Episode 24

Climate Crisis Conversations - Talking with children about climate change

SUMMARY

How can adults talks about climate change with children?

This question is at the heart of this conversation between psychotherapist Caroline Hickman and host Verity Sharp.

Caroline Hickman is a climate psychologist and teaching fellow at the University of Bath in England. In this thoughtful conversation, Hickman offers guidance to parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, and all adults interacting with children.

Hickman shares she sees anger over the climate emergency expressed more than eco-anxiety and speaks about supporting children instead of only talking to them.

She also shares practical solutions and what she learned from her conversation with a six-year-old child when she asked the child how she wants adults to talk to her about serious topics.

Useful Resources

CONTRIBUTORS

Special Acknowledgment: 

Senior Producer: Tania Marien

Supervising Producer: Jennifer Myers Chua

Music: Cool Carbon Instrumental, Paul Russell, Musicbed

Episode Art: Jennifer Myers Chua

Network Voiceover: Olabanji Stephen

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Carbon Almanac

When it comes to the climate, we don’t need more marketing or anxiety. We need established facts and a plan for collective action.

The climate is the fundamental issue of our time, and now we face a critical decision. Whether to be optimistic or fatalistic, whether to profess skepticism or to take action. Yet it seems we can barely agree on what is really going on, let alone what needs to be done. We urgently need facts, not opinions. Insights, not statistics. And a shift from thinking about climate change as a “me” problem to a “we” problem.

The Carbon Almanac is a once-in-a-lifetime collaboration between hundreds of writers, researchers, thinkers, and illustrators that focuses on what we know, what has come before, and what might happen next. Drawing on over 1,000 data points, the book uses cartoons, quotes, illustrations, tables, histories, and articles to lay out carbon’s impact on our food system, ocean acidity, agriculture, energy, biodiversity, extreme weather events, the economy, human health, and best and worst-case scenarios. Visually engaging and built to share, The Carbon Almanac is the definitive source for facts and the basis for a global movement to fight climate change.

This isn’t what the oil companies, marketers, activists, or politicians want you to believe. This is what’s really happening, right now. Our planet is in trouble, and no one concerned group, corporation, country, or hemisphere can address this on its own. Self-interest only increases the problem. We are in this together. And it’s not too late to for concerted, collective action for change.