'Your food is safe' is a terrible call to action but 'evil chemical corporations are killing you' gets the money rolling in - even though the former is true and the latter is a paranoid conspiracy theory with no basis in fact.
Yet there is a level where predatorts and their marketers get too aggressive and fatigue sets in. Young people have become the leaders in church attendance for the first time in 70 years, and the reason is the same as why they have learned not to trust government or what they read about the awesome benefit of Chinese electric cars on Twitter.
People don't even trust the emotional pleas of people in their tribe. That skepticism is a good thing for the future, even if secular liberals scramble to make new 'religious people are stoopid' memes.
Across six experiments, over 6,000 participants rated comments based on authenticity and even people in the same political party as Senator Bernie Sanders didn't think scaremongering or dirges about climate change felt valid. Yet more neutral evidence-based messages felt legitimate.
These are canned experiments and young people are also skeptical that a trillion-dollar advertising industry that targets women and especially new mothers with claims about old "natural" chemicals and organic food are wrong. The revenue says fear-based marketing works, when it is masked 'it's for the children' narratives.
Yet many also see that the more things we regulate simply lead to more costs. Cars are too expensive to buy due to regulations and mandated features but there are no fewer car deaths. California has Proposition 65 'may cause cancer' warnings on 80,000 products by state law, yet there are no fewer cases of cancer than states that are more scientific. This week, Environmental Working Group is trying to ban yet another class of chemicals and young people know that a single life won't be saved.
That firehose of doomsday rhetoric, all by groups who claim giving them money is the only way to save it off, is why they are skeptical of emotional pleas about climate change. Americans produce fewer emissions per capita than we did 100 years ago, yet young people see California has spent a fortune on alternative energy like solar and wind and electricity costs are up 100 percent in 10 years while the air is supposedly no cleaner, according to environmental groups.
Meanwhile, they see that China produces more emissions than all the other countries in the top 10 combined. And wrap themselves in 'developing nation' status and claim they won't obey any limits.
Given modern environmental hypocrisy, young people are right to be jaded. Like climate change deniers, they will still conserve energy and recycle no differently than the most rabid doomsday pundit, but they are not believing that they don't do enough.
Emotional exaggeration is longer in vogue. When doomsday prophet Paul Ehrlich died, a few 1990s climate activists lamented his passing but most scientists made fun of his "Population Bomb" efforts. Fifteen years ago his "Ecoscience" co-author John Holdren was so loved by progressives (as was Robert F. Kennedy) that President Obama made him his "Science Czar" at the same time he appointed an Energy Secretary who advocated $9 per gallon gasoline. Today, young people told higher costs and even more restrictions are needed to save the planet are no longer buying the rhetoric.
They are not more likely to deny climate change, though. Climate change skepticism using emotion is distrusted just the same.
Citation: Andrews TM, Olson LP, Krupnikov Y. Emotions on Our Screens. Cambridge University Press; 2026. https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/emotions-on-our-screens/E7AD1C7C...
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