Nearly a quarter (23pc) of students consider the carbon footprint of the food they buy and have changed their eating habits to help fight climate change, according to a recent BT Young Scientist survey.
ver half of the 515 students surveyed, which were between 11 and 18 years old, said they are worried about climate change, but more than 90pc said they are confident that science is the solution.
When asked what they are doing to help fight climate change, young people said they are asking the adults in their lives to reduce energy consumption and they are reducing waste and walking/cycling to school, according to the survey which was carried out at the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition 2023.
The results show that 20pc of students are asking parents to install solar panels, 20pc are asking parents to insulate homes, and 10pc are asking parents to switch energy supplier.
When asked to rate seriousness of the issue of climate change on a scale from 1 to 10, students ranked it 8.75 on average.
45pc of respondents gave the issue a maximum ‘seriousness’ score of 10, and 22pc rated it at 9 out of 10.
A high portion of the respondents (52pc) said they feel sad or worried about climate change while 8pc said the issue angered them.
5pc said they felt ignored and a further 5pc said they feel a sense of hopelessness.
However 16pc of respondents said that global warming made them more determined to take action.
When it comes to a solution for climate change, science was top of the list of answers while many said they felt behavioural and social sciences were part of the solution too.
When asked ‘who is the most responsible for tackling climate change?’, students listed the Government, the EU and the business world as the main actors.
Yet, 40pc of the respondents listed “me personally” or “everyone needs to do their bit” as the most important answer to this question.
It’s vital that young people’s voices are heard when it comes to one of most pressing issues facing the world, said Priscilla O’Regan, Head of Communications at BT Ireland and that “we’ve seen from the students’ projects at the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition that climate change and environmental issues are top of mind for many students.”
“This survey by BT Ireland and Global Action Plan indicates that many young people are worried and feel powerless in the face of global warming,” she said.
Denial of responsibility! galaxyconcerns is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.
