Mercy Muroki: It's wrong to scare people into fearing a climate armageddon

The largest global study to date into young people’s views about climate change has revealed frightening levels of anxiety amongst the young about the future they face in light of global warming.

In the study, 75% of young people said they see the future as frightening. Even more concerning is that nearly 6 in 10 young people believe humanity is ‘doomed’ because of climate change.

And – here’s the really sad part – 4 in 10 are so anxious about climate change that they are considering not having children.

Now – I get it – the prospect that the natural world as we know it might be destroyed by human idiocy, incompetence and inaction is miserable. I’ll give you that.

But do you know what's a sure-fire fail-safe way to guarantee misery in your future? Living your entire life in fear of a climate armageddon that may or may not transpire.

What’s a guaranteed misery is being so scared into not having children, your biological clock ticks itself into nonexistence, and then you die old and lonely in a dingy underfunded care home plagued with regrets.

Fatalistic attitudes by climate extremists are a recipe for nihilism. And nihilism breeds apathy, and misery, and despair.

And the conclusions of this study point to just that. Because it finishes by saying that – quote - “such high levels of distress…will negatively affect the mental health of children and young people”.

And so it calls on governments to help protect the mental health of young people by taking action against climate change.

The thing is, if those trying to convince us to go green would actually try and convince ordinary people in a sensible, reasonable way – then we’d all go green much sooner, and then maybe young people wouldn’t need to BE so scared to death.

But they’re not winning over ordinary people to their cause. So many of them are catastrophisers and hypocrites.

Just this morning, it’s being reported in the Sun that Roger Hallam, cofounder of Extinction Rebellion, and part of the group disrupting motorists by blocking motorways this week in protests against poor insulation in housing… lives in a 2000 square foot detached farmhouse with an energy rating of G.

That, by the way, is literally the worst energy rating a home in Britain can achieve. His home allegedly produces four times the amount of CO2 of an average household.

So, I’ll take no lectures from Mr Hallam about my own green credentials, thank you very much.

The government’s own climate change tsar, Alok Sharma, who is president of the UN global climate change conference Britain is hosting this year, drives a diesel car. His government is telling us to ditch our diesels.

And that's before you get to all the virtue signalling celebrities in their sports cars, and private jets.

Look, I want to live in a clean, green world as much as the next man, or woman. But can we please do it without striking fear of living into the sensitive little hearts of young people.