For over four decades, Americans have been saturated with apocalyptic environmental warnings—from acid rain and the ozone hole to melting ice caps, drowning coastlines, superstorms, and mass extinction. The narrative shifted from global warming to climate change, but the tone remained relentlessly grim.
That relentless pessimism has taken a measurable toll. A Lancet Planetary Health survey of 15,793 Americans aged 16 to 25 found that 85% are at least moderately worried about climate change, with 58% very or extremely worried. More than half said climate change made them hesitant to have children. A review of multiple studies confirms that stronger climate worry correlates with wanting fewer or no children.
In other words, we have convinced millions of young people that the future is so bleak they should reconsider parenthood. Yet the actual state of the planet tells a far more nuanced—and hopeful—story.
NASA data shows that between 1982 and 2015, 25 to 50% of the world's vegetated land greened significantly—an increase in leaf area roughly twice the size of the continental United States. About 70% of that greening is attributed to rising carbon dioxide, which acts as a fertilizer for plants.
Agriculture has seen similar gains. The world now produces nearly three times as much grain per acre as in 1961, saving cropland equivalent to the area of the U.S. and India combined. This progress stems from better seeds, machinery, irrigation, and fossil fuel-derived fertilizers.
Air quality has improved dramatically. EPA data shows emissions of six major pollutants fell 79% between 1970 and 2024, even as the economy grew 338%, driving increased 195%, and population rose two-thirds. Extreme poverty worldwide has dropped from 2.3 billion in 1990 to about 800 million today, despite a population increase of nearly three billion.
Doomsayers have been wrong before. Paul Ehrlich's 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb predicted mass starvation in the 1970s; instead, Norman Borlaug's Green Revolution fed a billion more people. Being wrong has never slowed the pessimists.
None of this dismisses real environmental challenges, but it frames them as solvable problems rather than reasons to surrender. Previous generations faced world wars, depressions, and nuclear standoffs—genuine existential threats—and responded by building a better world, not by refusing to have children.
Even Elon Musk, who believes man-made CO2 threatens the climate, advocates innovation and expansion, not retreat and despair. That is the mindset young people need.
So teach the real problems we can solve—not false climate doom. Teach how human ingenuity cleaned our air and rivers, tripled crop yields, cut extreme poverty by two-thirds, and greened vast swaths of the planet. Parents should ask their school districts what children are being taught about climate and whether these numbers appear in the curriculum. Two generations have been taught to fear the future; let's teach the next one to build it.
