Schools must stop teaching our kids to think the world is doomed

The education news outlet Chalkbeat recently highlighted a Denver, Colo.elementary school that’s teaching students as young as age 3 about environmental damage.Mental-health professionals praise their efforts, saying the lessons can help prevent “eco-anxiety,” a “chronic fear of environmental doom.”The mental-health industry’s logic is self-serving: Introduce kids to the idea of Earth’s demise, then step in to manage their worry.Climate catastrophism has come to the classroom — and, as one educator put it, it’s “scaring the kids to death.”Human beings aren’t born aware of our supposed environmental crisis.

The fear of climate change — and therapists’ capitalization on that fear — began with adults.For several years, the American Psychological Association has published articles and warnings about the “significant mental health effects” of eco-anxiety, a pseudo-clinical “condition” it defined in 2017. Since then, therapists report mounting requests from clients for climate-anxiety treatment — though almost no evidence exist showing climate-specific treatments work.Nevertheless, professional therapist organizations like the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America, the Climate Psychiatry Alliance and Climate & Mind have proliferated.Hysteria has spread from the therapy couch to the classroom: Professionals now disseminate resources for addressing climate anxiety in schools. CASEL, a nonprofit pushing social-emotional learning — commoditized wellness curricula — has created tools detailing how schools can use climate-anxiety-specific SEL and promote “climate justice.”The Climate Mental Health Network offers a “Climate Emotions Wheel” for the “important” purpose of “naming your climate emotions.”Is demand for climate-anxiety services induced by the industry supplying them?One therapist confessed to The New York Times that he feels compelled to bring up climate change when clients com...