A16 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 , 2019
BY SARAH KAPLAN
AND EMILY GUSKIN
In a coastal town in Washing-
ton state, climate change has a
high school junior worried about
the floods that keep deluging his
school. A 17-year-old from Te xas
says global warming scares him
so much he can’t even think
about it.
But across the country, teens
are channeling their anxieties
into activism. “Fear,” said Mary-
land 16-year-old Madeline
Graham, an organizer of a stu-
dent protest planned for this
week, “is a commodity we don’t
have time for if we’re going to win
the fight.”
A solid majority of American
teenagers are convinced that hu-
mans are changing Earth’s cli-
mate and believe that it will
cause harm to them personally
and to other members of their
generation, according to a new
Washington Post-Kaiser Family
Foundation poll. Roughly 1 in 4
have participated in a walkout,
attended a rally or written to a
public official to express their
views on global warming — a
remarkable level of activism for a
group that has not yet reached
voting age.
The poll by The Post and the
Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF)
is the first major survey of teen-
agers’ views since the explosion
of the youth climate movement
last year. Inspired by 16-year-old
Greta Thunberg, whose year-long
“strike” in front of the Swedish
Parliament and carbon-neutral
sailboat voyage across the Atlan-
tic have made her an activist icon,
growing numbers of teens have
been skipping school on Fridays
to protest on behalf of something
they say is more important.
This week, in the run-up to a
major U.N. summit, hundreds of
thousands of schoolchildren plan
to abandon their classrooms to
demand more-aggressive mea-
sures to protect the planet.
“People feel very guilty when a
child says, ‘You are stealing my
future.’ That has impact,” Thun-
berg told The Post. “We have
definitely made people open
their eyes.”
More than 7 in 10 teenagers
and young adults say climate
change will cause a moderate or
great deal of harm to people in
their generation, a slightly higher
percentage than among those 30
and older. By the time today’s
high schoolers turn 30, scientists
say, the world must achieve a
“rapid and far-reaching” trans-
formation of society to avoid
warming’s m ost dire consequenc-
es.
Several teenagers told The Post
they are already feeling its ef-
fects.
Gabe Lopez, 16, of Everett,
Wash., said warming waters have
taken a financial toll on relatives
who fish in the Pacific. Graham,
who lives in Silver Spring, was
inspired to take action after see-
ing hurricanes bombard Puerto
Rico, North Carolina and the
Bahamas — and watching floods
repeatedly deluge her grand-
mother’s home in Ellicott City,
Md.
“It’s like a dystopian novel,”
she said. “To grow up seeing the
world fall apart around you and
knowing it’s going to be the fight
of your lives to make people stop
it.”
Lopez and Graham said think-
ing about climate change makes
them afraid, an emotion they
share with 57 percent of teens
nationwide. Fewer than a third of
teens say they are optimistic.
“A l ot of it is connected to being
a kid,” Lopez said. “We can’t vote.
We don’t have anyone to repre-
sent us.”
Adults, he said, don’t seem to
take the issue as seriously, or as
personally, as people his age.
Lopez recalled getting into an
argument with his driving in-
structor after the older man was
dismissive of students’ anxieties
about climate change.
Adults think, “ ‘Oh you’re so
young, you don’t know what
you’re talking about,’ ” he said.
“But I know the facts, and I know
what the most drastic conse-quences will be. I know that
people aren’t d oing what needs to
be done.”
Te ens are slightly more likely
than adults to accept the scientif-
ic consensus that humans are
causing global warming, 86 per-
cent vs. 79 percent. But in other
ways, kids are much like the rest
of the country when it comes to
climate change.
Roughly a third of teenagers
and adults say the issue is “ex-
tremely important” to them per-
sonally. Just under half believe
the United States must drastical-
ly reduce its fossil fuel use in the
next few years to avoid the worst
effects of climate change. And
roughly 4 in 10 say mitigating the
effects of warming will require
major sacrifices from ordinary
Americans.
Te enagers also share adults’
questions and misconceptions
about the ways the world is
warming. In both age groups, no
more than 2 in 10 say they know
“a lot” a bout the causes of climate
change and ways to reduce it.Sizable minorities of teens incor-
rectly believe that phenomena
such as volcanic eruptions and
the sun getting hotter are major
contributors.
Despite many teens’ strong
feelings about the issue, fewer
than half say they’ve taken action
to reduce their own carbon foot-
prints. Their most common ap-
proaches are recycling, limiting
time in cars and reducing plastic
use. And most say they rarely or
never discuss the issue with fam-
ily and friends.
Meanwhile, the number of
teenagers who say they are being
taught in school how to mitigate
climate change appears to be on
the decline. Fourteen percent say
they have learned “a lot” about
the subject, down from 25 per-
cent in 2010, when the Yale Proj-
ect on Climate Change asked a
similar question.
“It’s terrible,” said Sam Riley,17, of Boston. “It’s hardly ever
brought up at my school.”
The high school junior said he
learned nearly everything he
knows about climate change
from reading the news and
searching the Internet. What he
found scares and angers him.
“We’re killing the thing we live
on,” he said. “By the time that I’m
old, I know I will see more
impacts starting to happen.”
Riley, who is black, believes
that minorities and people in
low-income communities will be
most severely affected by warm-
ing, because they are more likely
to live in vulnerable areas and
less likely to be able to insulate
themselves.
“The wealthier you are, the
more protection you have,” he
said.
The Post-KFF poll finds black
and Hispanic teens express a
greater sense of urgency around
climate change; 37 percent and
41 percent, respectively, say peo-
ple need to act in the next year or
two, compared with 24 p ercent ofwhite teens.
Te ens who do not think that
human activities are affecting the
planet are in the minority. Jane
Palmer, 13, of Chubbuck, Idaho,
said she doesn’t see how people
can influence the climate when
Earth has been changing for mil-
lions of years. When her eighth-
grade science teacher told her
class that fossil fuel use is warm-
ing the globe, her mother dis-
missed those lessons as “fear-
mongering.”
Still, Palmer has noticed that
summers in Idaho are getting
hotter. She worries that many
people “don’t really care about
the Earth” and says she is still
thinking the issue through.
“I’m kind of in between,” she
said. “It is a problem, but it’s also
not that big a deal. Te achers
should talk about it and let us
know what’s happening in the
world, but they shouldn’t...
make it seem like the world is
going to end.”
Many of her peers disagree:
About 4 in 10 of those under 18
call climate change a “crisis.” But
unlike adults, most teenagers say
they don’t feel helpless. More
than half — 5 4 percent — s ay t hey
feel motivated.
“It’s the greatest threat to life
as we know it and humanity as
we know it,” Graham said. “When
you’re facing something like that,
and you’re 16 years old, and your
mom’s yelling at you, and you
have classes, and, on top of that,
everybody’s going to die... it’s
easy to let fear overtake you.”
“But,” she said, “this genera-
tion — we’re fighters. And we’re
going to win.”
The Post-KFF survey was con-
ducted online and by telephone
from July 9 to Aug. 5 among a
national sample of 2,293 adults
and 629 teenagers through
AmeriSpeak, a survey panel re-
cruited through random selec-
tion of U.S. households by NORC
at the University of Chicago.
Adult results have a margin of
sampling error of plus or minus
three percentage p oints, and teen
results have a margin of sampling
error of plus or minus five per-
centage points.
[email protected]
[email protected]Scott Clement contributed to this
report.Most teenagers say they are frightened by climate change
POLL Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation Poll
Note: "No" and "no opinion" not shown.About 1 in 7 U.S. teens have participated in a climate
change school walkout
In the past three years, have you done any of the following to express your
views on climate change or global warming, or not?Participated in a school walkoutParticipated in a protest, rally or other eventWritten a letter, emailed or phoned a government officialHave taken at least one of the actions above15%
13
24
12
Note: "Somewhat," "not so important" and "no opinion" not shown.Teens rank climate change as important as other
major issues
How important are the following issues to you personally? (Percentage
saying "extremely" or "very" important.)Health careThe economyGun policyClimate changeImmigrationRenewable
energy74 %
73
64
61
58
57
38%
32
35
34
27
27
Extremely important Extremely + very importantNote: “No opinion” not shown.A large majority of teens say humans are causing the
climate to change
Do you think human activity is or is not causing changes to the world's
climate, including an increase in average temperature?
(IF YES) How certain are you that human activity is causing changes to the
world’s climate?
Human activity
is causing
climate to change
86%"Very certain" human
activity is causing it46%
Human activity
is NOT causing
climate to change
14%Majority of teens feel afraid and angry about climate
change, but also motivated
Does the issue of climate change make you feel each of the following, or not?AfraidAngryHelplessMotivatedGuilty52
54
43
42
Optimistic 29Uninterested 2057%
YesADRIAN BLANCO/THE WASHINGTON POSTSource: Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll of 629 teens ages 13 to 17 from July 9
to Aug. 5. Results have an error margin of +/-5 percentage points. Full question
wording available at wapo.st/pollarchiveThe Washington Post-Kaiser
Family Foundation Survey Proj-
ect is a partnership combining
survey research and reporting to
better inform the public.
The Climate Change Survey is
the 3 4th in the series. It was
conducted in English and Span-
ish from July 9 through Aug. 5
among 2,293 adults 18 and older,
as well as 629 teenagers ages 13
to 17 living in the United States.
The adult sample includes over-
samples in the S outhwest, Moun-
tain West/Midwest, New Eng-
land and Southeast/Gulf Coast
regions.
The survey was conducted on-
line and by telephone through
AmeriSpeak, a survey panel re-
cruited through random selec-
tion of U. S. households by NORC
at the University of Chicago.
Results have been weighted tocompensate for geographic over-
sampling. The adult and teen
samples were also weighted to
match demographic distribu-
tions of the U. S. population as
indicated by the Census Bureau.
The results have a margin of
sampling error of plus or minus
three percentage points among
adults and plus or minus five
percentage points among teens.
Sampling, data collection,
weighting and tabulation were
managed by NORC in collabora-
tion with The Post and Kaiser
Family Foundation researchers.
The project team from KFF
included Mollyann Brodie, Liz
Hamel, Lunna Lopes and Cailey
Muñana.
The research team from The
Post included Scott Clement and
Emily Guskin.About the Post-KFF climate poll
PHOTOS BY JAHI CHIKWENDIU/THE WASHINGTON POSTYoung activists participate in a climate protest outside the White House on Friday. Teens across the country have been walking out of school
on Fridays to protest inaction on global warming. Several teens told The Washington Post they are already feeling climate change’s effects.
Demonstrators outside the White House on Friday. Despite many teenagers’ strong feelings about
climate change, fewer than half say they’ve taken action to reduce their own carbon footprints.Roughly 1 in 4 say
they have taken action,
Post-KFF poll finds“People feel very guilty when a child says, ‘You are
stealing my future.’ That has impact. We have
definitely made people open their eyes.”
Greta Thunberg, 16, who has become a prominent climate activist