Climate optimism from the perspective of a teenager

Illustration by Tariq Lawal

by Tariq Lawal

I was 16 the first time I realized we're living in a state of emergency.

Watching videos on YouTube one afternoon in 2022, I came across some social commentary and heard the person mention the climate crisis. I’d heard of global warming before, but I didn’t pay much attention—I wasn’t seeing it hit home where I lived. After the video, though, I went out of my way to learn about climate change. The first few articles laid out the crisis and how we got here, and honestly, it was scary learning about the wildfires and heat waves we’ll face if nothing changes. Then I came across a video of young people talking about how we’re out of time, and if those in power don’t act now, we won’t have a future.

I started having an early "midlife crisis."

As I continuously consumed videos on natural disasters and health risks caused by the climate crisis, my anxiety grew. Most of the videos I watched gave me more reasons to take action. What could I do to save this world I love? I didn’t want animals to go extinct. I didn’t want our environments degraded anymore. I didn’t want our oceans to be filled with single-use plastics. I sat down to reflect on how powerless I felt. I didn’t (and still don’t) have the necessary resources to drive large-scale change. I was just a teenager from Lagos, Nigeria. I didn’t know how to raise awareness about this issue in my immediate environment. From my personal experiences, I feel Nigerian people don’t like to give time to issues that do not affect them or someone they care about. 

How was I supposed to make a country of 200 million understand that if we don’t change, we might lose our only home? 

That month I started experiencing eco-anxiety. I would lay on the bed and overthink about how unbearable life would get if we had to deal with heatwaves, natural disasters, droughts, flooding, and all the bad things that come with the climate crisis on a regular basis. Life didn’t feel worth it anymore because, at the end of the day, I would probably die from extreme weather events caused by climate change in the near future. I had a doom-scrolling loop for a few weeks after making this discovery. I am one of those teenagers who spends a lot of time on their phone to distract themselves from reality. I searched climate change on TikTok and I kept coming across videos of bad things that will probably happen to our planet if we don’t do something. I even came across some videos saying that our individual actions cannot do much, so we have to hold big corporations and governments accountable instead. 

It was too overwhelming to even know what to do. As a person living with ADHD, I tend to overthink and hyper-fixate on a certain concept for too long. 

Fortunately, I came across an Instagram post discussing the importance of embracing climate optimism instead of climate doomism. It helped me realize that the climate crisis and other social issues cannot be solved if people don’t take action and just choose to whine about it. Who knew an Instagram slide would help me feel a lot better and embrace climate optimism? 

That’s the power of the media, I guess. I feel the media has played a huge role in how I feel about climate change. In fact, it plays a very essential role in how I understand and see many different social issues. So, I started taking little actions to reduce my carbon footprint. I even started following environmentalists and content creators who talked about everything climate-related. I started volunteering for OneUpAction International, a youth-led climate non-profit started by Kevin Patel, a young Asian-American intersectional climate justice activist from Los Angeles. It was nice to be in a community filled with young people with the same desire to save our planet, protect people from climate-related harm, and help us achieve prosperity without harming the planet. 

Climate optimism is why I became the first young person in Lagos Island who did a public demonstration to raise awareness about climate change. It was one of the best things I have done in my life, and it was nice to have my friends, siblings, and neighbors there to support me. During the public demonstration, people kept coming up to us to ask about the climate crisis, and it was very heartwarming. I tried my best to explain in ways that wouldn’t cause them to develop anxiety about their future and the future of the planet they live on – I know the weight of that anxiety personally. I have also been using creative mediums to raise awareness about climate change. Last year, I made artwork depicting what Lagos, the city I live in and one of the largest cities in Nigeria, would look like if it was a greener and more sustainable utopia. I have also written poems about the climate crisis and used means that are relatable to Gen Z to talk about the climate crisis. I have also been able to find friends, and a therapist, I can have meaningful conversations about the climate crisis with, so it is all fine now. 

Climate optimism has made me feel a lot better compared to climate doomism. And I do know that with necessary collective action, we can all save our planet from this existential crisis.

Tariq Lawal is an award-winning writer, multifaceted creative, multimedia journalist, artivist, changemaker, and budding social entrepreneur from Lagos, Nigeria. Tariq passionately advocates for social, economic, environmental, racial, and gender justice. He is a UNICEF Nigeria Young Influencer, UNODC Nigeria Young Wildlife Influencer, and 4Ocean Wavemaker. He is also a Global Citizen 2024 Emerging Creative and a Heal The Planet's Young Planet Leader. He has also been very dedicated to community organizing and youth mobilization to tackle pressing global issues.