Keeping Climate Action Real: Hope Is Not the Opposite of Truth
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When we talk about the climate crisis, it's time to get real.
The recent climate strikes have raised concerns that climate rhetoric can makes our kids anxious. But while optimism is an important tool for effecting change, we need to be realistic about the impending catastrophe. Whether the glass is half-empty or half-full, the seas are rising just the same.
Led by young adults, climate anxiety is taking over the world.
We know that ecosystems are beginning to collapse, there’s more carbon dioxide in our atmosphere than at any time in human history, and an estimated two-thirds of extreme weather events are caused by climate change.
Last month, our studio joined hundreds of thousands of Australians in the global climate strike to demand climate action and justice. The protests were part of a global movement of children and adults expressing their fury and fear about the future of our planet.
We found teenagers voicing their disgust at Australian policy and kids as young as eight expressing fear about their futures. The sentiment was both admirable and terrifying—that children should need to plead adults for their very existence is absurd and heartbreaking. The message was clear: when urgent action is needed, the time for ambivalence ends.
But as temperatures rise, does mounting panic create a culture of pessimism? Are we instilling young people with exhaust and anxiety when we should be empowering them to enact positive change? Or does being realistic about the climate crisis mean we must accept that our planet might never be the same?
When we commission for Matters Journal or create content for our purpose-driven partners, the goal is always to inspire change by demonstrating the power of impact—from personal choices to the way we design, all the way up to government policy.
We’ve found through our research and storytelling that if you equip people with actionable steps, they will take them. Humour and optimism can help combat what a VICE study called the “woke paradox”—a phenomenon that occurs when young people are deeply concerned about climate change but feel too confused or cynical to act on it.
Connecting a conscious audience with good people, brands and ideas also inspires action in the form of making responsible choices. And even the smallest of these choices can make a difference.
But while optimism is an important tool for creating change, it’s time to get serious about the mounting catastrophe we face. After all, the climate fire is stoked by forces outside our individual control—politicians and magnates with ulterior motives.
At the recent strikes, a prevailing sentiment was anger—at those in charge, at the wealthy elite whose personal interests have come at the expense of a healthy planet.
The anger’s warranted. The magnitude of the crisis is devastating to grasp; that a powerful few literally hold the world in their hands is infuriating. And that fury has been the fuel and momentum behind the strikes and their success.
Of course, it’s confronting to see school children with signs that say things like “you’ll die of old age, we’ll die of climate change”. To see an entire generation brace for global catastrophe is alarming. But so is the climate.
The panic and outrage we witnessed at the rallies isn’t cynical so much as it is realistic. More importantly, it’s needed.
As Greta Thunberg said, “our house is on fire”. Why aren’t we acting like it?
