a few months, that um enables moisture and different kind of like fungus to grow and it reinjects all of these nutrients back

into the soil. And then after about a year or so a bit longer, you start to produce something that can be reused again in agriculture, and it creates a whole new life cycle for soil. UM And that takes time, and a lot of people don't really have the patients or the money to grow soil, So it makes sense that it's a relatively new technology, but definitely it is interesting. And um when you when you say sixty more crop seasons, mm hmm is that sixty years? Yeah, sixty years. That's

not very much. No, not at all. Um. I I heard that in the documentary Kiss the Ground, which all plug. It's very good documentary. Is it good? Okay? Good, that's a it's a good plug. Then. Um, And you're a New York City girl, so what is it that connects you to nature and what connects you to this issue. I think that my love for nature comes from really my family and my brother's immersing me in the outdoors

since I was really little. Um, when I was younger, I used to go to a canoe tripping camp in Canada. That is kind of a tradition that's been passed down in my family. And as I started to understand what the environmental crisis was, I realized that not only was human life at stake, but all that I had come to love, you know, could be gone in the matter of decades. So is that how you became aware of

the climate crisis situation? You kind of you heard statistics or you heard things about the natural surroundings around you that you love so much that could go away. Yeah. Um,

it started with that. There was also a specific moment when my brothers and I were on our Thanksgiving break and we were actually going to um uh in an out burger to get Hamburgers, and I was having a fight with them in the car because I was talking about um some like I s p C a or animal related issue, and they basically like stood up to me and they were like, well, you're about to go get a Hamburger, and I didn't understand the significance of that.

So then they explained to me, um, what the beef industry looks like in America and kind of what role it plays in the climate crisis as a whole. And from that moment, I didn't eat beef. And then a few months later I became a vegetarian. A few months later after that, I became a vegan and I've been

plant based ever since. How I'll agree you At that time, I was eleven, But that was a huge turning point for me, just because I think they really, they really embarrassed me, and um kind of made me realize that I was a very huge hypocrite. Well it's not so much embarrassed. They woke you up a little bit, right, Yeah. I also remember on that exact car ride then pointing out the smog over the l A City escape to me.

And I think that just a combination of those things like really like opened my eyes to what the crisis looks like. I had no idea that it was even a part of my life or a part of my future at that moment. And so, when you think about the climate crisis, what are you most anxious about I mean, what, what did you literally lost sleep over? Is it the overpopulation? Yeah? I think it's I mean that's a hard question. I

guess I'm just scared of how big it is. Um. I feel like it's hard to be a young person with this passion just because nobody really knows what they're doing, and it's hard to like stay motivated when we're all just searching for the answers. And so I think what scares me is that no matter how many you know, paper straws get used, no matter how many beyond meat packages replace a beef package, Like, there's just gonna be this huge crisis at the end of the day that

we don't really know how to deal with. And we've tried all of these innovations, but they're just not big enough. So what do you do to help alleviate your anxiety when it comes to global warming? I definitely like to stay busy when it comes to environmental work. So UM with my school and with a lot of other really

cool kids. UM, we are the heads of our school's environment club, and we have kind of assembled this team of environmental go getters who are working with some faculty to approach the administration about decarbonizing our endowment, UM, having a real waste audit of the school's waste UM and doing an analysis of the different types of energy that Dalton uses in our energy plan. So those are really big,

three really big things that we're tackling. Outside of that, UM, I worked on this organization with some of my friends called High Schoolers for Carbon Dividends UM. We work to create the largest national coalition of high school students. And I attend marches and I attend rallies, and I kind of do the most that I can do. I think, to me, I don't believe that every person has to be vegan, or every person has to dedicate their extracurriculars or they're out of school life to making this sort

of change. But I think it gives me a peace of mind to kind of lay some of the groundwork for my friends to help out in any way that they can. UM. And that's just a way that I alleviate some of my anxiety UM and make it feel like I'm doing something good for myself and like I'm kind of, you know, helping myself out twenty years from now. Damn,

We're good girl. UM. I just really wanted to be emphasized that, like, you don't have to dedicate all of your time to this, because I think that that's what scares people off, especially young people. But it's it's so awesome getting to go to school every day and seeing like a new kid excited about this sort of thing, and to have like my friend Charlotte come in and be super jazzed about a waste audit idea, or see

my friend Declin talk about decarbonizing Dalton's endowment. Like that's just a really wonderful community to be a part of because it's filled with immense hope and just like excitement to get stuff done. It so cool. I'm so I love to hear. I love to hear the optimism too, because you know, we talked about the crisis all the time. Here's my last question to you and my um. I briefly touched on it before, but do you know what happens to all the poop in New York City? I

have no clue. Okay, well, I mean I think we need to find out. I think we definitely do so. On my podcast this season, I'm allowing my guests to ask me a question so they get to go ask Ali, and it can be about anything. Um So, Jeremy direky. Shoot, oh my god, I'm so just asked. Um. Well, I know Ali that you're like super ancient, but I am curious what the first concert you went to was. I've always wondered that. Oh my god, what a great question. Um.

It was a band called Bad Company. Ever heard of them? I am It's called Bad Company? Is my first concert? Um? They They had lyrics like bad Company to the day your mother would like this band. Um. I went with a guy named Eric, and I remember it was the first time I smelled marijuana and I didn't understand what the smell was. And it was very loud. It's talk going to be the last concert I go to, Jeremy. Great question. All right, honey, thank you so much. You

were great. Thank you. These are two amazing humans that are not only helping with climate anxiety, but also actually trying to do things to fix it and make us all aware of how much we need to pull together our resources and try to put an end to global warming. I've known Jeremy directly for years, and boy, I hope she runch or presidents someday, or at least the head of the e p A, and I love that Jeremy

is out there trying to get other teenagers involved. And I think that there's a responsibility for all of us to do our small amount of help in terms of global warming and even in terms of helping our younger generations deal with the anxiety of it. I just think if everybody does their part, however small, that is, if it's recycling or even being educated and aware that way, when you look at the news or you read the

papers and you see, oh, there's mass floodings. Oh, these people had to migrate because of this, um oh the fires in the West. I mean, it's going at a rapid pace. So every part we can do, and even if that's educating ourselves to help our younger generations be equipped and build a better planet, that's taking part. It's a global effort. So I hope that this podcasts has mobilized my listeners to act locally and think globally. Thank

you for listening to Go Ask Alli. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast, and follow me on social media on Twitter at Ali You Wentworth, and on Instagram at the Real Ali Wentworth and look if you like to ask me a question, or suggest a guest or a topic to dig into. I'd love to hear from you, and there's a bunch of ways to do it. You can call or text me at three to three three six four six three five six, or you can email a voice memo right from your phone to Go ask

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