I woke up to go to Patrick Douglas’ talk with the opposite of a pep in my step. As a 21-year-old junior in college with a wake-up call of 10 on a Saturday morning, you can imagine morale was low.

Walking in, I was shocked to find a very different crowd than the usual climate activists I’ve come across. I stuck out like a sore thumb surrounded by a community of people ages 60 plus. Before the speech started a man looked back at me and gave me a smile. What a loaded smile. My hungover ass was just proclaimed to be “the future” and, as the talk would point out, there was a lot riding on that. 

Patrick Douglas did not set out to talk about the climate. As a conservative Christian, you could say he did not run in those crowds. When you are interested in weather, how long can you ignore the glaringly obvious? Douglas’ career has been heavily based on statistics whether he is reporting the news or building one of his many climate-based companies. However, we are not all meteorologists who study data for a living. And statistics are just numbers that are easy to dismiss. 

Douglas mentioned a time he gave a talk for the farmers' union. This community, arguably one of the most affected by the changing climate, refused to use the term climate change but rather turned to phrases like “changing in the patterns”. In the past few years especially, it has been incredibly difficult to not be affected by the changing climate. There has been a sudden shift from trusting statistics to denying what is in front of your eyes. 

However, in my generation, it has never been a question. We just know the climate crisis has been a long time coming and no serious change in the later generations has been put in place to stop it. And now, like generations before, the weight is shifting to our shoulders just as it feels like everything is about to collapse.  To Douglas’ credit, he does mention the “thanks boomer” comments he gets on the daily although there is not much to be said beyond acknowledgment. The past cannot be changed and the man who smiled at me is right: I am the future. But I can’t point fingers and I also can't carry the weight of the entire planet. 

Climate anxiety is real. I recently heard a story about a kid who has chronic anxiety about the second coming of God. Douglas said in an interview with MPR, “It's as if Mother Nature seized the weather remote, clicked America's seasons on fast-forward, turning the volume on extreme weather up to a deafening 10. This isn't even close to being "normal".” There are floods in New York, fires in Canada, snowstorms in Texas, and 130-degree days. It all feels vaguely familiar to one too many biblical curses. No wonder this kid thinks the world is ending. 

How do we put this anxious energy and turn it into something positive and empowering? First, I think we accept the situation that we are in. The earth has changed and will continue to change. There is no eraser for the carbon energy that pollutes our atmosphere. The question is, how are we going to adapt? 

Douglas wrote a children's book titled “A Kid’s Guide to Saving the Planet: It’s not Hopeless and We're Not Helpless” to help kids with their climate anxiety. After the slap in the face morning I had, I decided to browse and see what I could find to share with my fellow peers. 

We try to find careers that aid acknowledgment and change in the climate crisis. 

You can help by being an engineer, a teacher, an architect or a lawyer. Make it a priority when job searching! 

We move towards more sustainable energy like electric cars or solar energy - Swap convenience for sustainability. 

So much of our generation is getting things quickly. Learn to live slower. Buy less clothing. Take a bike instead of a car. Make food at home.

Vote! Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. 

The real change happens there. 

I think Douglas’ title reigns true. It is not hopeless and I am not helpless—despite that being a much easier thing to accept than the mountain of responsibilities our generation has ahead of us. Accepting that I was helpless would be ignoring the problem just as much as generations did before us. Fear has a tendency to freeze us in place. Do not let it get the best of you.

Then I started thinking about my generation and what are the conversations happening now. I thought about the TikTok videos I have seen saying to shop at stores like Shein, because “you deserve it”. Or how recycling really does nothing, it is the big corporations that want you to believe this is all on you. We always seem to be blaming someone. 

And the truth is, yeah a lot of it is other people's fault. I don’t think I single-handedly, a 21-year-old girl, caused the planet inhabiting 7 billion people to start burning. Me throwing a can in the recycling bin vs the trash can will have very little effect on saving or burning the planet. I don’t think any one person intentionally set out to burn the planet. Wouldn’t it all be so simple if there was one evil villain setting a torch to the earth and I was the hero that elderly man thought I was? 

That is not the case. The truth is, like most things, it’s a lot of little seemingly insignificant choices we have all made as a collective. It is a lot easier to shift blame when there are 7 billion people plus literally every person before us in history to point a finger at. The question is: is there still value in the little things? 

The truth is that we’re not gonna stop the climate from changing. It is already changing. But how are we going to deal with it?