PLEASE NOTE: This is a minimally-edited transcript that originates from a program that uses AI.
Anita Rao
Jade Sasser was in an online meeting when she got wind of an evacuation warning for her home.
It was early September, 2020 and Jade was living in Pasadena. The Bobcat fire had broken out just miles away and was starting to spread as a native of la. Jade had experienced a wildfire before. She's also a researcher with a special interest in climate change, so she was very aware that natural disasters like this one were only becoming more common.
But on this September day with a fire forcing her from her home. Panic set in.
Jade Sasser
I wasn't sure where to go. Being in the midst of a pandemic, and for me, the anxiety of that moment was how do I manage the impacts of climate change on top of other stressors happening in life?
Anita Rao
Jade ended up staying for a week at her mom's house. When she finally returned home, her apartment was safe, but her anxiety only spread.
Jade Sasser
The air was so thick, it smelled like a campfire everywhere. And I have to say it was quite strange because people were still filling all of the outdoor cafes, outdoor coffee shops. Sitting under these orange tinted skies, like I was the only one whose level of anxiety and concern was really high.
Anita Rao
This feeling of simultaneous distress, confusion, and doom was Jade's first experience of a very particular emotion. Climate anxiety. This is embodied. I am Anita Rao.
The term climate anxiety started gaining traction in 2019. It's an umbrella term that describes the range of negative emotions people have about climate change. The majority of Americans report that they're at least somewhat worried about climate change, but this concern is heightened for Gen Z in particular.
For some, it's negatively affecting their ability to function day to day. Jade started digging into this climate change and mental health conversation, and what she found would lead to her book Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question. It explores the intersection of climate anxiety and a longstanding research interest of hers reproductive politics.
But we'll get to that in a moment. First, back to 2020. An interpersonal aha moment around climate anxiety that set the stage for her research.
Jade Sasser
I felt fear. I felt worry. I felt concern. I felt confusion. I felt, well, if it smells like a campfire, it's hard to breathe and I can't see street signs 20 feet away.
Something is wrong and maybe I shouldn't be outside breathing this air. And yet so many other people were, to be honest with you, the main emotion was this feeling of. Loneliness. Like why am I the only person who feels anxious about this? And that is a critical component of climate anxiety too, for a lot of people, especially for young people nowadays.
Anita Rao
You were no stranger to this kind of natural disaster. You grew up in California, which is one of the states where someone is most likely to experience a natural disaster. So what was different in that particular fire or on that particular day that you think helped you connect the dots to really being able to articulate like, oh, I'm, I'm, I'm actually really anxious about this bigger feeling beyond this precise moment.
Jade Sasser
I think what was different for me about that moment is that it became clear that there is no way out of climate change. And what I mean by that is this is an experience that will be here with us for the rest of our lives. At that moment, in the fall of 2020, while confronted with this devastating pandemic simultaneously, it really became clear to me as I was thinking about how to escape my home, it, it became clear there is no escape from. Climate change. I can evacuate from this particular threat at this particular moment, but the larger problem of climate change itself and the impacts that it is bringing to the planet, there is no escape from that.
Anita Rao
So you learned about the term climate anxiety in the context of how it was impacting people's reproductive decisions. Where were you in your own thinking about having a kid as you were really confronting climate anxiety yourself?
Jade Sasser
Deeply ambivalent as I have been for many years. So, Uhhuh, uh, to be honest, in that moment as I was thinking about evacuating my home and dealing with that wildfire, I felt a sense of relief at not having a child. And it's not because I think that children are inconvenient or difficult, et cetera, but I, I really felt strongly that I. Didn't have the resources or the tools to manage, getting myself to safety, dealing with my own anxiety, and then also dealing with the anxiety and concerns of a child as well. I just didn't think that I would be able to manage that in that moment, and I felt a sense of relief that I didn't have to.
Anita Rao
As you kind of broadened from your own experience to look into the research on climate anxiety and this question you had of like, how is it actually impacting the choices people make? Is it impacting whether or not people want to become kids? What did you see when you looked into that data?
Jade Sasser
One of the things that I saw quite clearly for young people, particularly young people in Generation Z, is a feeling that among those who otherwise would want to have children, there is a pervasive feeling that they don't have the tools, resources, or . To have children in a way that would feel morally and ethically correct to them. And increasingly for young people, it feels like it's not a moral and ethical thing to do, knowing that climate impacts will continue and will continue to get worse in the future. I.
Anita Rao
When you're talking about this link, I want you to kind of clarify like is it that people are concerned about how having their own kids will affect the planet or more so about the kind of planet they are bringing their kids into?
Jade Sasser
Okay, so that's a really important question. Also, a generational shift. Older generations, especially those who have been environmentally engaged, have really been worried about the impact that their children would have on the planet. One of the shifts that we are seeing with young people today is that they are more concerned about the impacts that the planet will have on their children. So these ideas about population growth being bad for the earth, or that too many people overwhelms the earth, that's an idea that young people are really looking at with more of a skeptical eye understanding that, in fact, how we impact the earth has everything to do with how we live, how we consume resources, where we live, and so on and so forth. More and more young people today are saying, well, what if this planet makes my children sick? What would my children be exposed to in of toxins, in of heat waves, in of unanticipated life threatening events? So this question of is it a moral and ethical thing to do to have children because they might outstrip the Earth's ability to sustain human life, that's not so much where the conversation is today. The conversation today is. If we know that devastating, potentially extinction level events might be on the horizon, why would I bring a child into that knowing that they didn't choose to be here?
Anita Rao
You early in this research shared some thoughts on what you were finding with your mom one day when you were in the car together, and I think that was a really interesting conversation. So I'd love for you to take us into that, what you shared and and what your mom said.
Jade Sasser
So my mother and I, we used to have mother-daughter dates where we would get a massage and then get lunch, and one day we were on the way to do that and we talked about grandchildren. I don't have children, but my sister does. My two nieces are in their teens now. We were talking about them and my mother was making statements about their children in the future. And I turned to her and I said, mom, you recognize that they may not have children in the future, and that it might not even necessarily be because they don't want them. Their future reproductive decisions might actually be impacted by all of the things that I research, the devastating storms, hurricanes, floods, wildfires, heat waves, and other things, um, that climate change brings, or just worry and concern about the future. I had spoken about my research to my mother for a number of years at that point, but she had never really heard it in that way. And that day she got it. Hmm. She got it on a level that she had never gotten it before, and it was because of the potential ways that it might impact her own family.
Anita Rao
And one of the particular things that she said in that conversation that I wanna unpack further is she said. You know, okay, I hear you. But you're talking about white people, right? Like black people don't think about that. They're not making family decisions that way. And I wanna hear more about that and and how that led you to an interesting consideration of how race might be a factor in this climate anxiety kid conversation.
Jade Sasser
So she did say that that is not something that. Black people are thinking about or are concerned with. And I have to say, that is one of the most common reactions that I get when I talk to black people or other people of color about my research, especially those who are my age or older. I'm, I'm a Gen Xer, so the thing is. In the common narrative about climate anxiety and particularly worrying about having children due to climate change. The main narratives, the main stories, the main images that we get about this in the public conversation tend to be focused on young, white people, often students. The problem with that is. As a result, there really isn't a lot of research to challenge that narrative, and so the narrative comes to be the story without a lot of evidence to confirm or negate it. That was one of the reasons why I wanted to do my research and to write this book, and the reason why is because when I was talking to more and more young people of color, the age of my students, I'm a university professor, so my students are on average between the ages of 18 and 25 when I was talking to more and more. Student age people about this set of questions and issues. I was finding, in fact, a lot of young people of color were very concerned about whether to have children, when to have children, should I have children, et cetera. And among other things, climate change was the reason why they were wondering those things for themselves.
Anita Rao
Just ahead, Jade will share stories from the young people she talked to who are struggling to make big life decisions in the face of climate change. You're listening to Embodied from North Carolina Public Radio, a broadcast service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can also hear Embodied as a podcast. Follow and subscribe on your platform of choice. We'll be right back.
This is embodied. I am Anita Rao. Today we're talking with Jade Sasser about how negative emotions caused by climate change are affecting young people's plans to have kids. Jade is a professor at the University of California Riverside, and the author of Climate Anxiety in the Kid Question. Early in her research into climate anxiety and family planning, Jade noticed a gap in the data.
While communities of color are hit harder by climate impacts, few people were asking young people of color about their climate, emotions and how those emotions impacted reproductive decisions. So Jade set out to find answers. She surveyed 2,500 young people across the US about half of whom identify as people of color, and she also conducted some in-depth interviews.
Jade Sasser
The results were unexpected. To my own surprise, actually, young women of color are more likely than other groups to actually take climate change into in their reproductive decision making. In that national survey that I conducted women of color. We're more likely to indicate that they are planning to have at least one less child than what they actually want because of their concerns about climate change.
Anita Rao
So it's really playing out in the tangible decision making that. They are doing. Is there a sense to you of why, like what is leading to that choice to have fewer kids? Um, and, and, and are there any kind of stories that come up for you that exemplify that?
Jade Sasser
Well, so to answer the question of why, I would say first and foremost, we can't disconnect climate change from other things that are happening in our world. It doesn't stand alone as a concern for people. It's more of a threat multiplier. So for example, people who are concerned. About their financial future, whether they would be able to get stable, secure jobs, whether they would ever be able to purchase a home, are going to feel even more uncertain about those kinds of questions. If they're also thinking, I would need to find a home in a place where I wouldn't be devastated by a flood or a wildfire, taking that home away from me, or damaging that home and making it unlivable. The other thing though, for. Young people of color who I interviewed was this general pervasive sense of feeling unsafe, uh, in the world, particularly in this moment of deep and intense political polarization. Politics came up over and over and over again in my interviews when I didn't ask about it. And what I was told over and over again is that there is this feeling of deep division. Deep hatefulness, deep polarization that produces feelings of real unsafety for young people of color. And so that feeling of social. Unsafety on top of economic, deep, deep, deep uncertainty and distress about the future amplifies the, the concerns that young people have about climate change. They all work together. Climate change doesn't stand alone as something that is a source of anxiety, but it really heightens and dramatizes the anxiety and uncertainty that young people of color are already feeling.
Anita Rao
That's interesting and, and I'm curious about how that compares to the folks you interviewed and studied who weren't people of color. Like was it that this was the kind of the first existential threat that they had to deal with because they weren't as concerned with bodily autonomy or, or day-to-day life? Can you articulate that difference?
Jade Sasser
Yes. So the young people who I. Interviewed who did not identify as people of color, really felt shocked that in the context of climate change, they felt like this was the first time that their futures were threatened and that their trusted leaders, government leaders, scientists, people who they respect in the public sphere, policymakers, people who are supposed to ensure. They have a safe and livable future ahead. They feel that those people are not doing that job, and this for them is the first time that they have really felt that way. On a large scale bodily autonomy has been. That issue also for a lot of of young women or people who could become pregnant. But climate change is bigger than that for a lot of people. And the reason why is because climate change is something that touches every aspect of life and how we live on the planet, the air that we breathe, the water that we drink, the food that we eat, whether it can grow or not, the ability to live in our homes. The ability to look ahead to their future and have it be a place that we can look to with hope and the sense that we can thrive, that we can create the futures, the families, and the legacies that we want. All of those things are upended by the deep, deep, deep uncertainty that comes along with climate change.
Anita Rao
So you have this kind of twofold inquiry. You have the, you know, what are the environmental emotions that you are feeling, and then you have, how are these emotions impacting your decision making? And you said, you know, you found statistically a statistically significant finding that young women of color were more likely to have fewer kids than they wanted because of. Climate, how is that decision going for them? Like what is it like in of, I'm thinking about your mom and her response to thinking about not having, you know, great grandkids. Like I'm wondering of these kids who are thinking about this and making this decision, like are they enacting that already in their lives or are they sort of in the pre-planning phases of, of having kids?
Jade Sasser
These are people who are mostly in the pre-planning phases. So these are folks who are in their twenties and. Until their mid thirties. So the average person in the United States today has their first child at age 27. I think that, you know, before that age, it's all sort of future planning, imagining dreaming around that age, mid to late twenties and into the thirties. That's when people are actually taking action on creating families or not. So I think for most people who participated in the survey, we don't know whether they will actually follow through on their. Stated plans or not, and we can't know for probably another decade or so. I do have to say though that uh, one of the people who I interviewed for the book has since had a child, and she was someone who, at the time of the interview, she was very clear that she wanted children, but she felt very. Anxious and worried about her ability to properly and positively manage being a mother in the face of various climate emotions, not just climate anxiety, but a lot of grief and depression about the state of the planet too. And for her, she was less concerned about. Extreme weather or climate impacts and more concerned about her own mental and emotional health resources, the ability to safely navigate parenting while all of these challenges and stressors were happening, her child is now a year and a half and they are thriving. She is still deeply concerned about climate change, but those fears and concerns have led her to become much more engaged and active in her community. She's involved in a number of community based efforts around environmental sustainability and protection. Her reason for doing so is that she has a year and a half old daughter for whom these issues around climate change have really become solidified for her and. She actually feels a lot more confident about parenting now because she can see herself taking action consistently to make the world a better place for her daughter now and in the future.
Anita Rao
That's really interesting. I am curious if there are any other stories that come to mind from your research of. You know, specific decisions people are making maybe around whether it's a question of biological children versus adopting or fostering. Was that a thread that came through in your conversations?
Jade Sasser
Yes, and I have to say, I was quite surprised. I found, I. So many people who I interviewed, again, these were people in their early to mid twenties talking about fostering and adopting. That was a conversation that seems to be quite common among young, environmentally aware people today that we just weren't having when I was that age. A number of people I interviewed, one comes to mind in particular, Victoria, because she, hers was the story that opened the book, Victoria. Comes from an immigrant family from Ghana where large families are prized and wanted, and she herself grew up in a large family with lots of cousins and has always wanted a large family. Uh, she was an environmental studies major undergrad, and her environmental studies degree really has shaped a lot of her perspectives on how she wants to live her life now and in the future, including how she feels about having a family. And so for her. The desire to have a large family is really heavily mediated by these concerns about climate change. So for her, the only way to have a large family would be, uh, to adopt children. And she doesn't have any active plans to adopt now, but she has stated quite clearly and is still consistently stating that if and when she does have a family of any kind, if it is a large family, it will only be created through adoption. There were others in the book who I spoke to, including a young man who comes to mind because he was one of the only young men that I interviewed for the book. He was very clear that he looks forward to fostering children, and for him that is the way to establish a family that he feels good about. I heard those kinds of stories about. Very positive thoughts and impressions around fostering and adopting and looking forward to fostering and adopting in the future. I think for environmentally engaged youth, that is a way to sort of feel good about becoming a parent because they're not bringing a child into the world who didn't ask to be here, but rather they are creating families with children who are already here.
I also want to say. On another note that. For those young people in particular who really do want families of their own and who feel very challenged by their climate anxiety, climate anxiety doesn't make them want families less. It creates a sense of deep, deep distress about whether and how to have the families that they desire, and so. The issue isn't so much one of deciding not to have kids because of climate change, but rather this deep, deep quandary that many young people are in around this question of how can I have the family I want? How can I feel good about that decision? Knowing where we are and where we will be in the future With the climate crisis,
Anita Rao
Do you get a sense that this is a conversation that is happening? Out loud. Like when you're on a first date, like you're really expressing, I have this anxiety and it's shaping this decision. I wanna be upfront about that. Or is it a conversation that's kind of happening between people and their therapists? Like where, where and how are these conversations about climate anxiety and reproduction happening?
Jade Sasser
So that was another surprise that came through in some of the interviews for the book. There are young people who are having these conversations on first dates. I couldn't believe it. Um, one of the young people I interviewed said that, you know, he, when he goes on his Tinder dates, he immediately starts to suss out whether the person wants children. How they want to bring those children into a family and what their environmental values are. Another person that I interviewed said that she immediately asks whether her date wants kids, and if the date is very clear that they do, then she says, thank you very much. This is not going to work out. Wow. Okay. Straightforward. I was quite forward, very straightforward, very surprising to me. The other thing that I was not anticipating, uh, before these interviews is that I spoke to a number of young people who said that. When they and their friends have this conversation, those who say, I really want children, and especially those who say, I really want multiple children are met sometimes with negative peer pressure, with a response of, Ew, why would you want that? And that was a surprise to me. Where is that EW coming from? Do you think It's coming from a place of being steeped in an awareness of all of the. Many, many challenges that we are facing, both at the societal level and also at the earth or planetary level, and saying, why would you want to take on even more challenges while dealing with these ongoing challenges that we're facing now?
I think also there. Is a pervasive sense, especially among really, really deeply, uh, climate engaged or environmentally engaged young people. This sense of we don't know what kind of future is coming for us. We don't know if we will be able to thrive in the future. We don't know if the future will be a place where we can experience joy and happiness and the things that we want for our lives, or whether it will be a place that is steeped in emergency and crisis. And challenge over and over and over again. Um, and we don't feel that we have the emotional and mental resources to deal with it. Keep in mind that these are young people who largely are facing a lot of mental health crises in general. Gen Z is the most anxious generation. In addition to being the most climate literate, scientifically literate, et cetera, generation. They have come up in an era of crisis after crisis, politically, economically, societally, culturally, et cetera. And so the challenges facing them, I think are quite different from challenges that have faced other generations throughout the years. Older people might say. Well, there have always been wars. There have always been political and social challenges. the club. You know, challenge is a part of life, but climate change is quite different. Climate change is something that is planetary, it is pervasive. It is something that happens on a long. Scale in of years and decades. The changes that we enact now will be felt for years and decades to come. The changes that we are not making now are causing challenges in our atmosphere and in our environment that will continue to be felt for years and decades to come. And so an awareness of that means that a lot of young people today have kind of a long-term perspective. On the environment that we are currently living in and will live in. And it's, it's different. Their perspective really shapes future decision making 'cause they're future oriented in general.
Anita Rao
So given that they are expressing climate anxiety, we are expressing climate anxiety. We have it, we know it's impacting our big decisions. I'm curious about kind of the, the conversation about what we do about it and framing that conversation because it's, it's not gonna go away. The climate is, you know, it's still actively changing. There's only so much that, you know, individual action can do. So how do you think about that? Like, how do we respond to this existential. Threat knowing that it's not about individual action.
Jade Sasser
That's the challenge. Yeah. So we can do a number of things. Understanding that it is not about individual action doesn't mean that we shouldn't still take individual actions. And the reason why is because psychologists. Have really shown that there are different ways that we can cope with climate change, and some of those ways are more successful than others. Some forms of coping are focused around problem solving, meaning that we can identify and solve specific problems within our homes, our lives, our communities. Either alone or together with others, and that creates or increases feelings of efficacy agency, the ability to make an impact or make a difference. Other forms of coping in particular. Meaning focused coping, so ways in which we translate make sense of and find broader purpose and meaning in climate change. And what we do to respond to it is more likely to create feelings of hope. I. We actually need to feel hopeful in order to continue with our lives as they are today, and to make better lives for ourselves and our families and communities in the future. The other thing though, I would say is that I think it's important for people to understand that climate anxiety or climate distress more broadly is not the problem. The problem is climate change itself. We are reacting in appropriate, normal and healthy ways to deeply, deeply distressing events and. I really want to stress that because it can become easy to feel isolated, to think that no one else is distressed.
No one else is concerned or worried as I am. I'm the only person who feels this way, and that is not true. So one of the things that I actually recommend is bringing the conversation out of the shadows and having it more often in more public spaces. And there are places where you can do that. Climate cafes are. Popping up all over the country. They are spaces that are designed to have these climate engaged conversations about how climate change is impacting people emotionally, mentally, in their lives. These are not spaces to talk about what you are doing, but rather spaces to talk about who you are being in the midst of climate crisis. And there are also spaces for generating a sense of together in communities. There are also resources that are being created, uh, to help people have conversations to, at the most basic level, identify their emotions around climate change and to talk to other people about those emotions. Many of those resources are being developed for children in the K through 12 grades, but also for the adults. To work with them and also just adults who want to begin having the conversation as well.
Anita Rao
Jade will stay with us just ahead as we talk more about what folks of all generations can do about climate anxiety and hear how Jade's own climate worries have evolved in the past five years. that you could hear embodied anytime as a podcast on your platform of choice. And if you would like to leave us a message with your. Thoughts on this or any other episode, please send us a note via our virtual mailbox SpeakPipe. You can find a link to do that on our website, embody w unc.org. We'll be right back.
This is embodied. I am Anita Rao scholar. Jade Sasser's personal journey with climate anxiety began in 2020 when she had to temporarily evacuate from her Pasadena home due to the Bobcat fire. When the Eaton and Palisades fires ravaged la. Earlier this year, Jade had moved, but she was still close enough to witness the destruction of places near to her heart. As she watched friends and community lose their homes, she was devastated. But to her surprise, this experience didn't spike her climate anxiety.
Jade Sasser
The ironic thing is that as we have had more climate disasters than specifically wildfire disasters here in Southern California, my own climate anxiety has eased up a bit. It's gotten a bit less, and I think that's because. More people are aware of climate change are taking it more seriously. There are more resources available to address and talk about and deal with climate anxiety. More people are having conversations on their own about how these climate impacts are impacting them, their lives, their families, and their communities, and it's no longer a stigmatized conversation, at least in the way that it was before.
Anita Rao
One conversation that Jade has gotten especially good at having is whether or not it's a good idea amidst all of this, to have kids. Jade's research on that topic is laid out in her book, climate Anxiety and the Kid Question, and at this point, this is the response she offers up.
Jade Sasser
It's really hard to answer because that's not an answer that I really feel that I can give to people. But what I do say is this. First and foremost, I am deeply, deeply committed to reproductive justice and reproductive justice is a framework and a perspective that s people's ability to have the children they want. To not have the children, that they don't want to raise the children that they have, uh, with the necessary resources for safety and sustainability, and to have a sense of bodily autonomy and agency in their lives. If that means for you having children. Then I say, go for it with all of the gusto and energy that you've got, but you cannot bury your head in the sand. You cannot pretend that climate change doesn't exist, and you cannot go on with life as usual because life is not. As usual, parents will have to get involved in climate change in one way or another, even if it's something as simple as educating their children at home in age appropriate ways about what is happening in our weather, what is happening to our planet, if. Parents go a step further than that. There are everyday actions, small and large that parents can take and more resources to educate parents about that. Um, we have places like the Climate Mental Health Network and organizations like the Moms Clean Air Force that talk about those actions that parents can take. So. I would say that activists in this space actually argue that it's not about the babies. Even though we talk about the babies, it's about what babies represent and symbolize. And for many, many people, it's this question of. How do I engage with the world around me in ways that are not only not harmful to the planet, but that are protective of it, that help sustain it, and that help me feel confident that if I want a family, that I can raise that family in safe and sustainable ways and not be worried that life will be nothing but difficult for them.
Anita Rao
So you went into this kind of thinking about how is climate anxiety impacting how young people of color are making. The decision about whether or not to have a kid, and you found out it is impacting that decision, but also it seems like you're saying that this kid question. Is important only because it helps us have a bigger conversation that we're maybe not already having. Is that right?
Jade Sasser
Yes, that's right. And that bigger conversation is about climate change. It's about how we are engaging with the planet around us and our own environmental actions. It's also a question around what our political leaders are doing, what kind of policies they are creating, adopting, enforcing, or rejecting and pulling out of. It's also about a set of questions around are we well resourced in of the emotional and mental health that we need? And the general answer to that last question is, no. Particularly for communities of color that have historically not had enough emotional and mental health , particularly in the context of environmental and climate injustice.
There are some communities, generally communities of color and low income communities. Are unevenly burdened by climate impacts and don't have as much access to the resources and tools that are needed for resilience, uh, and to adapt in appropriate ways. So maintaining a climate justice perspective is important because we need to prioritize frontline communities that experience climate impacts first and worst.
Anita Rao
It seems like there is a translation error happening between what. Gen Z and millennial folks are seeing and feeling about climate anxiety and maybe what their parents and grandparents are hearing and, and you kind of sit, I guess at a, at a nice point between those two generations. Like what do you, what do you think about this translation error and, and what we can do to kind of bridge that gap so we can be having clear conversations intergenerationally about this?
Jade Sasser
Well, I think that. A big part of the reason for that translational error is simply what we grew up learning in school. Older generations did not grow up learning about climate change in their science classes in elementary school, junior high, high school, et cetera. And when we did learn about climate change. Later than those years, it was always something that was coming in the future. Mm-hmm. And that is a very, very different perspective from what kids are getting in school today. I think one thing that we can help older people to understand is that we have a, a role to play in this fight against climate change too. A lot of older people. Boomers in particular will express to me that they feel delighted that young people are so environmentally engaged, that they believe that young people will save all of us from this crisis and from other environmental crises. But I do have to say. When young people hear that messaging, it's deeply disturbing to them because it sounds like older people are abdicating their role, their responsibility, and leaving it for younger people to solve these problems. So I think that a starting point can and should be intergenerational conversations. They need to be culturally appropriate conversations. They need to be conversations where. We approach the discussion with deep mutual respect and a desire to learn from each other's experiences. No one has all of the answers, but I think if we, you know, kind of approach the, the conversation with a bit more humility, openness, and respect, then we can learn from each other people across generations and age groups and find, find strategies and solutions. Together.
Anita Rao
How is this conversation playing out in your own family? We talked about your mom, but you also have a sister who has two kids. You have two nieces. What is the intergenerational dialogue happening for you?
Jade Sasser
Well, it's interesting. Everyone knows that this is what I do research about. Everyone knows that this is what I write about. I think that they approach the conversation with me from that perspective, but I always redirect it to how are we feeling about. This wildfire, this set of wildfires that just came through. What do we think about where we will be in the future? Can we continue to live in these places where we are living today? So for example, I live in inland Southern California, close to Riverside. A lot of people in the state of California have had issues and challenges with maintaining insurance on our houses. Our insurance companies are dropping people based on algorithms that show. Where wildfires are more likely to happen in the future. This is generating new conversations in the family. My sister and her family actually live not here in California. They live in the south in a, in a hurricane prone state. Um, so we have those conversations about where they will be in the future. I have other family who. Live in Louisiana and are having those kinds of conversations about, you know, the legacy and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. This is year 20 after Hurricane Katrina, but hurricanes come through every single year and they do damage every single year. And we are having those conversations together as a family about what is our future planning as a family in of living in places that are prone to disaster. Will we move, will we move to be closer together in places that we hope will be less disaster prone? The conversations are very specific and very, very real. They're not abstract.
Anita Rao
What do your young nieces say? Like what? What is their, um. I guess thinking at this moment around the climate and these big questions about where they're gonna live,
Jade Sasser
They don't have much to say. They, uh, one is a tween, the other is an early teen. They're more concerned with. Boys in classes in school, middle school and high school. Middle school,
Anita Rao
Yeah. Fair.
Jade Sasser
Yes. Um, I think they're also still in the age group where it seems like any problem can be solved if you apply logic and you know, rational solutions. And I don't want to disrupt that thinking for them. I think that. They are still very hopeful about the future. They feel that they have a lot to look forward to. Their parents do protect them a lot from climate distress and climate anxiety, which I think is a very good thing for parents to do. Again, one of the things that I think is most important about the resources that are coming out to parents on this issue is that. Those resources are designed to help parents have age appropriate conversations, and the goal is not to rip the bandaid off for children so that they are steeped in, you know, these, these facts that then produce more climate anxiety, but rather to help them make sense of what's happening in the world and to think through what their level of engagement can and should be as they get older and learn more and more. The other thing that I do have to say. And this is not about my family, but this is about this question of age appropriateness, is that more and more educators are realizing that the way that we talk about climate change in the classroom lands emotionally in a way that we hadn't necessarily anticipated in the past. And we, in fact, as educators need more resources to get the message across. To educate our students appropriately and to also not create a sense of climate distress. So there are more teaching and pedagogical resources for us that are coming out, and we are trying new and different things in the classroom all the time because we don't want our classrooms to be the space where students first become climate anxious.
Anita Rao
I love what you point out there because it's distinguishing that, you know, anxiety is not a feeling. It's, it's a response to something that you are avoiding or something underneath. And the feel, the real feelings there are like sadness about the climate and, and grief, and how do we make space to sit with those and move toward action without focusing just on like moving past the anxiety and then maybe. Burning out as climate activists, which is something that I feel like I've seen happen to a lot of millennials and folks in my generation who became very rageful and activated and then are starting to burn out.
Jade Sasser
Yes. I think that avoiding, not avoiding, but really resisting and finding tools to navigate so that you don't experience burnout is really important. And again. The good thing about climate anxiety being a part of the broader conversation now is there are more tools and resources to people around it. So again, the Climate Mental Health Network has a number of great resources. The Climate Psychology Alliance of North America has a number of great resources. There has never been a time where there have been so many resources available to people to talk about and navigate climate anxiety, and it's because of this awareness that climate anxiety is increasing as these climate impacts and disasters also increase.
Anita Rao
As someone who has thought about this so much intellectually and has done this work, when you are experiencing those climate emotions, what tools have you found to kind of slow yourself down so that you're actually able to acknowledge the feelings that. Are there and, and integrate them before you kind of move forward into the the intellectual piece?
Jade Sasser
Well, one of the things that has been really useful for me is a perspective that was developed by a psychiatrist named Caroline Hickman, who works with children on their climate anxiety. And the perspective that she developed is one in which we can reframe climate anxiety to understand it as really an expression of eco. Empathy, eco comion and eco love. So we wouldn't feel distressed about these impacts to the earth, to the environments that we live in if we didn't actually really love this planet that we live on, if we didn't feel deeply connected to these environments within which we live. And so if we can connect to that sense of love and connection. To the earth, to the planet, to the air, to the water, to the flowers, the plants, et cetera. We can do that in lots of different ways. You know, the young people say, go touch grass. It's a, a funny kind of way of saying it, but it actually is really important to get grounded as much as possible through. Any kind of connection with nature, and we can do that in large ways and in small ways as simple as going outside and and touching grass. What is going to sustain us is going to be finding multiple ways to connect with each other and with this planet that we live on. And that's not an intellectual activity. That is an activity that is going to be grounded in finding spaces of joy and happiness and calm and peace. Yeah. And ultimately love.
Anita Rao
What message do you want to offer and leave to your students as they kind of move forward and, and make big life decisions while considering the climate, while feeling very real feelings about the climate? Like, is there, is there a, a, a mantra or something that you want them to, to keep in mind from your perspective?
Jade Sasser
Hmm. I want my, my students to really move forward into the future with a sense of hope that is grounded by an awareness that we all have to do our part collectively to make this planet a safe, sustainable, livable world. I want them to also understand they als, they do understand, but to really lean into the fact that. Younger people have inherited a generational burden that is unequal and unfair, but that it is older people's responsibility to show up as ers, as allies, and as. Co-organizers and co-conspirators in this fight. And also the fight has to happen on multiple levels. It has to happen, you know, as a policy fight, a political fight, an economic fight, but it also has to be a fight for our own happiness and joy. And if your happiness and joy comes through having children, having the family that you want, then you should go for it.
Anita Rao
You can find out more about Jade and her book Climate Anxiety and the Kid Question at our website, embody w unc.org. You can find all episodes of Embodied the Radio show there and subscribe to our weekly podcast. Today's episode was produced by Kaia Findlay and edited by Amanda Magnus. Nina Scott is our intern, Jenni Lawson, our technical director. Thanks so much to Sean Roux for his help with this episode. Quilla wrote our theme music. This program is recorded at the American Tobacco Historic District, North Carolina Public Radio is a broadcast service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I'm Anita Rao.