features
spring 2024
By Andrea Grant
Illustration by Vivian Mineker
What do you want to be if you grow up?
For many young people today, looking toward the future is an exercise in existential dread. Facing a world deteriorating due to the effects of climate change, the dreams of previous generations—working toward a career, making a home, having children—can seem futile, unattainable, even recklessly selfish.
“A number of the middle and high school students I work with believe there will be no more human existence within their lifetime,” says Suffolk University Psychology Professor Sarah Schwartz, who leads the University’s Adolescent Connectedness and Empowerment Lab and runs workshops for youth activists dealing with climate anxiety.
Studies show that climate change and its impacts—including extreme weather, rising global temperatures, devastating wildfires, and flash floods—are taking a significant mental health toll on young people in particular. In a 2021 survey of over 10,000 people aged 16 to 25 across ten countries, more than 50% reported feeling sadness, anxiety, anger, helplessness, and guilt over climate change. More than 80% believe that people have failed to take care of the planet and a majority find the future frightening.
That’s understandable, according to Schwartz, who says the young people she works with feel betrayed by older generations who should be doing more. Instead, they believe the heavy burden has fallen to them and younger children to carry. “Anxiety and distress,” she says, “are an appropriate response to a growing global threat.”
And it’s not just seeing disasters unfold around the globe that weighs on students’ minds—many are feeling the very real effects of climate change already, with low-income communities and communities of color being hit first and worst. In just one example, research shows that urban heat islands in places like Chelsea, Massachusetts, give rise to extreme temperatures that can increase depression and suicidality, says Schwartz, and negatively impact cognitive performance.
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—Professor Sarah Schwartz
climate
youth
law
racial equity
therapy
hope
“When we teach about climate change, we want to make sure we’re paying attention to the well-being of young people so we can mobilize them instead of paralyzing them with anxiety and despair.”
Responding to a national crisis
Schwartz says her own concerns about climate change took on a new urgency after the birth of her children. She realized she could use her expertise in youth mental health and mentoring to drive positive change for both young people and the environment.
A study Schwartz published in 2022 with Suffolk colleague Psychology Professor Lance Swenson, doctoral student McKenna Parnes, and others found that channeling climate change anxiety into environmental activism may help prevent depression among young adults. Meanwhile, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change called for a global effort to increase education about climate change.
But little research has been done on the impact of such education on students’ overall mental health, says Schwartz. “When we teach about climate change, we want to make sure we’re paying attention to the well-being of young people so we can empower and mobilize them instead of paralyzing them with anxiety and despair.”
In 2023, Schwartz began working with local science teachers to study what happens when young people learn about climate change in school. Her initial findings are promising.
One thing the pilot study revealed is that most high school students surveyed came into class already aware of and distressed about climate change. That’s important, says Schwartz, because—contrary to what some caregivers and policymakers may think—it shows that education isn’t creating climate anxiety where none exists. Instead, initial findings suggest that education can help empower students to take action and also help them recognize connections between climate justice and racial justice, without significantly increasing their anxiety.
The next step is to expand the research to more schools and identify the most effective educational approaches, something Schwartz will do with funding she recently received from the Spencer Foundation. “While initial findings are encouraging,” she says, “we’re looking forward to gathering more data.”
This semester, Schwartz is also partnering with Suffolk Environmental Science Professor Hayley Schiebel to investigate how education may influence climate anxiety, hope, and action among college students in environmental science classes at Suffolk. They want to gauge anxiety levels for this self-selected group of young people who already care deeply about this issue and determine how gaining knowledge and skills will impact their well-being. Ultimately, these students’ future work in the field of environmental science is critical to addressing climate change—but it shouldn’t come at the cost of their own mental health.
“People have lived in a broken world for a long time,” says Schwartz. “We don’t want young people to turn away from the things that distress them, but instead work together to build a sense of community and shared purpose. That’s how we move forward and make change.”
Suffolk University Psychology Professor Sarah Schwartz
