Anjana Ahuja
March 18, 2010

Children used to dread nuclear war but we could now be terrorising them with too much talk of global warming

I spent my childhood bedtimes waiting for war. As the fading evening light turned the roses on my pink curtains into sinister faces, I would wonder why my father had not dug us an underground bunker in the garden. Because one day, I reasoned, someone was going to push the red button, and a mushroom cloud would billow over the horizon and suffocate us in its deadly, iconic grip; and thanks to my stupidly optimistic parents we’d be the only unbunkered family on the street.

Children of the Seventies were defined by a dread of being nuked. It permeated our collective subconscious through television, books and newspapers. Our morbid fears were stoked by When the Wind Blows, the bleak Raymond Briggs tale about a couple who retreat into a shelter after a nuclear attack, and Protect and Survive, a public information leaflet that would have been distributed if nuclear war was a serious possibility, complete with instructions on how to build a fall-out shelter.

So pervasive was the fear that in 1978 the American Psychiatric Association set up a task force to study it. Researchers found that 44 per cent of schoolchildren lived in permanent fear of nuclear war; one 11-year-old girl said that her biggest worry was not having the time to commit suicide if it came to pass.

Today, it is not the mushroom cloud that threatens to suffocate children psychologically but carbon emissions. The new bogeyman is climate change: submerger of nations, polluter of skies, slayer of polar bears.

This week the Advertising Standards Authority issued a ruling on the Government’s £6 million climate-awareness advertising campaign, which has attracted nearly 1,000 complaints. While most focused on whether the evidence for climate change was strong enough, a notable proportion thought that the ads were unnecessarily frightening and distressing.

The television advert, which escaped ASA censure, features a father and daughter reading a bedtime book about what happens as the world warms; and includes pictures of a cartoon dog drowning. There can be no doubt that children are feeling the fear: last year Habitat Heroes, an Australian social-networking site for environmentally aware children, commissioned a telephone poll of 500 children aged between 6 and 11, which found that one in three thought the planet would not be around when they reached adulthood.

“More and more parents are telling me that they are worried about how their children are dealing with the climate issue,” says Dr Angharad Rudkin, a clinical child psychologist based in Hampshire. “The difference between today’s generation and previous ones is that there’s too much information. Our generation [Rudkin is 35] watched Newsround and possibly News at Ten if we were up late enough, and that was it. But today, we have rolling news and government advertising to convey socially responsible messages.

“A lot of children just can’t deal with that level of information, and it creates anxiety. I also wonder whether today’s kids are being asked to shoulder a lot of responsibility. It’s seen as a good thing to make children green as early as possible, because it is their generation that will make the difference. But I wonder if that hasn’t become a burden on them,” says Dr Rudkin.

Children aged 7 or 8, who are beginning to appreciate that there is a world beyond their own lives, can become particularly concerned; at this age, it is common to fear natural disasters. But, Dr Rudkin says, parents shouldn’t fret too much: if it were not climate change, children would find other issues to fixate on: “My personal opinion is that we all need something to worry about.”

Teaching children about man-made climate change — which is very real and threatens our wellbeing — and persuading them to adopt green habits is essential, but it can be done without scaring them witless. Dr Rudkin advises that children should not be allowed to watch television beyond the watershed, and that parents should not leave children alone while they are using computers.

The Australian Psychological Society provides useful tips on how information should be couched to raise awareness but not alarm (psychology.org.au). It points out that “young children tend to think that the world revolves around them (e.g., ‘Will a cyclone come and destroy our house too?’). Small details can quickly turn into large generalisations (e.g., ‘If the planet is getting hotter, will we all get burnt?’).”

For primary-school children, it advises: “One result of trying to teach children too early about abstract concepts, like rainforest destruction, ozone holes and whale hunting, can be dissociation. When we ask children to deal with problems beyond their cognitive abilities, they can become anxious, and tune out of the issues.”

Raphael Rossiter,10, North London

If I was to rate my worry on a scale of one to ten, I’d put myself at six or seven. A politician came to my school and told us how climate change threatened countries with floods. He said the North Pole will melt. I just gasped. I hadn’t thought about it until then. The politician also said we should have less meat and fish on our school menu, because that was more sustainable.

When I think about climate change, I imagine floods and no blue sky. My friend told me that if floods came in the winter, it could create an ice age and you’d have to be as high as a church to be safe. Mum always has BBC News on in the car, and there’s always scientists talking about some update on climate science. I think there’s a 50-50 chance we’ll be OK in the future. People are starting to do something. My family uses as little electricity as possible and recycles everything.

Abigail Burden, 8, Middlesex

I think it’s all to do with the Sun getting warmer and all the ice melting. It doesn’t worry me and I don’t usually talk about it with my friends. The teachers don’t really mention it. Nothing scares me. But I do think about the polar bears. They are dying out because they don’t have enough food and that makes me sad.

I walk to school every day and turn the tap off when I brush my teeth. I turn the lights off when I leave a room and I recycle. I try not to waste anything.

Parker Liautaud, 15, London

The Eton College student will spend his Easter holiday skiing 70 miles (110km) from the Barneo Ice Station, in the Arctic, to the North Pole, to raise awareness of climate change.

Climate change is a big part of my life. I think about it all the time, as much as I think about GCSEs, which are less than two months away. I started getting really concerned last March when I went on an expedition to Antarctica. We saw dead penguins because there was not enough food, and collapsing icebergs. We went to a summer feeding frenzy for humpback whales; instead of dozens, we only saw a few.

I do wonder what the world will be like in 50 years’ time. A lot of people are sceptical but I’m optimistic at the positive steps people are taking. We have to keep going down the right path, because if governments lose interest there could be a serious problem. The effects of climate change will be mostly felt by my generation, and we need to be informed and interested in it.

Finn Dawson, 9, Stirlingshire

My mum told me that the sea level is rising and I know that loads of oxygen is being wasted. I used to watch the TV programme Axemen and think it was cool how the trees fell down but now I don’t think it’s good. The other thing about cutting down trees is that loads of animals are losing their homes. But I’m not too worried, it’ll be OK if everyone does their bit. At school, we pick up litter and save water and energy. I tell my parents to turn off taps and switch off lights. And we should stop going on so many trips with planes.

Angus Carnie, 14, Wiltshire

We talked about global warming in geography, mainly about what people can do to stop it and how we are running out of natural resources like oil and stuff. I haven’t really thought about how it might affect me. I’m more worried about the polar bears than what is going to happen here. They won’t have anywhere to live if the ice melts. I suppose it is happening here too, but it isn’t that obvious as you can’t see it in the same way. I think it will affect us all in the end because most people are not really helping a lot.

Iona Haig, 15, Edinburgh

Throughout my school life we have had talks on climate change, and what we can do to prevent it. People my age are terrified of what might happen to our planet; it has been drilled into our brains at school, home and even on TV. We watch the news and see earthquakes, flooding, tsunamis, and we hope that by the time we are our parents’ ages we will not be having to cope with these routinely. It is fair to say that adults “terrorise” us into recycling and switching off lights, but we care too. It’s got to the stage that every time I throw away a piece of paper, I frantically search for a recycling bin.”

Interviews by Melanie Reid, Simon de Bruxelles and Anjana Ahuja

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