FROM ALARM TO AGENCY: TRANSLATING YOUTH CLIMATE ANXIETY INTO CULTURAL RESILIENCE FRAMEWORKS

Abstract

The intensification of climate anxiety among young people has emerged as a defining psychosocial condition of the 2020s. Global surveys reveal that over 59 % of youth aged 16–25 describe themselves as “very” or “extremely worried” about climate change. This emotion is not evenly distributed: adolescents in the Global South—particularly in Pakistan, India, the Philippines, and Kenya—experience higher distress levels because of direct exposure to floods, heatwaves, and food insecurity. Yet emerging cultural responses—ranging from digital activism and eco-poetics to indigenous ecological revivalism—suggest a shift from alarm to agency. This paper proposes a Cultural Resilience Framework (CRF) that re-conceptualizes youth climate anxiety not as pathology but as collective affect capable of generating adaptive narratives and civic imagination. Drawing upon affect theory, resilience psychology, and posthuman environmental thought, the study situates climate emotion within transnational media, education, and policy domains. Through integrative analysis of recent global surveys, policy reports, and cultural texts, it identifies how youth cultures translate despair into participatory hope. The article contributes to sustainability communication by framing climate anxiety as a potential policy soft power—a cultural driver of innovation, empathy, and solidarity across unequal geographies.

Keywords: Climate anxiety, youth resilience, cultural adaptation, Global South, affect theory, environmental communication, collective hope, sustainability narratives