Children, Stressing, Like They Should

YOUNG PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD are experiencing severe emotional trauma concerning climate change, which they justifiably believe is robbing them of a future full of life. Extensive research, consisting of intervieews with thousands of teenagers worldwide, reveals rampant depression, anxiety, and perpetual fear, as young people, always perceptive, can clearly see the impending doom rushing headlong straight at them, preparing to put an end to their hopes and dreams. Activist Greta Thunberg, now an adult, has in recent years awakened the sleeping giant of the world's youth about the clear and present danger of climate change, and the urgent necessity of dealing with it immediately. Children have been lied to about climate change and its implications for their prospects for long, prosperous life, just as children are normally lied to about everything else, from the source of Christmas presents to the source of babies. How should children be educated about climate change? Maybe like they are educated about sex; tell them innocent lies when they are quite young, then spring the truth on them when they are sufficiently mature to comprehend it. Birds, bees, and climate change. Adults lie to each other about anything and everythings as well, of course, and there is a never ending avalanche of lies and disinformation about climate change in real space and time, and especially on the internet. The truth, thanks to exhaustively researched and repeatedly verified science, has been known and available to everyone for more than thirty years. In popular culture, the charlatans and hoaxers are the first to be consulted, and the climate scientists, who should be the only source of information, are the last, and least respected. The dispensers of disinformation, religious fanatics, and self appointed gurus, receive top billing in an undereducated society lacking basic critical thinking skills. In the mainstream media, descriptions of extreme weather events, which are influenced in severity and frequency by climate change, are accompanied by references to climate change less than ten percent of the time. Media outlets, fearful of retribution by their corporate masters and loss of advertising revenue, prefer to dance around reality to avoid alienating a disbelieving portion of the public, which, tragically, is substantial. Fossil fuel companies have known about climate change, and about their large role in creating it, for decades, because they by necessity employ and consult credible scientists. Their initial strategy was to obfuscate and mislead by confusing the issue with claims of "conflicting evidence", but as the reality of human made climate change has become undeniable, they have changed tactics, and now present themselves as noble heroic crusaders in the fight to save the Earth's econsystem, laughably. For this purpose they spend billions of dollars in advertising, money well spent in creating effective propaganda and delaying their inevitable demise as they grab every dollar in profit possible before their ultimate liquidation.. Children are the victims of this disinformation just like the rest of us, but are less prepared to handle it, and have more to lose because of it. But today's children are more computer savvy than previous generations, and more percipient. They get to the truth, no matter how diligently we try to hide it from them. That being the case, little wonder that they tend, as a group, to be depressed and anxious about their prospects for a long and healthy life in a healthy world.