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How Climate Change Will Hit Younger Generations

A new analysis shows that people born later will experience vastly more severe weather events

Detail of graphic shows projected increases in frequency of extreme climate events for people aged 60, 40, 20 and 0 in 2020.

Amanda Montañez


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Babies born today will experience far more disruptions fueled by climate change than their parents or grandparents. In a study published in October 2021 Science, Wim Thiery of Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium and his colleagues combined climate model projections under three global warming scenarios with demography data to calculate the lifetime exposure to six types of extreme weather for every generation born between 1960 and 2020. Even as a climate scientist acutely aware of the dangers of rising temperatures, “seeing the numbers as a person, as a parent, is a punch in the stomach,” he says. Young people in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa and those in low-income countries will see the largest increases in exposure. These estimates examine only changes in the frequency of extreme events—they do not represent how those events may become more intense and longer-lived. Although “young generations have the most to lose if global warming reaches higher levels,” Thiery says, they also have the most to gain if greenhouse gas emissions can be reined in. “That is a key message of hope.”

Credit: Amanda Montañez; Source: “Intergenerational Inequities in Exposure to Climate Extremes,” by Wim Thiery et al., in Science, Vol. 374; October 8, 2021 (data)

Andrea Thompson is an associate editor covering the environment, energy and earth sciences. She has been covering these issues for 16 years. Prior to joining Scientific American, she was a senior writer covering climate science at Climate Central and a reporter and editor at Live Science, where she primarily covered earth science and the environment. She has moderated panels, including as part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Media Zone, and appeared in radio and television interviews on major networks. She holds a graduate degree in science, health and environmental reporting from New York University, as well as a B.S. and an M.S. in atmospheric chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

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Scientific American Magazine Vol 326 Issue 2This article was originally published with the title “Generational Climate Change” in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 326 No. 2 (), p. 76
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0222-76