I'm Pat Dorris.
Welcome to the story and welcome to Friday.
What a beautiful day out there today.
A great day to enjoy the great outdoors.
And tonight we're going to start with
a story concerning the outdoors,
the environment,
specifically climate anxiety.
What's that mean anyway?
And are people making big
life decisions because of it?
That, my friends,
is our big story.
Earlier this year, we brought you a story
about climate anxiety and asked you to
fill out an online survey to tes
how you feel about our warming planet.
Is it something that you worry about often,
or does it affect your daily li?
Maybe not. Maybe So what about g
decisions like having children?
And does the future of our clime
give you pause?
Well, the results are in from our survey.
Environmental reporter Kayle Williams
joins us with some analysis,
as well as reaction from a local
expert on what it all means.
So before we get into your responses,
a couple items of housekeeping we want to
be clear this was not a scientific poll.
We put this out for any of our viewers to
tell us how climate change is affecting
their mental health and how they make
important decisions in their li.
We got more than 70 responses,
with about 55% of respondents
being over the age of 45,
roughly 60% identified as femal,
and about 83% were white, whichs
pretty close to the statewide average.
But even though this wasn't a representative
sample of Oregon's population,
I still think these results are valuable.
So first we wanted to establish
a bit of a baseline.
So we asked you how important ie
issue of global warming to you personally?
62.5% of you said that it was
extremely important. And you kn,
that's not that surprising given the last
few years of wildfires and heat waves.
The other end of the spectrum,
2.7% of you said that it was not
at all important.
You know, that's your prerogati.
But we wanted to know just how important,
how worried these types of things made you.
So we asked.
How worried are you about global warming?
55.6% So they were extremely worried.
Another 29.2 said they were very worried.
Altogether, that's about 86% whe
at either extremely or very wor.
Almost 9 and 10 people.
And they have good reason to be.
Despite all that Oregon has done
incentives for electric vehicle,
rebates for heat pumps,
caps on carbon dioxide emission.
Our state is still well behind
where we need to be to avoid the
worst impacts of climate change.
A recent report from the Oregon Global
Warming Commission found that in 2021,
the state was nearly 20% off the
goal set for the year before.
And that brings us to the next question.
In our survey we asked over
the last two weeks,
how often have you been
bothered by feeling down,
depressed or hopeless
because of global warming?
Almost 43% of you said not at a.
However,
another 40% said this kind of
mental strain was happening sevl
days out of every two weeks.
Another 11% said it was happenig
more than half the time.
About 7% said they felt
like this nearly every day,
and these feelings are having profound
impacts on people's behavior.
We asked this applies to your l.
Does climate change affect your
decision to have children?
Now,
this question wasn't quite as relevant
to some of our older respondent,
but the results are still informative.
36% said no,
but another third of the group d
the changes in our climate havee
them think twice about one of te
most important decisions a person can make.
So we wanted to hear more from
these people in their own words.
And they told us.
One person said I chose not to have kids,
partly because what world
would be left for them?
I couldn't in good conscience
create life in this environment.
Another person told us the
future will still need people in
it working to better humanity.
I'm just remorseful of the strue
and watching things fall apart
while we raise our daughter.
Let's hear one more.
My spouse and I did talk about
climate change when we discussed
whether or not we wanted to have kids.
Ultimately, we decided that
climate change isn't enough to
deter us from having children,
and now we have 2.
So I reached out to Yanima.
She's an environmental communications
expert at Oregon State,
to help me make sense of some
of these answers.
She said some of these
responses were striking.
I'm a little bit surprised that
I see the more people concerned
or worried about climate change,
it actually impact how they will
think about whether or not theye
going to have a child in the fu.
Because if they think or
if they feel hopeless,
they think there is no future,
They are less likely to
have a child in the future.
There's one question that really got at the
heart of why the future seems so daunting.
How much do you think global wag
will harm future generations and people?
86.1% of you said a great deal.
That's almost 9 and 10 people who think that
climate change will harm future generations,
Our kids and grandkids, a great deal.
So the big take away from all t?
Climate change is a significant source
of stress for a whole range of people,
and this would be troubling in any state.
But it's particularly bad in Or.
We're consistently ranked as onf
the worst states for mental hea,
both in prevalence of mental
illness and access to care.
But that doesn't mean there's
nothing that can be done.
Ma did some correlation analysin
these answers about where peoplt
information about the environme.
She found people were far more likely to
care about climate change when they hear
about it from friends and family rather
than from people like me on television.
So
we do suggest like.
If you and your friends or family members
can talk more about climate cha,
it may impact other people's
opinion on it, and further,
maybe more people will likely would be
more likely to engage in this i,
Mas said. Getting involved in
advocacy can provide some relie,
and another easy strategy to
help combat climate anxiety
is to get out into nature.
After all, what better way to ee
your anxiety about the state of
the environment than to get out
and experience the beauty of it?
They're also mental health resources,
websites, and 24 hour hotlines
available to anyone who needs t.
We've got a full rundown of thoe
resources up right now on kgw.c.
Thanks
Kale. What great information.
If you missed out on our
survey earlier this year,
we'd still love to hear from you right now.
In fact, do you think you have
climate anxiety? Why or why not?
Send us an e-mail. William,
the address is the story at kgwm
or call and leave a voicemail.
The number is 5 O3 226-5090.