This story has been updated with a correction.
The coronavirus pandemic is transforming our political reality and our lives. Unnerving images of hospitals overflowing with bodies, miles-long car lines for food banks, and police using the emergency situation to harass and intimidate people of color reveal the undeniable failure and fragility of our current political and economic systems and our way of life. It’s no surprise that “a majority of Americans say worry about the coronavirus has harmed their mental health” in some manner, according to a recent poll.
Meanwhile, the looming climate emergency and sixth mass extinction are hanging over our heads and contributing to an overall feeling of fear, dread, and unease about the future. According to a recent study, within 50 years, billions of people will live in a climate so hot that it’s “unsuitable for human life to flourish.”
In the age of pandemic and an emerging climate crisis, many of us are readjusting our expectations for the future. Young people are grappling with the loss of hopes, plans, and certainty about the future in a particularly acute way. A 2019 Zogby poll found that 80 percent of young Ameri... Read more