Talking to your kid about climate change đș
Emotions are at the heart of the matter âŁïž
Climate Solutions //  I S S U E  # 6 6  //  T H E K I D S
Hothouse is original climate journalism with a way to act. As a climate solutions newsletter, we dig into the evidence, figure out what works, and deliver the news to your inbox. This issue is the first installment in a series on talking to your kids about climate change.
One of the questions we hear a lot around Hothouse is: How do I talk to my kids about climate change? Itâs an essential question with no easy answer. And not just for parentsâthe rising generation will be the ones doing the heavy lifting in the climate crisis.
Yes, adults today face a big task. To bend the emissions trajectory over the next three decades, weâll have to electrify everything, protect tropical forests, restore agricultural soils, price carbon pollution, store gigawatts of energy, and much more. Yet these undertakings, in the big picture, are the easier ones. After all, we get paid to do them.Â
Thereâs a famous chart the consulting firm McKinsey produced in 2009 showing âabatement costsâ for all sorts of greenhouse gas interventions. Whatâs surprising is for how many things the cost is negative. That is, itâs cheaper to do them (and cut emissions) than keep on emitting. Itâs everything on the left-hand side of the figure, and many of the things on the right-hand side (such as solar) are now cheaper as well. It wonât be easy, of course. Government inertia, vested industries, and big investments in fossil fuels conspire against progress. But economics favors early action.
The really difficult decisionsâthe expensive choicesâweâve bequeathed those to our children. And every day we delay we make them that much harder.
So weâd better prepare our children as best we can for the world they are inheriting. It isnât a hopeless oneâeven if many kids feel that way, as youâll see in this deeply reported piece by Mary DeMocker, co-founder of Eugene 350.org, and author of the book, The Parentsâ Guide to Climate Revolution: 100 Ways to Build a Fossil-Free Future, Raise Empowered Kids, and Still Get a Good Nightâs Sleep.Â
This month for Hothouse, Mary tackles the question of how to talk to our kids about climate change in school (this issue) and at home (next issue). At monthâs end, weâll summarize the lessons to take and share with friends.Â
Thanks for joining Hothouse. Â Â Â
Mike Coren
PS: *drum roll please* đ„ đ„ đ„ Announcing the winner for our Unspun no-waste custom jean giveaway: Carol Hooper! đ Our randomly-selected winner for a free pair of custom denim was among the many who signed up for Unspunâs beta program. Thank you!
The kids arenât all right
By Mary DeMocker
If you work or live with kids, you know that most are pretty down in the dumps. Blame the pandemic, sleep deprivation, or their damned phones. But something else lies behind the fear, even despair, felt by a majority of children and young people today. Itâs something that began in 1760, at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and has only picked up steam since then: climate change.Â
Roughly half of young people between the ages of 16 and 25 years old report climate anxiety affects their daily lives. In a 2021 study of 10,000 young people around the world, US and European researchers found that most agreed governments were âbetraying me and/or future generationsâ thanks to climate inaction. When asked to describe the future, 75% called it âfrightening.â
Bella Klosterman felt that way, too. Born on Earth Day in 2001 to environmentally conscious parents in Portland, Oregon, Klosterman grew up taking brief showers, turning down the heat, and shunning single-use plastics. In grade school, she tearfully ditched her night light one evening, overwhelmed by visions of her wasteful energy use hurting polar bears. When exposed to environmental education at her middle school, Klosterman says, âI kind of caved in on myself.â
While the 16-year-old managed to excel on multiple fronts in high schoolâin the National Honor Society, on the varsity volleyball teamâher encounters with the carbon cycle in science class left her with a âlost, hopeless feeling.â By the time she signed up for an environmental justice class at the end of 10th grade at Lincoln High School, she felt âvery stressed out and anxious about the climate crisis.â
But that began to change the day she walked into Tim Swinehartâs class at the start of 11th grade. Most schools sidestep any mention of climate changeâs impact on studentsâ lives. Swinehart, as part of his environmental justice class, found a way to give students worried about their future what they really needed.
âItâs too lateâ
Swinehart began teaching at Portlandâs Lincoln High School in 2008. As a social studies teacher, he taught the established consensus around climate science and shared stories about the looming impacts on nature and people, usually in far-off nations. At the time, he believed his main responsibility was to help students see a crisis worth caring about.Â
Thatâs changed as Swinehart has witnessed his students' mental health decline. During previous UN climate summits, when he showed news reports on young climate protesters demanding bold climate action from world leaders, students expressed excitement and a sense of empowerment. Last October, though, during the international climate negotiations known as COP26, Swinehart instead sensed his students sinking as they watched. âI turned it off and asked, âHow are you guys doing?ââ he says. ââIt's just a lot,ââ they responded.Â
His students repeat a dispiriting narrative: adults don't care, they're not acting, and corporate control of government dooms any progress. âI think we have gone from not seeing the crisis to, now, âIt's too late,ââ he says. Now his focus has shifted. Heâs focused on showing âthereâs a world still worth fighting for.â
Mainstream culture and science havenât exactly made the task any easier. High-budget dystopian films like Snowpiercer, Interstellar, and, most recently, the witty if disempowering Donât Look Up, reinforce the foreboding. Studentsâ daily lives are being impacted by the deteriorating climate: West Antarcticaâs âdoomsday glacierâ is slipping toward catastrophic collapse, potentially raising sea levels tens of feet this century. Raging fires across the West mean kids breathe wildfire smoke every summer. Last year, Oregonians endured a sweltering âheat domeâ that killed 116 in their state alone. Meanwhile, global emissions, after dipping during the pandemic, have continued their inexorable rise. Â
Are you feeling it?
Yet amid this backdrop, Swinehart found ways to empower his students. His approach goes beyond standards-based climate literacy. He tells students in his environmental justice class about the causes of climate emergency, then prioritizes their emotional support and, just as importantly, the solutions. âIf we expose students to the enormity of the climate crisis, we also have to encourage them to see themselves as change agents,â says Swinehartâs co-author Bill Bigelow in their book, A Peopleâs Curriculum for the Earth: Teaching Climate Change and the Environmental Crisis.
Stories of ordinary people working for climate justice help students find their place among them. For Klosterman, who says she was âvery shy and quietâ when starting the class, it began by speaking up in public for clean air legislation. She found presenting pollution research to her local community exhilarating. Classmates, witnessing her growing passion for activism, urged her to revive the schoolâs environmental justice club. So Klosterman did.
Ultimately, Swinehartâs class made her feel less alone. âWe saw others connecting with the climate crisis,â she says, ânot just my class of 15 or 20 people, but a lot of people really caring.â By 2018, Klosterman was leading multiple climate strikes and walkouts to demandâand eventually receiveâfunding for district-wide climate justice literacy for K-12.
For Swinehart, climate education starts with what he calls âradical imagination.â Every year, he asks students to imagine the world they want to inhabit in 2040, not one theyâre told will happen. Itâs their own vision, Swinehart says, even if it seems naive and ridiculously utopian: âThere are so few opportunities for adults or young people to really use our amazing capacity to think about all the ways the future is not yet written.â

Why âmore factsâ isnât enough
The typical educational approach to the climate crisisâif itâs taught at allâis to describe the science. While the majority of US parents and teachers believe students need climate education, 55% of teachers donât teachâor even discussâclimate change. Those that do often offer just a few units in physical science classes, and the Next Generation Science Standards, developed to help deliver accurate climate science, are unevenly implemented by states.
But a âmore factsâ approach may not be what students need most. Teaching the science is necessary, yet climate education can actually deepen studentsâ distress if they canât express their emotions alongside their new knowledge.
In a small study last year in Australia, most students surveyed said their climate education at school left them feeling âstripped of power,â âabandoned by adults,â and âdaunted by the future.â Teachers signal to students that anger and distress arenât appropriate in classrooms: âLike, âgo home and cry about it,ââ said one student in the study. Another mentioned, âI used to go home and cry a lot about it, but yeah, not at school.â
My own son, 22, echoed these sentiments. He told me his high school climate education was paralyzing, isolating, and, at times, even enraging. âThey didnât really discuss any possibility to fight back against whatâs happening,â he said. âIt's taught in a disempowering way.â
Now, more psychologists are calling for comprehensive, interdisciplinary climate education that includes meaningful emotional support for students. Â
Because kids donât like injustice
Veteran teacher Carrie Ann Naumoff says she leaves ample class time for student feelings. Her climate justice teaching began 20 years ago at Edison Elementary School in Eugene, Oregon. Her fifth-graders were expressing increasing worry and outrage during marine science units. They asked why dead zones were expanding as populations of anemones, crabs, and whales declined. âThe kids drove me to say âYes, letâs find out whatâs going on!â and from there, they lit up,â she told me during a Zoom interview. âBecause kids donât like injustice.ââÂ
From there, Naumoff says, they started to understand the politics behind environmental issues. When constitutional scholar Susan Dwoskin began teaching at Naumoff's school in 2013, the two collaborated on an environmental justice curriculum for their combined fourth and fifth-grade classroom of 60 students. Until Dwoskinâs death in 2019, their year-long curriculum wove together environmental justice, aesthetics, and civics. They taught children to love their worldâpeople, animals, beauty, freedom, and justiceâwhile seeing themselves as capable of affecting the course of events.Â
One of her studentsâ favorite guest speakers was Kelsey Juliana, then a 17-year-old plaintiff for the high-profile Juliana v. US case (21 children suing the government to affirm their constitutional right to a healthy climate). During her 2015 visit, Juliana invited the students to attend her next hearing. Naumoff recalls, laughing, âThe kids turned to us asking, âCan we go, Â please?ââ The teachers quickly arranged for their students to stand on the courthouse steps with their handmade posters of animals they wanted to protect. âAlmost every one of our 60 kids said that hearing was the highlight of their school year,â says Naumoff.
Naumoff says it's critical to create a classroom culture in which every student feels safe sharing their feelings. Teachers invite discussion about current events, studentsâ experiences of global weirding, and student opinions about social justice issues through safe, honest conversation. âWe taught critical thinking, not what to think,â she says, âand to find credible sources for their news and research.â
Naumoff connected students to the wonder of the world by asking what they care aboutâan animal, river, or issue such as sustainable loggingâand might like to research and report on for the class or sometimes the public. âWe started every day talking about current events,â says Naumoff. âIf there was a wildfire or international climate meeting, weâd talk about itââWhy is it happening now? How do you feel about it?â Students get excited, she says, when theyâre allowed to freely choose topics, and find other students with whom to collaborate on projects they design.Â
If we want climate education to empower young students, we need to convey more than facts. Even weather forecasters at the American Meteorological Society recently called for ââholistic-climate-change educationâ that includes not only knowledge, but also values, worldview, participation, hope, and other emotions.â The new education challenge, a Finnish report argues, will need to help pupils face down their climate anxiousness and emotions, to help nurture not only a responsible member of society, but a steward of the future. âThe overall aim of education,âthey write, âis to create a civilized human being who takes care of himself and his culture, the Earth and protecting possibilities for future generations.â
Donât underestimate the children
Despite this, Dwoskin and Naumoff faced perennial fears from parents: Wouldnât a crisis that overwhelms many full-grown adults terrify kids? After all, any exploration of planetary heating leads to species extinction, intensifying superstorms, droughts, and more.Â
But in Naumoffâs experience, it doesnât. Sheâs a believer in the late Swiss psychologist Jean Piagetâs theory of child cognitive development, which holds that by age 12, children are able to ponder moral, philosophical, social, and political concepts. As they transition into that stage around age ten, children seek more abstraction. âThey love big, adult ideas and theyâre hungry for truth.â says Naumoff. Teaching only to the standards prevents students from getting the time they need to respond to the enormity of what theyâre learning. So Naumoff does it anyway: âI say, âScrew the standards. Iâve got scared kids. Weâre gonna talk.ââ
That includes the fact that polluters and politicians are often obstructing solutions for personal gain. In fact, industry misinformation still fuels climate denialism at the highest levels of government, and in classrooms. In her book Miseducation: How Climate Change is Taught in America, Katie Worth documents how climate denialism has influenced millions of school kids.Â
Worth found that more than a third of young adults believe global warming isnât human-caused, and a quarter of 15- to 17-year-olds reject the idea of a climate crisis, while most teachers give zero to two hours of climate education yearly. At one Arkansas middle school, Worth even met an oil and gas industry lobbyist whose sole job is to convince schoolkids that fossil fuels trump renewables. The lobbyist told Worth, âif we really want to change how people think about the oil industry, we got to get to them young. We got to get to kids.â
Yet we do a disservice to shield children from the truth. Even elementary schoolers can handle age-appropriate discussions about fossil fuel corporations and politicians blocking solutions, says Dr. Patricia Hasbach, a Eugene, Oregon-based psychologist and pioneer in the field of eco-therapy. âKids have a right to know there are shortsighted, selfish players who have something to gain by sabotaging legislation or movements that make change for the greater good.âÂ
When students feel burned out by all of this? For younger kids, Naumoff keeps photo books. âWhen I see the kids are fried or fidgeting, I say âOtter break!â and hold up a photo of otters. They all just melt. Itâs fun, otters are cute and playful, but itâs also aesthetics, reminding them of their love for nature and beauty.â
Failure is the hardest teacher
Studentsâ encounters with the outside world teach their own lessons, often hard ones. All grassroots movementsâ struggles that succeed are won over time, usually decades. Thatâs an inherent tension in climate when scientists say global emissions must fall by at least 45% within just eight years.
Itâs time we likely donât have, and students know it. Unrealistic expectations about changing legislation, when the kids actually have limited agency to bring about those changes, may contribute to anxiety, depression, and hopelessness. âThatâs a problem,â says Hasbach. Other researchers caution that climate activism, associated with resilience and positive development, may also be a âsource of increased stress, particularly for marginalized youths.â
Demoralizing setbacks are inevitable. The Juliana v. U.S. case Naumoffâs students rallied for has stalled since the highly anticipated trial was canceled following a 2018 US Supreme Court ruling in the Trump administrationâs favor. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2020 that the youthsâ request for a habitable climate should be addressed by the executive and legislative branches, not courts. Appeals continue, as do new youth lawsuits, but many kids, including my own, felt devastated by that defeat.
And the student-led campaign in 2016 for district-wide climate education in Portland? The school board did unanimously pass that resolution. But what followed was years of students fighting the district to fund the mandate. When Portland students finally won that round, a climate justice education coordinator was hired, then promoted from the position. At this writing, three years after agreeing to student demands for it, Portland Public Schools still have no formal district-wide climate justice education.
Climate justice is already here
Climate justice education is coming, if only because students are already pursuing the answers for themselves. Teachers are on board. The largest teacherâs union in the US endorsed the climate justice resolution passed by the Portland school board in 2016 that called for comprehensive climate justice education. So are students. Last week, 500 high schoolers marched out of school and through my town of Eugene, Oregon chanting âClimate justice now!â They demanded sweeping changes to how theyâre taught and treated by adults who, as a 17-year-old speaker and Juliana plaintiff Sahara Valentine said, are leaving kids to âclean up messes which disproportionately impact usâ and future generations.
But to go national, individual teachers canât create school structures alone. Swinehart was told by district officials in 2018 that climate justice education was âperipheral.â To change curriculums, says Naumoff, âschool boards have to want to teach climate education.â
Some states are forging ahead. New Jersey is pioneering how climate education can be led at the state level. State officials implemented new K-12 climate literacy standards to give kids the âopportunity to study and understand the climate crisis through a comprehensive, interdisciplinary lens.â Others are leading state standards from the bottom up. In Minnesota, high school students introduced a bill requiring comprehensive, justice-centered 1st-12th grade climate justice education. Â
More and more teachers are finding ways to meet student needs on their own without school board or administrative backing. Theyâre helping one another informally and through the âTeach Climate Justiceâ campaign available at the Zinn Education Project offering classroom-tested lessons, workshops for educators, and a sample school board climate justice resolution.Â
But the strongest levers for change, argues Naumoff, are parents. Those who want comprehensive climate justice education for their children, she suggests, can get together and advocate for city or statewide programming. Watchâor even influenceâwhoâs elected to the school board that chooses your childâs curriculum. And speak up.
âOne parent,â says Naumoff, âis more powerful at the school board than 100 teachers.â
Hothouse is a weekly climate action newsletter written and edited by Mike Coren and Cadence Bambenek. We rely on readers to support us, and everything we publish is free to read.Â