[buzzing]
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Growing up, I really thought that having kids would be
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The most important part of my life.
But I don't think about things like that anymore
Because I don't think that we live in a world where
I can have expectations for my future.
When I started to get really involved in climate activism
Was when it started to really hit home for me.
You can't have a booming fossil fuel economy...
And safe and happy families.
Those two things cannot exist simultaneously.
♪
We're driving through haldimand county.
My mom used to work at what she calls the 'holy trinity'.
So, that was an industrial park that had a coal-fired
Power plant, a steel mill, and an oil refinery.
So, the fire right up there, the flame,
It's supposed to burn off excess gas.
When I was a kid, I could see it from my bedroom window.
So, this bridge goes over these pipelines.
In 2019, there was actually a diesel spill.
♪
We're just leaving selkirk, and their sign leaving town...
Just here says, "natural gas our heritage,
Children our future."
And I think it's pretty ironic because
I'm from this community,
And I don't feel like I can have kids.
And natural gas did that and
Coal did that and oil did that.
And those are all of the things that my parents and
My grandparents and all of us were told would
Build a bright future for their children.
And they didn't know that their children would then
Have to be grappling with these questions of,
Should I even have children?
Can I even have children?
And, now we're grappling with these questions.
♪
I'm a science communicator, mainly writing about
Different things where science and ethics collide.
I was feeling like there was, there was something emerging
That I could feel within me and within friends,
That we were connecting climate change
To our future decisions.
And whether or not that means that they should
Have kids and how many?
Here we're talking about wildfires...
Floods, drought, food security issues,
Heat waves, things starting to fall apart.
Just sizing that up and thinking about, okay,
What does that really look like for a kid,
Is a serious question.
It's not just some kind of sci-fi horror scenario.
It becomes an ethical question as to, you know,
How comfortable you are subjecting a child to...
The changes you can foresee.
I'm in a young part of my marriage,
First few years of it.
And, we want to have kids, and we've talked about that.
And considering what that really looks like,
When you're following climate science, is unnerving.
The first time I talked to sebastian about this was in
The context of writing my next book.
And it was inspired by the growing amount of young
People who are saying they don't know if they feel
Comfortable having a child because of climate change.
We've been getting a lot of like,
Questions about our personal decision to have kids.
When people really want to know,
I tell them the whole thing was like,
"yeah, I had this fear, then I did all this work to try
And figure it out, felt that I could close the case.
But then it came back up again and took over my life."
But, do you tell them about
Whether we want to get pregnant or not?
Yeah, definitely, but the thing is that
That's changed so much, right?
I mean, that, that has been this...
Up and down.
I've basically over the last year and a bit been
Doing tons and tons of interviews with folks...
And running workshops, where I kind of create these spaces
That people can come together to unpack their feelings and
Their ideas about climate change and how that
Connects to their reproductive lives.
And they're not at all to express a certain message,
But they're just to create a space where we can better
Understand the different ways that people are feeling.
The anxiety of taking care of a child that will not be able
To enjoy the world as I'm enjoying it right now,
Keeps me sleepless.
It's an incredibly emotional experience to look at
Everything that you hold dear sort of slipping through
Your fingertips and feeling powerless to stop it.
People are nerve-racked, people are feeling really,
Really stuck in their own decision-making around
Whether or not they should have a child.
I do not want to tell anyone what to do around this.
No one has the right to tell me what
I should do with this dilemma.
Oh, there's tons of reasons to be scared about
Having kids, regardless of climate change.
♪
The two main reasons that people kind of align with
Their concerns about having kids because of climate change
Relate to what a new kid does to a planet
That's already overburdened with
A variety of ecological problems.
And what a changing planet does to a new kid.
I find far more people are concerned with what a
Warming world will do to a kid than that kind of
Guilt factor related to carbon footprint.
I grew up beside a coal power plant,
Which was the highest polluter in canada.
And I had horrible asthma.
After seeing you know, the stress that my mom
Went through dealing with that...
The like long days at the hospital that I spent,
I don't necessarily feel like...
I want to put somebody else through that.
I know from the research that I've done that
In ten years, shit's going to be unwell.
I would love to have kids. That's not the point.
The point is that if I were to be pregnant in 2030,
I don't know what would happen to me.
Would I be able to safely carry a pregnancy to term?
And if it wasn't a miscarriage,
Would they be healthy moving into their childhood?
And after that, would they be safe to live in a world
Where there's climate catastrophe?
So, I don't feel comfortable bringing children
Into a world if I don't know how I can take care of them
In that world because that's your main role as a parent.
I have been at ted for the last four months.
I'm doing a residency here, where they've been basically
Hosting my research process for my book.
Morning...
Hey.
"for everything- considering everything..." okay...
"for everything that's been said about climate change,
We haven't talked enough about the psychological
Impacts of living in a warming world."
That's punchier.
That was way punchier.
So, the main point of my talk is to just generally
Introduce the idea that climate change has
Big psychological impacts on us.
When there have been disasters,
We see increased levels of ptsd, suicidality,
Depression, anxiety. And then,
Without being directly impacted by climate change,
Dealing with all the un reports that come out.
Anticipating what's gonna happen.
There are things like pre-traumatic stress and
That's a term a climate psychiatrist gave us.
Another way of looking at it is anticipatory grief.
There's ecological anxiety.
I just keep meeting people who are saying, "okay,
My kid is now telling me they don't want to apply to
University, because they can't foresee a future for
Themselves because of climate change."
"a political scientist once said to me that a leading
Indicator that climate change is starting to
Hit home psychologically...
Would be an increase in the rate of informed women
Deciding to not have children."
Interesting.
And this brings me back to my main point.
The growing concern about having kids in the
Climate crisis is an urgent indicator of how
Hard-pressed people are feeling.
Right now, students around the world are screaming
For change through the piercing voice of despair.
[cheering]
In 2019, there was a lot of action happening in montreal,
Across canada, and across the world on climate strikes,
And really trying to make a bold push for climate action.
Some of the students who I was organizing with
Had brought up the fact that
We were scared of having children.
And so the, "no future, no children" pledge was
Something that was started by one of my friends
At climate strike canada.
Emma worked on a website.
And they launched this pledge,
And they got a ton of people to sign it and
They did press conferences.
As a descendant of survivors of the holocaust,
The idea that my children might again face the
Worst of what humanity has to offer scares me
More than anything else.
An alarming statement from a young woman terrified
About the consequences of climate change.
18-year-old emma lim is starting a campaign and
Pledge to not have children until leaders
Take climate change seriously.
I am giving up my dream of having a family because
I will only have children if I know they have
Something to live for.
So, can you tell me the story first of all of how you came
To start the, "no future, no children" pledge?
It was a combination of many things.
The sentiment is pretty widespread that we don't
Want to have to children because, you know,
We ourselves are struggling so much,
And our future seems so bleak,
Why would we want to bring somebody else
Into a situation like that?
And so the pledge is a platform for people
To share how they were feeling.
♪
I really wanted to be a mom. And that's something
That's really important to me.
And so taking those steps was really hard,
And it wasn't a decision I took lightly.
If I don't have a future, I'm not gonna have children.
And like, without children, there's no future.
As one young person, you know,
That's powerful enough, but then when it becomes
Thousands and thousands of young people
All saying the same thing,
That's something that people are noticing.
I was always really surprised with
How far we're spreading.
Like, it really was youth all over the world
Who were signing it.
♪
[indistinct chanting]
This pledge is not like this is a guarantee,
Or this is a contract with anyone.
This is really like, hey, these are my daily thoughts.
Apparently, a lot of other kids are having them.
We want the same opportunity that everyone has to like
Have kids, raise them in a healthy environment
Where they can actually live, learn and grow.
But how we're going,
I don't think that's possible.
That's why we're here today, so that we can
Actually fight for a future for our kids.
Because no adults even take it seriously.
Yeah.
[chanting] you can't drink oil,
Keep it in the soil!
You can't drink oil, keep it in the soil!
You can't drink oil... Keep it in the soil!
You can't drink oil!
Young people like me don't have the option of
Having safe and happy families.
Irresponsible governments kneeling to the fossil fuel
Industry took that away from us.
I'm choosing not to have kids.
But I want governments to know that this choice is
Being forced on me because I can't guarantee
A healthy and safe world for my children to live in.
♪
When I first told my parents about the pledge,
I had to like try very hard to communicate with them
That like, no, like, this isn't...
This isn't me being depressed,
Dramatic or exaggerating my fears in any way.
This is very real.
I could see you being nervous about telling me that because
I am very, like, I want grandchildren
And lots of them.
Like, I had these children, so I could be a fun grandma.
But like it's sad when you have a child as like,
You know what it feels like to be a mother and you...
You know, there's nothing like it.
So, it is a loss for us.
I feel like it's a loss for me too.
♪
I've poured like countless hours
Into doing climate activism.
And I feel like it's work that I can't do if I have kids.
Lots of people in my life have been frustrated by this.
It was difficult to really explain to them that,
You know, I'm not doing this activism just to
Shake things up just to be a contrarian.
I'm doing these things because I want what they want.
I want to be able to feel safe and secure and
To have a happy family.
But I feel like I won't have that opportunity,
Unless I'm able to stop what's happening right now.
♪
We will do everything in our power to
Stop this crisis from getting worse,
Even if that means skipping school or work.
Well over 6.6 million people have joined
The week for future,
The strikes on this and last Friday.
[cheering & applauding]
We took her to the car and, and let her go.
But she was like also on the verge of tears, you know,
Just like the rest of us, so tired and so exhausted,
And there's no break because there's no action.
We're organizing.
We're sharing this message that should be shared by
Our political leaders and isn't.
We have to keep going and it's exhausting.
I know I do ten hours of work every day for this,
And I shouldn't have to.
♪
Even though we got so many people out,
I can't name a single policy that I think
We could attribute to the climate strikes.
But the one good thing that I do think that the climate
Strikes brought was it created a sense of community
Among people from all over the country who all feel
Really strongly about this issue.
When I first started questioning what it meant
To have a child in an increasingly dire
Climate crisis scenario,
I felt very deviant for even asking the question.
Then you had celebrities like miley cyrus,
To politicians making statements.
There's scientific consensus, and it does lead, I think,
Young people to...
Have a legitimate question.
Is it okay to still have children?
At a certain moment, it just took off.
Lots of journalists writing about this.
And this is in a very few short years because
I started asking these questions in 2017.
Now, here we are in 2021.
My colleagues and I surveyed 10,000 young people
In ten countries around the world.
And we were alarmed by what we found.
56% said that they feel humanity is doomed.
39% percent of those young people said that the climate
Crisis makes them hesitant to have their own kids.
And we found that these feelings and thoughts were
Significantly correlated with the sense of being betrayed
By governments and lied to by leaders,
Which introduces us to a very important concept
Of institutional betrayal.
♪
This sense of betrayal inspired another group called
Birth strike to declare that they won't have children.
The movement came out of the uk and is similar to
The "no future, no children" pledge.
Their goal is to use reproductive decisions
To demand change, and to get the attention of those
Who don't normally care enough about the climate.
A lot of people are getting a little bit confused about
What we're trying to do here.
Some people make sense of this whole conversation
As just being about civilizational suicide.
You're basically saying, the species is over,
It's hopeless, we should in effect,
As a group end it, commit suicide.
And that is not what anyone involved with these concerns
Is saying, from my experience,
Now having spoken with hundreds of them.
Birth strike isn't about trying to stop other people
From having children. We feel too afraid.
There's a lot of kind of turbulent reaction to the
Idea and right wing conversation too
That gets attached to this.
And it's this kind of racist discourse about people from
Developing nations having lots of kids,
While people in developed nations aren't having enough.
♪
So birth strike was often misunderstood.
They tried to regain control of their message,
But many people still thought they were
Promoting population control.
So, they shut the group down.
♪
Your work has focused a lot on critiquing this
Commonly heard idea that overpopulation is the
Root of our environmental problems.
And what's happened then, in order to put that narrative
On the table and become this popular idea that it is?
Oh, so many things.
This narrative started a really long time ago,
In the late 18th century with a guy named malthus.
And then in the mid 20th century, paul ehrlich.
He wrote a famous book, "the population bomb".
He equated population growth to a nuclear bomb,
Which is frightening language.
And he was featured on the carson show
Throughout the 1970s.
Everybody's lives would get better in the long run 'cause
There would be more of everything to go around.
But our population size does not correlate to the ways
That we consume resources and pollute the planet.
So, the united states, we've got about 5% of the
Global population and put about a quarter of the
World's carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
If you look at sub-saharan african countries that have
The highest rates of population growth,
Those countries have the lowest emissions.
So, if population is our strategy or our solution,
It's not gonna work.
If we can move the conversation
Away from overpopulation,
There's still much to discuss around the
Connections between reproduction, environment,
Climate change, and a lot of work to be done.
You're now embarking on this investigation of how race
Shows up in these conversations around
Environmental emotions,
And what's rising to the surface for you?
For youth of colour, who I have interviewed,
The emotions that they expressed around whether or
Not they want to have children were mainly focused
On the things they are already experiencing.
So, racial discrimination, gender and sexuality
Discrimination, and just political division
And real ugliness.
They don't want to experience
Worsened climate change either,
But for them that's a little bit at a remove,
Whereas racism and other social tensions
Are right here, right now.
So, I have decided not to have children.
My main reasons were, can I bring a child into this
Deeply divided society in which racism
Is still this bad? No.
On top of that, I don't ever want to have to evacuate my
Home due to wildfire and have to evacuate with a child.
And fires will be coming any moment now, it feels like.
But last year, there were terrible fires
That hit this area.
And the statistically significant number of women
Who lost their pregnancies during the days
Of wildfire exposure.
So, when we're talking about climate change being
A reproductive justice issue in that sense,
It's starting to become very explicit.
♪
Conversations about the climate crisis and
Our reproductive choices are really personal,
But they're also political.
They're about climate justice, racial justice,
Social justice, and how they're all intertwined.
Partway through researching my book,
I developed a deeper understanding of how
Privilege was fueling my own eco-anxiety.
Because as a white middle-class canadian,
I mainly dreaded the future.
But people facing systemic threats are
Being harmed in the present.
How do you feel about the critique that this is a
Privileged person's preoccupation?
I wouldn't even call it a criticism,
That's just a really valid observation to make.
The pledge was intended for the audience of people that
Is more responsible for climate change.
And we wouldn't want to tell people
Not to have children, ever.
You know, for a lot of people in communities that have been
Marginalized, having kids and teaching them culture,
That's an act of activism and resistance and
Resilience in itself and that's powerful.
♪
My daughter's name is maamaatesiinh.
And it's potawatomi for firefly.
My daughter will grow up on her land,
And she will know her language.
-Say 'ani'. -Say 'ani'.
'ani', flower, yeah.
So unlike me, who has spent all of my life
Yearning for that, you know, learning my language,
But I walked alongside my mom as she reclaimed those things.
So, I have a responsibility as someone who
Grew up with that knowledge to pass it on.
I have never met an indigenous person
Who didn't want to have kids because they thought
The world was ending.
Why would we think about not having children,
When we've already experienced the apocalypse?
When somebody comes to your land,
Takes all of your resources,
Kills your ability to survive and have a family,
And then takes your children and separates them from you,
And tells you that everything about your
Whole existence is shameful and wrong...
That's the end of the world.
♪
To lose our very existence,
Which is our culture,
Is the end of the world.
And that's why we can't imagine not having babies.
Because if we don't have babies, the colonizers win,
And that's what they want.
So, I'm not gonna give it to them.
Raising children for me is a political act informed by
History because the choice to be a mother,
To raise and protect my child is the revolution.
I think it's the only way to heal from genocide.
My biggest fear is that we will come to a moment
Where I won't know if I can keep her safe.
And in that place, I know why people
Don't want to bring precious life into this world.
And so, there's this like real pain
About imagining a future.
And I think for so many populations who have
Had the privilege to live outside of genocide,
They've never had that before.
Futures have been handed to them.
The idea of safety and a roof over their head and
Having a career, that's all normal.
So, this sense of not having hope, this is new.
I think that this motherhood question
Is kind of that window into
So many demographics who live with that same fear
Every day because of the world they live in.
♪
A key takeaway for me has been to reframe the pain
I feel about the future by listening to the stories of
People who haven't been able to take their
Security for granted, and who know in their bones
How unsafe the world can be.
So, given that these emotions
Might sit in our bodies differently,
Depending on what our racial, cultural, political,
Economic class backgrounds are,
There are some similarities
Rising to the surface around this terror.
So, what kind of opportunities might that
Open up for solidarity?
I think that coming together and expressing emotions
Outwardly, and finding new tools and resources for
Creating space for other people's emotions,
Is really important.
And the reason I know that is every single
Young person who I've interviewed has said,
"I'm so glad that you're asking these questions
Because I think about this all the time,
And I've never had this conversation out loud."
♪
Many people are grieving and scared and
Don't necessarily know where to go
Because there's a lack of norms for how to process
This stuff and talk about it and bring it up.
There are journalists calling me every day
To ask how one can cope with
A sense of eco-anxiety, existential dread.
So, I decided to call my book "generation dread".
And I also write a newsletter where I share resources
For staying sane in the climate crisis.
I'm finding peer-led support groups online and in-person,
Climate cafes, climate grief ten-step programs,
And climate aware therapy
That's becoming more widely available.
When you have a place to talk about
Your fears with people who validate them,
The distress becomes much easier to live with.
So, finding this community is really step one.
When I was struggling with the question of
"do we have a kid or not in the climate crisis,"
The first group I found organizing around this was
"conceivable future".
It's an activist-led network that helps people set up
Informal gatherings to explore these concerns.
♪
A few years ago, we ended up having this pledge.
Since then, we haven't had much more of a conversation.
But it hasn't left my mind, which brings me to
This idea of the house party.
I'm hoping to be a host of one and I'm kind of
Wondering how conceivable future began.
In 2014, when megan and I met,
We both had been doing climate work for a while.
And we both had this feeling that there was a kind of
A heart missing from the movement.
The climate crisis has often been illustrated in terms of
Icebergs calving, polar bears starving,
All of this stuff is like, really bad news.
But not everybody connects to it on a visceral level.
What we were finding was climate activists,
Many of them were thinking about it in terms of
Protecting a child that they know,
A child that they want to have,
The right for people to have children.
That's what the conceivable future house parties
Are about, that taking that first step.
Why do I care about this fight?
What am I fighting for?
We have a framework, there is this house party how-to.
But really, what we do is we give people a couple of ways
To consider the question, how is climate change
Shaping your reproductive life?
Hi!
I would recommend starting with everybody
Introducing themselves and where they're from,
And maybe how old they are.
And then we have people write for a few minutes
To organize their thoughts.
If we describe the situation we're in,
That's when we start to be able to shift it.
And after an hour or two, we gather up again,
And have people share, which sounds pretty simple,
Because it is, but it's also, for a lot of people a real
Turning point in their thinking about these issues.
When I started talking about my fears around parenthood,
The goal was always to say,
I want to bring in my personal testimony
Of just how scared I am.
It's very, very much linked to what the children
Would have to endure. And it's very visual, right?
So wondering if there's reactions there?
And for you, what's the root of this hesitation?
I work in the climate sector as well.
I have access to this information.
And is it more incumbent upon me to use this
As a decision-making factor?
But also the flip side, if I'm working to fight
For systems, shouldn't I be more allowed to
Have kids at the same time?
It also means like raising a child to be prepared,
To be adaptable, to like be brave.
So that's the part that feels hard.
And like, am I ready for that challenge?
So not only is that responsibility you feel
To prepare the child.
We don't know how a child's going to react.
Like they might be really mad
Because of the state of the world.
And that's something else we have to bear.
I understand that corporations are
Responsible for most of the carbon production.
But, I pause and hesitate because it's like,
There are already so many beings,
There's already so much life, is it...?
Is it possible just to share that life that's already here?
Like, I feel like if I didn't have a kid,
Then it's almost like I could say,
"this is how serious this is."
I will change my life to show how serious this is like,
It's the house is on fire.
I agree with everything that you shared.
And at the same time, I also think that our systems are...
And capitalism in particular,
Continuously makes us return to ourself.
And, "I'm at fault, or I have to make
This decision and I'm alone in it."
And it's like, no, it's about our systems.
How can we, as a society, begin to really hold
Accountable the people that are supposed to represent us?
That's the work, I think.
And like, I think that's a very beautiful thing.
So like, what my decision might be one day,
Might not be the next, which is probably sort of
Why I land on the fence all the time.
But yeah, I agree, and there's like other ways to
Meaningfully raise children, which gives me...
Calms me down.
I continue to stand firmly on the fence with tamara.
No matter what we choose, it is very much about asking
Yourself, 'what are you called to do in this moment?'
And so like, if your energy is,
I really want to love through my activism,
Like through my giving to community, great.
And then if you want to love through
Building a family, then great.
To be here, I think what I'm taking away is that
Whatever decision I do make, absolutely,
That it would be an expression of life and
A love of life.
And I'm realizing that it would have to happen
In community.
♪
[britt] another way to approach this dilemma involves
Reimagining what family means and looks like.
Facing the climate crisis requires support systems that
Go far beyond the traditional nuclear family.
We can all be involved in raising children,
Whether they're biologically ours or not.
Since I've now gotten to the point that I don't
Necessarily feel like I will or can have a family,
I do know that I have family members
Who will have families.
And I want to make sure that I'm doing everything that
I can to create a really safe and strong world for
Any nieces or nephews that I might have.
It's no longer about mitigating the climate crisis.
It's about adapting to it.
And really making sure that people are informed and
Strong and have really deep community bonds,
So that we can rely on each other because we're going
To need that when we're facing the worst.
So, when I imagine my future, I really do see activism as
An act of love, and an act of family and a community.
Coming up here today, I am fighting for my future.
Losing my future is not like losing an election,
Or a few points on the stock market.
It's 30 years since rio and,
I actually still get people who write to me
Thinking I'm 12 and I just gave that speech.
When I think about why people are still talking about it,
I just realized the importance and
The power of the voice of youth.
And the reason is, is our innate sense of love
For the younger generation.
The whole speech can be summarized
In the last line, which is...
You grown-ups say you love us.
But I challenge you,
Please, make your actions reflect your words.
It definitely affects me differently now as an adult.
However, it hasn't really changed how I feel
About the power of those words.
It's just deepened it.
And truly, if we can embody that love as a society,
I mean, of course, we can deal with these challenges.
I used to go fishing in vancouver, my home-
With my dad- until just a few years ago,
We found the fish full of cancers.
But now I wonder if they will even exist
For my children to see.
When I was very young, my father was starting to
Get really interested in environmental issues because
He was learning through his science programming.
Hello, I'm david suzuki.
Welcome to the nature of things.
Dad wasn't thrilled when I told him I was expecting.
You know, he kind of was like,
"given what is unfolding right now and the
Future that we're predicting,
Why would you bring a kid into this world?"
So that was, that was a bit sobering.
My dad says he was really quite moved by my answer,
Which was, "I'm having a child and that means...
I have to do everything I can to
Ensure that the future is safe.
I'm all in. This is my commitment."
And he says that just really blew him away because
He realized that this is why we're here.
We're here to provide for the future.
[britt] I learned that it's crucial
To go beyond thinking in black and white,
To really balance hope and fear,
And then find ways to act in that gray zone in between.
But the thing is, we can't have a gray zone baby, right?
It's binary, we either do it or we don't.
Even though it's not the case for other people
Who decide to stay child-free,
I eventually felt that for me,
Not having a child was a commitment to my fear...
While having a child was a commitment to joy and the
Responsibility to engage in climate action
For the rest of my life.
So, the questions I'm asking now have changed from,
Is it okay for me to have a child,
To what's required to parent well in the climate crisis?
I thought, okay, now I've made a decision.
But then there are all these other new emotions I had to,
Had to grapple with.
So, just be prepared for that.
This is gonna be a continual relationship with emotions,
No matter which decision you make.
I've had several parents say, "have I done the wrong thing,
Putting the kid into this world?"
But while answering those kinds of questions,
I'm also simultaneously feeling
My baby kick inside of me.
So, it's getting existential.
It's been really emotional for me to see my son also be
Very sensitive to a lot of the same issues that
I was when I was a kid.
I started to see when my son was about nine years old,
Starting to really take on the weight
Of what we were doing.
And it was really, really hard.
I knew what he was going through.
But I also saw an even bigger burden that he was carrying.
But it was directly related to him not wanting
To be a human, because humans were being
So terrible to the planet.
A lot of young people are experiencing
A level of trauma, when it comes to
Encountering our current state and future state,
And are feeling all the things
You'd expect with trauma:
Angry, frustrated,
Powerless, sad.
So, therefore, we're in for some rocky times.
And people's distress and anxiety is going way up.
That is not necessarily a unilaterally bad thing.
But we have a tendency in our...
Particularly western society, to see difficult,
Hard feelings as negative and bad.
And if we look through the lens of psychology,
All change pretty much has to happen
When we feel a certain level of discomfort.
The key is, what do we do with those feelings?
How do we make it transformative?
Because it can be paralyzing.
But it also can be the catalyzer,
So it's really not cut and dry.
But the x factor is, if we're able to name
And talk about our feelings,
Have our experience be validated and accepted,
And know that we're not alone in it,
That's really the...
-Secret sauce. -The secret sauce.
Yeah.
I think the number one thing that we can be doing is
Having conversations about these issues with everyone
That we come into contact with,
But in a way that is emotionally intelligent.
It sounds very, very simple.
But it's actually, I think,
The hardest thing that we can do.
♪
It is normal and reasonable
To be distressed by what is happening.
It's not a pathology, it's not a disorder.
And it's certainly not something that
A psychiatrist can give you a diagnosis for.
We need to support people so that
It doesn't become debilitating.
We especially needed to support young people
So that it doesn't impair their functioning.
But then we need to harness this
For transformative change on climate.
So on the micro level, is that effectively
What's happened with you?
Very much so, yeah.
♪
So, what started as a private dilemma about
Whether or not to have a baby,
Has led to a much deeper sense of purpose in my career.
I now work with mental health experts at a medical school.
And we're researching how to better support
Young people with climate distress.
There's so much power that we have now
Over how bad it's going to get.
But it's easy to misunderstand hope.
We often think of hope as being this thing-
Somewhere out there-
That we need to capture in order to get to work.
But you can be totally hope-free and start acting.
And then hope is what you create
When you work together with others.
The thing that saved me was action,
No doubt about it.
And so, when I had my son that was dealing with
These really intense feelings of grief,
The first time I really realized it was serious,
I just said, "let's do a garbage cleanup."
And he was just like,
Thrilled and happy little kid again.
So, that was my go-to because that is the only thing that
I think really will alleviate some of the incredible
Anxiety that is on our youth's shoulders today,
It's action.
So, people who are deciding to have kids,
While being very climate aware,
Are coming up with new ideas
And ways to parent in the climate crisis.
But essentially, there's no intervention here
That's going to take your distress away,
The intervention that's needed is climate justice.
If you're going to be a parent,
Or if you are a parent, you've got to do
Everything you can to get us off of fossil fuels.
You got to do this in your personal life,
And you got to get political.
The time for grieving is not yet.
It's not over.
The ipcc scientists say we still have a window
Where we can make a difference.
And the amazing thing is, we now have the technology,
The price of renewables that has absolutely plummeted.
And I'm gonna spend all of my energy
Focused on solutions.
We need young people to be inundated with solutions,
So they can be a part of the change.
Because I think the anxiety around climate change
Comes from the idea that there's nothing we can do.
But if you see the way on the other side,
You'll be unstoppable because you're not living
In disaster, you're striving for a future.
♪
So, the next stop on our pollution tour...
Is the site of the coal fired power plant.
[rumbling]
And now you can see there's just like
An ocean of solar panels.
♪
There's imperial oil in the background,
With wind turbines.
It's kind of crazy seeing, like the future,
Intermixed with like the past, in terms of energy.
I wanted to talk about this transition because
I wanted to show people that there is
Movement happening and to keep pushing.
It's proof that when governments put their
Mind to it, they can make strong action.
And I think we need to keep reminding people of the
Little wins so that they don't lose hope.
I just handed in the final draft of my book.
So, that wraps four years of researching and writing about
The mental health impacts of the climate crisis.
And in just shy of three weeks, I will give birth.
So yeah, birth month, birth of the book,
Birth of the baby.
They're all connected.
The book has always been a bit of a challenging thing to
Wrap up because how do you really conclude something as
Messy and complex as our human existential and
Emotional response to an unfolding collective trauma,
Which is the climate crisis, right?
But I found a few things that will help us
Live more meaningfully with it all.
Like, connecting to a community that
Validates tough climate emotions,
Balancing naive optimism and destructive pessimism,
Understanding that it is never too late,
And placing this moment into the larger context
Of human experience, and history.
All these things can help us take action with others to
Foster a future for the next generation.
♪