Seattle group empowers youth to tackle climate change and mental health issues together

SEATTLE — The youth mental health crisis is colliding with another crisis: climate change.

Local research from Seattle Children’s found that the majority of young people surveyed were worried about the climate, and many of them said that those fears hurt their daily lives.

From hurricanes along the East Coast to tornadoes in the Midwest and wildfires in western states; from relentless rains to dangerous heatwaves, the news of climate change can feel constant. And it’s not just adults noticing. Parents and doctors are both seeing the stress of climate change in young people.

“Sometimes, I’m just scared that like something big will happen you know like a big storm or like a flood or something,” 9-year-old Bernadette Joldersma said. Bernadette is one of the young people attending a recent training with Climate Action Families — a group empowering kids and teens to work on climate change issues.

Grace Stahre is Director of Operations at CAF.

“When young people know about the climate crisis, it’s really heavy on them because they understand that this is their world going forward that they’re going to be having to deal with all of these issues,” Stahre said. The group goes beyond talking about the climate crisis and helps kids organize and take action. Chloe Bonnici started a club at her school to spread awareness.

“So they write letters to officials and senators on new climate issues and hopefully so we can get some change done,” Bonnici said.

You can contact your legislators and look up what bills are going to be impacting the climate, and you can get out and you can march, and that’s what I did,” said Emory Ranes at the CAF event. “You’re not helpless.

It’s a key message for young people who can feel a debilitating sadness about the climate. Dr. McKenna Parnes is a clinical psychologist and researcher at Seattle Children’s. She helped conduct a study looking at young people and climate emotions.

We saw it was close to 16,000 youth who completed the survey, ages 16 to 25, and over 85% of young people were saying that they are worried about the impacts of climate change on the people and the planet,” Parnes said. “Sixty percent were saying that they were experiencing emotions such as feeling anxious, powerless, angry, and sad. And close to 40% were even thinking about the impacts of climate change on their daily functioning.

The number that said their feelings about climate change hurt their daily lives was of particular concern, according to Parnes.

That’s a really specific factor that we think about when we’re considering the level of severity and impact that an event is having,” Parnes said. “So there’s the extent to which people might be thinking about climate change and it’s concerning them, but if they’re not able to do what they typically want to do or engage in life in meaningful ways, that can have really severe consequences if it continues.

Parnes is also looking at the role social media can play. Using the Los Angeles wildfires as an example, she said scrolling though images of the devastation can “exacerbate some of those negative emotions.”

Parnes praised CAF, saying the hands-on work helps kids process the difficult emotions. They are able to help the climate and their own mental health at the same time.