Read Five Strategies to Build Children’s Agency and Resilience in Responding to Climate Change personal story beyond the numbers: Policies that generate success stories, a blog by Alicia Torres and Kristin Anderson Moore.
Excerpt
Climate change is happening in real time: Our children will inherit a very different planet than the one where their parents and ancestors lived. A growing body of research indicates that children are at risk both from acute climate-related events—such as wildfires, flooding, and extreme weather events—and from more slow-moving climate changes, such as rising oceans and warmer weather. Families with low incomes and families of color are disproportionately impacted by climate change; for example, families with less housing stability face greater health risks from environmental exposure.
Adaptation strategies will become critical as climate change threatens essential elements of life—including our air, food supply, and clean drinking water—and as vector-borne diseases increase, among many other societal impacts. As leaders and communities enact adaptation strategies, they must prioritize children and youth to prepare them to steward a world with a rapidly changing environment that threatens the habitats of all forms of life.
While there is little research about strategies to help today’s children become more resilient to the impacts of climate change, an interdisciplinary team of science experts and Latino community organizations—in partnership with Child Trends—is developing a roadmap for climate-resilient parenting to prepare children to cope and thrive as climate change advances. Aligned with that work, Child Trends proposes that public officials, youth-serving institutions, and youth leadership groups use five strategies to identify initial action steps to prepare young people for a changing world.