Innocent heroes or self‐absorbed alarmists? A thematic review of the variety and effects of storylines about young people in climate change discourses

Abstract

Discourses about young people are interacting with climate change discourses in ways that often marginalize the young in social responses to climate change. The resulting stories about young people in a changing climate build upon long‐standing representations of youthhood in late modern societies as a liminal, ill‐defined state between childhood and adulthood. The social and behavioral sciences have both helped produce these stories and critically examined their origins, characteristics, and effects. This article offers a novel critical review of ideas about young people in climate change research across a wide variety of disciplines and fields, including geography, psychology, sociology, education, political studies, health studies, media studies, legal studies, and youth studies. We employ Hajer's account of discursive storylines to identify seven ways in which young people are storied in climate discourses. While distinct, stories of young people as innocent, vulnerable, heroic, alarmist, inheriting, apathetic or narcissistic overlap, and interact. This variety of storylines reflects the mutable category of young people and the deliberate ambiguity with which it is often deployed. We use this typology in three ways to advance the interests of young people in climate change discourses. First, we show how these discourses are indebted to while also changing understandings of young people in late modern societies. Second, we consider the potential impacts of these stories on young lives and on responses to climate change. Third, we identify prospects for new stories to emerge as young voices become increasingly important in urgent social discussions of climate change.