There is a shocking poll of 10,000 16-to-25-year-olds across 10 countries that indicates 56% agree that humanity is doomed and 75% believe that the future is frightening. Vice.com reports: “The study, published today in Lancet Planetary Health and led by academics and professionals at the University of Bath, Stanford Medicine Centre for Innovation in Global Health, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and others, found that people from countries more directly and immediately impacted by climate change tended to be more worried about the future. Ninety-two percent of young people in the Philippines said they felt like the future was frightening, compared to just 56 percent in Finland.” Moreover, trust in government is low.
Only 28% of young people in the UK and 21% in the US thought government could be trusted when it came to the planet. According to the report’s authors, climate anxiety among young people is an “inescapable stressor,” and that unpredictable and extreme weather patterns are likely to further add to psychological distress. The study’s co-lead author, Caroline Hickman of the University of Bath, concluded, “Our children’s anxiety is a completely rational reaction given the inadequate responses to climate change they are seeing from governments. What more do governments need to hear to take action?” Perhaps the answer is found in accurate studies, balanced reporting, and truth—including the ultimate truth, Christ.
The UK Telegraph, once an advocate of global warming, had a turn-about in 2008. Reporter James Delingpole blew the whistle on scientists after obtaining 1079 emails and 72 documents from the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University. He wrote in 2009 that scientists were practicing “Conspiracy, collusion in exaggerating warming data, possibly illegal destruction of embarrassing information, organized resistance to disclosure, manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws… and much more.” Also, in December of 2008 some 650 scientists refuted the concept of global warming. The alarmist media ignores these facts and reports only doom and gloom. Politicians eyeing tax dollars, power, and government control are a constant drumbeat that the earth is doomed. Each year, the end is moved to another date.
The relentless repeating of this “no hope” message is enough to depress any young person. Genesis 1:28 defines man’s role in the environment, “…God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion…over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” God promised Noah after the flood in Genesis 8:22, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” Jesus said in Matthew 24:4, “Take heed that no man deceive you.” Only God the Creator has power to destroy earth. Man is its steward. We all need to do a better job in affirming to our youth the Hope in Christ as in Romans 15:13, “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Spirit.”
