It’s not always easy to find good news about climate change. We read about climate disasters on the news, see shocking images and data on social media, and hear about new doomsday scenarios from our friends and family all the time. It’s enough to make you want to give up hope—almost.

There are two ways to talk about climate change. Some people think it’s important to emphasize how bad things have gotten. These people are called climate doomers. They believe fear will inspire action. Some of them even assume there’s no point in acting. For them, it’s already too late. Others—let’s call them climate optimists—believe that hope, rather than fear, is more likely to inspire people to act. If we focus only on the bad news, they say, people will feel helpless and hopeless, which might make them give up.

We agree with the optimists. What about you?

Humanity is doomed! Or is it?

In 2021, young people ages 16 to 25 were surveyed about their attitudes toward climate change. Ten thousand people took part in the survey. More than half said they believe humanity is doomed. Most admitted that the future seems frightening. More than one-third reported they were afraid to have children because of future climate change. Perhaps most importantly, many people surveyed said they believe they will have a more difficult life and fewer opportunities than their parents. The doom-and-gloom crowd has convinced a lot of people.

Still, there’s room for hope, and the doomers haven’t convinced everyone. If you were born after 1996, you’re a member of the generation most likely to do something about climate change. Your age group spends more time talking about climate change and taking action to fix it than your parents or your grandparents.¹ And you are giving older generations hope. People are listening to you.

But perhaps you are not yet a climate activist. Maybe climate change makes you very worried. Let me try to convince you to join the ranks of a group we call informed optimists.

What do informed optimists believe?

Shouldwe be optimistic? It seems as if there’s a new story about a different climate disaster every day. Summertime, in particular, has become one long news cycle about heat waves, fires, and hurricanes.

But this isn’t the whole picture. The broad data that scientists look at gives us a more complete idea than individual news stories. It shows there’s cause for optimism. For example, the data in the chart below shows that new technologies and better social organization are making people better able to handle natural disasters. Death rates from these disasters are falling.

Death rates from disasters

It doesn’t stop there. The cost of renewables like solar energy and wind power has dropped steeply, and the price of batteries for storing all that clean energy has fallen, too. Electric vehicle sales are increasing every year. U.S. lawmakers have passed meaningful climate legislation like the Inflation Reduction Act.

Scientists who know climate data the best are still worried, of course. They want us to work together to stop some changes before they have a huge negative effect. But many also want us to understand that there are still things we can do. Take Oxford University researcher Hannah Ritchie, for example. “Let’s be clear,” she writes. “Climate change is one of the biggest problems we face. It comes with many risks—some certain, some uncertain.” But, she points out, “none of the climate scientists I know and trust” believe we are doomed. They still believe we can turn things around.²

Informed optimism is not blind optimism

There are real reasons to be optimistic about the future. But nobody’s saying climate change isn’t an enormous challenge. Being optimistic doesn’t mean you should be satisfied with how things are. Informed optimists are aware that if we do nothing, things will worsen. They also know that there are solutions to climate change. There are new ideas and new ways of doing things that they believe will make a big difference.

Informed optimists know that new ideas often fail or that the public is slow to accept them. This is certainly true in the case of many technologies we need to fight climate change—like nuclear energy or plant-based meat substitutes. But informed optimists don’t give up. Instead, they learn and continue to act and find new solutions.

We have to keep at this!

We still have time to make a difference, but we won’t solve our problems unless we work on them together. That sort of widespread cooperation requires hope—and informed optimists—around the world. We need to create new forms of energy production and distribution. We must alter how we grow and treat our food, the materials we use to build, how we move ourselves and our cargo, and how we heat and cool our buildings. We must convince governments, corporations, and individuals to adopt these changes. This work will be risky. It will sometimes fail, and it will often be expensive. But if we’re pessimistic by assuming the world is already doomed—we won’t do any of this. We need informed optimists.

So, it’s time to choose between the two big trends of your generation: fear and pessimism about climate change on the one hand and a willingness to believe in and act toward a better future on the other. The informed optimists will act. Will you join them?

1 Cary Funk, “Key Findings: How Americans’ Attitudes About Climate Change Differ by Generation, Party and Other Factors,” Pew Research Center, May 26, 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/05/26/key-findings-how-americans-attitudes-about-climate-change-differ-by-generation-party-and-other-factors/
2 Hannah Ritchie, “Stop Telling Kids They’ll Die from Climate Change,” Wired, January 11, 2021. https://www.wired.co.uk/article/climate-crisis-doom