Youth Voices on Climate Change: Examining Politicized Climate Discourse in a Digital Online Network

• In Event: 61.012 - Climate Change Teaching and Learning in the Post-Truth Era: Making Valid Inferences From Scientific Evidence

Abstract

Highly controversial in the US, climate change represents a point of contention between the two major political parties. Young people are inheriting both the contentiousness of discourse on the issue and the material consequences of climate change itself. However, little is known about what youth are actually saying about climate change. During the 2016 presidential election season youth across the nation wrote letters to the next president in a digital online network, in which nearly 400 students expressed concerns about the climate. Using discourse analysis, we examine these letters to illuminate the ways youth draw on current political conversations as well as provide nuanced, creative takes on the actions and actors involved in the culpability and mitigation of climate change.

Authors

• Lynne Zummo, Stanford University

• Emma Carene Gargroetzi, Stanford University