Saving the Other, Saving the Self: Exploring Children’s and Young People’s Feelings About the Coronavirus, Climate, and Biodiversity Crises

Abstract

Children and young people often have great clarity about the need for urgent external activism to express their anxiety about the climate and biodiversity crises. They also may also have a focus for external activism by virtue of a more empathetic relationship with the natural world than adults. They seem to see more clearly that interdependency with the natural world needs to be at the centre of the struggle to “save the planet”, and they link the need to save “the other” in the world around them in order to save humanity and themselves. The coronavirus is perceived differently by many young people, who feel despair that it has pushed the climate emergency from people’s minds. We need new stories and narratives to help adults and children to imagine a new future in the face of their differing anxieties about the coronavirus, climate, and biodiversity crises. By exploring the emotional landscape of children and young people, and then integrating “internal activism” with “external activism”, we can imagine and then build new shared futures.