Motivation and emotion/Book/2025/Youth environmental activism motivation

Chapter title:Youth enviromental activism
What motivates young people to engage in environmental activism?

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Overview

Case Study 1: 2010 Study on Chile Environmental Activism (Scherman. A, et al. 2022) 2010 to 2019 saw a drastic rise of a specific kind of people. The environmental activists. The shocking part about this rise, was that they were predominately younger generations. Discuss role of passion... ( Gouuse-Lessard. A, et al. 2013)

The Landscape

What are the contributing factors for younger generations to be so active on environmental activism? There is a rising trend of youth groups being formed with the explicit intent of educating other peers and elders on the social and political implications of climate change (Goldman. D, et al. 2014; Feldmann. H, 2020.).

So what has made them so inclined to protest?

2010's

Climate activism has been around for much longer than 2010-20219. However, there was a clear shift in the amount of people listening these years, and the way it was portrayed in the media. Throughout these years it was clear that it climate change was happening. It wasn't a concern, it wasn't something oncoming, it was here. There was an emergence of not only regular climate protests (See Figure 1), but they began to emerge on a global scale (Scherman. A, et al. 2022). Rather than them staying entirely within individual groups, social media forced it to be within the public conscious....

(Figure 1.) Climate Strike

Social Media

• Clear rise in global awareness due to the broad scope of social media. (Scherman. A, et al. 2022).
• Information is quickly passed around in comparison to previous generations.
• Able to see the effects at a rapid pace, rather than articles and TV programs.
• They are constantly aware of how it will effect their future

Politics

• A more politically active generation (Schermann. A, et al. 2020).
• Awareness of how these policies effect the environment. (Sloam. J, et al. 2022)

What exactly makes the youth care so much about politics? Well, there has been a clear shift in the way they view politics, it is no longer something to worry about during elections, it is expected to have some form of political awareness (Sloam. J, et al. 2022).

Motivation

So what are the things that actually motivate youths into such activism?

Well throughout the literature there are clear indicators of:

• Passion
• Awareness
• Goals
• Self Efficacy

The current youth have a clear understanding of environmental issues, and have a clear level of self efficacy towards them (Goldman, D. et al). They believe that the engaging with social media, having the conversations and living sustainable lives will make a difference....

There is a current trend of the younger generation being politically inexperienced, when they protest against specific decisions and have strikes which brings an emotional aspect into the fold (Fedmanm. H. 2020). They are angry....

Being told they don't know what they're talking about makes personal stakes, mixed with a genuine care for the future.

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See also

• Climate Movement
• Climate Change

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References

Feldman, H. R.. (2020). A rhetorical perspective on youth environmental activism. Journal of Science Communication, 19(06), C07. https://doi.org/10.22323/2.19060307

Goldman, D., Pe’er, S., & Yavetz, B. (2015). Environmental literacy of youth movement members – is environmentalism a component of their social activism? Environmental Education Research, 23(4), 486–514. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2015.1108390

Gousse-Lessard, A.-S., Vallerand, R. J., Carbonneau, N., & Lafrenière, M.-A. K. (2013). The role of passion in mainstream and radical behaviors: A look at environmental activism. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 35, 18–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2013.03.003

Scherman, A., Valenzuela, S., & Rivera, S.. (2022). Youth environmental activism in the age of social media: the case of Chile (2009-2019). Journal of Youth Studies, 25(6), 751–770. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2021.2010691

Sloam, J., Pickard, S., & Henn, M.. (2022). ‘Young People and Environmental Activism: The Transformation of Democratic Politics’. Journal of Youth Studies, 25(6), 683–691. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2022.2056678

Tagkaloglou, S., & Kasser, T. (2018). Increasing collaborative, pro-environmental activism: The roles of Motivational Interviewing, self-determined motivation, and self-efficacy. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 58, 86–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2018.06.004

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