Idiot alarmist actually asks: Where does [children's] environmental anxiety come from?

The dark dreams of global warming - The Boston Globe

Recently, one of my friends told me that her son can't sleep because he is so anxious about global warming. Other friends try to shield their children from watching storms on the evening news. Was it so long ago that weather was the safe subject for conversations? For our children the forecast evokes the horsemen of the apocalypse: Conquest, War, Famine, and Death. It's not clear to me that global warming causes every natural disaster, but in a child's mind, climate change and horrific weather go together. Icebergs are melting. The sea level is rising. Entire island chains are disappearing. Tsunamis wipe out villages.

"I take out books on global warming from the library," my friend told me, "and I always turn to the back and show my son the section where it says 'How you can help.' But he doesn't find any of the suggestions comforting."

No, our children are not easily comforted, and our attempts - Reduce, reuse, and recycle! - don't speak to their profound fear. During the Cold War, children worried about nuclear annihilation. Today they believe we will destroy the planet before we have a chance to destroy each other. I'm impressed by the time frame of their nightmares. My son is convinced that in his lifetime he will see the world thawed, warmed, and thoroughly cooked.

Where does environmental awareness come from? The Internet, Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," lessons about ecology at school. Yes, all of these play their part, and I'm proud of my children for knowing and caring about the planet. But where does environmental anxiety come from? That's a more complicated question. Storms and sudden earthquakes are terrifying in themselves, but I think it's the aftermath that really frightens children. Tsunamis drown families in Indonesia. Classrooms bury students in China. Levees fail. The evacuation plan doesn't work. Billions in federal funds cannot fix New Orleans, where the mayor admitted to citizens that there were no safeguards in place against Hurricane Gustav. Apparently the best recourse for natural disaster is to run for our lives. Our government proves ill-prepared. The junta in Burma looks downright evil - refusing international aid after a cyclone, and starving its own citizens. Watching the resulting chaos erodes our children's belief that adults will protect them.

What's a parent to do? Ironically, even as we become fastidious on the micro-level with seat belts, and supervised play, we can't secure the climate or supervise the planet. Some parents become politically active. Some join their children in consciousness-raising bike rides. As for me, I began writing a novel imagining the world after global warming, and how children might survive.